Valparaiso High School - Valenian Yearbook (Valparaiso, IN)

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HIGH SCHOOL ANNUAL. 15 million men, gathers supplies, directs his army over twelve hundred miles a week from the banks of the peaceful Potomac to the rugged mountains of Tennessee, equals at Gettysburg the deeds of Alexander and Caesar. Then, after striking by a single bold and mighty stroke, the shackles from three millions of oppressed humanity, he dies, a martyr in the moment of victory, the clay with which he molded the magnificent liberty of our country scarcely dry. He dies leaving us a memory which stands colossal before all others, — the memory of an ideal American. Lincoln was the American of Americans, the best and noblest type of an indigenous democracy such as several generations of independence and self- government had produced in the lowly life. He stands a notable exemplar of the American of the nineteenth century, the natural development of the self- reliant English stock upon this continent. In him were the traits of the Kentucky knight, the ingenious fertility for contrivance of the New England Yankee, with all the breezy, unconventional boldness of the Westerner. In short, his blood was drawn from the veins of every section of the Union ; of the Bast, North, and South, together with the pioneer growth of the great North- west, his nature equally partook. Reared in the forests amidst ignorance, poverty and darkness, Lincoln had developed a character beautiful, symmetrical, mighty. It was the strong vitality, active intelligence, indefinable psychological law of moral growth which assimilates the true and rejects the false that Nature gave this obscure child which impelled him to the service of mankind and the admiration of the ages with the same certainty with which the acorn grows to be the oak. An ordinary man would have found in the wild West a commonplace life varying only with the changing ideas and customs of the times and locality. But for a man with extraordinary power of body and mind, for a man gifted by Nature with a genius such as Abraham Lincoln possessed, the pioneer education with its severe training and self-denial, patience and industry was favorable to the growth of a rare personality that qualified him for the duties of leadership and government and crowned him with the love of the people. Grant was great ; Lee was noble; Washington was sublime; but Lincoln, who came from the lowly heart of the people comes back nearer to that heart than any other man of the centuries. At the nation’s crisis there came from Illinois an untried man. The crisis passed; he returned too great for a state alone, a mighty conqueror, a nation’s hero, a world’s example! “ In the midst of this great continent his dust doth lie, a sacred treasure to myriads who pilgrim to that shrine to kindle anew their patriotism.” The incessant winds, that move over the mighty places of the west, chant the solemn requiem of this martyr, whose blood like so many articulate words, pleads evermore for fidelity, for law, for liberty. JANE DALRYMPLE.

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14 HIGH SCHOOL ANNUAL. The Ideal American. WON FIRST PRIZE AT PORTER COUNTY ORATORICAL CONTEST, APRIL 21 , ’ 06 . OUR long centuries ago there lay a vast continent, rich in natural resources, uninhabited and undiscovered by civilized man. One day, as if by magic, a man, daring enough to venture out upon the stormy seas, came su ddenly upon this unknown land and returning, told of its wonders and grandeur. Now and again, small bands of people, persecuted and oppressed, ambitious and industrious, made their way to this country in search of liberty. Years rolled on; the colonies became an independent nation growing in wealth, importance and power. But one thing America lacked. Her leaders, the men who held the national sceptre, were not her own. Their characters were due, not to American environment, but to that of England, France or Germany. America was waiting for a real American. At last he came, “ the new birth of our new soil,” not only the ideal American but an ideal man. lie was the product of lowly environment, endowed by Nature with those invincible qualities which lead men in the pathway of Fame. Honest, ambitious, courageous, with a soul so great and a spirit so humble, this man blazed his way out of the wilderness in which he was born, step by step, until he stood at the head of the nation. Loved by his equals, worshipped by the masses, we have today the noble example of the highest type of American manhood,— Abraham Lincoln. Born in the humblest of Kentucky cabins, Abraham Lincoln was indeed, “ a new Moses in the solitude of the desert, where are forged all great and obstinate thoughts, monotonous, like the desert, and, like the desert sublime.” A child was born to an inheritance of want; a boy grew up in a narrow world of ignorance; a youth took up the burden of manual labor; a man entered on the doubtful struggle of a backwoods career and was raised by his fellow-citizens from one position to another until the nation, realizing that he had come like John of old from out the wilderness for a great and mighty mission, pl aced in his hands the reins of government. The black clouds gathered in Freedom’s sky; the wrath of the slave- holders flashed as the lightning; the rending of the states followed like the thunder crash ; and last came the storm of prayers and curses of human slavery. Then the woodman, the son of the West, the descendent of the peace- ful Quakers, humblest of the humble before his own conscience, greatest of the great in the eyes of the people, ascends the seat of Empire. Before him a veteran army plods; behind, stands hostile Europe, ready, at a moment’s notice, to lower the uplifted axe; and in his hands, the riven nation. The pulse of many thousands throbbing in his heart, he arises in majesty, calls to arms two-

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Un flfeemortam In memory of Bessie Parks, who entered the Valparaiso High School September 5, 1904, and died March 7, 1906. Her name was found on the honor roll for scholarship each month. Her work was not only accurate and complete but original beyond her years. She was kind to her classmates, thoughtful of her teachers, helpful to all with whom her lot was cast. She had no enemies and was most tenderly loved by her friends. While fond of a frolic, she never intentionally or thoughtlessly harmed any one with her fun. Life was to her full of joy and promise and we mourn her absence from our midst every day but rejoice that God has given her a better por- tion, even immortal life.