Waukegan High School - Annual W Yearbook (Waukegan, IL)

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No man can know English without knowing Latin. German is valuable chieiiy because it opens up the German world to the student. The sciences bring men close to the heart and mind of the Creator 5 they temper one's deeds, by example they introduce order into a chaotic mind. One could give a dehnite life value to each study in the High School or in the college. But the High School has its faults. It is not what it is claimed to be: The poor man's college. It supplies a good training for the professional man and it gains a ticket to many colleges. But emphasis should be put upon the commercial branches. The great majority of High School students become housewives, clerks, what-nots in obscure but useful positions. P It is only the exception that climbs, and the exception can well look out for himself. This shows that the High School does not perhaps perform its whole duty in preparing the young man and the young woman to face the world. There is another difference between the High School grad- uate and one not so lucky. Ideas are the yeast of progress, and the High School student fresh from his books is bread for many. The high iiown ideas that he has learned he talks about among people with whom he works and lives. They laugh, they scoff, they jeer, they call him a fool for entertaining themg they point to him as a horrible example. And the graduate soon learns to think that a High School education is like a concealed weapon, that he must carefully hide it yet keep it ready for instant use. He is beginning to be of value to the world. Entertaining the deathless ideas that have been instilled into him by devoted teachers, he is willing to kneel and learn from experience. Experience is a teacher that ruled all men with the rod. There are no kisses, no words of praise for the well doing, there is only t.l1e stern call to keep the work up, while for the ill-doing -the whip. And incompetency is a whip, a whip of scorpions each ready to strike deeply. The most uncomfortable man in the world is the incompe- tent man. The High School tries to do away with the incompetent. 8

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Facing The World Hump. T That is the sensation of the High School student when he faces the world. His feet, so securely grounded on the classics, he Ends about to slip from beneath him. His eyes, turned upward in pursuit of some vague and half formed ideal, seem afiiicted with a. sort of strabismus. Or else the world is wrong. Strange as it may seem, that is the true state of things. The world would really be better peering through the eyes of the man and woman fresh from college and school, better in every con- ceivable way, even as the child is pure but simple as it leaves the motherls knee. The High School student soon learns that there are no Va- cant bank presidencies. He finds in most instances that his stepping from the school into the struggle was not anticipated, not looked for, not pre- pared for, by any one except the father, and the mother, and the rest of the intimate circle. He discovers that it is up to him to begin at the bottom just like the other fellows who left school in the eighth grade or be- fore, that he is neither better nor worse now than a million oth- ers , that it is up to him just as much' as it is to the man who can- not read, or write, or appreciate. So he doffs the cap and gown for the overalls. lVork's a pleasure. Rare are those who do not find it so. The High School student is no exception and he soon thinks that his job is THE job. However, there is something different about the High School man or woman. HE ASPIRES. That is the greatest thing in life, to aspire. It means to look up with the intention of climbing up, and as long as the graduate feels that way about the matter he is a safe man for America and the world. Employers are looking for the man who aspires. The Great Employer reserves his finest rewards for those who look up, and up, ceaselessly, patiently. Mathematics is valuable discipline. 7

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