Dalton High School - Tiger Yearbook (Dalton, GA)

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0 9TJ .5% t ie (3 c en Q)a fv . . . ★The first Sweetheart of DHS was Geneva Giles elected in 1954. Super- latives were also elected in 1954. The first Sweetheart Dance was in 1955. The first Mr. and Miss DHS was in 1957. ★Superlatives were changed to Un- derclass Favorites and Top Twenty in 1962. The Top Twenty, which was based on an activity point system for election, was changed to an election by popular vote in 1971 and became the Senior Favorites. ★ Many high school students quit school during World War II and took jobs for war causes . Students were urged to give up their jobs and return to the classroom in 1946. Many did not return. ★ It was hard during the War Years to keep a staff of teachers on duty every day, not only in the high school but the elementary schools as well. As a result, the administration decided to use high school students from junior and senior classes in classrooms. Students were allowed to sign up for two hour duty each day in the elemen- tary schools and were given credit on their records. At the high school level, students were pulled from classes as needed for substitute work in 8th and 9th grades. I recall several of these students did an outstanding service. (MBT) ★At one time, the DHS Band paraded through downtown Dalton before EVERY home football game. ★School vaccinations for smallpox were once manditory along with phys- icals and weights, etc. ★A Victory Garden” was kept by the Home Economics students. It was lo- cated between the Old Gym and the presentday Cafeteria. (Wonder if it was planted in the traditional man- ner!?) ★Fire drills were once conducted by the Dalton Fire and Recreation De- partment. ★At one time, chewing gum was not allowed in the classroom. 7 The busy DHS library.

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 School Life: Circa 1776 Our school story begins in 1776, the year of our independence. In reality, however, it began more than a century earlier — shortly after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. That’s when the first American schools were started. The Puritans were practical people, you see, and they felt that their ability to conquer the wilderness lay in their children’s state of preparation. Only through education could they attain the knowledge they needed to confound Satan.” First, these children of the Puritans needed desperately to learn to read — English in order to master business and the law and Latin in order to understand important religious materials. (Massachusetts passed a compulsory education law in 1642. Later, the state made provisions for each town of 60 families to provide an elementary teacher; a town of 100 families or more had to maintain a suitable Latin grammar school in addition to the elemen- tary teacher.) Books and classroom materials? They were neither varied nor sophisticated. The Bay Psalm Book, the Bible and the Catechism were at the top of the recommended reading list. Supplementary classroom aids were in the form of oral talcs and allegories to teach moral lessons of the day. There was a hornbook of ABCs for teaching the vernacular. Colonial charters of the Dutch colonics — Pennsylvania, etc. — also provided for gov- ernment-established schools. The middle colonies had difficulties. Varied as to religion and heritage, there was dissension among the people on educational issues. In short, each reli- gion insisted that its children receive educational training in keeping with its creed. The South’s problems were different, too. Because of the rural nature of the population, central- ized schools were impractical. As a result, wealthy planters employed tutors and set up schoolhouses on their lands. Their children as well as the children of their less well-to-do neighbors received instruction from the tutors. By 1776, both the curriculum and teaching methods had progressed considerably from the earlier days. In keeping with European tradition, vocational studies and applied sciences had largely been omitted from the early 18th century curricula in favor of the classics — Cato, Virgil and Cicero. But, America was bom at a time when science and rationalism were challenging the validity of many traditions. The students benefited. Science, math, writing, astronomy, etc., were added to the school-day agenda. And, there was more of a choice in schools themselves. Although the Latin grammar schools still flourished as prep schools for the Harvards and Yales, private English schools had been introduced to better prepare mid- dle class students for the business world and for the task of governing themselves. (Some private schools even agreed to admit girls alongside the boys, though most offered special classes for females — classes emphasizing sewing, music, an, reading and penmanship.) Even then, however, it was impossible to please all of the people all of the time or even most of the people at a single instance. Just as some had thought the Latin grammar schools too restrictive, others felt that the private English schools lacked discipline. The academies were their answer. The academies were the forerunners of our public schools. • • • I a i • j TvV ; 6 Reprinted from Taylor Talk-' issue 3. 1976 By permission of Taylor Publishing Co. Dallas. Texas

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«V I 'dtSAi. • + . V J Students: Circa 1776 Rich, industrious, studious, religious and male.” These were the words that might have been used to describe the typical high school” student of the colonial days. For high school then meant Latin grammar school, and since the subjects taught were classical in nature and designed solely for college preparation, children from less well-to-do families were forced to take apprenticeships. (Latin grammar, rheto- ric, etc., have never been heralded for their ability to prepare one for a trade or vocation.) The very wealthy young men (those from the top echelon of colonial society) usually went to Europe for their education or stayed at home (in the South) to be taught by tutors from England or Scotland. The real highbrows” of the day still thought American schools inferior. Students in the lower grade levels were far more heterogeneous. Almost every colony or township, as the case may be, provided for every child to be taught the basics in reading and writing and arithmetic, regardless of sex or social standing. (Girls from middle and upper income families often went on to attend Dame Schools and or the academics. However, more emphasis was placed on the social graces than on academic subject matter. Needlework, singing, music and dancing were deemed more necessary in preparing a girl to assume a woman’s role than astronomy and literature.) The college students were a fun-loving lot, as well as industrious and studious. And, the stria discipline exerted by the schools combined with the heavy academic load produced more than one near catastrophe. In addition to pulling routine pranks such as placing a cow in the chapel, students were frequently expelled for such tricks as setting off powder charges under their tutors’ chairs.” Portraits at modest prices were supplied by itinerant painters who came around with pre- painted figures and pastoral backgrounds. Only the faces had to be painted in during the actual sitting. Most portraits looked alike. Reprinted from ’ Taylor Talk ' issue 3. 1976 By permission of Taylor Publishing Co Dallas. Texas