Archbold High School - Blue Streak Yearbook (Archbold, OH)

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ENGLISH. Even progressive person today realizes that one of the essentials in every walk of life in the ability to write and speak the English lan- guage correctly. The purpose of the English Course, which extends through the four years, is to gain a knowledge of the essentials of grammar and of the practical application of its rules and principles, and to lay great stress upon the importance of reading the works of best authors as a means to enable the pupil to appreciate good literature and discriminate it from the inferior. The aim of English I. is to develop the pupil's power to express his thought clearly and interestingly. Constant practice in composition is gained by daily and weekly themes; and frequent consultations are held for individual criticism and instruction. Besides the drill in the elements of punctuation, grammar, and sentence structure, classics are read and discussed in class. The work in Composition and Rhetoric is based on Lockwood and Emerson's Text and covers the first two years of the course. The English work for the second year, in addition to the text-book- work. consists of class-room reading and discussion of choice classics, which furnish abundant material for narrative and descriptive themes, character sketches, and book reviews. Attention is also given the col- lateral reading for special examination. The work of English III. and IV. is combined and the course is alternated. The history of English and American literature is studied, and representative classics are read and discussed in the class-room. A note book with the work done in outline form is required. Emphasis is placed upon short themes of literary appreciation on subjects drawn from the classics. A survey of the work of other representative writers is ob- tained by extensive collateral reading, and the thoroughness of the work- done is tested bv special examination in the form of questions, book re- views and critical papers. The outline of the course is as follows: Freshman Year:—Composition and Rhetoric. Scott's Lady of the Lake. Shakspere’s Merchant of Venice. Irving's Sketch Book. Goldsmith's Deserted Village. Sophomore Year:—Composition and Rhetoric. Eliot's Silas Marner. Franklin's Autobiography. Shakspere's Julius Caesar. Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Scott's Ivanhoe. Collateral Reading: Dickens’ Christmas Carol. Lowell’s Vision of Sir Launfal. Goldsmith's Vicar of W akefield. Stevenson's Treasure Island.

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of the great climatic changes in prehistoric times and their landmarks which we see today, the study of the “reliefs” of each continent and of the many physical forces existant form the most important features of the course. Botany is taken up in the second semester of the Freshman year. Here the student takes up in detail the study of plant life as it really is on the physical earth he has builded during the previous four and one- half months. No subject in the high school is more charming and yield- ing in nobler conceptions than is Botany. The last six weeks are spent in plant analysis and a complete herbarium of thirty mounted flowers is necessary for graduation. Agriculture is given an entire year in our course. It naturally and logically falls in the Sophomore year. The previous year’s work in Physical Geography and Botany furnishes the student with sufficient working ideas, vernacular, material and ground-work upon which Agri- culture depends. The laws and conditions governing the successful propa- gation of our most important food plants, the study and analysis of the soils, the testing out of the soil to determine the kind of elements lacking and the relative values of nitrogen, phosphorus and lime for different farm crops, the study of successful breeding, the study of weeds, insects and economical conservations make this study both charming and fruitful in results. PHYSICS. The work in Physics is taken up in the fourth year of the High School course. An effort is made to so arrange the work that it will be of equal value to the student whose education ends with the High School course and the prospective college student as well. The work is taken up under the heads of Mechanics, Sound, Heat, Magnetism, Electricity and Light. The subjects of Mechanics, Sound and part of Heat are cov- ered the first semester, and the work is completed in the second semester. This has become one of the most interesting subjects in the curricu- lum since all experiments can be explained with our additional labora- tory apparatus. The course consists of class room work four days per week, accompanied by illustrative lecture experiments, and one day is de- voted to individual laboratory work. The application of some of the fun- damental laws of nature are studied and pointed out in their relations to everyday life. Special work in actually producing electricity by different methods and the explanation of these phenomena, forms the most interesting feature of the course. Millikan and Gale’s text book is used. Students are required to keep laboratory note books and must record all work done. At least thirty authentic and recorded experiments are required for graduation.

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Junior Year:—American Literature. Irving’s Life of Goldsmith. Pope’s Illiad. Hawthorne’s House of Seven Gables. Washington’s Farewell Address. Webster’s First Bunker Mill Oration. Emerson’s Essay? (selected). Collateral Reading: Selections from Lincoln. Cooper’s Leather Stocking Tales. Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales. Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery. Senior Year:—English Literature. Chaucer’s Prologue. Burke’s Speech on Conciliation with America. Carlyle’s Essay on Burns with Representative Poems. Shakspere’s Hamlet. Shakspere’s Macbeth. Milton’s Comus, Lycidas, L'AUegro, II Penseroso. Selections from Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. Collateral Reading: Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities. Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner. Shakspere’s As You Like It. Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.