Fairmont High School - Maple Leaves Yearbook (Fairmont, WV)

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M OUT OF THE HAZY PAST - - TO THE GLORIOUS FUTURE graduate of today has a better education than the average college graduate of 50 years ago when the Fairmont High School was first established. And today's aver' age graduate needs no stepping stone between the high school and the college. I served 12 years on the board of education of Fairmont Independent District. During that time, the chief complaint I heard from parents was that the High School did not prepare the student for college and that at least one year's preparatory school work was necessary before the high school graduates could enter college. I am not sure this was true, but I do know that many high school graduates headed for college did not stop for a year or two of preparatory work. But if this condition did exist it has been corrected. As a member of the school board I was bitterly opposed to what I considered the waste of time of attending the preparatory school when the high school should be suflicient in itself, and I noticed with much satis' faction that when my own daughter left the high school with her diploma her credits were sufficient for entrance in a college where the requirements are rather strict The real history of the Fairmont High School from its first foundation in the years of Reconstruction following the Civil War to what I term the modern era beginning about 1912, will probably never be written, because there was no history to write. Its graduates were few and far between and in no sense were their num' bers comparable to the population the school had to draw from. Many young men were sent away to escape the tedium of its years, and the young women were forced to endure it, because, after all, for many of them it was that or nothing. . To have a history an institution must have a past in which its achievements stand out as so many white mile posts on the road to progress. Beyond the time within the memory of most young people Fairmont High School had no past. True, there are memories of the old days to be cherished. Memories of noble teachers who were pioneers engaged in grubbing the dying past for a more enlightf ened future, and the memories of boys and girls who rose above their environf ments, but in no sense does there exist the memories of Alma Mater which form a skein of sentiment to grow stronger with the years. Fairmont High School and its achievements dates from the erection of the build- ing on the knoll at Fifth street. Here, where the Indians fought, bled and died, and where the soldiers in blue pitched their tents, was born the spirit of high school education in Fairmont. In 1905 that building was a big undertaking. Compared to the protest over the use of Loop Park for a high school site, the project at Fifth street was a roar compared to a whisper. It looked big and grand in those days, and grand and big it looks to us now-those of us who watched it grow from a toddling infant to the big chap that outgrew his clothes. And from Fifth street to Loop Park is a big jump. To the eyes of no older folks its dazzle is great. We see in it the fulfillment of a life-long dream, an expensive and gor- geous sacriice laid upon the altar of the god of culture. And if anybody bespeak it ill, let him bethink him one who loves it well! if The Maples I -C. E. SMITH. 'Ten

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QUT OF THE HAZY PAST fn -- TQ THE GLORIOUS FUTURE A Board Of Education N' HE present Board of Education is responsible for the completion of this building program, which was begun '7' 2,5 by the former Board, of which Dr. E. W. Howard was ?.0i?'? the outgoing member. The members are: President, BJQL L R. C. Jones, Secretary, Mrs. George DeBoltg members, R. T. Cunningham, Mrs. W. S. Mayers, Dr. E. W. Howard, out' going member, and Ernest Bell, memberfelect. Twelve