University High School - U Highlights Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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V01--YI' INTRODUCTORY 1914 ficiency in lvlathematics, Drawing and Shopwork, graduates completed a four years' engineering course in three years. About fifty per cent of the graduates entered college, the others going directly into business of various kinds. The alumni ofthe school are found in all honorable callings: Engineers-civil, mechanical, electrical-designers, contractors, merchants, manufacturers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, and 0115 cZe1'gy11m1z. They may be found in Canada, in lVIexico, in Europe, in South Africa. They wear the uniform of officers of the army and navy of the United States. Some of them smelled gunpowder in the Spanish war, on the Gregon and elsewhere. NOTE-The above sketch is quoted from a prospectus of the school, issued before the merger with the South Side Academy, and is from the pen of Dr. Belfleld. The Doctorf, as he was called familiarly by the boys, after two decades of service at the h'Ianual, was chosen as one of the deans of the University High School. Here he served till his retirement. His death occurred in IQI2. Last year in June memorial services were held in h-Iandel Hall and the tablet unveiled at that time can be seen at the west end of Henry Holmes Belheld Hall. It is the gift of the alumni of the Chicago Nfanual Training School. A. F. BARNARD. 01132 bnutb bibs Zltahemp A SKETCH The South Side Academy began its existance in 1892, in a building near fifty- fourth street and Ellis Avenue. It was founded as a private school by two gentle- men who had been teachers at Nlorgan Park Academy, Nlr. Smith and lVIr. Sisson. The school was afterwards moved to 5418 Greenwood Avenue, where in 1897 Pro- fessor YVilliam Bishop Owen of the University of Chicago, now principal of the Chicago Teacher's College, became Dean, continuing in that position until the school was merged in the University High School. Nfr. William E. Whaley was business manager. The Greenwood Avenue building, now a residence, was then a home-like place with a good yard containing large trees, under which one bench was placed. In those days Marshall Field extended eastward only to Greenwood Avenue, though that street was not graded or even marked out, and the present garden of the Home for Incurables was an open and empty lot. The common way from the University to the academy was by running along the old plank fence of Nlarshall Field, walking rapidly from there to fifty-fifth street, and thence proceed- ing with dignity to the school. Arriving there,except in winter, one was apt' to find someof the pupils talking sports under the trees, or scufliing for places on the bench. But the school, always vigorous, soon out grew the old quarters, and in the fall of 1899 was transferred to S447 Lexington Avenue Cnow Universityj to a building then entirely new, in spite of the medieval towers, and now an apartment house. The arrangement of the building was inevitably much like that of our own Kim- bark Hall. The two tower rooms on the first floor were devoted to the offices. The rest of the first floor, and all of the second, was given to recitation rooms, and all of the top floor but the tower rooms was an assembly hall, large enough to seat 17

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If0!.XI. THE CORRELATOR 1914 As the character of the school became known, applicants for admission in- creased ii numoer, until it became necessary to refuse several hundred every year, notuithstandiig the enlargement of the building. This large number of appli- cants, so much greater than the capacity of the school, enabled it to select a choice body of pupils. but it was a painful duty to refuse admittance to so many boys, and the Director labored with the members of the City Board of Education and with others, until the English High and Nlanual Training School Cnow the R. T. Cranej was opened. Later, the Armour Institute was founded by NIL Philip D. Armour, a member of the Commercial Club, and a contributor to the NIanual Training School. Mr. Armour frequently said in public: If there had been no Chicago lVIanual Training School there would have been no Armour Institute. I-le thus recognized the inHuence of the school. In fact, the great work of the school has been, not the education of its pupils, but the education of public sentiment. hfany manual training schools were planned in the office of the old school building on hflichigan Avenue, and the existence of a great number can be traced directly to this school. As manual training schools multiplied in all parts of the country, the Commercial Cl.ib felt that the work for which the school had been organized had been accomp- lishzd, and in 1897 it offered the school as a gift to the University of Chicago, and the offer was accepted. This conviction of the Club is expressed in the fol- lowing quotation from the beautiful bronze tablet which commemorates the trans- fer of the schoole- That it has caused the establishment of many similar in- stitutions, and especially, that it has secured the incorporation of this system of education into the public schools of this city and of many othercities, is evidence to the founders of the school that it has successfully accomplished the purpose for which it was organized. The largest class graduated was in 1393, eighty-seven in number. Although the course of study extended oyer three years only, graduates were admitted to the Freshman classes of the best engineering schools of the country, such as: The hffassachusetts Institution of Technology ton examinationl, Cornell University, the Universities of Illinois, Michigan, lI'isconsin, etc. lon certihcatel Also, to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other colleges. Frequently owing to pro- l U , at , a .1 NNN A I 'ing' , l. ,, 3 - I r, - yi ' I 1 rlititg. 1 I 16

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VOLXI. THE CORRELATOR 1914 the whole school, with room to spare. It was in this building that the school, through contact, formed the attachment to kitchen sinks and open plumbing in the recitation rooms which it has never been able to overcome, even in the impres- sive equipment ofthe University High School. One room was fitted up for English classes by lVliss lVlay Estelle Cook when she left her position as head of the depart- ment of English. The walls were not only prettily covered and decorated,'7 but well furnished with good pictures. The two relics of this room are our Clay Club, and the portrait of Shakespeare which adorns the library of the School of Education as serenely as if it were not a gift to the South Side Academy, and an inspiration to the classes in English, and is now the undivided property of the University High School. The other rooms were plainly furnished, and not large, but they were, on the whole, comfortable. No definite plan of change was in mind when Dean Owen went abroad for the winter of 1900-1901, leaving hflr. VV. E. Whaley as acting dean. lt was during that year, however, that President Harper formed the plan, elsewhere explained, of uniting the South Side Academy with the Chicago hffanual Training School, to form the secondary school of the new School of Education. The board of trustees in this year, 1901, Hturned overl' the school to the trustees of the University of Chicago, and in 1902 the new school opened, principally in Emmons Blaine Hall. There were not as many student organizations and activities in the South Side Academy as in our school of today. Fraternities and sororities existed, at first without restriction, and afterwards under faculty supervision. The only enduring organization was the Clay Club, about the origin of which a singular misunderstand- ing has existed in the present school. The Clay Club was organized as a literary society with evening meetings, for both boys and girls. The meetings were held in the English room before described, and the rostrurn was a circle drawn on the fioor with chalk. The first president was hlr. Charles XYells, now Dr. 'Wells of Burlington, Vermont. For the first three years the honored position of faculty critic was filled by the writer of this history, who was followed in three years of faithful and efficient service by Klr. Davis of the English department of our school. There was no question whatever of the continuity of the Clay Club from the first evening meeting in the South Side Academy until today. The school paper, published monthly, was a creditable paper of the usual school magazine type. It was called the Sosiac, a clever name formed by combining the first two letters of each word in the name of the school. ln athletics the South Side Academy was a worthy forerunner of the University High School. The only important sports were baseball and football. The Acad- emy belonged to the Inter-Academic League, and its greatest and dearest foe was Nlorgan Park Academy, then the preparatory school of the University of Chi- cago, and almost invincible in athletics. Against this powerful opponent, the Academy was finally able to get a drawn in football, and in a tremendous struggle on Marshall Field, to win one baseball championship. The South Side Academy was a preparatory school. Its obvious purpose was to prepare young men and women for college, as thoroughly as possible. But lVlr. Owen, who not only directed it but inspired it, esteemed everything else of little value in comparison with the opportunity of building up boys and girls into strong, self-reliant, self-controlled, useful manhood and wornanhood. 'With a rare sympathy with the young people who made up the school, and perhaps a rarer understanding of them, he was able to achieve marked success in this higher purpose. With this aim, and creditable success in attaining it, it was inevitable 18