Central High School - Blackhawk Yearbook (Davenport, IA)

Page 16 text:

C avenporl s rJtrsl 'J(igh g c ioo and entered college at fourteen. “The rod and dunce cap were encouragement to the laggard, and school life was severe and terrifying. At many schools Latin was taught exclusively; English was considered not quite respectable enough. The principal activity of the “scholars was studying, but fishing excursions, when the schcx)l master read Latin, were frequent treats. Sports in their true sense were few, but in summer the good students were taken swimming, and such physical exercises as wrestling, run ning, and leaping were popular. Enough for the old schools; the scene shifts to the high school of today. The

Page 15 text:

The twenty'cight thousand high schools of the United States are celebrating their three hundredth anniversary. On the twenty-third of April, 1635, five years after the settling of Boston, the citizens of that town voted for the founding of the First Public Latin School. Any student who had mastered reading was eligible. The tuition was free, and the enroll' ment was democratic except for the fact that girls were ineligible. Boys entered school at an early age. They began Latin school at the age of seven trcls CO»fe ) tew of 0 umpiis

Page 17 text:

Public Latin School has slowly grown into the modern high school, which trains boys and girls to face life. There is no business, industry, profession, or public enterprise which has not benefited somewhat from the higher intellectual level which the high school has given to the American people. It is worth noting, stated President Roosevelt, that social progress in the United States is following swiftly on the heels of the remarkable expansion at the high school level. The high school enrollment has grown five hundred per cent in the last thirty years.