Goshen High School - Crimson Yearbook (Goshen, IN)

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B.H.5. :' EmN l32g Most of the schools of today are coming nearer to the fulfillment of their function, whatever that may be determined' to be, by improving the equipment and the sanitary conditions under which children and teachers work, and making for greater safety. Panic release locks and fire drills have greatly reduced the hazards in our overcrowded buildings. School buildings today are being constructed with a view to making them health- ful and conducive to study. Goshen, however, has spent only 520,000 on new build- ings in seventeen years and nothing on remodeling. We are encouraged now, how- ever, with prospects for real constructive action in this line in the near future. We have a new High School Site of seventeen acres purchased and plans drawn for a new High School building that we feel will be a credit not only to Goshen but to all Northern Indiana. This is to be a thoroughly modern school, well equipped for several lines of pre-vocational and industrial work for boys and equally well fur- nished for corresponding activities for the girls. The plans are drawn to house a high school of 500 to 600 students and capable of expansion to accommodate many more. Goshen at the present time is much in need of an auditorium with seating capacity to accommodate audiences large enough to make it possible to bring to our city big attractions. The new building will meet this need with an auditorium that will seat twelve hundred and a stage ample for all our school and general public needs. The Gymnasium will have a seating capacity of twelve hundred or more and so arranged that it can be open to the public without opening up the rest of the building. Games and Physical Culture classes can thus be carried on without disturbing the school work in other parts of the plant. Q VVith the completion of this building, which we hope to see dedicated by Sepi temlfer, 1923, the present High School building is to be occupied by the Junior High School. Then the overflow from the crowded Chamberlain and South Fifth Street Schools can be accommodated in the Chandler Building. Sanitary conditions will be improved and the Goshen Schools will then, for the first time in many years, have elbow room and space in which to grow bigger. And with these increased facilities we hope to more nearly fulfill the mission for which public schools were created. J. W. FOREMAN. Twelve

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B.H.5. : 'X lan Jlre the Public Schools Fulfilling Their Mission? This question is being asked every day and answers are forthcoming from many sources. Some prominent people say that the schools are a failure and falling far short of their real mission, that their successes are few and their failures are legion. Others are more optimistic and are loud in their praises of the great achievements of modern education. A very prominent business man of one of our neighboring states was recently asked the question, How and why is the public school failing to measure up to your ideas of standards that should be maintained? His reply was that before this ques- tion could be answered we should first determine what the proper function of the school is, that if we could agree upon what the proper functions of the schools are then it would be easy to tell Whether or not they are succeeding. It is very certain that much of the divergence of opinion comes from the great variance in the ideals and purposes sought by those seeking an answer to the question. A very successful engineer says the school of today is not fulfilling its proper function in that it is not giving the students a method of attack upon the problems that they meet in school which may be later transferred to problems in life. But this philosopher fails to tell us what that method of attack is which would carry over into the problems of life. lf we could find this function certainly every true teacher would see that this wonderful lesson was so instilled into every fertile young brain that it would be learned by every child as soon as he reached the age to comprehend this great lesson. Hut while people differ greatly in their opinions as to the success or failure of modern school systems generally there would be little discussion on the proposition that one of the necessities to bring about a more complete fulfilling of the mission of the public schools is greater interest taken by parents and the public generally. It is an old saying that the schools belong to the public. But the public can not expect to reap where it has not sown, neither can it reap what is has not sown. We are spending in the United States forty-two dollars per year per child in buildings, equipment and instruction. This is a small investment, especially when we compare it with the much larger investment made every year in any one of many other items of infinitely less value, such as chewing gum, tobacco, war ships and several others. But with this amount the schools are accomplishing some things. Children f' larger numbers and a larger percentage of the children of all the people every year are learning to read, write and spell. Illiteracy in the United States was lowered in the last ten years from 7.4'k to 6.3W. l'Ileven

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