A newspaper photograph of the Wiconisco High School, Wiconisco, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, with notable adults standing in front, as published in the Lykens Register, May 31, 1901.
Identified in the photo, left to right:
J. S. Prout; Charles Price; William Low; Joshua Evans; Theodore Gordon; Charles Seifert (in rear near front steps); George S. J. Keen; Prof. H. V. Rowan.
According to the news article that accompanied the picture, five students graduated from Wiconisco High School in 1901. They were:
- W. Hayden Parry Prout
- Lillian B. Buckley
- Mary Elizabeth McCormick
- Edwin LeRoy Keen
- Clyde Orndorff
The article was extensive and included a description of the commencement events, excerpts from the speeches, and a rationale for a sound public education.
WICONISCO’S COMMENCEMENT [1901]
Each student in the public schools looks joyfully to the day when he shall have mastered the coursed placed before him. His day, commonly spoken of as Commencement, was celebrated by the friends of education in Wiconisco this week. On Sunday morning a large congregation assembled in the Methodist Church to hear the Rev. Frederick Getty, preach the baccalaureate sermon. It was full of excellent thought and good advice.
On Monday evening the graduating exercises were held. Because of the various papers taking considerable of our space, we let you form the conclusions by their merits. The Wiconisco Band furnished a number of very good selections. The octette also sang very creditably. Each member of the class can feel proud of the exercises, their teacher, and the Board of Education, who are alert and progressive.
The Salutatory was delivered by Edwin LeRoy Keen, who chose for his subject “Heroes.”
Heroes
Another happy and successful year of beneficial and delightful employment for the W. H. S. has been recorded in the lines of the past. Swiftly the days and weeks have passed, bearing joys and sorrows, difficulties and successes, until finally we are ushered into the third annual commencement evening of the Wiconisco Public Schools, and this evening, with the binding chord of friendship we cheerfully greet you. With a bright flame of love burning deep in our hearts, with the tide of joy rising high within us, the class of 1901 welcomes you to the exercises.
Teachers of the high school and Board of Education, you who have put forth your strongest efforts in surrounding us with the best advantages and influence to make our school year one of the most enjoyable and profitable periods of our lives, are welcomed by the class of 1901. The influence which you have had upon us, both in the class room and other places where we have met will ever be remembered. Many times we have enjoyed events which on your part were sacrifices, so, with all these favorable impressions in mind and in behalf of the class of 1901, I bid you a heartily welcome to the exercises this evening, again I bid you all welcome.
Mankind is places in this world the most helpless of all creatures seemingly, a bundle of insignificance. How then is it possible that he will be able to survive in this exciting world where so many powers seem ready to crush him, or how will he even know how to act amid so many confusing circumstances. God, his Father has provided for this. A desire has been given him which keeps him continually aroused and compels him to seek the very things needed for his guidance through life. It has been truthfully said that mankind may be compared to human parots [sic], mimicing [sic] the actions and appearances of those whom he considers his superiors. Shakespeare has said:
“I hold the world but as the world,
A stage whereon every man must play a part.”
This being true man readily sees that he owes certain obligations to all not only in the line of what is said and done in the presence of others but in the appearances and habits which will in an important degree effect the comfort and pleasure of others and since God has not only arranged that we should inherit the wisdom of our ancestors but has afforded us opportunities to grasp the wisdom of the world it becomes us all to be heroes in a true sense. A great man with a large soul, which is the nobler part of his being, constitutes a hero. Let us repeat, a great man with a large soul, which is the nobler part of his being, constitutes a hero. His soul is made lorge [?] by the process of addition summed up to sympathy. Since creation, this drama of life, which has only been changing the scenery to finish the acts, we have had some of the brightest heroes play their part.
In the first few acts Hebrew history furnishes the names of some of our religious heroes such as Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon, and with all these sainted heroes are connected marvelous stores [sic] told in the Scriptures which on account of its simplicity is known to all. Following these we have the greatest of all heroes, our Master, who is full of sympathy and his apostles, whom man is trying to pattern his life after and who marched to the front in order to spread Christianity all over the world. Abraham, one of the ancient patriots, Cyrus the Great, the leader against the Medes, Heracles, the greatest national hero of the Greeks, Solomon who righted Draco’s laws, Philip of Macedonia, and Alexander the Great, are but a few of the thousand patriotic heroes, while the names of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Sophest will ever be held in memory on account of the living educational monument they have presented to the world. A Luther, a Wesley, a Ryan, a Moody, a Pope Leo, we cannot fail to see some of the leaders of moral heroes. Again, the world has given us a William Penn, a Robert Morris, a Girard, a Joh Hopkins and a Carnegie as some of our philanthropic heroes.
Our schools serve as monuments erected for all our educational heroes and since this is true our schools are the safeguards of our country. From our educational sources we have our scientific heroes as Robert Fulton, Ben Franklin, our printer; Professors Morse and Edison, our electricians, and many others who aided labor with the most wonderful inventions. We see again the earth has been cursed by civil wars and man is found asserting his God given rights on the battlefield against overwhelming odds. In the time of Cromwell both religions and civil liberty were the grand prizes of struggle, so it remains till the present. As the 14th, 15th 15th, up to the 20th century pass a scenes in this great drams we cannot fail to notice the hero of each act. A Beecher, a Talmage, a Gibbons are some who are found among the heroes. Our country furnishes millions of patriotic heroes who gave all to her service. No country can furnish men to compare to our Washington, Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Meade, Lee and Funston. An no navy ever carried men like Farragut, Sampson, Evans, Schley, Dewey, Hobson and many others. While at home we were blessed with a Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Calhoun, and James G. Blaine. While I have thus far only named some of the most famous leaders of our heroes we would be blotting the sacred pages of history by not alluding to the millions of heroes who gave all to their country’s service. Were they not heroes in the truest sense? But in times of peace and war this 20th century needs heroes. Each day we live we are nearer to the grave and each moment demands a heroic act. We owe it not alone to our country but also to our God to live an honest life and help others to do so.
True gentlemen and ladies may be found in the humblest walks of life. The marks that prove them such are not wholly external, though the conditions are evidenced by the external, and any man who resists wrong and does right is the greatest of all heroes.
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This was followed by a presentation by Mary E. McCormick.
Miss Mary E. McCormick presented the following thesis on the class motto.
ONWARD, UPWARD
Human life is often likened to a voyage. It is a voyage to eternity attended with great danger, as well as much hardship and toil. The sea we have to navigate, viewed in prospect, looks smooth and inviting, but beneath it are shoals, quicksands and rocks, and great multitudes in attempting to reach the distant shores are shipwrecked and lost. No one knows their destiny.
We pass our lives in regretting the past, complaining of the present, and indulging in false hopes for the future. Every anniversary of a birthday is the dispersion of a dream. Happy is he who sees a God employed in all the good and ill that comes in life. This life is the spring time of eternity, the time to sow the seeds of woe. Yes it is one long lesson. Study to promote the happiness of mankind; it is the true end of our creation. Failures come to every one some time or other but the noble true hearted person will not allow himself to be discouraged by the. He will thrive onward. No success is attained without a struggle. We must proceed slowly, step by step, and although the ascent may be rugged and although we may fall back a few steps, yet trials only make us stronger, and if we persevere when our race is run, we can look back with pleasure and satisfaction to the success of our efforts. Onward and Upward should be the guiding purpose of every young life. How intently we watch a man climbing to a high roof, sixty feet or more, clinging to a frail ladder for support and we realize that one false step would sent him into Eternity. We are all going up the steep ladder of life. Let us take heed like him, be slow and sure; like him, hold closely to the sides, God’s providences, and as he at last mounts to the top, there to rest from his labors, so may we attain to heaven, not like him for a transient hour, but a whole and delightful eternity. To triumph over the weakness of nature and render life once deformed by passion and stained by sun, beautiful with love and manifest in deeds of beneficence, is worthier our ambition that all the blood-wrought heroism, that ever linked a name to a world’s remembrance. Every day witnesses triumphs such as theses, yet fame proclaims them not. Life is no speculative adventure with those who feel its values and duties. It has a deeper purpose and its path becomes distinct and easy in proportion as it is earnestly and faithfully pursued. The world, after all is better in many respects than we take it to be. The trouble is, some people choose rather to look on the dark side. They alone with their eyes fastened on the ground and consequently do not see the beauty of nature above them. A person to succeed must practice self-denial. He must patiently bear with whatever opposes his will, or contradicts his humor. We might be happy if we would. To be sure there are some ills that we cannot escape, such as disease, death, misfortune, the severing of earthly ties, and the destroying worm of grief. We are too selfish, as if the world was made for us alone. How much happier would we be if we were to labor more earnestly to promote each other’s good. How much better for us if we were to mark our intercourse with our fellow men by love, true friendship and charity. Some are exceedingly diligent in acquiring a vast compass of learning, some in heaping up riches, others intent upon pleasure and diversions. Every one should consider that the way to usefulness, to honor and to heaven is open to him, all the way to shame, dishonor and hell, and a view of consequences should determine which course he will pursue.
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Two papers were omitted from the newspaper article on the Commencement.
The class history, by Lillian Buckley, and the prophecy, by Clyde Orndorff, were papers well prepared, and were full of amusing thought. Lack of space obliges us to omit them.
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However, the valedictory address was included.
The Valedictory, by W. Haydn Parry Prout, was the following interesting “History of Music”
History of Music
When man was created he was not placed upon a level with the lower animal kingdom, but he possessed intellectual force destined to work out mysterious and beautiful things concealed in nature. Man was first placed in the garden of Eden, the most beautiful spot on earth. All his education was to one end — the cultivation of beautiful things. The doctor and philosopher Avicinna, in his theory grasped to some extent the mission of music, that the body was entrusted to man for the development of the soul, that only by ennobling the intellect and purifying the animal passions was reason to be fitted for the completion of the final and eternal, and that music was adapted to the exaltation of the understanding. The progress in attempting to trace the history of music was derived from Egypt, and its cultivation was not confined to a class or order, but was generally, but was generally esteemed and practices according to existing theory. The melody was sung in unison, careful attention being bestowed on the rhythm. The earlies tonal system of which we have any authentic record — the only one which has exercised any influence upon modern musical art — is that of the Greeks. Pythagoras, the noted Greek philosopher and mathematician, about 550 years B. C., invented what has been characterized the immutable system. The musical scale consisted of 7 tones corresponding to the seven planets. It was the result of certain mathematical deductions based upon the assumption that a mysterious relation existed between the laws governing the movement of the heavenly bodies and the laws of harmony that the distance between the earth’s centre and their respective orbits, in some way determined the intervals into which the tones of the scales should be divided to produce harmonious sounds. Thus music was a subject of profound speculation among the members f the order of the Pythagorians who studied it in relation to nature.
Music was to the early Greeks an art highly esteemed, but was regarded in the light of something mysterious rather than positive knowledge. Pythagoras created the system of the ratios which tones bear to each other. He declared the octave, the fifth, and fourth to be perfect consonances. This was an important step, and harmony and part writing might not have been developed had he not decreed that the third was a dissonance, for without this most musical of all intervals there could be no harmony as modern musicians understand it. We are led to wonder that so cultured a people as the Grecians should not have progressed to the principals of the development of harmony. The Chines have been familiar from time immemorial of octaves, a circle of fifth and a normal tone. Like all other nations, their music originated with their religion. They are proud of their ability to distinguish music from noise. Having so little imagination they never conceived of making it the language of nature, passion, and sentiment.. In Hindoo music there is a striking similarity to that of the Greek school. Their musicians claim to have had 1600 scales, but it is noticeable that the Hindoo often refers to a key when the allusion is only to a melody.
The ancient Israelites, gifted as a people with the distinguishing characteristics of refined sensibility and poetic temperament, naturally possessed the most exalted ideas in regards to music, which they associated inseparably with their religion, and as their religion was incomparably nobler that that of any other nation, their music sought a higher plane. Miriam’s song of triumph after the destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea was the first musical outburst of the Israelites, and was probably regarded as a divine inspiration. The scriptures are replete with passages which reveal the impressive significance which the Hebrews attached to tones. Sacred music reached its highest point at the time of David, who was not only an immortal poet, but an inspired musician. The Arabs had their system of scales. They regarded the octave as the principal consonance. While their knowledge of harmony is questioned, some maintained that they added a bass part to their melodies. With the Persian conquest came a period of development in the music of Islam, and in 780 we find the books of sounds by Schalil, “El Kinde’s theory of composition,” “Arrangement of tone,” “Laws of rhythm,” etc. The genius which led the Romans to so many triumphs in the constructive arts — the historian of music is only able to record that in Rome — the most refined of all the arts had a less lofty flight of ambition than among the Greeks from whom Rome inherited it, and under Roman custody, it fell ultimately to a depth of degradation which fortunately has never been tarnished in its beauty and fame. Their lyric poetry lacked the passionate heart expression of the Greek muses. While Rome derived from Greece the bases of its musical theory, it was not a soil calculated to promote the highest development of the art. For about 50 years A. D., Diodorus introduced the major third into their diatonic scale as a consonance and thus established a prototype of our diatonic scale. Macrobus in the 5th century A. D., let behind a work “de musica,” which contained and treated of the old Greek scales which supplied the music of the early Christian Church. To none of the arts of refinemente was the inculcation of the Christian religion calculated to give a higher and more sympathetic impulse than the art of music. The poetic temperament of the Greeks, the romantic tendencies of the Islamites, the spiritualism of the Hebrews, had let them each by a different path to some advancement in the way of melody to Pernassus, but it remained for the cultivation of the Christian faith to give a new and true idea and mission of music.
Music being the language of the soul, the expression of the heart, its true career could not be entered upon until the shackles of superstition were broken and the bondage of spiritual ignorance cast off. Although there is no authentic record of the songs and chants of the early Christians, we are warranted in the presumptions that they preserved and utilized liturgical treasurer brought from Jerusalem by the early Christians. As early as the second century, when the idea of a church government became recognized as a necessity, came also the necessity of a common hymnology adapted to the use of the Church after the building of edifices in which to conduct worship. The simple chants were superseded by the antiphonal methods of Alexandria. Choirs of trained singers with congregational singing and music in the church began to take a more definite and important place at the beginning of the fourth century. Pope Sylvester founded at Rome a school for singers. Bishop Hierothus, of the Greek Church, and Hilary, bishop of Poeteiera, wrote the first original melodies or hymns. During the reign of Gregory I, 590 A. D., the music of the Church entered a new period of development. The Gregorian system was at once officially promulgated together with directions for performance of the mass, and has remained in the Church unchanged until the present day. It has furnished inspirations and themes of some of the grandest conceptions and most imperishable monuments with which the perfected art of music has been endowed by its loftiest genius. Gregory established a musical academy at Rome, where he personally instructed, and his fame extended to all lands. In the last years of his pontificate, 604, he sent singers to England. His system of church music was invested with undisputed authority. France, Switzerland and Fulda had their schools of music in which the poet, musician and monk did much for the development of vocal art. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in the thirteenth century “Laudi Sion,” which is intoned in the Catholic church as the feast of “Corpus Christi.” Long before this, instrumental music took its place with musical church services. As early as the tenth century attempts had been made at part singing, but owing to the imperfection of the scale it was discordant. In the twelfth century fixed rules of time and the remodeling of the system of notation led to the adoption of measured notes and bars. Upon Franco of Cologne devolved the task of opening up the musical world and establishing fundamental laws of harmony upon which the true art of music was to have a solid and enduring foundation. He introduced triple time and adopted the third as consonance, which removed the stumbling block in the way of harmony throughout all the traditions of music heretofore. He was the first person to preceive [sic] and establish the contrary motion of the different parts. Marchetto de Padora, in 1309, formulated the fundamental law of harmony, that every dissonance should formulate itself into a consonance. There are no sharp or sudden processes in the evolution of music. each stage of development being led up to by the gradual unfolding of previous events. After the establishment of the measurable system by Franco, and a thorough knowledge of harmony were established, music was invested with a power never before capable of performing in its mission. Philosophers, mathematicans [sic] and doctors of the law were also musical composers of the highest order. So the musical minds filled and enriched by the culture of the superior and divine talent, prepared the way of the towering musical intellect up to the nineteenth century. St. Augustine, in 380, ascribes his conversion to a soul-stirring chant. In his confessions, he thus describes his impressions: “Oh! my God! When the sweet voice of the congregation broke upon mine ear, how I wept over the hymns of praise! The sound poured into my ears and thy truths entered mine heart. The glowed within me the spirit of devotion; tears poured forth and I rejoiced.” To trace the development of music down to the present, the blending of voices with musical instruments through the development of the pricipals [sic] of harmony by our great masters, should fill us with a spirit of appreciation for the divine link drawing the soul of man to his creator.
So long as music is sought after as something to please the fancy or as an attraction, this highest of all arts is robbed of its power. May we strive to realize its deep importance as an elevating and refining factor, as the highest medium for the expression of the noblest emotions.
The Valedictorian then concluded his remarks with praise for the School Board and faculty, and looked to the future.
Gentlemen of the Board of Education, in behalf of the class of 1901, I extend to you sincere thanks for your kindness and assure you we appreciate your manifested interests in our educational affairs.
To our able professor and instructor: In you we recognize one who has with untiring efforts, explained and taught us the different subjects laid out in the course of our public schools. My your labors with this class be crowned with abundant success.
My dear class mates, the time has come for our separation in public school work. Our mingling together has been profitable to each other, so let us resolve to build upon our work monuments of advancement in the higher educational spheres. May each one of us, as we go out int the world of activity, resolve to do something for the intellectual improvement of those with whom we shall be called upon to mingle with through life. Let the motto of “honesty” be stamped upon each of our hearts. Now with fond recollections of our early school days, I bid you farewell.
Two more speakers and then the presentation of diplomas.
E. E. Beidleman, Esq., made the annual address, and County Superintendent Garver followed with a few remarks. Both gentlemen presented fine thought for consideration
To. J. S. Prout, the president of the Board of Education was assigned the pleasant duty of presenting the diplomas which he did in a graceful speech to the following: W. Haydn Parry Prout, Lillian B. Buckley, Mary Elizabeth McCormick, Edwin LeRoy Keen, and Clyde Orndorff.
To Prof. H. V. Rowan, the supervising principal, belongs a great deal of credit. While he is of a quiet disposition and does not parade his efforts with a lot of fuss, yet he is accomplishing a vast amount of systematic good work, and with a good corps of teachers, backed by a progressive school board they can proudly boast of having as fine a school system as can be found anywhere.
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Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.