Pottsville High School - Hi S Potts Yearbook (Pottsville, PA)

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did occupy the attention of the directors at a meeting on May 18, 1853. The following named scholars petitioned the board for but one session of school during the hot weather, school to begin at 7:30 A. M. and dismiss at 1:30 P. M.: Charles H. Krebs, Oliver C. Bosbyshell, Benjamin McCool, Francis I. Quin, F. Shelly, Sam R. Whitney, Iames Sillyman, Hiram Parker, F. M. Waters, Iohn T. Protheroe, Baird Snyder, C. Loeser, W. L. Hazzard, David Conrad, T. Carlin, William H. Carter, George W. Harlan, Robert Fletcher, Thomas A. Reilly, H. S. Thompson, William Tregeo, Luther Minnig, Sam Parker, Lamar S. Hay, Ioseph H. Gould, F. U. Farquhar, T. C. Toussaint, Robert Morris, G. H. Snyder. A paid advertisement appearing in The Miners' Iournal issue of April 26, 1851, gave the folowing regulations for the opera- tion of the common schools as adopted April 10, 1851: The hours of instruction shall be from 8M o'clock until 12 in the morning, and from 2 P. M. until 5 in the afternoon, from the lst of April until the lst of October: and from 9 o'clock until 12 in the morning and from 1M o'clock until 4M in the after- noon from the 1st of October until the lst of April. A vacation shall be allowed the month of August, and in the afternoon of each Saturday. The schools shall also be closed on the lst day of Ianuary, Good Friday, in Easter week until the Tuesday following, 4th of july, and Christmas Day, and on such other days as the directors may allow. Graduation from high school during the first eight years of its operation carried with it no tangible evidence of the fact for the boys and girls who had completed the course. According to an early newspaper clipping the Class of 1862 was the first to receive diplomas. These went to a class of ten-seven girls and three boys. Among them were Iames B. Reilly fwho later represented this area in Congressj, whose grandson Robert R. Reilly is now a member of the faculty at Pottsville High, Alfred I. Derr, joseph W. Gumpfert, and Miss Wynkoop. The commmencement was in the form of a public examination conducted by the faculty from the State Normal School. At the time, I. W. Roseberry was president of the school board, and Christo- pher Little the secretary. The receipt of a diploma, however, didn't help the school enrollment during the Civil War period. Many scholars enlisted and others went to work. The school became practically non-operative and higher education for Pottsville pupils virtually halted at the grammar school level. It was during this period that Benjamin F. Patterson, one of the outstanding figures in the history of the Pottsville school system, came on the scene. Mr. Patterson was elected high school principal in March, 1865. On April 1, 1867, he was named superintendent, a position he held until his death in july, 1906. After the Civil War a committee comprising Peter W. Sheafer, William B. Wells, Christopher Little, john W. Roseberry, and David A. Smith accomplished the reorganization of the high school and it was again placed on a firm basis. The P. H. S. Annual of 1905 said of the reorganization, At this time a curriculum was adopted which has suffered little change. The then prevailing three-year course offered the following subjects: First Uunior Yearj-History, algebra, geometry, foundation of Latin, Caesar, elocution, Second jMiddle Yearl-Geometry, physiology, literature, botany, composition, Cicero, Latin prose, Caesar, elocution, physical geography: Third jSenior Yearj- Physics, Cicero, Virgil, rhetoric, civics, astronomy, trigonometry, chemistry, geology, elocution, IACKSON STREET BUILDING ,..6,-.

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.-......,-....' GARFIELD BUILDING A fourth or post-graduate year offered these subjects: Solid geometry, advanced algebra, Virgil, Cicero, prose composition, review of the three years' work in Latin, and mathematics. Elective subjects included German, French, Greek, teachers' course, and mathematics. Shortly before the reorganization of the school, its location was moved to the old Academy building at Fifth and West Norwegian Streets. The enrollment at the time numbered 14 pupils. The school site was the Iackson Street building from 1876 to 1894 when it was transferred to the Garfield building at Fifth and West Norwegian Streets, then in 1916 to the Pat- terson building at Twelfth and Market Streets, and finally to the present location at Sixteenth Street and Elk Avenue in Ianuary, 1933. Within a ten-year period following the school's reorganization, the enrollment increased by leaps and bounds. School board proceedings of the time showed the enrollment of 59 pupils and three teachers in 1873, 78 pupils and two teachers in 1878g 81 pupils and three teachers in Iune, 1882, and 144 pupils and three teachers in November of 1893. Contrast this with today's student enrollment of 929 pupils and 81 teachers. The all-time high enrollment in the school's history was 1,700 students during the 1939-40 term. During this period of rapid growth the high school was directed by Stephen A. Thurlow, another outstanding figure in local educational circles. Mr. Thurlow was named principal in September, 1881, and later became superintendent in 1906 upon the death of Mr. Patterson. Mr. Thurlow served as superintendent until his death on Ianuary 4, 1912. The closing years of the Nineteenth Century marked another big step forward in Pennsylvania that made a high school education possible for many who could not otherwise afford this schooling. The Free School Book Act was adopted by the Legislature and in September, 1893, all public school scholars received their textbooks without cost. Previously high school textbooks would cost approximately 525, a large sum in those days. In commenting on the issuance of free textbooks the P. H. S. Annual of 1894 had this to say: The benefit to be derived from this cannot be told in a short space, but it is suflicient to say that the whole country will be benefited by graduating from the schools, intelligent and educated men and women. With the increase in the student body during the 1876-'94 period, while the school was situated in the Iackson Street build- ing, came the first large-scale expansion of the school curriculum. A commercial department was added, but as a separate unit, On March 12, 1912, it was merged with the academic department, The beginning of the second half of the school's centennial history brought with it an innovation that ranked only second to the issuance of free textbooks in promoting the growth of the school. This was the inauguration of a four-year course that went into effect in September, 1908. The 1908 issue of the Annual related: For some years a four-year course has been agitated for the high school, but up to this time it has received no serious attention. The visit of the State Inspector of High Schools, however, seems to have brought the matter before the minds of the board and the people in general as never before. -3-