Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

Page 31 text:

now occupy, but we feel it has served its purpose and outlived its period of usefulness. The building is not mod- ern, it is not large enough for the num- ber of pupils which occupy it: it has no recreation room; its laboratory is poorly equipped ; the assembly hall has to be used for a classroom; and the school library is about one-fifth as large as it should be. With a new building the principal and the faculty would be able to work more efficiently and to produce better graduates. With a gymnasium and equipment, better athletes would constitute the teams, and there would be greater competition between our school and outside schools. It is in the high school that the young people really begin their career; it is in the high school that we learn how to live and to get along with others ; it is there that we learn to cooperate with and to be guided by others so that we may succeed; and it is there that we get our background for a start in life. How important it is then that we get the best start pos- sible by being provided with a modern building and equipment, which are regarded in educational circles today as necessities. Nor is it all a matter of paying out, for although the town does get a money return later in the form of taxes paid by prosperous citizens it has helped to educate, there is a greater return that cannot be reckoned in terms of mone- tary value, but which is of much greater and permanent value to the town. Its greatest assets and reward are the loyal citizens who have been trained- for leadership in its schools. It is in this way that the town is repaid with inter- est for the cost of educating its youth. But on the other hand, if it costs the town something to educate the pupils, it costs the pupil something to be edu- cated. The greater share of the burden of the expense of supporting the pupil during the school years rests primarily, of course, upon the parents, most of whom do not hesitate to make personal sacrifices to keep their children in school. However, among the boys especially, ' there are very many who have already learned how to work out- side of school hours and to help sup- port themselves. It is not difficult for these boys who have thus learned something of the value of money and who help to defray their own expenses during the educational period to realize something of the cost of education. Many of them, too, are sacrificing (for the present) regularly paying positions because they realize that the extra years spent in school will increase their earning capacity later. The pupil, however, has to sacrifice more than money in order to secure an education. Time and effort are no small items of expenditure on his part. There are so many occasions when sports and the great outdoor world ara calling and when books, seem deadly dull. But if he has learned the valu3 of an education (which brings us back again to Huxley’s definition) he will stick to the books until the lesson is learned, and in so doing he has learned one of the greatest lessons in life. In a very true sense, of course, one’s educa- tion is never completed. However, when one has finished his formal school- ing whether it be terminated by high school, normal school, college, or uni- versity, he has something which no other person nor any mischance can ever take away from him. And it is the knowledge that he possesses some- 29

Page 30 text:

in the machinery of government, has a good background for his career as a citizen. Francis Morong. THE COST OF EDUCATION Before we can talk about the cost of education we must first know what education is. Thomas Henry Huxley, a scientist, has given us perhaps the best definition obtainable. He says that “the chief purpose of education is to train the mind and will to do the work you have to do when that work is to be done, whether you want to do it or not.” If this is an accurate defini- tion of education and if training in school helps a person to do a specified task at the moment it should be done, then you and I and all of us should give the cause of education our whole- hearted support. We need more peo- ple in the world who can settle down to a task at a definite time and. stick to it until it is accomplished. It is not an easy thing to do ; in fact it is about the hardest thing which we have to learn to do. This is where the cost comes in, cost in time and effort as well as in money to the town and to the pupil. Comparisons are perhaps the best ways of showing the cost of education and also the manner in which the citi- zens respond when asked to donate to a cause helping education. We shall see, I think; that the cost of education in every case is exceeded by the return. Let us consider first the cost to the town to educate its future citizens. The town has to supply books and necessities to educate the pupil accord- ing to modern ideas and modern meth- ods which are constantly replacing the old. From the year 1916 to the year 1920 the average expense for educat- ing the pupils of the schools of Ips- wich was $50,772.80. The expense for the same work from 1920-1925 was $59,560.32, a difference of $8,787.52 which shows that modern times call for better and more extensive equip- ment and also shows that there are more children in the public schools to benefit by an education. Now let us consider the individual. From 1916 to 1920 the average cost per pupil was $47.40 and from 1920 to 1925 the aver- age was $55.56, an average increase of $8.16 per pupil. Besides the cost for the pupil is the cost for buildings and their upkeep. Modern times demand modern schools and modern schools de- mand money. We do not think any- thing of going to a store and spending a dollar or two, but if we are asked to give a dollar towards a new school we are insulted and we do not give the money. Statistics show that in 1925, we spent $27 for joy riding, pleasure resorts, and races, and only $1.29 for religious work. We spent $5.00 for jewelry and $0.08 for professors’ sal- aries. We spent $45 for luxurious foods and $10 on public schools. We spent $0.51 for firearms and $0.18 for foun- tain pens. We spent $2.58 on diamonds and $0.57 for typewriters. We spent $4.15 on near beer and $1.10 on edu- cational books. We need no more con- vincing proof than these figures of our short sightedness and of our willing- ness to spend lavishly on things which can yield us only temporary pleasure, at the same time begrudging a suffi- cient sum for those things of lasting and permanent worth. We are greatly indebted to R. H. Manning for the high school which we 28

Page 32 text:

thing worth infinitely more than any- thing that can be reckoned in terms of money values that constitutes his re- turn for the cost of his education. We have seen then whether we con- sider the cost of education from the point of view of the town or of the pupil, that no matter how great the cost may be, it is always exceeded by the return in both money and satisfac- tion. We can make no better invest- ment. Let us not begrudge, therefore, any money, time, or effort that we can spend in behalf of this great cause of education. Earl Ewing. “PALMA NON SINE PULVERE” “Palma non Sine Pulvere,” no prize without a struggle, is our class motto. Everybody realizes the truth of this motto, but we need to be reminded of it frequently in these days of ease when people are apt to forget that the only things in life worth having are those worth striving for. There seems to be a regrettable tendency even among some modern educators to believe that everything must be made pleasant and interesting for pupils in school and to discard those subjects which they regard as merely disciplinary, such as Latin, Greek, literature, and others. For the few who fail to recognize their own indebtedness to these studies, however, there are countless others who, in the broader culture and ideal- ism they have obtained, realize that they possess treasures all too rare in this age and country of material wor- shippers and of commercialism. They have not forgotten, however, the period of drudgery which they passed through before the glories of an ancient or even a modern literature dawned upon them. So it is in ev ery field of life where there is anything to be accomplished. Mo.it musicians can doubtless look back to days when they drummed out uninter- esting scales for hours at a time. Suc- cessful authors, most of them at least, have experienced a discouraging pe- riod of training and very often failures. Such examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but let us pass on to ob- serve examples in the history of our country as a whole where success was attained only through a struggle. First, we have the Pilgrims who came here for religious and political freedom. They had many struggles to contend with, — those with the Indians, those against disease, a nd those for food. Their task was not easy, but in the midst of hardships which, for us, would be unendurable, they never lost sight of their purpose and attained it for themselves and for posterity. Second, we have the Revolutionary War in which we struggled for the peace and safety of our country. We had been deprived of the rights which had been promised us in our charters, and those rights were deemed worth all the strug- gle of the disheartening days of the war. Third, we have the example or the Civil War in which there was a struggle for the preservation of the Union and out of which came a glorious and indissoluble nation. For the fourth example, we have the more recent World War. On the outcome of this, the democracy of the whole world depended. These were all bitter strug- gles, but in the end we were rewarded with success. All men who have gained national or public distinction have done so through their own efforts. We can truly say 30