Berkeley High School - Olla Podrida Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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OLLA PODRIDA :: :: :: BERKELEY HIGH put down and the culprits punished ; and 3rd, that the schools have a name for cleanness, honesty and high scholarship stan- dards of which we only wish Berkeley High could boast. The specific instance we cite is the Fremont High School, which is situated in Fruitvale. We acknowledge that the con- ditions in Fruitvale and the conditions in Berkeley are far dif- ferent ; that Fremont High School is, because of her isolated position, favorably situated for the success of such an experi- ment ; but nevertheless there are some provisions in the Fre- mont High School government which it would benefit Berke- ley High to adopt. Certainly everyone remembers the time the entire faculty of Fremont left the building for the entire clay, and that every- thing went on just as usual. This superb order was a result of their student government. Their constitution is modeled after that of the United States, including the three departments — executive, legislative, and judicial. Any disorder or con- duct unbefitting a high school student is promptly punished by the student courts. The students have almost absolute control. The only functions of the faculty are: (1) the Treas- urer is a member of the faculty, appointed by the principal, and (2) the Principal is Chief Justice. Compare this with B. H. S., where the Faculty has almost absolute power. Fre- mont has not gone into debt since this system has been in operation, perfect order is always maintained, and the school is reputed highly around the bay. YVe need not search far to find the reason for such a vivid contrast between the conditions existing in the two schools. It is because every B. H. S. student is not taking an active interest. The careful observer will perceive that the entire government of this school is left in the hands of a very few. The students do not seem to realize that they are interested citizens in a miniature community. If every student believed that it was his duty to keep up the good name and good gov- ernment of the school, Berkeley High would be ready for stu- dent government such as it exists at Fremont. Berkeley is not ready for it now ; we must gradually educate the students to take an active part in the government ; we must make them see that every student must do his part, and then we can have complete self-government. 15

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BERKELEY HIGH which is interested in other activities than football. Should this element be neglected because we are adopting a new game? Our swimming team, without financial or moral sup- port of the student body, managed to tie for the second place in the B. C. L. swimming meet a few weeks ago. If they have accomplished so much without even an encouraging word from the students, what could they have done with the active backing of the student body? Tennis and girls ' basketball seem to have decayed, for no other apparent reason than lack of backing. Can we not do better than this? Can we not carry on the activities of the school and yet not have the student body incur debts to accomplish it? From the facts of history, it seems possible, and the editors think it is. They believe that the school can be kept out of debt and all the activities of the school carried on at the same time. Let us hope that the present administration will accomplish this, especially as the student body is supporting only one activity. This is not written in any spirit of antagonism or malevo- lence, but is the honest belief of one who has studied deeply conditions in the school and has carefully watched the govern- ment of the school since the adoption of the new constitution. The committee appointed to investigate the subject of student control has a serious problem to deal with. The ques- tion of student control is one which requires deep thought and careful consideration, and any hastily formed conclusions might be disastrous. After careful consideration and quite an investigation of conditions prevailing in other High Schools throughout the state and nation, the editors of the Olla Podrida have come to the conclusion that student body control is desirable and prac- ticable. Space will not permit citing all the schools looked into, but we will state the results in general and then cite one instance of a school which has almost entire self-government. YVe found : 1st, that the treasuries of the schools having student control to a large degree always seem to have a sur- plus fund : 2nd. that any attempts at roughhouse or other disorderly conduct on the part of the students was promptly 14

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OLLA PODRID A BERKELEY HIGH A Word to Prospective Lawyers By Robert Treat Piatt. Of the Portland, Oregon, Bar. Every person, man or boy, who has chosen a life vocation, should couple with that choice a resolution that he will reach the topmost round of the ladd er of success in that chosen voca- tion. Every line of work has its separate and distinct stan- dard of success in the truest and highest sense. Mere posses- sion of great wealth, or of great power, or of great learning, do not of themselves epitomize the highest success in the truest and best sense of the word. In the profession of the law an adequate conception of the highest success could be expressed, perhaps, by saying of any lawyer that he not only commanded a grieat clientage, re- ceived a large income and was a leader at the Bar. but that- in addition to all these qualities, he possessed a mind not only richly stored with intellectual, historical and legal resources, but that he was permeated with a great moral purpose which always made his intellectuality honest, his historical knowl- edge accurate, and his legal learning sound and wholesome. Such a lawyer would never use the force of his powerful stand- ing to persuade a judge, of lesser intellectual calibre, to the adoption of a doctrine which his own intellectual powers knew was not a true and honest doctrine. Of such a lawyer it could always be said that he was faithful to the law in its highest sense. To become such a lawyer should be the ambition of every student of the law. To become such a lawyer, the founda- tions should be laid of purely intellectual achievement, both broad and deep. Strictly speaking, no high school student has any right or license to be considering the problem of legal study. He should first lay the broad and deep foundations of 3 thorough collegiate education, and then it will be time for. him to consider the particular problems of legal study. The rank and file of every profession is made up of men who have not achieved any substantial success, either material or intellectual. If an examination could be made into the 16