High School of Commerce - Caduceus Yearbook (Springfield, MA)

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THE HIGH SCHOOL OF COMMERCE—A HISTORY In September, 1915, the newest and best equipped high school in New y England was opened to its first classes of 1,058 students under the instruction of 44 teachers. The curriculum included commercial, cultural, domestic science, and manual training courses, all of which aimed to encourage the students to uphold the school motto—“Industry and Integrity.” The adapted Collegiate Tudor style building, which cost over a million dollars, rested on 1,236 piles driven into swampy land through which a brook once flowed. The school occu- pied 60,500 square feet and measured one-eighth of a mile around the four corridors on any floor. The building, built of red shale brick with limestone trimming, was designed to accommodate 1,500 students but through re-ar- } rangement of space can now hold 2,200. This completed dream of the High School of Commerce had begun almost twenty years earlier when, under the direction of Carlos B. Ellis,.a commercial department was organized as a part of Classical (then Central) High School. At that time in 1898, the department occupied one room and had 37 pupils with two instructors. Its growth caused the department to move to Technical High School eight years later. In 1910 the commercial department was or- ‘ ganized as a separate school under the name of the High School of Commerce, | but sessions were held during the afternoons at Central High School until the ; new building was erected on upper State Street. Under the guidance of Carlos B. Ellis, originator and first principal, the High School of Commerce became nationally famous and was ranked as one of the very first commercial high schools of the United States. It was also one Jerome Burtt 1930-1933 Stanley O. Smith 1933-1953 Carlos B. Ellis 1910-1930

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Canurews THe Volume 40, 1965 HIGH SCHOOL OF COMMERCE 415 State Street Springfield, Massachusetts

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Oscar Y. Gamel 1953-1958 Philip A. Sweeney 1958 of the first commercial schools to win certificate rights to such colleges as Dart- mouth, to Boston and New York Universities, and to the Massahusetts State Colleges. The French government once honored the school by sending a group of forty girls for a two-year course of intensive business training. During the next years Commerce continued to grow in numbers and curti- culum. Jerome Burtt followed Mr. Ellis as principal for three years. In 1933 Stanley O. Smith, who had previously served as a teacher at Commerce for eleven years, returned as principal, familiar with the traditions of the school ' and respectful of its prestige. The enrollment that school year was 2,292, with teachers numbering 83. Enrollment diminished during the War (1943 saw the number drop to 1,250) not only in Commerce but throughout the city. The number of students gradually began to rise, however, at the end of World War II and continued throughout the principalship of Oscar Y. Gamel, who served from 1953 to 1958. Philip A. Sweeney has been principal for the past seven years. Today all 144 rooms of the unusually well kept building are brimful of 1,770 young men and women. Fifty years have passed since Mr. Ellis first put his ideas into action. Com- merce graduates, numbering over 25,000, have done outstanding work at some of the best colleges and universities, including Harvard and Yale. They have entered the business world, becoming presidents of banks and insurance companies. Graduates have also gone into legal work and the teaching pro- fession. Some have become mayors, city clerks, and treasurers. We are proud of our school and of the men and women before us who have built its traditions.