Central High School - Centralian Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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UR Alma Mater has fostered boys and girls for about forty years. She has changed her place of residence several times. Each move has been to a larger, better, more palatial residence, till now- but enough. I am going to talk about her past glories, not her present ones. In 1875 she was living in the Washington building, where the court house now stands. That year her first class graduated. This pioneer class still has its reunions. A few years later Mater moved to the second and third floors of the Curtis block on First Avenue and Washington. Then was the dawn of Athletics, for the boys had a baseball team that probably played its games on the rural meadows of Grant street. More lustily throve the literary society that conducted debates and essay competitions. It was in 79 that the great city spell-down was held in one of the theatres. Teachers and pupils alike assembled on the stage and spelled. They went down slowly tremble ye learned ones of today, for they went much more slowly than you would have gone. But a spell-down is one of the things that is sure as death and taxes, and they did go at last. In the end the one who stood alone was a pupil not a teacher. When Central moved into the fine new stone building on Eleventh street, she was the only Minneapolis high school. Two-hundred seekers after knowledge were enrolled under her banners. When the other schools came into being, they taught only the Freshman and Sophomore years of the course. Those who were not content with two years of high school work came to Central and there had the cap put on their education. With the new building and widened opportunities her sons and daughters accomplished wonders. Class plays and assemblies were introduced and school spirit rose proportionately. The Gale prize was left to the school by Mr. Gale when he retired from the school board during the eighties. In 1893 the foot ball team was put under the charge of a coach, and soon other branches of athletics followed. After the annex was built class spirit rose to the heights. This is quite literal, for the boys used to climb up on the tower and paint it with their class colors. Pa lie Seven

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THE NEW Our Alma Mater can point with pride to many of our prominent citizens and say, “They went forth from my gates.” The list of their names is a long one from David Percy Jones who has been mayor, Douglas Fiske, President of the Civic and Commerce Association, and Pudge Heffelfinger we all know that he means football, to our dear Quentin. Among them are some of our faculty, Miss Crounse, Miss Fish, Miss Helliwell, Miss McGregor, Miss Towler, Miss Trufant, Miss Greer and Mr. Andrews. When we see how Central has grown from the little school in the Washington building to our fine new structure, from a graduating class of three to more than fifty times as great, and when we see how much has been accomplished by those who have gone before us, we realize that we will have to work and play hard to follow the examples that have been given us. We must use all our strength and power to be worthy of our Alma Mater. Page Eiftht