Atwood Hammond High School - Post Yearbook (Atwood, IL)

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EDITORIALS It is a recognized fact that there has been a rapid improvement in our school during recent years. The term of ’07-’08 has contributed no small amount to this advancement. This has been brought about in various ways, but in two in particular. Parents are fast awakening to the importance of a high school education. Consequently, pupils are encouraged in their work and are becoming much more willing to grasp the opportunity of a bright future that lies before them. But there is still another cause for the growth of our school, in effeciency, if not in numbers. Ours is one of the many smaller High Schools that have lately been demanding as instructors young college graduates. These bring with them the true college spirit and instill it into the minds of those who are under their instruction, causing them to appreciate the chance they htave to learn and to become ambitious of a higher education in the college. This is true in-deedof our presentteachers who, together with their more immediate predecessors, have done a great deal toward bringing the school to its present good condition. Authorities agree that it is not the text book but actual work and demonstration that is the best source for learning a scientific study. Consequently, to get much from zoology, botany, physiology, and physics, one must have access to an ample supply of apparatus. Much better work has been done in these branches in recent years tlnn before. And this fact is due to the new material which has been added for making experiments. This is especially true of physics, for which a great amount ot new apparatus 1 as been purchased this term. Our library has been enlarged somewhat this year. The English classes are ne longer obliged to buy their own copies of‘ the classics which they use, for a number of each have been placed in the library. We have quite a large addition of English and Ancient History reference books. After Mr Hollister’s first inspection of our school we were given eleven credits on entrance to the University of Illinois. The number required to be fully accredited was then fourteen. It is now fifteen. After Mr. Hollister’s visit in the first semester of this term, we were granted fourteen and a half. We now lack one credit in English. Commercial Arithmetic which we take for one semester is never accredited. We expect to be fully accredited next year. Less than half of the high schools of the state are fully accredited We should feel proud that we are soon to be one of them. For the bench' of some who are getting tired of school we publish the following extract from our first Post: “The average educated man gets a salary of 11,000 per year. He works forty years, making a total of $40,000 in a life. The average

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RY IALUTATORY TO THE POST Two years ago our High School woke up and published its first magazine, “rriie High School Post.” It contained a review of the school year. It had athletic notes, alumini notes, editorials, and short sketches. For the first issue, this edition was a credit to any school of our size. In a financial way, the Post” was a few cents to the good. In ’07, the magazine fever again broke out, and the high school edited another Post.” This number was a little larger, and more complete than the year before. The experience gained by the previous year seemed to have made it so. The ’07 issue contained more work of the pupils. Although the merchants and advertisers supported us admirably by increasing our “Ad” space, our two accounts barely balanced. This year we have done our best to make the “High School Post,” a post in reality. Not a post in the sense that it is stationary, and dead-acting, but in the sense that it is the corner-stone, or the main-stay of our school. The ’08 “Post” is the first real magazine that our institution has published. All of the preceding numbers have been large and bunglesome, and the advertising section awkwardly inserted with the reading material. ’These “Posts” were thought by the people to be more of an ornament, than an entertaining, and scientific magazine. This year has brought a radical change. We have Lksi.ie Lewis changed the size, to that of a regular magazine, Of in. by 10 in., and all of the advertising section has been placed either in tlie front or the back. These changes have been a wonderlul help. Patrons now think that they are getting their money’s worth, by catching a true, live magazine, and forget th.it they believe themselves to be helping some charitable institution. Merchants and all men who advertise think that now they have a better chance, and people can more easily read their ads.” By placing the advertisements in these conspici-ous places we have increased this section several pages, even more than the ’07 “Post” increased the “ad section over the 06 number. We have worked on the principal of “work while you work, and play while you play.” By so doing and putting ourselves in the place of the reader, we could readily see that it was a great deal better plan to put the two sections separate. Our '08 “Post” is broader and more complete this year than ever befoie, in that more of the real high school work is placed in this issue. Specimens from nearly every branch in the high school have been inserted in this number, so that by reading, you review the work done during the year. Not intending to say anything harsh against the pre-iousmagazines and their editors, we may refer the “Posts” of the different years to the Positive, Comparative, and Superlative terms in Grammar, the ’06 edition was good, ’07 was better, and ’08 is best of all, and can. never be excelled.

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day laborer get $1.50 per day, 300 days in the year, or $450 in a year. In forty years he earns $18,000. The difference or $22,-000, equals the value of an education. To acquire this earning' capacity requires twelve j’ears at school of 180 days each, or 2,160 days. Dividing 22,000, the value of an education, by 2160, the number of days required in getting it, we find that each day at school is worth a little more than $10 to a pupil. Can’t afford to miss school, can we?’ We have met people who ask us—has our High School course benefited us if we have forgotten a greater part of what it taught us? We ask them how much they remember of their work, and whether or not they are the better off for having gone to school. Their skepticism has lost its force. We insist, that if the good afforded by any training is to be measured by the facts retained in after life, all schooling is a waste of time. One eminent educator of today has well said that “we are what we are more because of what we have forgotten than what we know”. That has the ring of sound sense in it. We cannot recall all we have learned, but we have it and it has left its mark. Just as w’e perform the thousand acts of everyday life without any consciousness on our part, so are wre constant- ly applying the lessons our school days have given us. The past has recast us, we forget some of it, but the effect of all has been left with us. Whatever training one receives will be of little avail if i does not awaken in that person a profound desire for the truth, a love of the beautiful in literature and in life, and a determination to work out more thoroughly and to solve some of the problems of human endeavor The school can never be the laboratory where the problems of life are done, but it can be, and is the rock, the foundation upon which we may more safely build a towering superstructure. All progress has been brought about by a raising of ideals. We would, if you please, have the school aid in inculcating the most exalted and the worthiest ideals of life. We would have it impart a thirst for something about fhe ordinary. We would have it arouse us to a greater appreciation of the world about us. We have heard of a certain 8th grade teacher who told his pupils that unless they intended to teach, there was no need going through the high school. We say that such a narrow and perverted person is not fit to have a class in charge. He will crush whatever spark of ambition and inspiration there is inherent in its breast. Give it nourishment, give it the proper food, and it will burst forth. Point to the light that is burning for those willing to make an effort to reach it.