Commerce High School - Commerce Yearbook (Cleveland, OH)

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by unsystematized effort, caused unsatisfactory results. Today the problem is to secure the best results and minimize the expenditure of time and labor. Dealing with the novelty of untried processes, the High School of Commerce must make experiments, hence its first year has been occupied with problems of a vast nature. What of the old methods must be omitted, what of the new are of vital importance can be decided only by practical demonstration. The school has from the first endeavored to set the standard of business education high, to aim at meeting the wants of the century, and to advance cautiously but continuously until the commercial education shall in a measure be commensurate with the world’s commercial interests. 10

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limit of the capacity of the building.” This enrollment included both boys and girls and showed the popularity of the new movement. The beginning was most encouraging, and the problem of practicality gains in interest at every turn. At present, every available space in the building is occupied as a class room, and while music is taught, the classes for this subject arc obliged to take some recitation room that may chance to be vacant for one period. The school has a well appointed gymnasium which is used by the boys and the girls on alternate days. A lunch room has been furnished ample for the accommodation of all desiring to procure food at the school building. There is one large study room which, on occasion, must accommdate itself to being a hall for entertainment. The school is handicapped by lacking a room for library purposes, but a Carnegie library in the next block will soon minimize the lack. The Board of Education has subscribed in the name of the school for many of the best literary, educational, and business publications of the country, and from these the progress of the world is kept in mind, and an occasional recitation is devoted to world topics. Thus it will be seen that Herculean efforts are making and for the past year have been endeavoring to bring this great living machinery into the smoothest working order. Vital problems must be solved. The High School of Commerce considers as an important factor in education the duality of the individual. The gaining of knowledge by the mind and the storing of the same for future use are both as valuable to the student as the gaining and laying up of capital are to the business man. But the commercial education demands far more than the use of the mind as a store house. Knowledge gained should be practically used, until it becomes assimilated with the individual, and in this way much of the machinery for storage purposes is rendered useless. Thus instead of a theoretical, our aim is to advance a practical education. But the practical application must be so arranged as to bring educational processes before the pupils as life issues. Education must be made earnest and of absorbing interest. “The old order changeth yielding place to the new.” In the early days of our nation, as our Superintendent has reminded us, generalized labor made practical problems of life general. Lands must be measured, trees must be felled, houses and barns must be built; all this and more must be accomplished at the hands of the people. Spinning, weaving, garment making, cooking, and every variety of work, all were done at the home. Home education then was of paramount value when every member of the family had some duty to perform. Today specialization has eliminated home training, and most of our education is relegated to the schools. But while in the years gone by practical problems were more general, much more energy was required to accomplish the world’s purposes. Wear and loss, occasioned 9

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©epartmente tn Betail vV gbbanceb ©Horfe in political (Economy anb Commercial Hato THE purpose in this department is to enable the pupil to learn enough about law to keep him out of the courts and the difficulties into which ignorance of legal documents and usages might lead him. The course in economics lies along the main lines of political economy with strong branch lines extending into the fields of local industries. Jlfjpgiologp anb JJotanp THE work in botany precedes and prepares the way for that in physiology. Such plant-structures as are necessary for an understanding of the physiology and for a very general view of the plant-kingdom are studied. In this work the plants used are largely those of economic importance. In studying the lower forms the subjects of yeasts and molds in the household, the useful bacteria, the precautions necessary in the case of bacteria causing disease, are taken up. Among the higher plants special attention is given to those that arc helpful later in the course in commercial geography. In the physiology the emphasis is laid on hygiene. An effort is made throughout to teach the girls to care for themselves, especially under such conditions as they are likely to meet in a business life. Commercial eograpf)p THE course in commercial geography considers commercial conditions, commercial products and commercial countries. Under conditions are included those natural and other phenomena that affect commerce in any manner, climate, surface, fertility of soil and natural resources. Products includes a study of those things which enter into trade, both agricultural and manufactured products. The location of the different countries is learned with reference to latitude and longitude in such a manner that 11