Manual Arts High School - Artisan Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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The New Manual, by Jerry Livingston, W ' 36 Artisan. teams also brought in league championships. Music and drama, too, have been tops. The orchestra has many best ratings for the period. A new upsurge of dramatic activity in the last half of the fifties has brought sweepstakes recognition at Shakesperean fes- tivals and one-act play contests. Dino has joined the greats n f other eras s a senior plav, and drama teams have been asked to out on programs at LACC and USC, where Manual alumni are carving significant names for themselves. Dancers and musicians have en- tertained the student bodv and then graduated to larger audiences on staae and television as well as in the field of composing. Three times graduation music was writ- ten by a member of the class. And as a crowning part of these fifty golden years the alumni have shown their love and loyalty to the school beginning with a banquet of 200 graduates of 1913-1919, each of the decades has had a Jubilee gathering — Five hundred and fifty. The Twenties gath- ered in joyous reunion at their party — when they sang the old songs, and yelled the old yells, and heard their old classmates and principal. On Doctor Wilson ' s birthdav, March 6, the alumni in education and the faculty members honored him at a large tea. Nearly three weeks before the Thirties party, their dinner tickets were sold out and several hundred joined the diners later for visiting and talking far into the night. Two ballrooms, at the hotel, it took to hold the Forties for their dance where over 1,200 visited and reminisced. As for the Fifties, ' ' it took all outdoors to hold them on their all-day picnic where spouses and children added to the gaiety and number and the current student body service groups linked the present and the past. The magnetic Dull of the school not made with hands, is still a force. What will the next decade bring? There was something in old Manual, As she stood before the quake, That would linger in my memory, Tho a better school they ' d make. There was something in the old arcades Where the student used to stroll, That I wondered if they could replace With fine architecture and gold. Now I never went to Manual Before her walls were down And I never strolled her old arcades Nor walked her flowered ground. But there was something in her portals. And the love of students there And it made me dream of time to come, When I too that love would share. And at last I ' m here at Manual I have watched her new walls rise, The change that I feared is here at last She stands bravely against the skies. But it ' s not the walls of Manual That make her dear to me. It ' s not the arcades or the grounds Or anything to see. It ' s the spirit of old Manual That lurks in school life there. She spreads her wings, and shelters us With more than buildings fair. 19

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The Fith Decade The newly buill business building was erected in ' 56. Mr. Honn and Dr. Wilson meet at the 20 ' s reunion. The decade of the fifties saw Manual Arts assuming a role of more importance in her relation to a world outside her own walls. Many of her boys again were called away, with the National Guard troops and in answer to draft calls, to the Korean conflict. As twice before some would not come back. The first California soldier killed was a Manual Arts lad, Kenny Kaiser, and Kenny was to be a symbol of the school ' s new role. In Korea the spirit of service and activity for others had inspired him to solicit funds from his companions for children orphaned by the war. After the death of Kenny, the home was named for him and Manual adopted it, sending materials and money raised from a school benefit. Nearer home, we extended our activities in the field of student government. The California Association of School Councils was organized throughout the state, and as might well have been expected, Manual took a leading role, contributing its senior advisor for many years in the person of Mr. Honn, the Los Angeles Dis- trict president in 1951, and the regional membership chairman during the next year. Mrs. McDermotto is its senior advisor today. In other club areas there has been an expansion of interest beyond the campus. The Fu- ture Teachers ' of America have an active chapter here. The Bank of America in cooperation with the city schools established a city-wide Achievement Award pro- gram. All high schools in the city enter four candidates on the district level. In 1950, ' 52 and ' 53 Manual con- testants received first place top awards of $1,000. Over the years in addition to these have been three second awards of $500 and six-thirds of $250, with four honor- able mentions. In scholarship fields in higher education, the school has made an enviable record. The Scholarship Society instigated a service of information to the school regard- ing available awards and methods of applying and every semester has seen an appreciable number of graduates receive considerations from the colleges — Pepperdine, Stanford, Occidental, Mudd College, Reed Collge, University of Chicago, Cal Tech, USC and UCLA have all granted at least one award and most of them ■ I many in this decade. The first girl on the new Mudd Campus was a Manual graduate. The recipients, too, have proved their worth, for Phi Beta Kappa, Suma Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude Recognitions have been added to the graduate, even Doctorate, degrees which have resulted. At least five students are currently working on their doctorates at Cal Tech. and U.C.L.A. Perhaps these records resulted at least in part, from the increased emphasis on college preparatory work provided in the XX classes of the cur- riculum beginning in this decade. During this period, the student body received several groups of outsiders, for students were brought by bus from Westchester, and they filled many of the positions of honor in the school. Again, when Poly moved to the valley, her upper classmen came to Manual and fin- ished their high school terms. And last, but by no means least, have been the young people whose families were displaced by the war. The inspiration of the scholar- ship and the broadened concepts which they have brought to the school have been a real factor in this experience of expansion. Once again in this decade as in others the graduates of Manual are to be found far and near in the teaching field. Physical Education and Music have been, per- haps, the favorite areas, but social studies and science are not far behind. Some have come home, for on the current faculty are two of the fifties graduates to join the seven earlier alumni. There have been changes on that faculty. Nearly a score of the teachers who seemed a part of the institu- tion have retired and one, George Walterhouse, died in service. Miss Hanna left as vice-principal and has been succeeded by three others. Mr. Jessen and Mr. Stengel both left to be principals. Many teachers have trans- ferred, and their places has been taken by an increas- ing number of active young people. Manual is girding her loins for the next fifty years. In building, too, she is getting ready. English Hall, the last of the old class-room buildings, was torn down. A new Business building cares for classes in business subjects and for all the financial business of the school. New permanent bungalows for music classes were built near the auditorium, and there is now under construc- tion a shop building that will open for the new decade. Athletics have held their own football and bought citv championship in 1952, 1954, and 1957, with basket- ball chamoionship in the city in 1957 as well. Track championship for the city came in 1954 and 1956 with state honors in 1953 and 1958. Tennis and cross-country

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' BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM Fifty years ago at the opening of the second semester of the school year 1908-09, the Los Angeles City School System found it necessary to place 350 B-9 pupils in a new school located on Olive Street in downtown Los Angeles. Los Angeles and Polytechnic High Schools, then the only two public high schools in Los Angeles, could not house them. Such was the humble beginning of a school which was destined to become the most widely known high school of the century. From the start this infant high school manifested the characteristics which were to make it famous. The principal, the teachers and the students were all rugged individualists. They believed in themselves and the edu- cational values of an activity program. They valued the self respect and the personal satisfaction that came wit h a philosophy that can be summed up in the motto It can be Done and the practice of saying Let us do it. From the halls and classrooms of this fledgling school, now moved to its permanent home on Vermont Avenue, came, in a shorter period of time than any other school in the country a great procession of community state and nation-wide leaders. Statesmen, artists, musicians, writers, generals, engineers, judges, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, and educators as well as thousands of thoroughly competent technicians, mechanics, and trades- men poured in a steady stream from this school into the life of the com- munity, the state, and the country. These were not inclined to meet the demands of the day with Let Others Do It. They were eager and vital and asked only that a task be assigned, and that they be given an opportunity to serve. In diproportionate numbers they made their way into positions of fame and leadership and service. I had the privilege of spending a day in historic Philadelphia last Febru- ary. As I walked where George Washington had walked, sat where Thomas Jefferson had sat, and reflected where Benjamin Franklin had re- flected, I realized what these men had done in their day. They had demon- strated to all men that they believed in It can be done and had evi- denced their belief by crying Let us do it. In my mind I journeyed three thousand miles across a continent to where our student body and our staff were working on a spot where the true spirit of the revoluation had had a rebirth in the twentieth century. I vowed a rededication of life and purpose to the things that have made our country and our school great. Come, let us of Manual rededicate ourselves in this second half of the century to faith and to work; to faith in the belief that it can be done and to work in vigor and joy in the sure realization that true greatness in our generation will result from worthwhile achievement as it has in all the generations that have gone before us. BY OUR FRUITS MAY THEY KNOW US. ' ■ , ■ | Mr. Honn conversing with Everett Stephens, Student Body Cabinet R.O.T.C. Representa- tive. B-10 Orientation class looks on attentively as Mr. Honn speaks. Mr. Honn and Manualites cheer our team on to victory. 20