Paris High School - Arena Yearbook (Paris, IL)

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The earlier schools were very different from those of today. The small, rude buildings were plain and often poorly heated. The attendance was usually small, but many of the students were eager to learn and walked long distance in all sorts of weather. The main subjects were readin’ 'ritin’, and ’rithmetic,” and sometimes geography and history. The teachers of the earlier schools also had their difficulties. Often their pupils were unruly and mischievous. The teachers usually had little schooling themselves, high schools being few in number and colleges scarcely heard of. They had much to endure and their small salary was well earned. The schools of today show that great progress has been made. Teachers must have certain qualifications and schools must meet certain requirements to be on the accredited list. Modern schools owe much to those of earlier times, which laid the foundation and made possible those of the present.

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limited to one sex and to a select class. Its liberal curriculum appealed to all classes; the children of the masses were as welcome as those of the classes. But above all else its prestige was enhanced by its attitude toward girls. The academy stood for coeducation. The movement reached its highest development in the country as a whole in 18 50. There were at that time 608 5 academies with an enrollment of 263,000 pupils. The academy was, however, destined to be a temporary institution only, since it did not fulfill the democratic ideal of a public system of education, free from the lowest to the highest state. By the middle of the 19th century opposition to the academy had begun to develop on the ground that it was a select, exclusive, and aristocratic school, catering chiefly to those who could pay fees. A movement now arose for the establishment of a system of free public high schools supported by public taxation, equally open to all. The first high school in the U. S. was founded at Boston in 1821. Unlike the Latin Grammar School and the academy it was an indigenous product, neither the institution nor the idea of it having been received from abroad. To meet the growing spirit of American freedom and democracy, there was needed an educational institution of a different type, one that should be free and under public control like the grammar school and that should offer a practical, cultural course of study like the academy. The free public high school met this demand and it grew, slowly at first, but with startling rapidity after its usefulness was tested and recognized. Up to 1840 the es- tablishment of high schools was confined largely to Massachusetts. The Civil War of necessity checked the development for a time, but after the close of the war high schools multiplied rapidly. There were probably about 500 high schools in the U. S. in 1870, about 800 in 1880, while by 1890, the first year for which complete statistics are available, the number was 2526. By « Yl itf, , : •'. ' , y . V A-, • A.w- . ■ 'V ,v ''■' . 'W- , A • rt '' 'A . . ■ + t ,i, y.r y ••••■ ■ S' .; 4 6.1 4 , v , •. t. ,%,r{ '■ . f . ' irt't ✓?Vf 'tXi.' • ■,! tiff it fru t■ .' . . | trcts r frit t MO ' ■ r 4it A ....j, ........ . f,h ' £ « v . y,,,fn ■ ' ,! . Ls.y m.f , , , . A ... 0 .-A0 V-fe. w ; ,'J . g,’ A A.- wt '• ■ '• '■ l ' ■ ') - tjtiU r- f 4 r i Ai. -T, , . f 4n (''vWv, ■ A A !•»', 4 ' t'u ‘ 01 Y.h.w 4 ,. . f | r ’ I T ‘ I A. « J 4,H . first teachf;r’s CONTRACT IN PARIS 1915 this number had increased to 12,000 and today, according to the latest estimate of the Federal Office of Education in Washington there are slightly fewer than 26,000 high schools in the land, ministering to the needs of approximately 7,000,000 adolescent youths.

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