Versailles High School - Portal Yearbook (Versailles, OH)

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So much for the dark side; let us turn to the brighter one. Ssome teachers and professors see our difficulties and are glad to help us. We know they dislike to interrupt classes, and they are justified; they keep down the dislike and help us get our group pictures taken; they are willing to give advice, are really interested and conscientious enough to behave themselves during the “photographing ceremonies”, can and do get their material written on time; sit quiet at staff meetings—but the type is rare. As to business men who refuse to listen to our plea for ads on the excuse that they are too busy or the price is too high, let them withdraw to their shells and live their existance. Now we’ve tried to tell our story, just as we have seen it; someone will rise and say that the writer is a crank, a reformer, who doesn’t know what he is talking about; such criticism flies over our heads, an editor must be impervious to such remarks. We realize that the success of our Annual depends not on this talk, but on our ability coupled with tin necessary co-operation of pupils, teachers, and parents. If anyone else outside has anything to say, we hope they will say it and keep still; critics’ remarks will follow us - but our job is not one that shows the best qualities of human nature; on the contrary, one phase of the liberal education it offers is that it points cut the utter irresponsibility of the average student, who slips through leaving the work for one person. We hope that our position will lx understood for we truly believe that the Annual has come to stay, that each year it will be better and better, prized always, a memento to tin class that publishes it. IRA RROWX. ’21.

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“Our Job n When it was said that there is no rest for the wicked, the speaker little thought that time would indicate that any editor of a High School Annual is wicked—at least the statement may be twisted to read, “ there is no rest for an editor”. But understand, we are not complaining just to fill up space, we are telling facts as they are; that the general public may get an idea of what an editor’s job is, we are writing this to show the bright and dark side of our work. First let us say there are certainly strange conceptions of an Annual, but the most common is that it is a nuisance in a school —and this idea isn't wholly confined to outsiders—but if it is a nuisance, how is the prevalence of such a publication to be accounted for? Most people are fair weather sports; they agree that an Annual is a boost until they .ue called upon to do something for it, then their attitude changes. But the thing that is needed to make it a boost is co-operation between the staff, faculty, student-body, parents and business men. Possibly chief of all these is the aid and good will of the faculty, but how in the name of all that’s good and great can an editor or business manager work with a faculty member who insists on being the last to turn in his picture for the engraver, who absolutely refuses to consider the fact that classes must be broken occasionally to take group pictures, who when asked for advice dismisses one with a cur word as though to say, “1 didn't start it—I’ll have nothing to do with it!”? One would think that (lie average teacher or professor has come in •ontaet with an Annual somewhere or other in their life as students and would understand our difficulties—but the editor finds to his sorrow that many do not realize the greatness of our work;some do—however, that is a different story. And now the student-body, including the staff! Half of the students cannot be trusted to go six blocks to a photographer’s studio and get there the same day they leave the school building! The girls must go home, comb their hair and do a thousand other little things; the boys must stop at various wayside stations, plaster their hair, etc; then they all trip on to the studio anywhere from ten minutes to an hour late. Allow us to suggest to future editors that they get a patrol wagon and take the students to their destination at once, without allowing them to make a social visit at every street corner. Then members of the staff usually wait until the eleventh hour to begin writing their respective portions, wonder when it is to be finished, say they can't do it—and they don’t either! At staff meetings the members insist on talking all the time and haven’t anything important to say. The editor knows how hard it is to hold a bunch of classmates under his authority; he cannot do to them what he wishes, he must do most of the work anyway without causing a vacancy on the staff and increasing his duties by offending a staff member. There is a certain class of students who insist on seeing all copy, pictures, etc., before it goes to the printers, and then d m't want to buy an Annual because they’ve read everything in it. But one thing is certain—no one can find fault with the majority of the business men; most of them are glad to help us out by subscribing for ads. These people are a blessing to a community; we thank them now for all they have done to give this book whatever success it may get. —13—

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The Spirit of Progress Is the spirit of progress dead among the people of Versailles and Wayne township? Are they not able to see why and how soon we need a new school bailding? Are they keeping open minded by being content to send their children to the same old building that they themselves went to? Who will answer these questions? A new school building is needed in Versailles, that is an established fact—but when will the new school building be erected? Each year the enrollment in the high school increases. In 1920-21, there were ninety students in 1922-2.1 there were one hundred fifty. This means an increase of 66 2-2 per cent; at flu same rate in 1928 there will be two hundred fifty students. Will ibis latter number be required to go to the same building that was not capable of handling the ninety students in a way that would make them get the most out of their high school life? If this condition must exist, then we will guarantee that the Seniors of ’2:1 are thankful that they escaped before congestion became so great that electric lights simply had to be installed because there were so many members in the classrooms that they (the pupils, not the rooms) sat in the windows and darkened the interior. What does the usual visitor see when he visits the building? Does he see the pupils working in well-lighted, properly-ventilated and heated rooms, or is it just the opposite? To illustrate our point, dear reader, imagine you are a visitor to Y. II. S. for the first time. You come to the school ground and are impressed with what? With the beauty and spaciousness of the -plot, or a small site of which the most beautiful things are the trees—and these take up all the space so that the pupils have no place to play. Our visitor strolls around the block, sees the puddles of water on the ground, the cracks in the wall, decaying bricks, blank windows, the fire escapes so far from the ground that you are reminded of the topmost part of a scenic railway—only there is nothing scenic about this setting. But lest external appearances deceive, let us guide you, as a visitor, to the inside entering at the north door. You begin to climb stairs—up, up, expect-ng at every step that the frail boards will break thru, they having been worn by the feet that used them for forty-seven years. Reaching the second floor you are drawn to the library to witness the process of finding a book that is not near either of the two windows, and with the day very dark. You visit the office of the superintendent, the only room that is comfortably and properly lighted. Rut you realize that the third floor is the main object of interest and you go up another (light of stairs, finally mounting to the pinnacle of glory—the third floor. You see a number of rooms, grouped around dark, narrow halls. »u go into the assembly room, tin largest one, first. Here you see an intricate network of wires leading to sockets where occasionally an electric light bulb is placed to furnish illumination. If you happen to stand on the register you are almost asphyxiated bv the dense clouds of smoke coming up from the furnace. You see the floor, always littered with small pieces of paper, because splinters sticking up make it impossible for the janitor to sweep clean. Here and there whole strips of the upper layer of wood peel off the floor, leaving streaks of a lighter color. The walls are almost black—again due to the previously-mentioned furnace. And the ceiling! It looks as though it had had a contagious