Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1906-06-22
COMMENCEMENT ESSAYS
Read at the Glass Day Exercises Of
Cresco High School, Thursday
Afternoon, June 9TH.
V ALEDICIURY.
BY DORA PERRY.

VALEDICTORY.
BY DORA PERRY.
Members of the School Board
Teachers, Friends We have assem-
bled here as a class for the last time. |
Our highschool education is completed. |
With the exception OF the last five |
months we have spent our school days
in the old high school building. Now
it is no more; but in its place we have
beautiful new high school building,
and though it was permitted to be our
home for five months only, we have
appreciated 1t and heartily thank the
Board of Education for it and the citi.
zens OF CrescO.
Here we have fought the battles of
our youth and now we leave it to face
the greater battles of life. And may
we have as much enjoyment and
benefit in Life's School as we have had
in school life.
Our high school education has better
equipped US to meet the world. Even
! if our lessons have not been thoroughly
mastered, we are better fitted for life's
| duties on account of the training we
have received.
And now going forth from the high
school we will try to make the best of
every opportunity.
| Classmates: We have now reached
the point in the pathway of life where
the ways part, the way is no longer
single. We must now separate. Here
we have striven together, fought out
our hardships together, shared one
another's sorrows and joys but here
after we will have to fight them alone.
Yet there will always remain with us
that class spirit that will help us on
ward till we reach the goal.
And in the name of the class OF 1906,
I bid you all farewell"
SONGS OF OUR FLAG.
Fletcher has said, "Let me make the
songs of nation and l care not who
makes it's laws" Music is more power
full than legislation. A great power lies
latent in song. 1t has encouraged
disheartened, strengthened the weak
and created new anemation in the
souls of nations for ages past. What
gives this power to music, is it the
melody, the association, the instru-
ment on which it is played, or is it
the words themselves? 1t is one and
all of them. The experience of many
have proven this fact. One traveller
wandering far from his native land
and exploring in Greenland heard the
natives sing their national song. He
could not understand word they were
singing but there was a powerful some
thing in the song that touched the
chords of his heart strings, brought
tears to his eyes, inspired him to a
| ~ III Nf 1i1yiy H.
of the same frame of mind as Sir Wal
ter Scott when he penned these words;
II "Breathes there a man with soul so dead
| Who never to himself hath said
This is my own my native land.
Whose heart hath ne er within him burned.
As home his footsteps he has turned
From wandering on foreign strand"
4 in other cases the power of song lies
in Its association, but in all the songs of
the American flag their great power
lies in the songs themselves, the at
tendant circumstances and with the
enthusiasm with which they are sung
by the tongues of all true patriots. Itcer-
tainly is not due to the instruments up
on which they were played. For during
the Civil War the hearts OF the soldiers
were never more awakened to q sense
of duty, loyalty to the cause, and de-
sire to win than when they heard the
strains of ''The Star Spangled Banner"
or "Marohing Through Georgia" play
ed on the fife and drum. And to this
day nothing pleases M old patriot of
the Civil War more than to hear those
instruments sending forth the strains
of those old war songs that they used
to sing and play as they sat about the
campfire before hard battle thinking
of home and what the outcome of the
long struggle would be.
Those constituted what is now known
as a National Song. What qualifca-
lions are necessary for a song to be
!, recognized by all, throughout whole
nation as one of the national songs of
that nation. One has never yet been
made to order. No man has ever yet
sat him down and taken up his pen and
said, 81 will write a national song, {"
and composed either words or music,
which the nation was willing to take
for its own. There has no combination
yet been formed in the United States
whose sole production is that Of patri-
otto songs. 1t must be the results of
fiery feelings, long confined and sud-
denly finding expression in burning
words or moving strains.
Such song is the Battle Hymn of
| Uu6 Il0puDllC3 WilUCcu ny Julld w dFQ
Howe during the great struggle of the
rebellion. While visiting the capital
at Washington, it happened one day
that she attended review of the
northern troops at distrnce OF several
miles from the city. The manoeuvres
were interrupted by a sudden attack of
of the enemy, reinforcements came
hastily to the aid of the small
force of Unienists that had been sur
prised and surrounded. While return.
Ing home the advance was impeded by
the march of the troops. Progress
was slow, and to take up the, time they
began singing army songs, among
which the song of "John Brown" soon
came to mind. After the singing, the
words of Miss Howe we're: IT have Of
ten wished to write some words which
might be sung to that tune" The
following morning she found herself
trying to weave together certain lines
which might be sung to that tune.
The result was The Battle Hymn of the
Republic, as we have it today.
| Out of the great multitude OF Ameri-
can songs very small proportion are
songs Of freedom. Why is this? The
reason is that they must be songs that
appeal to the public mind. They are
written at great crisis in the history
of nation and are spontaneous pro-
auctions. During the war of 1872 when
the British moved on Fort McHenry
ono of tho moot eaper Watchers of tho