Valparaiso High School - Valenian Yearbook (Valparaiso, IN)

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STAFF Editor Assistant Editor . Business Manager Assistant Business Manager Exchange Editor Athletic Editor . Joke Editor . Daily Doings Editor Society Editor Alumni Editor Fred Marston Howard Dodge Roland Kenny Louise Horn Carrie Turner Harold Gates Gerald Timmons Jewell Hembroff Lou Cartha Pierce Clare McGillicuddy THE SCHOOL PARASITE. PAEASITE, as Webster defines him, is a hanger-on, a depend- ent flatter, a toady. In the school room a parasite has all of these qualities and is in addition a time waster, a borrower, and a general nuisance. If the matter ended here it would be bad enough, but as habits acquired in youth continue in after life, the parasite retains these qualities much to his sorrow, after he leaves the school room. It is easy to locate the school parasite. Pick out the student who is constantly bothering his neighbors, borrowing from them, annoying

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VALE. E HAVE listened to tliy wisdom, We have hearkened to thy lore; We have entered thy grim portals 0, a thousand times or more. We ' ve partaken of thy sweetness, Felt thy sting that failure makes; We have reveled in thy glory, And forgiven thv mistakes. 0, thy halls are ever sacred. And thy spirit strong and tiiie Shall be felt through all the ages, V. H. S. — we honor vou.

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them with his idle prattle, and copying their work. The parasite is a person who is eonstantly demanding favors, but never willing to grant one; a person who is always growling if favors are not accorded him, but abuses shamefully those already given; a person who believes school exists for him alone and, consequently, is ever ready to become con- spicuous thru his arrogant actions. If the parasite wasted only his own time, he alone would suffer, but when he wastes the precious moments of others who need every second, he becomes a demoralizing influence and should be instantly removed. For example, consider how much disturbance one parasite can cause in our High School. If he disturbs everyone in the Assembly Room for one minute, it means a loss of two hundred minutes. This loss not being evident to everybody, the Principal is forced to take ten minutes of every person ' s time to explain the situation, thereby losing two thousand minutes or more time than one student spends in school in one week. If the para- site causes two thousand minutes to be lost in school, how many will he occasion in a ' lifetime! Another parasitic habit, equally bad, is the borrowing one. If in our High Scliool, one boy was given the task of supplying the demands of girls desiring knives for pencil sharpening, he could do nothing else. If a borrower impedes progress in school, how can he do otherwise in the business world which he must soon enter! The answer is plainly seen. Of what use is all our school training if we only learn to be destroyers, loafers, borrowers, degenerates, degra- tors and parasites ? Our presence would have a demoralizing effect on those about us; we could never succeed in business, for business has no use for parasites; in short, we would be miserable failures, blots upon the face of civilization and humanity. Therefore, let us not l)ecome parasitic in any way. Let us be builders, not destroyers; workers, not loafers; let us be all that is good and right in our sehool life and then with our school training shall come character development. Then and then alone shall we be free from those parasitic principles, and then there will be no such thing as, The School Parasite. F. J. MARSTON, Editor-in-Chief.