James Harvey Bowen High School - Bowenite Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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'M Cur Principal As the first Bowenite to be compiled under the principalship of Mr. William T. McCoy, it is with great pleasure that the Olympic Bowenite exercises its privilege of presenting the story of our new and already much-liked principal. Mr. McCoy, the son, grandson, and great grand- son of Presbyterian ministers is a Hoosier, and he spent the earlier part of his life in rural towns of southern Indiana. His summers, until he was graduated from college were spent on his grand- father's farm, where he lived the life and shared in the work common to all country boys. The rest of each year he attended school in one of the nearby towns. As life and school were much more leisurely than they are now Mr. McCoy had much time for reading. As a result of taking advantage of his father's well-selected and stocked library, the boy was able to enter the preparatory school at Hanover college at the age of fourteen. During his junior and senior years he had the appointment of college tutor in Greek and Latin. He was graduated at twenty. After graduation he worked as a tutor to the sons of Mississippi planters, preparing them for entrance to the University of Virginia. Here he enjoyed a most interesting year, in contact with people and conditions wholly new to him. Re- turning to his home state he became a Latin teacher, and later principal, at the public high school at Rensselaer, Indiana. He met Mrs. McCoy here. In the meantime he had been taking graduate work at the University of Chicago, and had passed the examination and otherwise qualified for the position as Chicago high school teacher. In 1900, he received his first Chicago appointment, teach- ing Latin at the Marshall high school. Four years later he was transferred to the Wendell Phillips high school from whence he went, in 1920, to the Englewood high school. In 1926 he was made principal of the Earle elementary school, which position he held for three years. After three more years, these at the Curtis Junior high, Mr. McCoy came to Bowen. In the course of his years of teaching, Mr. McCoy continued his graduate work at the Uni- versity of Chicago, and accumulated much more than the requirements for the Ph. D. degree. Also during this time he became deeply engaged in teacher organization work in the High School Page .fix Teachers' Club, and the Chicago Men Teachers' Union, of which he was president in 1919, '20, '21, When a crisis occurred in the school finances which threatened the efficient operation of the Chicago schools, Mr. McCoy took an active part in the vigorous program which so successfully lifted the schools out of this perilous situation. Other labors of these years in the Chicago Men Teachers, Union, as president, were as chairman of the Education Committee and chairman of the Legislative Committee. He still holds the latter position. Our principal has also been co-author to several reports on various practical matters of finance, teaching conditions, hours, and tenure. Another of his articles is a study of the status and tendency of junior high schools. Mr. McCoy comes to Bowen with a fine esti- mation of its wonderful student body and faculty, and a clear conception of the handicaps under which they are striving. All of this and his sin- cere intention to work for Bowen are best expressed in his own direct words: . I cannot be expected to say that I admire the present Bowen high school on the basis of its aging and inadequate building. You who are connected with Bowen realize that the inadequacy of the building and equipment is a severe handi- cap to the faculty and student body in their sincere effort to maintain traditional standards in scholar- ship, athletics, and all phases of student and school relationship to the community. We have a fine body of young Americans to train, we have a fine group of teachers to train them. Give us the physical equipment to bring them together under more favorable conditions for the process of education, and I have no doubt that Bowen will go on to new honors and to broad success in the fulfilment of its great function in this community. Meantime our situation calls for much patience, toleration of unfavorable condi- tions, determination and persistence in making the best of what tends to discourage us, and loyalty and unity toward the movement for a greater and more efficient Bowen high school. To this situation and to this cause I bring the honest intention to do my best for the school- and the community. Whatever resources I have, what- ever ability to organize, whatever influence I may have or may acquire, I propose to devote the in- terest of Bowenf'

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