Francis W Parker School - Record Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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in the embryonic democracy , when one sees that from our little democracy, Parkerites have graduated into a larger democracy and taken their rightful places as intelligent and useful citizens. They have become doctors, lawyers, housewives, executives, club women, clergymen, teachers, scientists, salesmen, musicians, en- gineers, secretaries, mathematicians, newspaper col- umnists, architects, actors, editors, bankers, designers, artists, government workers of all kinds-even tax collectors. We may boast of quite a few well-known names among the list of alumni. Names such as Celeste Holme, Hollywood actress, Perry Dunlap Smith, North Shore CD., Elliott Dunlap Smith, president of Carnegie Tech, Mildred McAfee Horton, president of Wellesley College and one time head of the WAVES, is iff ff it R111 AX,---.-....,. Katherine Taylor, well-known educator, and Darlene Stern Ceis, authoress, who writes that in her book, Design for Ann, she used Parker as a background for her characters and called the school Parsons, True, that for some individuals, life at Parker was simply a phase, the school itself just another institu- tion of learning. the country to many years in learned to love But to those who came from all over attend it, to those who have spent the circle of the Parker family and it, to those who have graduated and now look back on their days there with a certain, warm glow, to those people, what has Parker meant? Wfell, it has meant a way of life and of living, it has meant people and learning to live with them and to like them, it has meant an interest in everything from animal life through the arts, and a surer faith in hu- manity and the world. J W a MT -Q. N,

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AN EMBRYONIC DEMOCRACY Last of all, our school, the school which Col. Parker wished to be both a home and a community, strives to become also a democracy. Like our federal government, the school has incorporated in its principles the idea of basic freedom for all , freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right of initiative and referendum-free- dom, that is, but not license. The Parker student has a much more direct contact with his government than has the citizen of the Ll.S. with the federal. Perhaps a better analogy might be the United Nations-one large assembly for all mem- bers of the organization but the work is split up into various committees. ln Parker, these are the Social, Auditing, Budgeting, Library and Lunchroom commit- tees. Then there are, of course, the jobs of the various officers. ln other words, opportunity for participation is at its best at Parker and it is only up to the student to take advantage of it. Taking advantage of opportunity not only means running for an office or working on a committee, it means, too, taking a part in discussions with the fac- ulty about school problems. This is a very important part of Parker life and here, too, the smaller scale makes the democracy closer to the people themselves. When the students felt that they did not have enough control over their own finances, they went to the faculty and discussed it with them. As a result, we now have the student budgeting system in which all funds must be passed by a student committee and then the assembly before going to the various student bu- reaus while the records are kept by the student auditor. Probably one of the best remembered cases of student referendum in faculty decisions was in 1936 when the students became exasperated with the Two-inches- between-cheeks rule which the faculty enforced at all dances. When general protest and Weekly editorials brought no repeal of the law, the assembly voted to send a delegation to talk with the principal and some of the faculty. Says an alumnus who was one of the delegation: Each class sent its bravest, noisiest, cheekiest mem- ber . . . Our injured oratory won a trial for cheek-to- cheek. No perceptible sag in student morals resulted. ln comparatively recent years, Parker students have found a much easier way of discussing their problems with the faculty. This innovation is the Committee of 4-a council composed of students and faculty. Almost all important decisions come before the committee and through their representatives, the students make their opinions heard. As the Parker, student looks around him, he is proud not only of the democratic form of his government, but of the whole atmosphere of Democracy which sur- rounds him. His friends are from all races, creeds and classes. Out of the 452 students, 168 are on full or part scholarships. This is one of the things that makes possible the establishing of this democratic atmosphere in which one third of the parents are jewish, a slightly larger percentage Protestant and the rest Roman Cath- olic, Russian Orthodox, Confucian or unaffiliated. ln nationality, they are American, Armenian, Austrian, Canadian, Chinese, Czecho-slovakian, Danish, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, japanese, Latvian, Mexican, Norwegian, Polish, Roumanian, Russian, Swedish and Swiss. And of these there are 68 doctors, 36 attorneys or judges, 32 teachers, 135 busi- nessmen of various kinds, 29 clerical workers and 9 laborers. One can see that there is something special about Parker when one realizes that so many people from so many backgrounds live together in this home, learn together in this community, and work together

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