To the Students of Henry Grady:
This letter will be an exercise of the principal's privilege of extending
advice on occasions to students comprising the school.
The primary purpose of the school is the growth and development in knowledge, skills, and attitudes which may be acquired in the class room. More specifically, it should be your paramount objective to learn the lessons in your classes every day. The academic side of your school life is the most important, and merits your first attention and best efforts. It is a sign of maturity and wisdom when we put first thing first.
Here then is my counsel to you as you enter the new semester.
1. Be present in class every day with your book, pencil, and paper.
2. Pay close attention to the class instruction and explanation. Make a careful note of your homework assignment every day.
3. Do the homework to the best of your ability every day. If you don't permit yourself to get behind, you will obviously keep up and pass.
4. Have a systematic time and place to study at night or in the afternoons. Don't let any distraction sidetrack you from the business of keeping up.
5. Go back to your teacher for special help. Make your arrangement in advance. The teacher will not be available every afternoon, but you should inquire which afternoons the teacher provides special help and make-up work.
6. Don't miss tests. If you are unavoidably absent, avail yourself of the first opportunity to make up the missed test.
7. Get your work in on time. Putting things off is a harmful habit and can become a psychological defect in the personality.
8. Be cheerful, punctual, polite, and cooperative in class. Teachers are human and will appreciate your qualities of good citizenship. It is as much your responsibility to be a good student as it is the instructor's to be a good teacher.
We are building our house of shoddy materials on a foundation of shifting sand when we live by the "something-for- nothing philosophy." Hard work is old fashioned but it still pays off in success, character growth, and personal happiness.
Best wishes!
R.W. Stephens
Southerner Commend Marietta Paper's Stand
The students of Henry Grady do their hats to the staff of the Marietta Pitchfork.
The Pitchfork recently ran an editorial condemning the action take by a certain politician . .. . . . a new and seemingly powerful censor committee . . . self-appointed," who because of an editorial against segregation threatened the editors of the Red and Black, the University of Georgia newspaper with the withdrawal of $5,000 worth of appropriations for the paper.
The University refused the editors the right of answering the politician through the paper. Also, a committee of teachers will now censor every piece of written material before it appears in print. The influences that politicians brought to bear caused the editors to resign their posts.
With the Pitchfork we would like to applaud the student editors resigning under such political pressures.
This disgusting and often disastrous habit (have you ever sat on a freshly discarded piece of gum?) is most disconcerting, and in fact, rather sickening to those who come in contact with the used chewing material.
One traveling the halls lately notices that an increasing number of teachers are wandering around with a white, soft, downy substance known as cotton in their ears. It seems that the instructors are trying to preserve their last bit of sanity by eliminating the ludicrous sounds of the "gum addict."
The majority of our teachers are lenient and do allow gum chewing in classes, but they, too, revolt when people start snapping the vari-flavored resin during a serious discussion.
There is no school rule concerning gum chewing, and consequently, the Southerner sees no necessity in taking a stand on this matter, as such; but we are violently opposed to people who use the nearest seat as a discarding place for their old gum, and in doing so, according to the aforementioned facts, endanger and shorten the life of our school.
Room 16 is already five stories below the third floor and Room 3 is falling fast. Let's protect Grady from this disaster by using the waste baskets provided.