Johnstown High School - Spectator Yearbook (Johnstown, PA)

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6 THE SPECTATOR itiation of a new building operation. Let us enumerate the expedients that have been resorted to, usually with reluctance, to find more enrollment capacity in the High School. Two assembly rooms were gained by equipping the physics and chemistry lecture rooms with desks. Three assembly rooms were gained by arranging for seating in the biological labor- atories. Three basement assembly rooms in the original build- ing were gained by removing the manual training to the new south wing. Later, manual training was removed to the Casino and four more new assembly rooms were gained. By cutting off an end of the original mechanical drawing room a new assembly room was gained. By ejecting the High School Spectator from its ofiice and by transferring the dental dis- pensary to the Swank Building two small class rooms have been gained. By taking out a boys' toilet on the 400 floor and a girls' toliet on the 100 floor, two new assembly rooms were gained. By substituting desks for tables in the cafe- teria, additional assembly rooms were improvised. By re- moving the School Board and administrative offices to ,the Swank Building, rooms 209 and 307 were gained for assem- bly purposes. The auditorium is daily used for class room purposes. In all, since 1912, by utilizing every possible room for assembly and class purposes, we have added twenty-one rooms. These expedients have permitted an increase of 600 pupils to the enrollment. In many cases the improvisations have been wise. There should be economy of space in school buildings. But a High School should have something else besides class rooms. To drive out all manual activities, for instance, tends to make a one-sided school and over-empha- sizes books as a medium of education. There should be, also, plenty of unused space to permit of flexibility of pro- gram and school activities. Every teacher should have a definite home room where she may accumulate the neces- sary accessory and illustrative material that will make her teaching more interesting and more concrete. The day is

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iqnm the Bight Svrhnnl Glam Help Supt. H. J. Stockton What we have longed for and hoped for during the past several years is now within our power to reach forth and grasp. The Board of Education have decided to submit to the voters a request for the authorization of 32,000,000 for erecting new schools as outlined in the School Building Pro- gram of 1917. Careful and conservative figures show that the district is 2,500 pupils behind in its building program. As the enrollment increases the conditions are aggravated. The enrollment increased this year 350 pupils or ten rooms. The normal increase of enrollment is 2 to 3 per cent, so that on a 10,000 enrollment, such as we have, an increase of 200 to 300 a year may be expected. Our increase of rooms should keep pace. .If I were asked what interest a high school pupil should take in this matter, I would say he has both a present and a future interest. Every high school pupil has a present in- terest in that bond issue provides for a new high school. It will also provide for several new grade buildings, and for a complete junior High School system that will benefit the younger brothers and sisters of High School pupils. It ought to be characteristic and from my experience is characteristic of the High School pupil that he enthusiastically supports better educational opportunities for brother and sister. The older brother or sister is a kind of second father or mother in this respect. The possibilities of a new high school ought to fire every boy and girl to the highest pitch of enthusiastic ardor. The present building served its purpose well in its day but it now belongs to a past era. In the first place it is crowded beyond all reason. The conversion of every possible room into class rooms has largely served to stave off the in-

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THE SPECTATOR 7 coming when class rooms will be lined with bookshelves, with cases, and material racks, so that real supervised study may be broadly and scientifically done. In the second place, the present high school does not answer the demands made by the accepted standards of the new education. The Modern High School takes cognizance of all the children of all the people. It is democracy's school. It is just as much a universal school as the elementary school. It must provide types of activity just as varied in its intellectual and skill elements as life itself. It must make its appeal not only to the noviti- ates of the learned profession but also of the skilled trades, agricultural and commercial pursuits. Such a high school must be built to make its manifold varied curricula possible. The modern High School also must make ample pro- vision for the health training of its pupils. There should be spacious grounds for games and motivated bodily activities. There should be both boys' and girls gymnasium and a com- modious swimming pool. After school hours these and other facilities should be thrown open for the use of the employed boy and girl and for the parents. There are other possibilities of the Modern High School such as Normal School Training, Junior College Training, Continuation Courses, etc., that an adequate building will provide. Are not these things worth striving for? Should they not enlist every boy and girl with something of the Crusader spirit to bring them to pass? Surely that boy or girl's finer sensibilties and aspirations must be dulled whose impulses do not glow with an overpowering warmth, in con- templation of this program. The High School boy or girl has a future interest in this bond issue and its success. Our school problems have been accumulating. You soon will be shouldering the burdens of civic responsibilities. Do you want this accumulating process to continue into your day until you face problems of dimen- sions that inspire only hopelessness and despair? You have