Webster Groves High School - Echo Yearbook (Webster Groves, MO)

Page 24 text:

Throughout the ages we have found advances in education either accom- panied or followed by enhanced opportunities for free thought and action on the part of the peoples involved. Our own country has undertaken and developed the most elaborate and far-reaching system of education of any civilized nation past or present. Our political freedom has been so complete that we have abused the privilege through neglect. Our approach to religious freedom in this country has been significant, but we have fallen short of our goal because of intoler- ance within our own minds and within the group minds of many of our organi- zations. Our nation has an enviable relative economic position, but we doubt if many of us can be happy over the status of economic freedom of millions of our people. We believe that education must teach that political freedom entails responsibility, not a mere release from duty. We believe education should teach and demonstrate an attitude of tolerance and respect for the honest beliefs and feelings of others. We believe that education, through its high school classrooms, should so study economic conditions and underlying factors that the generations who succeed us shall be able to more successfully promote the ideal of economic freedom. We believe that one of education's biggest jobs is to help future generations arrive at a point of intellectual freedom where they will more consistently formulate their judgments, both individual and group, on the basis of facts resulting from careful investigation and research rather than on the basis of tradition and propaganda. We worship, then, at the altar of freedom . . . freedom of the individual to voice his opinion in matters political and governmental, freedom in the realm of religious and spiritual attitudes, freedom from the ravaging effects on mind and body of economic instability, and freedom of the mind for unhampered thinking. We believe these goals are attainable only through an educational sys- tem designed to be universal, an educational system free to bring to its faculties thc finest minds of the nation, a system free to study with the youth of our nation the problems of mankind, whether those problems be traditional or recent, whether they pertain to conservatism or liberalism, whether they be academic or general. WILLARD E. Gosrm, Superintendent. IH11, I 1.

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I. T. HixsoN, A. B., A. M. Principal of High School ' .Qdministrotive Boards WILLARD E. Gosux, A. B., A. M. Superintendent of VVebster Groves Schools -'C' W H MARY I. MARSHALL Pratt Institute Graduate in Home Economics Secretary to the Principal CHARLES E. GARNER, B. Sc., A. M. Director of Research HOWARD A. LA'i i'A. B. Sc., A. M. Assistant Principal IULIAN CARTER ALDRICH, B. Sc., A. M. Ph. B. Assistant Principal I. P. LARSON Member of Board of Education FRANK L. WRIGHT President of Board of Education DR. C. E. COLEGATE Member of Board of Education W. P. Ioiitssox Member of Board of Education MRS. LEO I. Vocr Vice-President of Board of Education C. A. REICHARDT Member of Board of Education

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The modern and efficient high school must recognize the need for develop- ment in all directions but should pay particular attention to the ideas of freedom and liberty which its students may gain. These ideas are much in the thinking of students today. and they need to be directed along sane and normal channels. A broad vision of the relative values of present-day questions is essential, and the school must aid in creating this vision by providing training for the physical, intellectual, and spiritual natures of its students. The body must be developed, not that it may dominate but rather that it may serve the other faculties and enable them to function properly. Webster High School has provided an adequate physical education department and through its diversified academic programs satishcs the intellec- tual needs of its students. Music and art, together with the character teach- ing which is in all departments, though not designated as such, help to develop and deepen the esthetic and spiritual natures of all. Through the development of the ideas of freedom and liberty it is believed students will become more altruistic and less self-centered and can enjoy the really great things of life unhampered by the limitations of a too narrow point of view. The vision must be broadened and the horizon pushed back until we get the full view of the possibilities ofa life that is free in the highest sense. It is the wish of the administration that our students may make the great- est possible progress toward this goal. I. T. HixsoN, Principal