A Student Looks at the Teachers' Convention: Three days not ordinary days, but days of leisure. A half-week's vacation because the teachers are going to hold a "meeting." The foregoing is probably what the student first thinks in regard to the Teachers' Convention. Let's follow it along and see what happens next. These days, and the convention held during them, serve a special purpose. These days are used in improving teaching methods. All this is done evidently upon the theory that better methods of attack--yes, attack upon ignorance--will make up many times over for the few hours lost.

Foreword: The Oracle Board takes pleasure in printing in this number a history of Bangor High School from 1835-1935. The Centennial celebration of our high school is of special interest this year, coming at a time when the whole country is joining with the citizens of Boston in celebrating the three hundredth anniversary of the Boston Latin School, the establishment of which was the beginning of free education in this country.

Scholarship by Isabel Cumming: Professor Brown's purpose in coming to Bangor was to present the high school with a cup won by Andrew Cox, Edward Curran, and Frederick Newman, for scholarship at Bowdoin college. But the cup was not engraved, and Professor Brown was forced to carry on without it. After a glowing tribute to the winning three, of whom Bangor High is justly proud, Professor Brown announced his topic--scholarship.

Debate Club: With its season in full swing, the Debate Club is living up to its reputation for doing things. The Bowdoin league debates found Corinne Adams and Ernest Andrews representing Bangor, with Myer Alpert as alternate. Miss Coffin and Mr. Prescott accompanied the debaters, who left for Brunswick the Friday afternoon before the forum, returning Saturday night after participating in the debates with Edward Little, Jordan, South Portland, Portland, Deering, Gardiner, Foxcroft Academy, and Oxford. Bangor placed third, being three points behind Deering on a basis of 600, Edward Little having won the tournament. Mr. Prescott expressed himself as thoroughly satisfied with the work of Adams and Andrews, saying, "We have won in times past with cases not so good, and we have lost with better. It's all in the game. One judge gave us first place, but the other two didn't see it that way."

Don’t You Love a Parade? Carnivalites on Parade Dec. 7 & 8!! Today and tomorrow, at four P. M. a big parade will march through town and announce that big attraction the carnival, which will take place both before and after the play. The parade will be led by our six cheer leaders, Dot Kamen, Evelyn Nickerson, Barbara Freese, Eleanor Winchell, Marion Small, and Virginia Bemis. Dressed in their red sweaters and white skirts, they will add plenty of color and pep in the line. Directly following them, will be 'the old Ford' newly polished and dressed in festive colors for the occasion.

Student Activities: All the activities are in full swing now. They are positively humming--getting in that state which resembles popping corn. As the enthusiasm waxes the activities begin to pop.

Foreword: In the past fifty years, progress has become increasingly important as the keynote of our civilization. And so it is that today our eyes are directed not toward the past with its great achievements, but toward the future with its far greater possibilities. Our progress, as seniors, has carried through high school, and, as pictured in the cut before the senior division in this ORACLE, the road to success lies ahead. As one of the senior essays says, many will not reach the objective, but the beckoning goal is always in front of us.

Illustrations: When you run through a magazine, naturally the first things that meet your eye are the illustrations. Have you ever stopped to notice the different kinds of illustrations, how some seem clearer than others, how some seem just black and white, while others are shaded? Take, for example, the issue of the Oracle you have in your hands now. There are three differert types of illustrations in this magazine: linoleum cuts, line etch-ings, and half-tones.

Activities of the Dabate Club: The Bangor High School Debate Club has started another season off with a bang, with two of its star debaters, Andrew Cox and Bernice Braidy, winning the first and one of the most important debates of the season the Bowdoin League. This is really a great honor for Bangor High, as they have beaten the champ debaters of the outstanding high-schools and academies of the state.

Parades: October 18 marked the debut of the R. O. T. C.'s public appearance and it was for a worthy cause indeed Bangor's official N. R. A. Day. Taking into consideration the comparatively short time in which this organization had had to become well organized and well versed--especially the sophomores--in the soldier's manual, Bangor High may be well proud of the impressive showing made by Uncle Sam's "Reserve Officers."

The Blue Eagle: The N. R. A. under the sign of the great Blue Eagle is an emergency measure which was initiated by President Roosevelt to put people to work and to get the wheels of industry and business started again. The plan, in brief, puts pressure on one spoke of the wheel in order to set the whole cycle in motion. The purpose is to maintain a definite and constant balance between capital, labor, and consumption. No one of these three essential factors is to get out of proportion; that is, we must have neither too much nor too little of any one factor. Thus, under the N. R. A., the employers put more men to work. These men, in turn, spend their wages for the things they need. The factories, with business booming because of restored buying power, increase production, money begins to circulate freely and we have prosperity again.

Foreword: The many and diversified classes of oracles in ancient Greece acted as intermediates between gods and mortals. Thus Pythia, priestess of the oracle at Delphi--most famous of old oracles--gave responses after being thrown into an ecstacy by a cold vapor issuing from a cleft in the mountain side; this "ecstacy" partially explains the very ambiguous revelations given to the votary. However, all oracular responses were so worded that whatever the outcome of events, the oracles preserved their prestige. A representation of the entrance to an ancient oracle as it may have appeared in former times with its marble walls, tripod, and smoking crevice, appears on the cover. Snakes, which in ancient pictures are many times seen entwined about the temple tripods, and eagles perched on either side of the oracle were regarded with awe. The Sybil, or prophetess, at Cumae sat at the entrance of a cave, wrote messages on leaves and tossed them forth, while the wind gently wafted them about until they became fixed in crannies whence they could be dislodged only with difficulty. The seers decreed that the prophecy was annulled if the order of the leaves was disturbed. Just as the Cumaean oracle, pictured at the beginning of the literary section, tossed forth inscribed leaves to be read by those who would be wise, so seven printed leaves of this ORACLE bring their message to knowledge-seekers. As the oracles of old brought to seekers both fact and fancy, so this ORACLE of today hopes that it has published for the students during the last year a little of the sense and nonsense of school life.

From A Far Land: Bob Cumming will be remembered by his many associates in B. H. S. as a gentleman, as an orator of no mean ability, and as one of our highest ranking scholars. But he will best be remembered as one of the truest friends a fellow can have. Bob's wide grin and his friendly clap on the shoulder are known throughout the class of '33. This year Bob's father is teaching in the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, and Bob is with him, taking classes in the school, and studying hard, he assures us. An important part of the work of the school takes the form of trips to excavations in Palestine, Egypt, and Syria. He is much too busy to write an article for us, he says, but some of us are fortunate in having an occasional letter from him.

Junior Exhibition: On the evening of the issue of this Oracle, March 24, ten juniors, five boys and five girls, will compete in a contest of oratory. The high school orchestra will render several selections during the program, and one hundred and twenty-five juniors, picked from the Festival Chorus, and the Glee Clubs, will sing two choral numbers, Pretty Primrose and Gypsy Lullaby. The speakers are the finalists in a competition in which all juniors are required to participate.

Bangor High School Publications Before 1892: So far as it can be discovered, there were about five different papers published by Bangor High School before 1892, the year in which the Oracle first appeared. These publications, all put out by the students of the school, were newspapers with the exception of a few, of which one was the Mustard Seed. The Mustard Seed and its contemporaries were in manuscript form and were published sometime before the Civil War; the Mustard Seed came out in 1858.

The Journalistic Conference of Kappa Gamma Phi: Eleven years ago, there was founded at the University of Maine, an honorary journalistic fraternity--Kappa Gamma Phi. One of its purposes is to help journalists of secondary publications with their problems. Since the beginning of the fraternity, it has been customary for a yearly journalistic conference to meet in the spring. This year, however, it was thought that the conference would carry more benefit to the participants, if it were held in the fall, since the delegates would then have the rest of the year to apply their ideas. Therefore, the eleventh annual conference of Kappa Gamma Phi met November eighteenth and nineteenth.

Tennis Courts: The glad news is out and rings from the highest mountain tops to the deepest dells! Bangor High is to have tennis courts! Not immediately, perhaps, but that we're to have them is cause enough for rejoicing. There are no free public tennis courts in the city at this time; that is, there are none open expressly for the public. These two new courts, which will be located in the upper end of our athletic field on Broadway, will be open to anyone, be he graduate or undergraduate.

Foreword: The fortieth editorial board of the ORACLE hopes that it has in some measure followed in the steps of its distinguished predecessors by recording within the pages of the ORACLE a true picture of school life at Bangor High. If during the past year the editors have gathered together some of the seriousness and a little of the nonsense of school life, they feel that their work has met with success.

Trophies: Our newly formed Student Council has already decided upon an improvement to be instituted in our school; namely, that the trophies now lodged in convenient nooks and crannies about the "office" and Mr. Taylor's sanctum sanctorum shall be combined. The doorway into the principal's office from the main entrance will be torn down, and in its place a recess will be substituted a recess ample enough to accommodate all our many trophies.

Miss Darthea Rideout, instructor in public speaking at B. H. S., is once again capably directing ten speakers who have been selected from the Junior Class through a series of elimination tests, for the annual Junior Exhibition, which takes place March 18. Her willing cooperation, excellent tutoring, and careful supervision will doubtless bear fruit in another brilliant Exhibition to be added to her long list of successes in this department.

Assemblies: "What's that noise?" asks one citizen of Brewer. "Bangor High's having a rally," is the laconic response. We should not have been surprised to hear such a conversation a short while ago, in fact just before the Bangor-Portland basketball game, for it was at that time that we had one of our best rallies.

Student Council: By a vote of 985 to 54 the students of Bangor High School, on January 5, chose to adopt a student council. Already the members of the different classes have met and each has chosen four representatives to help draw up a Constitution and by-laws. Just what will be the method of election to the new council and what will be its duties are matters yet to be decided.