George Washington High School - Continental Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

Page 11 text:

QSCC Z9ll4l'Ul49S The need for a school in this area was apparent. The section was growing rapidly, The two schools then accommodating the Southwest were the largest in the City. Manual was larger than either Los An- geles High or Fremont, and all schools, secondary and elementary, serving our area were crowded. School authorities, believing she was destined to be the largest school in the City, located and planned Washington to meet a great and growing need. Cam- pus and plant were accordingly plotted and arranged to meet these high anticipations. The Board of Education was criticized severely for locating a school so far out. It was common comment for people to say that Washington is the school built out in the tules. One very reactionary politician said that Washington was so badly placed that only very few students had applied for admission. At the same time we had over twelve hundred students the first semester, and there was such a rapid increase that Washington became a major school l2000l in three years. Today, we leave it to you to judge whether or not the plant was judiciously located and planned, and whether or not the faculty were wisely selected. We venture these observations: we now have an enroll- ment of over twenty-nine hundred: no school buil- dings in the City as old as ours have been remodeled or changed less: and no faculty have worked together more effectively and harmoniously during their first decade of service together. What more can we wish for, other than an intelligent, conscientious and for- ward-looking use of what we already have! I shall now call upon members of the first assembled faculty to recall memories of the early days. Miss Esther Rebok: My memory takes me back to the time when roads were unpaved and cars stalled in the mud and people were constantly having their galoshes pulled off by the mud. There were crates and crates of equipment in the foods laboratory, which had to be unpacked and put away. Mrs. Verda Hodgman recalls: A school day of ten periods, a B7 class that met and remained orderly, although there was no teacher for nearly a week. Quite an exception to the rule. Mrs. Helen H. Clark: The first day boys and girls swarmed through the halls and crowded into the rooms. Everyone was excited and wanted to see everything in the first five minutes.

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mi. view 5. fiiqia PRINCIPAL AND COMIVIENTATOR Flash-Washington High School, Los Angeles, Califor- nia: While preparing to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its existence, George Washington High School looks back over highlights of its history with the news reel camera- man and Mr. Thomas E. Hughes, commentator . . . . Mr. Hughes: For almost a year before Washington opened, September, l927, ten years ago, the principal was under appointment and was having considerable to do and say about building plans and about the selection of teachers. Naturally, the type and quality of both were based on dreams, ideals, and upon ex- periences covering years of practical observations. Much freedom was allowed-in fact, the judgment of the principal was sought in both of these important and basic starting points in the matter of building a real school.

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W? washington High -- IQ27 Miss Mignonette Miquelz As I think back to i927 I recall fifty teachers, many so young one took them for students, mostly strangers to one another, with a very hazy idea of what was expected of them. Mrs. Olive Mulholland: On the way over from Vermont Avenue that first morning we cut from lO8th Place across the open field to the Cafeteria Building at Washington. After parking the car against the cafeteria, we went inside and slipped over piles of lumber and dodged workmen as we attempted to serve lunch to hungry students. Mr. A. E. Bishop: At my first meeting with Mr. Hughes I offered to wrestle him when he suggested that I did not seem strong enough for the woodshop position. I had charge of the stage at first, and the first flood lights were five gallon cans. The woodshop was then also given the job of building bleachers. Otherwise, none could have been obtained for at least four years. Mr. I. E. Burgess: I remember that the agricultural plot was merely a location without buildings or even a fence. The covered walk on the south end of the quadrangle was cut through red adobe standing four feet above the level of the walk. There was no lawn, shrubbery, or trees. Miss Muriel McKinlay: If a modern could glance into a typical English room of that day, he would see the teacher in a smock worn to protect clothes from a very dusty front yard, teaching before no desk but a typewriting table big enough for a book and a seating chart and interrupted by the electrician installing light globes. Mr. L. E. Edwards thinks back: There were children in those days, little B7's, A7's, eighth and ninth grades. Some upper grades, but fewer. Now what's all this throbbing throng of gay young thousands? Who are these darling damsels and these brawny youths? These are the city-seasoned sophisticates. These are the citizenry. What hath Time wrought I I I