Vandergrift High School - Spectator Yearbook (Vandergrift, PA)

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14 THE SPECTATOR MANNERS TAUGHT AT HOME F at home vulgarity rules, no school can be trusted to make its children anything but vulgar. The American teachers deplore the American parents’ way of praising as “cute” and “clever” ugly tricks of conduct. Even so at home, masters and mistresses have been heard to lament that the wholesome influence of school and schoolfellows is often destroyed by the extravagance of home life. When we are so busy in overhauling our educational system and demanding more and more of the schools and teachers, it is worth while to remember that the home and the parents also have work to do. —COMMERCIAL DEPARTMENT.

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THE SPECTATOR 13 YOUR VIEW OF LIFE The Spectator Board has asked Mr. Omo to write an editorial, believing that it would serve as an inspiration to the students. He has kindly prepared the following article: F all the things that directly or indirectly affect your success in life, as well as your own personal happiness, nothing is of such importance as your view of Life. It gives coloring to your every act. It is the background from which other things must take their tint. It shapes your views and determines your actions unconsciously upon hundreds of the less important things of life. It makes you a longfaced pessimist, sour and grouchy, or it makes you an optimist, bright and cheery. One’s view of life is not always entirely his own choosing. It may be affected by health, family, friends or success, but one’s view of life can be consciously cultivated. Your view of life changes the complexion of the things about you. It puts spirit and energy into the most humdrum tasks. A necessary work is an honorable work. Do that which your ability and your environment makes necessary. Do it with cheer-fullness and a will. Envy mo man his success until you are willing to pay for it what he has paid. By paying the, price you can win success for yourself. But success is not always measured in dollars and cents. Teach yourself to view life and labor n its broader light, and you will have found the philosopher’s stone that dignifies labor well done, and draws pleasure from any honorable occupation. To deify your own work is the way to get pleasure and growth out of it. Forget as far as possible the daily wage you will get for your service. Let the carpenter see himself helping to build and improve the homes of mankind and he is ashamed of shoddy work. The student and professional man should look upon his work as a preparation and a service for his fellowman. The teamster with his load of coal, dirty and begrimed though he may be, should forget his toil and drudgery in the conviction that he is helping humanity to keep warm, while in turn he is earning an honest living and the comforts of home life for himself and family. Each individual should feel that in whatever field of work he is called to serve, he will do that work efficiently and well, putting all his energy and ability into it to make it a success. You get out of life what you put into it. Measure and it is measured back to you. Joy, sunshine, cheerfullness, obedience; these are reflections of yourself. The brighest colors, the most beautiful harmonies, are selfcreated products of one’s own mind. We see what we look for, we hear what we listen for, we get what we give. We must lose our life in our work if we are to find it again renewed and more fruitful in the lives of those with whom we work. See good in everybody and the goodness in them will rise up then to greet the goodness in us. Have beauty in your own life and you shall see beauty in the life about you—the rainbow, the storm cloud, the landscape, the sparrow’s song, the brooklet’s ripple, will all find an inspiring response in our own natures. Grouch and the world is grouchy, find fault and others will find fault. Distrust and others will not have confidence in you. The world and all around about us is one huge miiTor from which our own image is being reflected back to us. If we want to change the image begin to consciously build up in ourselves a bigger, brighter view of life and we shall begin to see bigger, brighter, better images reflected back to us. As a student and as a citizen, learn to look on life with a healthy optimism. Get a world view of humanity in its progress. Recognize yourself as a force infinitely small perhaps, but a necessary force in the triumphant march. Dollars and cents arc necessary to you to fill to perfection this place—but over and above all money, sweeter and more lasting is the good you can do, the pleasure you can inspire, the lives you can reach, the kindlier feelings you can cultivate in those with whom you must live and work. To see life in its largest views, to live life on a higher plane, to lift others to this larger life, is the opportunity that is before you. Make well of your time and opportunity. —C. H. OMO.

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THE SPECTATOR 15 THE EASTER LILY (A Legend) HE sun was setting in all its glory over the ancient city of Jerusalem. The last rays played over the roofs of the houses and tinged the clay with gold. The olive grove, wherein I was standing with my guide, was flecked with the sun and the shadows. The breeze murmured softly through the leaves above us and seemed peaceful. I turned to my companion and studied him intently as he puffed at his pipe. His long silvery hair hung to his shoulders. His grey eyes were kind and dreamy. A long white beard flowed over his chest, and somehow, he seemed to fit in with the calm scene about us. He was obviously of the Old World, so much so, indeed, that he seemed to be an old Biblical patriarch come back to earth. Something in his manner made me thoughtlessly say, “Tell me a story,” but instantly I gasped at my own audacity and was ready to apologize when I saw him take his pipe from his mouth preparator y to speaking. “I will tell you an old Eastern legend,” said he, gravely, “It was told to me by my father who heard it from his father and so on, back through the ages. When I die, my son will tell it to his children and they to theirs, on till the end of time.” “Many years ago,” he began softly, slowly, “There lived in a far distant kingdom, a young and beautiful princess. Tall and fair was she with wide, sky blue eyes, cheeks like pink roses, lips like ripened cherries and long, heavy, golden hair. It was her hair which gave her her name, Sunhead. Now it happened, when the princess was yet but a little girl, that a traveler entered this secluded kingdom, and being called upon to give the news of the outer world, told the king, the queen and the Princess Sunhead of a young man who was performing miracles, in a land far to the eastward. The man was called Christ, he told them, and was said to be the king of the Jews. As the traveler stayed many days at court he told Sunhead much about Christ. At last he went away, but he promised to come back the next year and tell them more about the wonderful boy in whom they were all greatly interested. As he had promised, the traveler returned the next year and yet the next, until Sunhead became accustomed to watching for him with each Spring-tide. The traveler told her how Christ healed the sick, raised the dead and did so many other good works. Gradually there grew in Sunhead’s loving heart, a burning desire to see and speak to this wonderful man. At last in her nineteenth year she determined to go and seek Christ. She told her mother and father of her purpose and although they did not wish her to venture upon so long a journey alone, they at last gave their consent, since she remained firm in her purpose. She started, early one morning, not in a grand coach with a magnificient retinue, but on foot and alone. On the second day of her journey she came upon a young maiden, sitting on a bank by the roadside, weeping. “Why do you weep?” asked Sunhead gently. “Why do I weep! I am all alone in the world! Nobody loves me! Nobody wants me! Why should I not weep?” cried the forlorn maiden, bitterly.