Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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quiet now ; only our lieavy breath- ing’ and difficult grunts bi ' oke the silence. After about two hours of such climbing, we reached the glacier. Although our faces were grim and our hands were trembling after such an ordeal, we immediately adjusted our ice cleats and started up the slippery, treacherous surface. Crev- ices were scattered everywhere, and here most of the careless tour- ists lose their lives. One false step, one careless moment, and you are cured forever of mountain-climbing. The air was getting fresher, and our hands, gripping firmly our life- saving pickaxes, were showing- white at the knuckles ; our breath was short and sibilant; our progress vas slight. But 1 will spare you the narration of what happened during the next three hours. Suffice it to say that we finally had conquered our foe and were mighty proud of this ac- complishment. We had struggled for six hours, but our labor had not been wasted. Here was our reward as we looked over all the Alps of Italy, France, and Switzerland from the summit of the Jungfraujoch, thirteen thousand eight hundred and twenty feet above sea level, second only to Mont Blanc in height, second to none in splendor and color. M. Savoy, ’3G This essay was judged by the faculty ad- visors to be the best article submitted to “The Cub” during the year. GRADUATION ESSAYS. The Growth of Secondary Education By Charlotte Machaj W ITH the landing of the Pil- grims in America in 1620 came the ideas of independence and the education of their children. The settlers wanted to make better citi- zens of their children for the good of both church and state. Hardly five years had passed after they landed in America when they held a meeting in their first church in Boston and discussed education, which meeting eventually brought about the founding of the first Lat- in grammar school. In spite of fam- ine, pestilence, and attack at the hands of the natives, they continued to carry out their plans for educat- ing the children. Massachusetts, therefore, from the landing of the Pilgrims to the present day, is con- sidered as one of the leading states that has helped to develop secon- dary education in America. The first Latin grammar school was the Boston Latin School estab- lished April 23, 1635. This type of school had been transplanted 16

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Dim twilight was creeping over the peaks as we arrived at the vil- lage, if so can be called a few chal- ets, an inn, and a ski-club. Having started early in the morning, we had twisted our way up the weary trail, and we reached Osingen just in time to view the most beautiful thing of- fered man by nature — the rising of the sun over the Alps. Ever the first to catch the fire from the upcoming day, the great peak of the Jungfrau blushed a faint rose color which each instant grew brighter and brighter, and then peak after peak was caught by the same rose flush, and light fell slov ly into valley and gorge. We watched this magic beauty of the dawn in silence, and if we had been for any reason unable to continue our journey, I am sure we should have returned satisfied with our pre- vious efforts. But v e had come to conquer the Jungfrau, and we set about to pro- cure the services of a guide. There were many of them at the ski-club and we were assigned an old moun- taineer, who could not remember how many times he had ascended these peaks, who could also not for- get, and who would only give up on the day his battered and smashed frame would be sorrowfully drag- ged into town on an improvised stretcher of pine-branches amid a group of other white-haired, snow bearded brother guides, at last hav- ing found peace and rest in the mountains that he loved. Thus is the life of an Alpine guide; he is born amongst his dear mountains, and he will die in their cold, grimy arms. One by one they go, but the next generation carries on. Many of them carry talismans, mostly medals of the Virgin or of her Son, and many a story is told of a sturdy guide who lost his life scaling a peak on a day on which he had for- goten his lucky charm. They are simple people, true to their religion, their country, and their traditions. It was with one of these true sons of Helvetia that we were to try our skill and nerves against the proud king. It took us some time to reach the foot of the peak since we had to cross numerous hills between Osing- en and our goal. We finally reach- ed our destination, and our guide gave us the same word-for-word in- structions he had previously given to hundreds of tourists before us. The first few hundred feet up were comparatively easy, since we v ere just following a winding trail that took us across green pas- tures. We were talking and chatting gaily, absorbing the beautiful sur- roundings : the native brown and white spotted cows, the chalets, the towering pines, the rustic and peaceful setting. But as we kept on winding up and around, we left the green pastures and their husky cows; the pines al- so were growing thinner and gradu- ally vanishing; only a few moun- tain goats made the air rattle as they scurried and bounded across the rocks above which we were soon to encounter. Now we had come to our real test. There were the rocks and the im- mense boulders towering far above and almost shutting out the vision of the sky; steep, polished walls, with here and there a small ledge, that rose to dizzy heights. Our guide went first; we followed. We were 15

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from England : Its curriculum was classical, and its main objective was to prepare its students for the uni- versity. These schools were tuition schools but were controlled and par- tially supported by the town. Boys entered the Latin grammar schools at the age of seven or eight, and by the time they were sixteen, they v ere admitted to college. Sessions of the Boston Latin School were held at the homes of the masters of this school for at least ten years after it was founded. The only sub- jects taught were Greek and Latin, and the knowledge of these lan- guages was considered sufficient for university work. Other grammar schools were soon established and became so popular with the people that by the end of the seventeenth century about forty such schools were in existence in New England alone. Massachusetts greatly stimulated the educational movement by passing a law in 1647, which established the right of the state to require communities to maintain grammar schools at pub- lic expense. Other schools besides the gram- mar schools had been established for the inculcating of religion and for other purposes. Just before the beginning of the eighteenth century private parochial schools were first established in the middle colonies. The church had control over these, with clergymen as teachers. Relig- ion was one of the main subjects, and the curiculum was considered elementary rather than secondary. The old field schools, which were privately controlled, were establish- ed principally in the South through the co-operation of the parents who could not afford the expense of priv- ate tutors. The patrons of these schools employed highly educated men for the purpose of educating the boys and girls for the education- al opportunities which the schools offered or for preparation for col- lege. The curriculum was both el- ementary and secondary. Therefore, the old field schools were popular and existed until the middle of the nineteenth century. No other century has accomplish- ed as much as the eighteenth cen- tury which is considered one of the greatest in history for the advance- ment of secondary education. It was at this time that great strides were made in the commercial and indus- trial fields. Because the curricu- lum of the Latin grammar schools did not prepare students for this ever growing commercial expan- sion, these schools began to lose their hold on the people. In their place, there gradually arose the American academies which offered courses that would more easily en- able their students to enter into the business life that was making such great headway at that time o fpros- perity. The academy was an insti- tution of tuition designed for the children of all classes in order to make them good citizens. It pro- vided its student body with a broad- er curriculum which had become necessary because of the develop- ments which followed the American Revolution and had a finishing func- tion as well as a preparatory func- tion. Franklin’s Academy, which was founded in 1751, provided its students with a variety of subjects. 17