West Philadelphia High School - Record Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 19 text:

x Nfx fi? s-is 1 I ' IC TO RY i EFORE severing definitely the familiar ties that have held us to our tasks and have bound us in a common devotion to our School, it is fitting at this time to recall in some measure the greatness of the service that has been rendered us in the past four years, for, surely, at no other time has the old place appeared more deserving of praise than now, when we are fully equipped with all she had to give us. In the retrospect, our experiences have been many and varied. We have discovered that the older we have grown the more genuine has been our attachment to the School, for she has set us a high standard, in both athletics and scholarship, and we in striving to keep to that standard, are all the more prepared for the trials of Life, and all the more proud of the School which we are to leave behind. Concerning the class, it is of small need to say anything that hasn't been said before. This evening we join the army of the Alumni, and it will be difficult to think that no more will we have the chance to help achieve distinction for West Philadelphia. Nevertheless, whether our next objective be college or the career to which each of us has been looking forward, we shall again and again return in our minds to the days in School, and shall let our one ambition be to order our lives in accordance with the traditions which we were taught here, and, if possible, to surpass them. Concerning the School, mere transient words can but feebly express our appreciation. A great man once said that it ought to be the aim of every school to create, rather than to drill. West Philadelphia has ful- filled that aim to the last degree. If the function of an education is as a 19

Page 18 text:

Ziaunur jllllzn SAMUEL W. PARKE, C. ARTHUR WALTERS First Honor. Second Honor. ROBERT A. MCCLEAN, HAROLD J. SAXON, Hgnipr, Ftlllfih HOHIIV.

Page 20 text:

I' NJ.. -X . 1 1 -9 M! s -7,3 AJ fi f-N Q, N ll :E Q , '- , ?-?:?f: ...-. .527-'1'1? 'W X 'f 31 film- 'W' ' ' N' ' 5 5' ' i-wth aff ' X 1 1 uk Q ' ', N lyjvna preparation for complete living, the training which we received here is all the more valuable to us. Mr. Heyl, and Members of the Faculty, We can only thank you in our most candid manner for your great patience and sacrifice in our behalf, we are and will be always most grateful for your guidance and teaching, and for the lofty examples you have set us as scholars and as gentlemen. Classmates, let us not suppose that upon graduation we are just enter- ing upon life, We have already seen a good deal of life right here in this building. Rather let us think that now we shall have the opportunity to show what stuff we are made of, and by how much we have profited from the instruction of the past four years, for now we are about to enter that portion of life which shall mean unceasing and independent endeavor. Let us always' keep before us our ideals and the heroes whose lives have embodied those ideals, not blindly dreaming of them, but distinctly visualiz- ing them 3 and remember, in the great fight upward and onward, that man was made that he might walk forward, not backward. Finally, in saying Vale for the last time, keep in mind with gratitude and reverence our great debt for the privilege of having been graduates of the West Phila- delphia High School. JOHN STOKES ADAMS, JR. Delivered at Commencement by Joseph First. 20