I’ve been a long-time enjoyer of history, so working in the archives lets me see anew the storied halls of IHS straight from the students who have come before us. They allow us to experience the world as they did, through their minds and ideas that survive long after they have graduated. Please, above all else,
enjoy!
February 1920
Constitution of the Tattler Board
PREAMBLE
The object of the TATTLER shall be to bring the pupils into
closer touch with each other; to strengthen and unify school spirit;
to give pupils a business training obtained by actual management
of the paper and an editorial training obtained by literary work for
the paper; to support all the activities of the school; and through
exchanges with other school papers to bring our school, with all its
interests, to the attention of other communities.
“THE TATTLER” as an organization of the pupils of the school
shall be subject to the rules and regulations of the Board of
Education and the General Council.
Therefore, we, the members of the TATTLER Board, do hereby
form and establish this constitution for the TATTLER Board of
the Ithaca High School in order that the duties and privileges of
the members of said Board may be more clearly defined and set
forth.
ARTICLE I. Purpose: It is the purpose of this Board to publish a
school magazine or paper at least eight times during the school
year.
ARTICLE II. Name: The name of this body shall be known as the
TATTLER Board of the Ithaca High School.
ARTICLE III. Membership: The members shall be chosen by
competition from the student body of the Ithaca High School, or,
if necessary, selected by a committee consisting of the Faculty
Advisors and two members of the Board
Section 1. Election: The retiring TATTLER Board shall elect the
Board for the ensuing year keeping in mind the editorial, business,
or artistic qualifications of the competitors.
Section 2. Vacancies: At least one vacancy among the Associate
Editors and one on the Business Staff shall be left till January to be
filled by means of competitions.
Section 3. Qualifications: (a) The competitor for each vacancy
must be a subscriber to the TATTLER and his subscription must
be paid. (b) His attitude towards the work and towards the school
shall be considered in making the selection. (c) The Associate
Editor must have contributed and have had accepted at least one
article preceding his election to the Board. (d) In making the
selection for the Second Assistant Business Manager the amount of
money turned in through collections and the amount of work
done shall be the basis of the selection.
ARTICLE IV. Members: The members of the TATTLER Board
shall be: Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor or Assistant Editor,
Artistic Editor, Assistant Artistic Editor, at least four Associate
Editors, Secretary, Faculty Advisors, Business Manager, and other
officers deemed necessary by the TATTLER Board.
ARTICLE V. Duties of Of icers:
Section 1. The Editor-in-Chief (Major Office) shall preside at all
Board meetings, call a regular meeting at least once a month, be
responsible for the general supervision of the paper, including
make-up, form, contents and policy thereof, and arrange for the
reading of the TATTLER Constitution at the first regular meeting
of the Board each term.
Section 2. The Assistant Editor or Managing Editor (Minor Office)
shall notify all members of the Board Meetings at least twenty-four
hours before the hour set for the meeting, call and preside at all
Board meetings in case of illness or absence of the Editor-in-Chief,
be responsible for cuts and material taken to the printers and see
that all such material is returned, and make the arrangements for
the printing of the TATTLER.
Section 3. The Artistic Editor (Minor Office) shall have charge of
all drawings, cartoons, and designs and supply such for each issue
after the approval of the head of the Art Department, and with the
advice of the Art Department shall increase the Artistic Staff by
means of competitions among the students.
Section 4. The Assistant Artistic Editor (Minor Office) shall assist
the Artistic Editor as he may direct, and be responsible for the
safekeeping and classification of all cuts.
Section 5. The Business Manager (Major Office) shall be
responsible for ads, subscriptions, distribution of paper, and the
selection of Home Room Collectors. He shall increase the Business
Staff by competition, if necessary.
Section 6. The Assistant Business Manager (Minor Office) shall
assist the Business Manager as he may direct.
Section 7. The First Associate Editor (Minor Office) shall have
entire charge of the Jinger Jar Sector and increase the staff by
competition, if necessary.
Section 8. The Second Associate Editor (Minor Office) shall have
entire change of the Exchange Section and see that reports are
made in each issue of the TATTLER.
Section 9. The Third Associate Editor (Minor Office) shall have
full charge of the Organization Section and see that all
organization activities written up for each issue of the TATTLER.
Section 10. The Fourth Associate Editor (Minor Office) shall have
full charge of the Athletic Section and see that all athlete activities
are written up for each issue of the TATTLER.
Section 11. The Secretary (Minor Office) shall write up the
minutes of the Board Meetings, keep a record of the roll, have
typewritten all material handed in, and notify all newly elected
members of the Board.
Section 12. The Faculty Advisors, one appointed by the
Superintendent of Schools and the other one selected by the
TATTLER Board from the English Department, shall approve all
material before going to press, and shall be present at all Board
Meetings.
ARTICLE VI. Free Copies: The members of the TATTLER Board
shall each be furnished with two free copies of every issue of the
TATTLER. One copy of each issue shall be presented to the High
School Library.
ARTICLE VII. Amendments: The constitution of the TATTLER
Board may be amended at any regular meeting of the Board, by a
majority vote of those present, when ratified by the General
Council and the Committee on Student Activities as provided for
in Article VIII, Sections 3 and 8 of the Regulations of the Board of
Education.
Constitution of the TATTLER Board revised and amended,
January, 1920.
February 1898
The Ad Man.
You may talk about your editors who sit in easy chairs,
And try to boss the whole machine and put on lots of airs,
And seek to make the people think it’s what they have to say
That keeps the business on the move, and makes the paper pay.
But don’t you ever think it, for the whole truth simply is,
The editor’s not in it with that huge conceit of his;
For there’s only one essential in the whole newspaper plan—
Success depends alone upon the Advertising man.
The men who edit telegraph and write the local stuff,
Within the little fields they fill may answer well enough:
The sporting and dramatic men and small fry such as those
Who gobble all the passes and who visit all the shows,
And likewise, too, the poets, who insist they must rehearse
The simple things they have to say in blind and halting verse;
They, one and all, have understood since papers first began
That they were mere assistants to the Advertising Man.
‘Tis true the advertising man has naught to do but talk,
Yet he’s the one who, after all, permits “the ghost to walk;”
For while the editors their pens in trashy stuff engage,
He toils on something worth the while—the advertising page;
And if you’ll but investigate sufficiently you’ll find
He works more men, and hours, than the others all combined.
To him belongs the victor’s crown, this brave catch-as-catch-can,
Keen, money-getting, business-booming Advertising Man.
—Exchange.
January 1918
INTERESTING LECTURE BY SNYDER RAPPLEYE ’16
Tells of Experiences as Ambulance Driver on Western Front
One of the most interesting talks that the students of the High
School have listened to was given by Snyder Rappleye on
Assembly, Thursday, December 6. He related his experiences while
serving with the American Ambulance Unit with the French army
for a period of six months. Shortly after landing in Bordeaux, in
the spring of 1917, he and his new associates constructed a camp
for the Red Cross, which is now in the service of the American
army. A little later they received their ambulances and were
stationed in the Vosges Mountains. From this inactive section Mr.
Rappleye was transferred to Verdun. The territory around the
fortress, he said, had been fought over to such an extent that the
forests which once covered the surrounding hills were completely
demolished.
The continuous firing made it impossible to approach closer
than one mile to the first-line trenches, necessitating that the
wounded be carried that distance through the communication
trenches. Taking advantage of the slackening of the shell fire at
night-fall, the ambulances would race out after the wounded; but
by the time they were ready to return to the hospital the shells
would be bursting all around them, making their trip more
interesting.
Mr. Rappleye said that the French people were enduring intense
suffering in order to carry on the war. There is practically no fuel
in France, and not enough food. The inhabitants of the smaller
towns near the front spend their evenings in dug-outs to protect
them from the nightly bombing raids of the enemies’ aeroplanes.
Every able-bodied man is in the uniform of his country, and the
women have given up every pleasure and are filling the positions
vacated by the men.
LIFE’S LITTLE TRAGEDIES
The man speeded up to see if he couldn’t beat the train to the
crossing. He couldn’t.
The man struck a match to see if the gasoline tank on his auto was
empty. It wasn’t.
A man patted a strange dog to see if the critter was affectionate. It
wasn’t.
The man looked down the barrel of his gun to see if it was loaded.
It was.
The man asked the girl to marry him to find out if she was
engaged. She wasn’t.
The man called the other man a liar because he thought he could
lick him. He couldn’t.
The man left his umbrella home to see if it would rain. It did.
The man swallowed a pin to see if he could digest it. He couldn’t.\
February-March 1893
Editors of The Tattler:—
Perhaps you might be interested in a description of a journey
between Zurich and Florence, Italy, made by me during the Xmas
vacation. The journey takes in the most interesting parts of this
beautiful land as well as the Apennine district of Northern Italy. I
made the journey mostly by night in company with an Italian who
spoke only Italian and French, so our conversation was rather
limited. At Milan, where I waited about three hours, I was sitting
in the station sketching a rather picturesque peasant costume, and
my train came and went without my knowing it. I had to stay
twenty-four hours in this city, so made the best of my time visiting
the great cathedral, which is one of the largest and most beautiful
in Europe. The interior is one hundred and fifty yards long, and
three or four priests can preach in it at the same time without
interfering with each other. The outside is decorated more
elaborately with stone carvings, and there are more than two
hundred statues in white marble representing the martyrdom of
various ancient reformers and religious victims. There are over
fifty spires, each surmounted by the statue of some saint, among
which Napoleon, who finished the cathedral, put a gilded figure of
himself. The great spire is crowned with a large gilded statue of the
Virgin, as is quite common with Italian churches. From the
cathedral I went to the Brera gallery, where there are many very
famous old paintings, perhaps more interesting than beautiful. So
much for Milan.
Florence is the next station at which I stayed long enough to see
anything. The cathedral here is also a most wonderful and beautiful
edifice. It is even larger than that of Milan and entirely covered
with mosaics and great slabs of rare porpheries. The Baptistry,
which stands in front of the cathedral, is the place where all the
babies born in Florence are baptized. The galleries of Mizzi and
Pitti are also here, world-famed for the masterpieces in art and
sculpture of Michel Angelo, Fra Angelo, Murillo, Raphael and all
other famous artists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
One of the most interesting and imposing buildings is the
Palazzo Vecchio (Ancient Palace), which stands at the head of the
court of the Uffizi. It is interesting on account of being the court
house in which all religious controversies were settled, and in
which Savanarola was confined in a cell ten feet square and not
room enough in his bed to straighten himself, and from which he
was led by the ignorant and bigoted to see if the Lord would save
him from death at the stake.
Across the river Arno from Uffizi is the row of houses in which
the Medicis lived. One can still see the windows from which they
threw their enemies whom they invited to dine and then drowned
them in the river, which runs conveniently beneath the
diningroom windows. Florence is the city where this terrible family took
its rise and which it held for its headquarters. There are eighteen
palaces bearing the arms of this family, a blue shield with six balls
representing pills, the upper one with three French lilies. In one of
the squares is a column surmounted by a figure of Justice holding
the scales in her hand.
About three hundred years ago a young girl living near was
accused of having stolen a pearl necklace from a rich neighbor. She
was tried, found guilty, and tortured to death. Three years later the
figure on the column had to be repaired, and while one of the
workmen was fixing the arm that held the scales, he discovered a
magpie’s nest in which was found the missing necklace. I staid in
this ancient city two weeks, which were, I think, the most
enjoyable I ever spent.
The return journey I made by day, coming through Pisa, and
seeing Leghorn from the top of the leaning tower. By the way, is
the stage of the Wilgus still graced by the “Port of Leghorn”? I
didn’t have time to go over the town itself, and so could not swear
as to the accuracy of its portrayal on the curtain of Wilgus Opera
House.
Pisa is the worse place I ever saw for beggars and match dealers.
I really think I was assailed seventy-five times between the station
and the tower, a walk of about eight minutes. One man tried to sell
me some matches a dozen times, beginning with thirty centimes
(six cents) a box, and at last two boxes for one cent. It is always safe
to offer one-fourth the price asked for things in Italy, then come
up to one-third and carry off your purchase at that price. I was
fooled three or four times before learning their tricks.
The “Leaning Tower” is a very wonderful and interesting piece
of architecture. It is about one hundred and ninety-four feet high
and inclined thirteen feet at the top. It is made of white marble,
and has nearly two hundred pillars around it, allowing thirty-four
feet for each of the six stories. It is not known whether it was
intended to be straight or not. There are seven bells in the top
which are rung at noon every day, and I happened to be there one
day at that hour. It took eleven men to ring them, the big one
requiring four, the others three, two and one. From the top of the
tower, one can see Apennines with their white marble tops
looking, and like snow, the Mediterranean Sea, and the broad plain
between, through which the river Arno winds and flows into the
sea at Leghorn.
The journey from Milan to Zurich is the most interesting and
beautiful of all. The Italian scenery is nothing to Switzerland’s wild
grandeur. One passes through over one hundred tunnels.
Sixtyeight between Pisa and Milan, the remainder in the Gothard
region. There is one about six miles long which enters a mountain
at the foot where all is green and comes out the top of the range
above snow-line. The wonderful thing about this tunnel is that it
goes three times spirally around the mountain. It is a wonderful
piece of engineering; for it was begun at both ends and met exactly
in the middle.
The Alps between Gothard and here are much more than I can
attempt to describe. The Swiss lakes are also most beautiful. The
mountains rise like great rocks out of the water leaving in many
places no beach at all.
I have already used much valuable space in your columns, and so
will close my feeble attempt to describe European beautics and
wonders. There has been only an apology for winter here until last
week when the thermometer suddenly fell and it has been too cold
to snow until tp-day, although the skating has been good. Hoping
this may find place, in part at least, in your paper, and that it will
not prove tiresome to your readers, I beg to remain.
Yours sincerely,
Louis A. Fuertes
January 1893
THE NEW YEAR
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells across the snow:
The year is going, let him go.
Ring out the false, ring in the true
Ring out the false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite,
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The largest great [sic], the kinder hand,
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be