Brimfield High School - Spectator Yearbook (Brimfield, IL)

Page 28 text:

THE SPECTATOR 1 91.5 Popular Books and Plags Illustrated The Eternal Question Woman Haters John Gish Opening a Chestnut Burr Half a Rogue That Old Fashioned Girl Together We Girls—Sophs—5 The House of Mirth An Appeal to Caesar The Copperhead ( I). M. Hunt Mary Memler Mary Mulvaney Mildred Scott I Kathryn Christian The Heart of a Man Onlv One Love Twice Told Tales The Story of an Untold Love.... At the Gates Broken Heart True to Herself... At a Girl's Mercy ( Ted Dungan So Fair. So False { Russell Bragg j Harriett Murdoch Spring Maid Florence Grant Pathfinder Strong Heart The Lion and the Mouse 2(i

Page 27 text:

It 11 I M F I E L I) II I G 11 S C II O O L Freshman Class OFFICERS President Pice President Treasurer . . . . Mary Church Harriett Murdoch . . Russell Bragg Colors—Lavender and Gold Flower—Pansy The Freshmen are a jolly bunch, In numbers we were twelve; And when it comes to studying. We always dig and delve. H. A. M. YELL Rah! Rah! Biff! Bang! Halleluiah, we re the gang! Rickety, Racketv, Sis. Boom, Bah ! Freshmen! Freshmen! Rah! Rah! Rah! In the fall of ’ll twelve brilliant members formed the P’reshman Class of Brimfield High School, dedicated to the proposition that no other class was our equal. We are engaged in a great civil war with Ancient History, which we cannot long endure. But in a larger sense we can not study it, we can not learn it, we can not recite it. Brimfield will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what we have done here. It is for us, the class, to do the unfinished work of our predecessors which they have so nobly carried on. We now wish to sav that this class shall, under Wilhelmi, have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the class, bv the class, and for the class, shall never perish from this school. M. C. and H. M., ’18

Page 29 text:

n r i m •’ •; l d HIGH SC H O () L So the Seniors of the Brimfield High School Young Ladies and Gentlemen: You can hardly imagine what a queer sensation I experienced when I received a letter from you suggesting that I write something with reference to the old Brimfield High School, its students, work, etc. The sensation referred to was caused by the fact that it brought before my mind’s eye a vivid picture of the past, on whose canvas appeared a painting, touched bv the winter’s blast, and the summer sunshine of more than half a century. And gazing at that picture 1 was forcibly impressed with the fact that the rising generation of Brimfield had a perfect right to think of me as one of its old residents; in fact, as an old settler, for I settled in Brimfield on July 2nd, 1860. When six years of age, I began my school life in the old frame high school building which stood just south of where the present brick structure is located. In those days, possibly more than now, the young ladies and gentlemen came from the farms, for a distance of several miles, to attend our High School. The old frame building had two rooms on the first floor for the Primary and Intermediate grades, and one very large room above, for the High School students, adjoining which was a small recitation room, which was occupied by the assistant to the principal. One day when the assistant was hearing our grammar class, she asked me to give a sentence showing a certain grammatical error. I did so, and she said, “That is correct.” I immediately asked her if it were possible to make a “correct mistake.” She hesitated for a moment, and then did what I afterward did many times during the seven years I taught school; she said, “That is a good question; we will all think that over until to-morrow.” The large room was so crowded that students sat in chairs along the side of the room. In the High School room there were two large stoves, and one in each of the others. When I w'as twelve years old I was the janitor of this old building. The floors were of ordinary pine and badly worn. Each evening when I swept, I would get a great pile of splinters, which had been scraped from the floor, by the gentle tread and unintentional scuff of the students. I carried the coal from the shed in the yard and dumped it in coal boxes by