Central Manual Training High School - Record Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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Halehgnrg Ladies and Gentlemen: To-day, you as our public and we as a class, are here together for the tlrst and oddly enough. for the last time. On such an occasion therefore, it is only Fitting that we should express our appreciation of the great interest you have taken in us. Not only have you been devoted to our interests as a class, but you have observed with sympathy and understanding our progress and development as individuals. When we recall the raw material out of which we were fashioned in the difficult process to which we have been subjected, we are all the more impressed by your sympathy and support. You have encouraged us in those dubious times when the spinster of that trio of Fates has woven the dark thread more readily than the light. Without this encour- agement and help, we might perchance, have lost faith in ourselves and given up our faint hope for the future light. Speaking for my classmates, it is my privilege to express to you our appreciation for what you have done for us in this regard. There have been times, in the exuberance of our feelings when, through some deviation from the straight and narrow way we have justly earned your reprobation. These times, on the whole have been few, but we have never felt, upon due reflection that your cen- sure was misplaced. There are, however, other things for which we are grateful. Among you, no doubt, there are not a few who have had to make sacrifices in order that some of us might reap the benefits of the systematic and advantageous training in the courses of the institution from which we have just been graduated. Such voluntary sacrifices as these have been made with perfect willingness on your part, although you might have easily evaded them to your greater ease. In recognizing such an obligation to your sons. however, you may be justly proud of the silent performance of the really Hue duty of American citizenship-the bestowal of the boon of opportunity, through the gateway of the great American public schools, on those who constitute the men of to-morrow. 69

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ing of the methods and progress of manufacturing gives him a weight and importance which, at the beginning of their career, comparatively few business executives have possessed. He is not infre- quently found to be competent to act either as superintendent or as manager. The Central Manual Training High School of Philadelphia was established in September, 1885. Mainly as the result of the efforts of the president of our school, it at once took rank among the best exponents of modern educational movements, a position which it has since that time steadily main- tained. The promoters of the idea secured the use of an almost condemned elementary school build- ing at the corner of Seventeenth and Wood streets, and inaugurated the school with a complement of one hundred pupils. This meagre shell was, and, unfortunately still is, the Central Manual Training High School of one of the few cities of the first rank in the United States. To-day, one or more hight grade manual training equipments have been built in almost every city of the United States. What was something of an experiment in 1885, is now one of the most potent factors in modern education. Yet the pioneer school, in spite of the splendid results that have since redounded to the credit of its originators, is to-day, from the standpoint of physical housing, the sorriest spectacle in the whole category of modern manual training high schools. When the enor- mous growth of the school is considered, when this growth is known to be the result of sustained and solid educational worth, it is to be deplored that the physical needs of the school are not made a matter of paramount popular concern. In the miserable building in which this foremost of manual training high schools is forced to house itself, it is already impossible to accommodate the large in- coming classes that are annually clamoring for admission to its privileges. As for ourselves, personally, when we ask the question: Has the manual training high school idea sufficiently prepared us to cope with the difficulties that we are to encounter?-we find the answer suggested by examining the records of those graduates who have preceded us. Eighty per cent. of those are engaged in pursuits which require an alert and trained intelligence. We find that we, as members of the graduating class of nineteen hundred and nine, will at least attempt to main- tain the credit and dignity of our Alma Mater. 68

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It is moreover chiefly due to your sympathy and support as taxpayers of this commonwealth that the Manual Training High School idea has brought to such a standard of perfection the great system of our national public education. In maintaining such an attitude toward the public schools you have made it possible for us to obtain that carefully combined training of the 'hand and brain which ought to constitute one of the chief levers of an uplift in our lives. That schooling has widened our breadth of view-has, as it were, placed in our hands implements with which we may hope to cope successfully with the difficult problems in the struggle for existence. Whether we take up our position in larger schools of preparation or whether we plunge at once into the busy world of affairs, we shall doubtless discover that we have anticipated many of the vicissitudes that beset the paths of him who clambers forward. It is thus that there is begotten in us a conti- dence that our training will give us the ability to meet with competence whatever emergencies may confront us. On behalf of my classmates, therefore, I thank you and assure you that the sympathy and encouragement you have vouchsafed in the past a.nd your presence here to-day, have engen- dered within us a faith and an ambition to make the most of ourselves and by what measure of suc- cess we shall attain, to express to you how deeply we appreciate the interest you have taken in us. I bid you farewell, Gentlemen of the Committee on the Central Manual Training High School: Although in the course of the past three years we have perhaps been less intimately acquainted with you in a personal way than with the other directive agencies of our scholastic lifeg we have not failed to perceive your interest on our behalf. While we have never come into that close relationship which makes mutual comprehension less difficult, we feel and know that you by your unselfish efforts have done much to make possible the progress and enlarge the opportunities of our school career. . t. Nor has yours been altogether an easy task. The Central Manual Training High School of Philadelphia has deservedly earned its conspicuous success, but this success has been due in a measure to yourselves. A ca.use, however worthy or well constituted, cannot succeed without administrative T0