Central High School - Panther Yearbook (Fort Worth, TX)

Page 17 text:

.KAXL XX 14 X ,Sq Vfyisi l 4 ixV1 E VUL FIRST FORT VVYORTH HIGH SCHOOL BUILDXNG, 1883 MR. R. L. PASCHAI, KIRK. CIARA PEAK XVALDEN l'1'i11f'1Apul 1 'S Pfiurfpa! CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, l926

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HEN we view the large and well-equipped high schools of our city, we can scarcely realize that less than fifty years ago, our only high school was a little two-room building at the end of West Fourth Street. Here in 1888 about forty girls and one boy were receiving instruction. Before that date, there had been a boys' high school on Burnett near Seventh, but it had been discontinued. While the building was small and the equipment meager, the spirit of the school has never been surpassed, for, there presided over it, as Principal, a woman whose life was such that it called forth the nobleness in others to meet her own- Mrs. Clara Peak Walden. To be associated with Mrs. VValden was to learn to love goodness and beauty. Many middle-aged men and women in Fort Worth, when they see the dog-toothed violets will go back in thought to the happy hours when they wandered over the prairies with her and learned to see God in the beauties of nature. She was a woman highly cultured and with a keen appreciation of literature, music and art, and those who were so fortunate as to study under her, had their lives enriched to an inestimable degree. But it was not only culture that she gave her pupils, she enriched their spiritual lives, for, her heart was so full of the love of God and her mind so stored with the great truths of the Bible that she brought these truths home to the hearts of her children, and some of the hnest and noblest men and women in Fort Worth, today, feel that their highest impulses come from the lessons she taught them. Our own beloved teacher, lkfiss Lily B. Clayton, owes her inspiration to her association with Mrs. Walden, for, she went, a young girl, to teach in that little two-room school-house and found there a woman who scorned all things base, but whose heart was overflowing with love for humanity. In after years, another of our teachers came, as a pupil in a larger high school, under Mrs Walden's influence. She feels that many of the deepest and finest im- pressions of her character come from lessons learned from Mrs. Walden-our beloved Math teacher, Charlie Noble. So these two teachers are passing on to us what they received, the one as a friend, and the other as a pupil of this most perfect and rare spirit, whose life meant so much to so many. Thus, the influence of the little two-room schoolhouse is being felt in our magnificent high school of today, and we are, also, fortunate in having it presided over by a Principal who embodies the highest ideals of culture and who sets us an example of noble, Christian manhood. Professor Paschal has a wonderful store of knowledge and he is never too busy or too tired to help any boy or girl who comes to him with a question. He is a friend to every pupil in the high school and nothing delights him more than to get a pupil interested in good reading or a noble line of thought. The little schoolhouse with two teachersfour magnificent building with forty teachers, six graduates, then-ffive hundred, now. So Fort Worth has grown, the first Principal, a spiritual, noble woman-our present Principal, a cultured, Christ- ian gentleman. Fortunate, happy children of both generations!

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