Ilion High School - Class of 1904

Ilion Citizen - June 24, 1904

COMMENCEMENT 1904

Article 2

COMMENCEMENT 1904

Ilion High School Closes a Most Successful
Year and Graduates a Splendid
Class of Sixteen.

Class Days, Graduating Exercises, Alumni Reunion and Other
School Functions Follow Each Other in Rapid and
Brilliant Succession - The Class of 1904
Makes Its Final Bow and Graduates With Honors.

Ilion has had the pleasure of seeing another strong and scholarly class graduate from its High School, and sixteen families are happy in the honors won by the members of the class of 1904. Commencement week has been a typically beautiful June week and the commencement exercises have been exceedingly high order.

Superintendent A. W. Abrams

The year just closed has been one of especially good work in the High School; 43 per cent, of the work done has been honor work; this is a showing which has never before been made and which reflects the highest credit upon both faculty and students: Prof. Abrams and his assistants have rendered a year's service for which they are justly entitled to the highest consideration from the Board of Education and the patrons of the schools.

The year just closed has been one of especially good work in the High School; 43 per cent, of the work done has been honor work; this is a showing which has never before been made and which reflects the highest credit upon both faculty and students: Prof. Abrams and his assistants have rendered a year's service for which they are justly entitled to the highest consideration from the Board of Education and the patrons of the schools.

Class Day Exercises.

The Junior class had their little fun week Friday in Arcanum hall; they tendered a reception to the seniors and improved the opportunity to have a lot of good natured fun at their expense but it was all in good nature and the occasion was one of real pleasure to all.

Monday evening the class of 1904 held its class day exercises in the opera house, a delighted audience crowded the building. Ewald rendered the music, which is always equivalent to saying splendid service was given; the stage was handsomely decorated and 1905 occupied the place of conspicuous honor in the gallery and took their medicine like little men and women.

1904 has the distinction of having conceived and carried out a most unique and pleasing form of class day exercises; departing entirely from the usual custom, they represented themselves as meeting for a class reunion thirty years after graduation: it was noticeable that the class seemed quite generally to have come to the reunion from Berlin and it would have been a great saving of mileage if the scene of reunion had been laid there; but every member of the class was present; and after greetings and a report from each as to their past and present circumstances, they adjourned for a class banquet which followed as a second part of the program. A charming feature of the first part was a piano solo by Miss Czarina Lobdell "just returned from Berlin and a famous musical artist:" between parts Chris Mackin sang "Whisper and I will hear" and responded to an enthusiastic encore; Mr. Mackin is a splendid singer and well deserves the favor in which he is held.

When the curtain rose on the second part the class was seen seated at the conventional banquet table decorated in the white and green of the class colors: the banquet had evidently just reached the point where awful looking red lemonade wine and harmless carbonated water presaged the feast of reason and flow of soul; President Harris Beebe most fittingly address the class and introduced David Springer as toastmaster; Mr. Springer filled the office in a brilliant manner which will put him in demand for similar and more pretentious banquets in the future; he first called on Miss Bessie Cone, who did one of the best pieces of work we have seen in a long time; under the customer regime, Miss Cone would have been the prophetess but under the unique scheme of 1904 she spoke on "The fulfillments of Prophesy". Miss Ethel Penny then responded to "The Beautiful and the Good" with an earnest tribute to these important and really synonymous attributes. "Ilion" was the toast of Miss Edith Bell and she painted our future as a city of many thousands with a large park on the slope of West Hill and made the colors so warm and beautiful that we all felt like endorsing the closing words of the toastmaster, "Let him who don't like it leave it." C. C. Gordon eloquently responded to "American Liberty" and closed with a patriotic apostrophe to the American flag draped under the boxes; Miss Mae Devendorf ought to have been the historian but responded to "Looking Backward": she touchingly recalled the marked events in the school life of the class and mingled poetry and prose in her treatment so deftly that the effect was most delightful. The class then drank a toast standing to "The Alumni" and broke into a wild confederate Russian outcry which the program assured us was the class yell, and which elicited a similar cataclysm from the B class in the gallery; when tin later years, in the honored walks of life, dignified and cultured appearing gentlemen and ladies met and break forth in a wild and vociferous cry of

the astonished populace will understand that they are not escaped lunatics but just members of the class of 1904 giving their class yell. The exercises were a marked success in every way. The class colors are green and white and the class motto "Esse Non Videri." The class officers are: President, Harris Charles Beebe; vice president, Edith Bell; secretary, Mabel Daly; treasurer, David Henry Springer.

COMMENCEMENT

Tuesday evening was the night of nights; all else had been preparatory to the final graduation exercises; parents and friends filled the opera house to overflowing and pleasant expectation was on all faces. Above the stage hung the class motto, "Esse non Videri" and beneath it the class shield, "'04, I.H.S."; the class colors were in evidence everywhere in artistic and pleasing draperies.

Just before eight the class of 1905 got in its fine work; they had prepared a handsome banner in their class colors of yellow and white (awfully significant combination), and suspended them by a string from the boxes on either side of the house; E. A. Powers noted the symptoms of "something doing" but got to the front just one and a quarter seconds too late to seize the banner as it triumphantly rose on high the crowd "caught on" and enjoyed it; words cannot paint the triumph of '05 or their chagrin as exactly three seconds later the cord was cut and the banner came down after a brilliant but brief triumph; thereafter '05 solaced itself by displaying the banner from the boxes and making changes of its position and certain yellow draperies at intervals of about ten minutes during the entire evening, winding up with a terrible class yell and the display of a terror striking banner consigning '04 to dismal depths; Prof. will have to take a tonic next year.

The Class of 1904

Kind words can be truthfully spoken of the graduating class: they made a fine appearance and were a wholesome looking lot of young ladies and gentlemen; they have finished their respective courses with honor, and abundantly deserve the copious congratulations showered upon them; they are distributed by courses as follows:

Classical Course -
Charles Gordon,
Erma J. Crim.

Latin Course -
Harris C. Beebe,
Edith Bell,
Marion Hakes,
Jessie E. Hartford,
Ina M. Hubbard,
Ethel M. Penny.

Science Course -
Earl W. Avery.

English Course -
David Springer,
Bessie Cone,
Anna Reilly.

Regents academic Course -
John F. Maury,
Mabel Daly,
Mae Devendorf,
Czarina Lobdell.

Anna Reilly.

The faculty could have chosen to open the program no more pleasing member of the class than the fresh cheeked young lady who delivered the oration on "The Heroism of the Present", Miss Reilly gave just recognition to the deeds of valor of other days when heroism was synonymous with physical strength and bodily courage, but she paid a glowing tribute to the no less heroic victors of the present who triumph over self and by ruling their spirit become greater than he who taketh a city. She certainly carried her audience with her as she sketched the heroism of Father Damien and other missionaries of nurses and mothers, and declared that their heroism was a great as any on the field of battle or recorded in history. Miss Reilly spoke clearly and impressively.

Marion Hakes

"Do it now." The pungent motto which has been given such wide popularity in the business world, was the theme chosen by the dignified young woman who next spoke. Miss Hakes said that the men of marked greatness had been uniformly men of prompt and decisive action, who were able to come to the immediate decisions; she cited Sheridan, Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander and Grant as conspicuous illustrations and the turned to the more important application of the truth as seen in its effects upon character and destiny; she developed her subject science held the key to every blessing which a sinner may hope to received. Miss Hakes made a graceful and easy speaker and was heard with pleasure.

Earl Avery

The lot of the first gentleman on the program was in one sense hard but such as is often brought by the fortunes of war; for Earl Avery spoke on "The Russian Empire"; had Mr. Avery taken for his subject "Invincible Japan", the war spirit of the present would have refused to be contained. It is all the greater proof of the strength of Mr. Avery's oration that he strongly impressed us with the extent and power of the largest empire in the world; he said that Russian loyalty was due to Russian isolation in territory, language and ideas; he dwelt on the success and character of Russian diplomacy, and said that the problems of Russia are the problems of the far East, and that she is planning for the thousand years to come more than for the conditions of the present. Mr. Avery handled his subject well and made a good impression.

Erma Crim

"The Influence of the Ideal" was probably the most pretentious subject treated during the evening but it was handled by Miss Crim with discrimination and ability. She emphasized the effect of environment on both flower and child and made an impressive comparison between Greek idealism and Roman idealism; she followed the effect of lofty idealism through the works of the world's great artists, philosophers, poets, painters, generals, statesmen, reformers and inventors and declared that it was equally powerful in its effect on civilization itself. She made a closing point that we are ourselves moulded by our conception of life and named as our perfect ideal character and person of Christ. Miss Crim has a fine appearance and is to be congratulated upon her treatment of an abstruse theme.

Ina M. Hubbard

Of course Miss Hubbard could not expect popular sentiment to wildly applaud her claim that women should freely enter the professions; but her treatment of "Professions for Women" was such as to add impetus to the surely gathering sentiment in favor of her views. She met the usual objections and asserted that the misuse of her privileges by some women could not justly be held as a ban upon the privileges of all; she claimed equal rights for women as a matter of simple justice and predicted that Christianity and chivalry would yet complete the work they have already begun by opening to women the same opportunities and the same facilities now given to men; she urged her contention with persistency and argued the case ably, closing with the declaration that the professions supply the keystone to the arch of woman's liberty. Miss Hubbard was self-possessed and made a forceful plea.

Jessie E. Hartford

The valor of the class of '04 and of the rising generation can never be impeached as long as these young knights dare fling themselves in the face of hoary prejudice as illustrated by the champions of unpopular issues. To the defense of Russia and women's rights was added a third in "A Plea for Shylock" by Miss Hartford, and right well did the best student in the class urge her claim; she appealed to the fairness of all fair minded men to recognize the ostracism of the Jew and his necessity to make money getting his protection; she elaborated the indignities which were heaped on Shylock for no reason save his race and which finally culminated by rousing in him an insatiable spirit of revenge; and she painted in colors too truthful to be pleasant the mean and worse than Jewish spirit which halted the Jew to his own destruction. Miss Hartford made an eloquent advocate and will lose little in this world for which she pleads as she plead for Shylock.

Harris C. Beebe

"Anarchy; how to Treat it", was the theme of the closing oration by Harris C. Beebe. Mr. Beebe traced the grown of this malignant influence from the will meant work of Proudholm, a good man with a good motive, to the present mischievous and murderous propaganda which threatens to destroy the foundations of society, order and safety; he cited the Chicago riot and the assassination of Lincoln and McKinley as conclusive proofs of the stern necessity placed upon the nation to regulate the evil, by education and association if possible but by sterner measures if necessary. Mr. Beebe is a manly appearing young man; he spoke with a straightforward address and with a distinct enunciation which made his oration a pleasure.

The Work of the Schools

Following the orations, Prof. Abrams spoke for a few minutes on the strong support given its schools by Ilion, and on the faithful work and efficient service of the Board of Education; he called attention to the very remarkable record of the year in securing 42 percent honor work out of 2,400 counts earned in the regents' examinations, and the very general adoption of one of the courses of study by the students; fifty-five graduate into the high school at this time.

Mr. A. H. Sumner of the Board of Education, also address the people and expressed the appreciation of the Board on the hearty co-operation of the patrons of the school and the highly efficient work of prof. Abrams and the faculty and teachers. His appreciative words were well deserved and the good work of the faculty has well earned the praise which all would have been glad to express. Mr. Sumner then addressed the class; he credited them with having nobly earned their diplomas and assured them that their certificates represented both scholarship and appreciation; he reminded them that they were to make their own history and earnestly wished for each an honored place and work in life; he then presented each graduate with a diploma.

Class Honors

The announcement by Prof. Abrams of the class honors was received with warm approval, the two honors are based on the average of work done during the four years the course; the highest average being attained by Miss Jessie E. Hartford she was declared the valedictorian of the class; the second highest standard having been earned by Miss Erma Crim she was declared salutatorian; the recognition given the high scholarship of these two young ladies has been generally anticipated and all seemed happy in the honors given them.

And so has ended another year of work; so begins another period of life for this class; may skies be fair and fortune kind to the class of 1904.