Alameda High School - Acorn Yearbook (Alameda, CA)

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HE high school of yesterday was a strictly academic institution. The scope of its curriculum was limited by the entrance requirements of the leading universities and elasticity in its course of study was an unknown quantity. During the past ten years high school education has been subjected to a closer scrutiny and its usefulness has become a theme for scholarly investiga- tion and much intensive study. The educator of today is no longer able to satisfy his fellows, nor indeed his own conscience, with dogmatic or visionary reasons for the teaching of subjects, for the methods employed, for the time allotment, or indeed for any- thing bearing upon the conduct of his school or department. The Alameda High School has apprec iably broadened both in the scope of its curriculum and in its co-ordination with the life of the community. A few years ago it was a creditable academic institution and an excellent college preparatory school. Today it stands solidly as a training school for life, taking into account not only the general intelligence that is a part of good citizenship, but the ability to earn a livelihood as well. Courses under trained instructors are now available in manual training, millinery, dress making, cooking, nutrition, food chemistry, household expen- ditures, interior decorating, copper and leather work, bookkeeping, stenog- raphy, business law, commercial arithmetic, accounting, practical banking, applied mechanics, forge and foundry work, mechanical drawing, machine design, surveying, practical journalism and in other vocational and prevoca- tional lines. In striving to meet the economic demands of the times there has beep no underrating of the educating and refining influences of subjects usually classified as cultural. Through an effective division of faculty labor a class advisory system has constantly before it the problem of properly balancing courses in the interest of broadening rather than narrowing the vision of the student. The strength of the academic or college preparatory departments has steadily increased and the rating of our graduates attending the universities is, as it always has been, high. A volume might be written upon “The Spirit of the Alameda High School.” The atmosphere there is earnest and serene and the loyalty of faculty and student body for their school and for each other is something distinctly worthy of admiration. My interest and belief in the Alameda High School makes my apprecia- tion for the dedication of this volume the deeper. —C. J. DuFour, Superintendent of Alameda Schools:

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Che Acorn of December, 1915 is respertfully dedicated tn CG. J. AuHK our Superintendent of Schools hay the Graduating Class, the Class in Journalism and the Administrative Board of the Alameda Gigh School

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At Eleven-Forty