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

Page 7 text:

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.

Page 9 text:

Sorewmard The massive red-brick school on the hill has been a second home to generations of teenagers. While their enthusiasms in study and recreation remain constant, fixed in the same tradition of living vigorously, their faces and fashions do change. On the golden anniversary of the High School of Commerce, Caduceus 1965 has tried to commemorate this change by reproducing several early yearbook de- signs and photographs. Galle of Contents Faculty sande Glasses seem eae 6 SCHiO‘sS tte a eats ee re ene, 26 JUNIO ee ee ener cre ee 88 Breshinier meee eee ee 106 JACTIVITICS aes Ore eee ores ied eee 124 A CHIETICS pes eman eee aa ae 142 [dex attons ae 162