Holyoke High School - Annual Yearbook (Holyoke, MA)

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Search who gave him the following names: Jefferson, Horace Mann, Humbolt, Faraday, Galileo, Newton, Homer, Columbus, Shake- speare, Goethe, Michaelangelo, Rafael, Wil- liam.of Sens, and Bach. In his report to the school committee for 1899 Superintendent Search offered an inter- esting suggestion: HI repeat my recommen- dation of one year ago, that the many changes of pupils from classroom to classroom incedent to the work of the high school, together with the enormous size of our building with its may stairs and half-mile of corridors, will posi- tively demand an elevator in the new high schoolfl In September of 1898, the school began to function in its new home, situated on the block bounded on the north by Hampshire Street, and on the east by Pine. For three years the community had waited for the completion of this structure and for six months the High School Committee, the Superintendent of Schools, and the architect had labored dili- gently on the equipment. September 12th found the work so far advanced that it was possible to enter the school and to organize. By the beginning of the month of December the High School Committee had provided a lunch counter and equipped lunch-room and kitchens. Pupils could either bring with them their lunches in whole or in part, or could pro- cure them at small cost at the lunch counter. While the new building was used for school purposes from September 12th, it was not formally opened to the public until October 26. 26 On that date the regular dedication exercises took place. The following was the program Superintendent T. W. Search, The New Era in Education, President C. Stanley Hall of Clark University, Education and Patriotism, Dr. Walter L. Hervey President of the Teacher's College, The People's Part in the Building of a School, Superintendent T. M. Balliet of Springfield, Judge E. W. Chapin of Holyoke. In the evening Principal Charles H. Keyes gave an address on The House We Dedicatef' and Honorable Frank A. Hill, Sec- retary of the Massachusetts State Board of Ed- ucation, on HTeachers of the Times. The building was thoroughly illuminated on five evenings following the dedication day, opened to the public and visited by many thousand citizens. On October 4, the Alumni Association held a reunion, at which about three hundred of the alumni were present, thereby showing their loyalty to the school. The association was reorganized in July, 1898, at a meeting heldiin the old high school on Elm Street. According to the constitution then adopted, an annual social meeting was to be held in the High School building in June dur- ing the week of graduation and a business meeting once in two years in September. With the opening of the new high school, or- ganized activities developed within the student body. Each class had an organization which held a regular meeting on the last Friday of every month. The students prepared and pub- lished a school monthly known as the High School H erald. The work was put in the hands

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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

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of the board of editors, composed of an editor- in-chief and two assistants, elected by the Senior class, and assistant editor and one as- sistant chosen by the Junior class, and two associate editors representing the first and second year classes. The business manager was elected by the Senior class and appointed his own assistants. The fall term brought into the new building 583 pupils, of whom 256 with an average of 15.6 years belonged to the first year class, 136 with an average of 16.1 years, to the second year class, 99 with an average of 17 years, to the third year class, 53 with an aver- age of 17.8 years, to the fourth year class, and 39 post graduates and specials, with an average of 20.5 years. Courses open to the students were English, Mathematics, History, Physiography, French, Latin, Domestic Science and Manual Training, Drawing, German, Bookkeeping, Biology, Greek, Physics, Chemistry and Stenography and Typing. All students were required to take two years of English, and the most popular elective subject, besides mathematics, was French, a course in which 297 students partic- ipated. The program was so arranged that any reasonable or probable combinations of studies contemplated in the course of study was avail- able. The regular quota of work for each pupil was four subjects. Every subject was pursued for a full year for five hours per week. Each pupil gave double time, eighty minutes, to each of two subjects on Monday and Wednes- day, double time to the other two subjects on Tuesday and Thursday, and on Friday had single periods for each study. The double period gave the opportunity for class drill, for individual attention, for directing work, train- ing pupils to study, and for keeping all ex- amination and test work Within the limits of the class time, thus avoiding the necessity of any so-called examination schedule. The short single periods on Friday gave opportunity for rapid review, incisive class drill, and presenta- tion of new matter to the class. The course of study in a high school in such a community as Holyoke could never be re- stricted to simply a college preparatory course. It recognized as its mission the duty of making the most of the boys and girls who graduated from the grammar schools. To furnish such young, for at least four years, the very best chance to make the most of themselves and to help them in the best way possible to pre- pare for the field of activity that lay ahead, was their endeavor. The courses of study were to provide opportunity C11 to prepare for college, f2D to prepare for normal school, CA school which trained prospective teachersj C3D to prepare for scientific or technical schools, C45 to prepare for business, and withal Q55 to prepare for a life of growth. To this end was offered four years' work in each of six subjects: English, mathematics, classics, history, natural science, and modern language. Three years' work was offered in special, com- mercial, and in art courses, and at the time only two years in domestic and manual train- 27