Holyoke High School - Annual Yearbook (Holyoke, MA)

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Stephen Holman The Elm Street High School I. P. Buckland NEARLY 100 YEARS AGO this lovely group was the first class to graduate from Holyoke High School. Front Row, left to right: Emma Loomis, Sarah Grover, Alice Emerson and Maria Kelt. In back: Betty Wildes, at left, and Imogene Heywood, This was the class of 1865 at HHS, the first class to graduate after the establishment of the regular course at the high school.

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with a large attic and high basement, and is surrounded by a tasty cupola. The wings af- ford separate entrances for the two sexes. On the first floor are two rooms affording seats for sixty pupils each, occupied by permission of the town, by a primary and intermediate school of District No. V. According to the school committee report for that year, the new high school His the best furnished and as beautiful a structure of the kind as, consider- ing the cost, can be found in the Connecticut Valley. A short time later two courses were initiated leading to diplomas: a two year course in 6'En- glish Branches which provided the student with a practical business education, and a four year course in the classics which prepared the student for further study in college. College, preparation for that day, and for many years thereafter, consisted of the study of Latin, mathematics, French and Greek. Not until later did the study of English become a def- inite part of high school work. There were exercises in grammar and composition, but in- struction in the English language and litera- ture was not begun until 1891. Officially, the commercial department was instituted in 1897, and Michael Cella was the business education instructor. Because of crowded conditions at Elm Street High School, as it was popularly referred to, the Post Of- fice Store was rented to house the commercial department. Already the Saint Joseph Tem- perance League Hall was used for morning exercises and assemblies. To enter high school, graduates of the town grammar schools were carefully examined in geography, history, grammar, and arithmetic. In 1870, a state law required free instruction in industrial or mechanical drawing for per- sons fifteen years of age in day or evening school became applicable to Holyoke. Also at this time, the school committee acknowledged music as an important branch of education. Soon the basement of the school was converted into a chemistry laboratory. When the impor- tance of health and physical education was realized, Holyoke became the first New Eng- land city to employ a calisthenics instructor. Drawing and penmanship gained new em- phasis. Hence a new kind of education was being fitted gradually to the needs of the children and the community. In 1863 our first Superintendent of Schools, J. P. Buckland, was elected by the school board consisting of John Chase, Stephen Holman, Edwin H. Ball, Simeon Miller, and J. P. Buck- land himself. After the establishment of a regular course in the new high school, the first graduating class consisted of six young ladies: Alice A. Wild, Imogene Heywood, Emma Loomis, Sarah Grover, Alice Emerson, and Maria Kelt. The absence of boys from that graduating. class of 1865 may have been caused by the Civil War which was raging in the United States at that time. Four boys, however, did graduate the following year, 1866. When the Superintendent of Schools, I. P. Buckland, presented diplomas to the class of 1865, he urged them to put their lives to good use and especially to remember their teachers 23

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and parents, for Hit is better not to be than not to be noble. From 1872 to 1883 three students gradu- ated from the high school who have since done a great deal for Holyoke High and the other Holyoke Public Schools. They were: Miss M. Adele Allen, a teacher of classics at Holyoke High for many years, Miss Lilian W. Fay, long-time teacher and dean of girls at Holyoke High, and Miss Jennie B. Scolley, teacher and Assistant Superintendent of Schools under Mr. William R. Peck. Between 1880 and 1897 a heavy influx of immigrants more than doubled the population of Holyoke. This sharp increase in population necessitated the building of a new high school, which was begun in 1898. Twenty years ear- lier, Mr. E. L. Kirtland, the Superintendent of Schools, had foreseen the need for a new high school. Although he was not superinten- dent when the high school was completed, Mr. Kirtland performed much of the groundwork for the school. He persuaded the city to pur- chase the site for the school in 1895, and his school report for that year included plans which were later accepted. The following is the de- scription of the new high school that appeared in the newspaper on Friday, September 9, basement: On each floor there are toilets, cloak and book rooms, and two openings down which waste pa- per may be thrown to the basement. Each floor has an emergency room, which will be fitted with a medical closet. The building is 185' X 225' and contains sixty rooms and an assem- bly hall. Upon entering the rnain entrance, a long corridor is seen and at left are situated the principal's rooms. The 'main rooms are con- nected by telephone with every other room in the building. There are four sixty-horse pow- ered boilers which will be used in the indirect steam heating system. Every room in the building is connected with the Ventilating sys- tem and it would be hard to find a more perfect one. In the center of the quadrangle is the auditorium on the first floor. the balcony having a second floor entrance. Over 1,200 people may be seated here, the bal- cony seating 375 and the floor 840. 1898: The marble tablets at the Pine Street en The new building occupies an en- tire square and is bounded by Pine, Beech, Cabot, and Sargeant Streets It is of stone and yellow pressed bricks, three stories high with an attic. There are four entrances to the trance commemorate Superintendent Preston W. Searchas devotion to higher learning. It had been earlier agreed upon that the names of Mayor, the Board of Aldermen, the Superin- tendent of Schools, and the School Committee were to be carved on the tablets, but the stone cutter had no list and called Superintendent 25