West High School - Senior Occident Yearbook (Rochester, NY)

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Class History A class history, though it may look comparatively easy, is really quite a difficult task. In the first place it is hard, when you have once started, to tell just where to stop. Then a historian with any modesty docs not like to dwell too long on the glories of his particular class or to go into too lengthy a discussion of the reasons why and wherefore his class should be used as an example for all other classes following. I will try, as far as I know how, to be both modest and truthful. If one could have been standing in front of the school about the second week in September, in the year nineteen hundred and six, he would have seen many of the present Senior Class entering the school for the first time. We were then leaving a comparatively narrow sphere of life forever, to enter one much broader than any yet experienced, because in high school we learn more both of book lore and of the ways of the world and we come into contact with more people. Then, too, the teachers on thisr higher plane of knowledge give forth more of their per- sonality or their inward self than is possible in the grade schools. But, after all, high school is but a step in the ladder or, we might say, a term in the proportion of knowledge because high school is to grade school as college is to high school. I believe Mr. Fultz would call this a mean proportion. But I must stop this wan- dering and get down to business. As a class, nineteen hundred ten was never very successful as far as winning is concerned. 1 can honestly say, however, that every team that represented the present graduating class went into all contests to do the best they could to uphold the honor of the class and they always fought to the end. The first team that ever played under the name of nineteen hundred and ten was the Freshman football team. Our team played the Juniors and, though they greatly outweighed us, we held them down to two touchdowns; but I will not write too long about football lest I bring up fond memories of that grand old game which will never again be played in West High. However, the spirit which characterized the Freshman football team is the spirit which has dominated every team that has ever fought under the nineteen hundred and ten banner—the spirit of going into the game, not necessarily to win but to put forth the best that each fellow had in him. We never came out ahead in any contest until our Senior year in which mi far, we have won everything. There were no inter-class football games last fall

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William Wooilarm («eorgc Kavana li Mmiiri « Rjtkrii»all Mwijn c4 Track

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but wc won the basketball championship, the track championship and I hope that, before this is published, wc will have won the baseball games. We have been very ably represented on the regular school teams. On the football team, the last of its kind which will ever represent the Orange and Black, we mention with the greatest pride the following who played on the champion- ship team last year: Art Markham, Jack Forsyth, Harry Thomas and Ed. Long. The basketball team will miss Captain “Tim” Mahaney and Wilbur Woodams from its lineup next season. The class was exceedingly well represented on the track team by Captain Art Chamberlain, Oscar MacBain, Julius Kuhnert, “Dutch” Stahlbrodt, Lawrence Angevine, “Fete” Turney and Jack Forsyth. The names of Forsyth and Markham stand out prominently in the baseball lineup. The class has been equally well represented along other lines besides athletics, such as in debating. On the boys’ team which debated against East High we had James Bills and Arling Brown ; on the girls' team Charlotte Graves and Winifred Howard are of the graduating class. On the Occident staff we have Dick Well- ington and John Babcock. In the Musical clubs the man who will be missed most is Howard Lewis, who has been leader of the Glee and Mandolin clubs for the past two years. There arc also numerous other Seniors in both the boys' and girls' Glee clubs but it would take too long to mention their names. Now wc have followed through, briefly, the history of the class and some of the accomplishments which its members have attained in a short four years. But this history is in comparison with that which would go to make up the life story and at the best it could only tell a very few of the deeds of this small percentage. If we could only tell of the strivings, the victories and the failures of every stu- dent in the class this would indeed be a history. But just think how insignificant this history is in comparison with that whch would go to make up the life story of the class after each has finished his mission in this world! You can now sec what a poor attempt this is. “All the world’s a stage,” says Shakespeare. Our life in high school is a very small scene in the play which might be called “The Twentieth Century” and. which is now being staged on the world. The teachers of West High prepare each one of us to act our humble part to the best of our ability. They have, however, only a small fraction of our time in which to give us training for such a great play, so let each of those players, who are to get their training in West High in the future, do his duty both to himself and to the world at large by getting as much out of his life in high school as he can. F. L. T.. Historian.