Fairmont Public School - Tiger Yearbook (Fairmont, NE)

Page 24 text:

18 THE FAlKMOXTICELlvA. recognized and appointed .is one of those schools. Another provision of the law makes it necessary that a teacher must have Normal training before they can se- cure any kind of a certificate. Again the law provides that a school to be qualified to be recognized for Normal training work must have at least three teachers in High School; must give at least nine weeks each in review' of Arithmetic, Grammar. Reading ami Geography; a year of History and a semester of Methods. All of these must be given in the last two years of the course. Agricul- ture must also be taught somewhere in the course. Some one asks, “What about the eight hundred out of the one thousand seven hundred graduates that enter active life work?” Domestic Science, Manual Training and Business Courses would prepare this class for their immediate life work. To be sure this is true, but Normal Training provided for over half of the seventeen hun- dred. To prepare for the rest means greater expense by three times. Hence they must await their turn. The Fairmont School Board in accepting plans for the new building provided for the rest of this industrial side. The new school house has a large room for Domes- tic Science, a large one for Manual Training and is sur- rounded writh enough land to provide for the proper teaching of Agriculture. Now all that remains to make Fairmont School sys- tem perfect in its preparation of all pupils, is a develop- ment of a public sentiment that will authorize the Board of Education to expend enough to hire the extra teachers and provide the equipment for the successful running of these industrial departments. A bill providing financial help in teaching Agriculture in ten such schools w as introduced into the legislature this year, but failed to pass. When such a law does pass, the schools which have jnade the most progress along this line will be the first to receive help. The first Normal Training class began wTork in the Fairmont High School, Sept. 1907. It consisted of the following pupils: Leonard Terry and Charles Usher, post- graduates: Estella Farley, Hazel Farrer, Katie Kelch. Leone Lindley. Frank Garey, Albert Garey. Ward Marget, Lee Marget, Twelfth Grade: and Bessie Kelch, Joy Dor- rance, Nell Swan, Fern Spahr, Mable Clark, Jane Lott,

Page 23 text:

THE FA IRMONT1CELLA Normal Training Department The one great purpose of our High School is to pre- iits pupils for a life of usefulness. The High School attempts to do this in two ways: First, to prepare the pupil to enter and complete his education in an institu- tion to higher learning; Secondly, to prepare pupils to go directly into their life work. In the first of these purpos- es we have succeeded very well for a number of years, as is attested by our rating by the State Department of Education and by recognition given us by the State University and Colleges of Nebraska. In the second of these great purposes we have not been prepared to succeed so well. It takes money to equip a school to emphasize the industrial side of education. State Supt. J. L. IVfcBrien in 1005, wrote to tin superintendents of all of the larger towns of the state and got the following statistics from sixty answers. During the preceding three years, these sixty schools had graduated two thousand three hundred pupils. Fight hundred immediately entered business (farming, clerking, housekeeping, etc.,) nine hundred immediately took to teaching and six hundred entered institutions of higher learning. If our school .just prepared for college, we would be catering to only about one fourth of our graduates. The industrial side should be emphasized for the other three fourths. But the High Schools of the state could not stand the expense necessary to meet this need. The state could not advance money enough to prepare for all of the industries. The above statistics showed that a greater number of graduates went into teaching than into all of the other kinds of work taken together. Here was a chance to reach a great per ceni on the industrial sidt of Education, and the Legislature f 1005 passed the High School Normal Training Law. This law provided for the giving of three hundred and fifty dollars each year to seventy strong High Schools scattered throughout the State, that they might equip themselves to prepare pupils to teach in the ele- mentary grades of Nebraska. Fairmont High School was

Page 25 text:

THE FAIRMONTICELLA. 19 Mable Lott, Alice Martin, Clara Putt, Charles Robinson and Edward McCabe, Eleventh Grade. A large per cent of this class successfully passed the examinations and Hazel Farrer, Leone Lindley and Leonard Terry are very successful teachers. The Juniors of last year’s class are the seniors of the present class and go out this year. The following pupils compose the junior branch of this year’s Normal Train- ing class: Edna Root, Mary Dick. Salome Farley, Mary Forbes, Earl Forbes, Maggie Kelch, Anna Shiebley, Charlotte Jenkins, Helen Hayes. The Methods class last year visited several schools and observed the work in practice. On one of the trips the boys of the class played and defeated the Friend High School basket ball team. The saddest thing in the history of the class is the death of its most popular member, Charles Usher, who was drowned while swimming with some of his fellow class-mates in the Blue River north of Fairmont. Here’s hoping that the industrial side of the Fairmont High School may ever grow. Cl I AS. K. WEEKS.