Walton High School - Periwinkle Yearbook (Bronx, NY)

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thing in the world has its Price, and we cannot gain one advance- ment nor advantage without, sometime or another, being called upon to pay every ounce of its value, As Lowell says: Earth asks its price for what earth gives us, For a cap and bells our lives we pay, ' Bubbles we win with a whole soul's tasking' l-low often we see men and women paying for their early mis- takes, however ignorantly committed, by years of remorse and bitter expiation, paying for hours of dissipation and crime by physical and mental suffering that is very hard to bear, as well as by the scorn and condemnation of their fellow-creatures, and, worse than all else, the death of their own self-respect, paying for their indolence, shiftlessness, extravagance and waste, by poverty and want, paying for their disregard of the laws of health and right living by disease and invalidismg or, on the other hand, enjoying the reward they have earned by industry, economy and a firm adherence to the right, with its due regard for the rights and feelings of others, in a succession of happy, prosperous years, in the respect and esteem of their fellow beings! Thus is our life to be what we make itl Thus do we see the ultimate justice of the Colden Rule that bids us, Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them, Thus do we feel a debt of gratitude to those who have given us so fair a start, until we remember that the Law of Compensation is a pair of scales that is never out of balance, and that their reward was theirs, even in the doing of the deed they felt their duty. What a big thought it is that from this time on we have the shaping of our destinies in our own hands. All these years of our student life we have been on the receiving hand, Life has been showering upon us its best gifts. While it is true that we have justly earned a certain portion of all that we have attained, there is a great deal of that subtle inner development, that gradual day- by-day character building, that almost invisible growth and expan- sion of the dormant woman within us, for which we are indebted to all the influences, both seen and unseen, that have been brought to bear upon us through all these years. We stand at the very gateway of life's activities, prepared by all these years of careful, painstaking instruction, and watchful, ever-vigilant guidance, for the struggle with that real, vital existence that awaits us on the other side. As we look back, how easy it is to estimate, by the Q O 6 1 l'Q I 5 0

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SEQ o 5 I vm , 9 .1 6 m I Q I 1 12? Compensolion There are a number of unwritten but universal laws, as fixed and unchangeable as the laws of the lvledes and Persians, that govern in their subtle way the lives of men and kingdoms, and regulate the comings and goings of men and women. Some people live through the entire course of their lives without once waking up to a consciousness of the existence of these laws. They stumble almost blindly, wafted hither and thither by every passing breeze of circumstance, drifting idly here and there through an aimless existence, knowing not why they do this, that, or the other, and having no idea why certain experiences should come to them, nor why they should be forced to endure many apparently unjust diffi- culties and disasters. All the time, however, they are moving in obedience to probably the most powerful and invincible of all these laws-the great Law of Compensation-which was first put into words by the holy lvlan of Nazareth, centuries ago, when l-le said, With whatsoever ye mete, it shall be measured unto you again. We may not even be dimly conscious of the workings of this great law. We may not even guess why this or that joy or sorrow should suddenly come upon us. We may not have even begun to realize that for whatever harvest we reap, we ourselves must cer- tainly some time or other have sown the seeds. lt may never have even vaguely occurred to us that for every effect there must necessarily have been somewhere behind it the primary cause. But it is none the less a vital truth in the life of every individual, and day by day, hour by hour, as we enjoy the benefits of every passing experience, we are consciously or unconsciously signing our name to life's same old promissory note, for in those few words, commonplace and ordinary as they have come to seem to us through continual and thoughtless usage, lies the real keynote of all human life. As we linger upon the threshold of active life, the doors of our school and its educational and protective advantages swinging behind us, the question naturally arises, just what are we going to get out of life? and we feel that you have a right to ask and expect a full and frank reply. But indeed, there is only the one sureand satisfactory answer, We are going to get out of life just exactly what we pay for, just exactly what we put into it, just exactly what we wish to buy from the world at the figure the ages have placed upon all life's gifts. lt all rests with us. Every-

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43? H. -I wx , 9 Q .I 6 1 I 2944 tif landmarks along the road, the Hvalue received of our school careerl Novv the time has come for the working out of our promise to payll' The world vvill at once commence to look for us to pay back into its treasury the vvealth of good things it has for so long been bestovving upon us. lt vvill demand our noblest revelations of character, our highest demonstration of every latent possibility of attainment, our truest, tenderest attention to the needs of every brother and sister, our most faithful, self-sacrificing service. It vvill remind us, at every turn of the road, of that note always stand- ing in our name with its never failing, For value received, I promise to pay. lt vvill never once let us forget the cost of life-the constant expense that must be met-the unfailing price that must be paid for every gift-not in dollars and cents, but in service, in faithfulness to duty, in the uplift of our neighbors-yes, some- times, perhaps, in unavailing pain, and heartache, and tears. ROSE SOBEL