Windsor Locks High School - Herald Yearbook (Windsor Locks, CT)

Page 27 text:

THE HIGH SCHOOL HERALD. 25 public-spirited and patriotic service made much easier for us because of a knowledge of the failures and the successes of those men, the accounts of whose lives go to make up that often wrongly despised subject of Ancient History. The second point is the importance of languages. What, may I ask, is the founda¬ tion of all education; science, history math¬ ematics? No! None of these! Of what use is science without language, or history without means of recording it? If then, language is the core of education, surely it deserves attention. Probably now there is objection on the ground that classic tongues, Latin and Greek, are dead and buried and consequently of no use, but Greek is still spoken to-day, and Latin, altho dead relatively speaking, is alive with uses. Doctors, lawyers, druggists, and ministers all use Latin. So do the people who speak Italian, Spanish, French. Portu¬ gese, and, to a smaller extent, English. Latin may be a dead language, but its ashes have been widely scattered, and. for my part, I prefer to become acquainted with it at the start rather than to be meet¬ ing unknown ghosts at every turn. These numerous related tongues can be learned separately, yet how much more easily they may be acquired if their common source has first been mastered. Then, for one who is not intending a study of foreign lan¬ guages. a working knowledge of I atin is invaluable because of its enlarging influence up English vocabulary. The third asset is the power of inde¬ pendent thihking, reflective thinking it is called. According to the advocates of New Methods of education, algebra and geometry are useless studies except to a verv few individuals. Possibly this is true. I seri¬ ously doubt if any bewildered housewife w’l ever have to struggle with the problem of selling half an egg more than half her eggs, then half an egg more than half the remainder, in order to have one left; or any enthusiastic dancer stop to consider that a straight line is the shortest path between two points; nevertheless such propositions as these develop the faculty of thinking, real thinking, tno whether x is equal to y plus z, but whether bookkeeping or printing is a more desirable occupation. Of all the mind stimulants, mathematics, and es¬ pecially geometry, holds first place. Three sides of the square of liberal education have been treated; what of the fourth ! It is that side which should be easily understood in war times for it is no other than discipline, the same sort of discipline that makes effective armies, only this time applied to the serried furrows of the brain instead of to the ranks of Kaiser Wilhelm. Indisputable is the need for men¬ tal discipline; but often misinterpreted the method of procuring it. It is, not a study of those subjects which are easy, or appeal¬ ing, or interesting, but a good, long, hard, continuous application to Latin prose, French verbs, geometry originals, and algebra problems. After a thoro drill in these studies, not possessing value in them¬ selves, but being only a means to an end, the mind will have been changed from an ordinarily sluggish hinderance into an ef¬ fective, active power. Those, briefly stated, are the four ad¬ vantages to be derived from a liberal education. Let us come back once more to the middle path and compare the two types of education as they are shown to ns this year, 1918. On the one side is Voca¬ tional Training, championed by Germany, the nation of absolute science and perfect efficiency, but a worldly, Godless existence. Her men are trained by vocation for war, and by vocation for peace; trained by vo¬ cation for making of everything from the pen to the sword. She has reached the very summit of vocational training; but to what end? On the other side stand England, France, the United States; lead by such men as Lloyd-George, Viviani, Woodrow Wilson, champions of the same principles as those for which the liberal education strives. Surely these nations, and these men. are not guded by narrow principles of business and gain ! This is where voca¬ tion training falls down in its attempt to drive out the liberal education. Where is the vocation that makes character? These two belong together, liberal and vocational, both essential, neither all- sufficient, the liberal being the great pro¬ ducer of mental power and moral character, the force which will bring about the time when nation shall no longer war against nation and peoples against peoples. Long be the life, and prosperous the career of the Cause of Liberal Education ! The formal ceremony of Valedictory has been established by custom as the final duty of a graduating class to the school it is leaving. Such a ceremony is but the symbol of leave-taking; a symbol which expresses good will and fellowship between teacher and pupil; pride at the attainment of the second step toward the goal of edu¬ cation; and readiness for beginning the harder task which is to follow. To-night

Page 26 text:

THE HIGH SCHOOL HERALD. ACCEPTANCE OF CLASS GIFT. Members of the Class of 1918:— In presenting us this splendid picture of Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, you have paid a valued honor to your Alma Mater, and a fitting tribute to the illustrious man whose messages have been read and commented upon in all our schools as being the most perfect charter of human rights I am indeed happy to have been chosen to express the sincere and deep gratitude of the Faculty and Undergraduates of the Windsor Locks High School for this gift which shall a lways serve as an inspiration to us that we may ever strive to emulate our President’s noble qualities. “He spake and into every heart his words carried new strength and courage.” May some of that strength and courage be ours in the coming years. May Nugent, ’19. VALEDICTORY AND ESSAY. The Liberal Education. Education has been a favorite topic with high school graduates for two rea¬ sons;—its close relation to the thought expressed in Commencement, and its vital¬ ity of interest. For these two reasons, and especially the latter, education is the theme of mv discussion to-night. Trulv it is a complex subject, manifest¬ ing itself in countless forms, the classical being the one which has had the longest neriod of sway. This has been the type which has moulded generations of thinkers from whose labor we have received tb privilege of living in a more rational world than that in which our grandfathers lived. This has been the tvpe which has made the men who have built up the world system of national intercourse and of trade, and the national systems of government. Following such a wide-soread advancement has come a natural broadening of educa¬ tional ideas—a gradual departure from established classic principles, and an ex¬ pansion into a freer field, called liberal. For those who would have an exact defini¬ tion of a liberal education, it is. concisely this—the study of subjects not directly re¬ lated to the pursuing of ones intended pro¬ fession. Thus, a future civil engineer is receiving a liberal education when he studies history and languages, and a future Latin teacher is receiving a liberal edu¬ cation when he studies stenography and bookkeeping. Under the present day motto of “Efficiency,” one is eager to con¬ demn the study of subjects for which there will b eno direct use. Should it be con¬ demned? Has the liberal education a real worth now, in June 1918? My answer is “Yes !” Is it not fitting that I should take an extreme position on this question, that I should urge universal adoption. The mid¬ dle course is most often the safest, and that is the one I purpose to follow, asking onlv for a fair considerat : on of the value cf a liberal education. Assuredly it is not the best course for everyone since we are not all made alike. A great many cannot afford to attend h : gh school or college, while oth¬ ers go merely because of the prestige to be gained thru graduation. For these, voca¬ tional training has been specially adapted. However, it is not my intention to discredit vocational training, but to show that the liberal education must not be abandoned as a relic of the past—both forms are needed in order to give a fine balance to the educa¬ tional system. The Tom Browns of Eng¬ land studied nothing but classics, and the Tom Browns of the United States threaten to study nothing but vocations. Now you ask. “Is not the earning of bread and butter the most important thing anyway?” To be sure it is the most im¬ portant thing ! Unhappy indeed is the man who cannot earn h’s own livelihood, yet I wonder how much less unhappy is he who cannot satisfv the inevitable longing for a life of mental activity. Because of this one-sidedness, vocational training is too narrow to become the educational standard. Consider with me now the four agents by which a liberal education brings about better social development. The first is a h x ad outlook cultivated thru the studv nf history. I do not contend that Ancient History is valuable in itself; it is not. There ' s pot a thing much more useless than a collection of facts memorized about Menes, Sennacherib. Khufu, Art- axerxes and other old worthies of equally unpronounceable names, bringing with them visions of mummies and tombstones. Still tne e is a benefit to be eained from history and that is the insight it gives into the civil and national problems which perplexed our ancestors We ourselves, if we studv his¬ tory intelligently, will have our paths to

Page 28 text:

2G THE HIGH SCHOOL HERALD. it is my honor and privilege to perform, in the presence of you who are gathered here, this public expression of farewell. To the Members of the School Board, to Supervising Principal Jackson, and to the Members of the Faculty, in behalf the Class of 1918, I wish to extend our sin¬ cere appreciation of the service that you have rendered us. and of the sacrifice that you have made that we may be fitted for carrying a heavier burden and assuming a greater responsibility because of your en¬ deavors. Members of the High School—We re¬ gret that this is our last meeting together. May you. with the assurance of our friend¬ ship and svmpathy, successfully complete the remainder of your high school career. Classmates—Behind us lie many days of pleasant work together, and before us— everything. Let us not dwell on the past, but let us look forward, ready and eager to fight our own battles, and resolved, each one of us, either to find or make a way that will do honor to the Windsor Locks High School. I bid you farewell. Jarvis M. Morse, ’18. THE EDITORS’ VACATION DAY. Whew ! We editors have had one big job of it this time ! We’ve read over sixty-one copy pages of oratorical spout¬ ings about theories of education, principles of government, formulae, of the ancient chemists, and beliefs in a life beyond the grave. (Such is the light character of Commencement essays.) Our minds have finally relapsed into a condition described by the Class Historian of ’18 as a “state of aberration,” and by another authority as a “state of mush.” Our thinking machines have been liquified sure enough, and if you dont believe it, just read a little further. We have attempted to describe five High School celebrities, but our brains, being, as we have said, in an unsolid condition, the names slipped us. You will have to guess them. 1. A delicate little flower is she, Slim, and singing blithely, May her beauties ne’er forsake. Nor her letter packet break. 2. (Listennow:)“Schwisszz, schwisch, ashions—is your cow sick—asions !” 3. Is it really a curious freak of Na¬ ture or Fate that a negro should be named Mr. White, and a person stationary in height be called -! 4. “Cluck, cluck, sputter ! Come on with that book there, what do you think this is? Get out o’ here or I’lls slam you one ! Come on !” 5. It is the one who would like to be “it” but cannot; so she must carry on and bluster, a truly Junior Brownie Buster. Hold on Jonathan, this nameless busi¬ ness is too wearisome. Let’s have some names, and plenty of them. Some day John will Byrne with grief and pity for Genevieve if Henry should Cutler, and then perhaps being Eager, he will lay a Violet on her grave. But after all. Fred Warns us that Myles Bi-ard-li old enough to become a Soph¬ omore next year, and that Miss Root Isa¬ belle—about both of which facts, Joseph will not Holler-an-ything. “If we were to have a picnic, would we go to Helen Groves? “Suppose that Jack C. should per¬ manently remove to Hartford; would May get a Nu-gent? “Helen is my Shepard, I shall not want, she leadeth me-er—a—never mind where. Well I swan ! If our brains haven’t run out.” Somehow, Graduation essavs have a sort of sameness to them. The lack of originality seems to grow greater and greater each year until we fear that the limit will be reached, (in spite of Algebra) when there will be no originality at all. Then, to avert this calamity, we offer here a Model of a Commencement Essay which will be preserved and prove a life saver to future graduates when they shall be ship¬ wrecked on the shore of “Desert Dryness.” IVar Friends:—As I see your welcome races to-night. a reeling of Indescribable sadness comes over me ror I realize that this Is our last meetfn? here as a class in the high school. For Tour long years we have tolled upward along the path or knowledge, spending many happv days under the Instruction or our devoted teachers who have so heroically endeavored to breathe Into our minds the essence or learning. Classmates:—As we are about to separate at the parting or the ways, let us each strive to remember the lessons we have learned In school, and thru practicing them, cllmh ever upward until we reach the portal or the lire eternal. “Farewell, rarewell. ril never see thee more. Farewell.”