Durham High School - Messenger Yearbook (Durham, NC)

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,, I M I U93 Wh- i FO DURHAMIHGHSCHOGL F W: PAGEIO

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D 1- 1953 The Jbffersenger Christens this Uirigible, D. H. S. lt is manned by a Capable crew. An eH31eient ship from nose to tail. May she point her stem toward lofty goals and climb forever upward.

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lflld Ci A Brief Histor ofthe Durham City Schools ODAY our City School System consists of seventeen buildings, three hundred teachers, and ten thousand four hundred pupils. lt is hard to realize the development of this vast system from the tiny organization first set up in 1882. YVe are told that great oaks from little acorns grow, and it may be interesting to examine and trace the little educational acorn planted by a few brave spirits in September 1882, in an old Wooden building known as VVright,s factory near the present site of the Norfolk and VVestern Freight depot. At that time it was given the preten- tious name of Durham Graded and High School. There were three hundred eight pupils, five teachers, and the superintendent, Professor E. VV. Kennedy, a native of Tennessee who prior to that time had taught in Goldsboro. Through Professor Kennedy's influence the school board decided on the policy of a bond issue to raise the money necessary to construct an adequate building. A contest in the courts delayed this bond issue till 1888, but at last the public school won. This decision has never been reversed, for no bond election for schools has ever failed in Durham. Dr. VV. K. Boyd in his Story of Durhamn writes thus: Loyalty to its public school system is a part of the cityys unwritten creed and in the establishment of that creed one personality stands out preeminently, VVilliam T. Blackwell. He nursed the original law through the legislature, he spent nearly four thousand dollars in litigation in defense of the school, and he flung the challenge to the public in 1886 and secured the operation of the schools when the courts had declared the law of I88I unconstitutional. W'ith the bond issue of 515,000 for a new building assured, General S. Carr gave land at the corner of YVarren and Jackson streets, the present site of lVlorehead School. The first brick building was erected and named after lWr. Eugene lklorehead, a member of the school board, and father of lwr. L. Morehead, a lawyer in Durham. The school was opened about 1890. Mr. Kennedy resigned in 1894 and lklr. C. VV. Toms, a graduate of the University of North Carolina, was elected superintendent. He is now President of Liggett and Myers Tobacco Com- an '. The second school building erected during his administration was at the corner of Cleve- P l cv c 2 land and Green, now Chapel Hill Street. This was called Fuller School after Mr. Bartholomew Fuller, a member of the first school board in Durham. hfir. Toms had unusual administrative ability and did much to set the standards cherished by us today. He inspired in teachers and pupils great respect for the schools and loyalty to them. Art and manual training were introduced during his administration. In 1897 lVlr. Toms was elected Professor of Pedagogy at the University of North Carolina. He resigned as superintendent, and lVlr. VV. VV. Flowers, a graduate of Trinity College, now Duke PAGE II