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

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Eighl What Constitutes aWorthWhile School GOOD building with adequate equipment is the phys- ical basis for a modern high school. Bowen lacks a number of the features which are essential to the best results in education. Our lack of an auditorium which will accommodate any considerable part of our student body is a handicap. We lack gymnasia and a swimming tank, showers and locker rooms such as many other Chicago high schools have, more shops for the growing demand for technical train- ing, more commodious offices, a lunchroom on the ground level. But having all these physical advantages, Bowen would not because of them be a great schoolg and not having them will not prevent us from being a great school if we have a fine staff of instructors, earnest, efhcient, sympathetic with youth, and alight with the spirit of their great calling. The other Principal element in the greatness of a school is that intangible thing we call school spirit in the student body. It is the resultant of the honest pursuit of certain line ideals. If the leaders of the student body believe in and pur- sue truth in their studies and in all the relations of living, if they pursue honesty and a fair deal to their parents, their teachers, their fellow students, and themselves, if they regard their schooling as their great opportunityto discover and develop their powers-then their influence leavens the whole student body and the school is on its way to establish its greatness in the only effective way, that is by the evidence of its product- fine and able men and women fit to serve society and to make good their place under all conditions. What else enters into the problem? One thing of vital importance. No public school can become great nor even survive without adequate public understanding and support. A family understands a school mostly through the experience of its own members in that school. Public understanding and sympathy and willing public financial support is largely a result of the aggregate of these family experiences. Every Bowen pupil who, by his own fault, makes his family experience with the school a disappointing or unpleasant one, is doing so much to reduce the total of public support for his school. Every Bowenite who makes a good record at the school ensures for Bowen, to that extent, the support to which well-executed education is entitled. r 'I

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