Macomb High School - Spiderweb Yearbook (Macomb, IL)

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week or more in advance. Mr. Smith was blessed with a fine voice and led the choir. Mr. Smith was an active, energetic, and aggressive man. well educated, and familiar with the problems of secondary education as they existed at that time. Possibly no better man could have been chosen for the work. Ilis radical ideas soon created a hitter opposition and he was compelled to leave at the end of two years. The course of study. We smile as we read it. Though, to be taught by one man. it was even more extensive than the course today with five teachers and four years in which to accomplish the work. There were two years of Latin and two years of Greek, Harkness’ Latin series and Bullion’s Greek hooks being used. Davies’ Elementary and Davies’ Advanced Algebra, commonly called Davies’ Bourbon. Davis’ Legendre, and Trigonometry. Young’s Civil Government, ells’ Chemistry, W ells’ Natural Philosophy, Greene’s Analysis of the English Language. Quackenbos' Rhetoric. Burritt’s Astronomy with the big atlas of the heavens. Goodrich’s I’nited States History. Weber’s Universal History, Jarvis’ Physiology. Wood’s Manual of Botany McXalley’s Physical Geography, and Ray’s Higher Arithmetic. The second year. Miss Abbie Summers, who had been educated in Massachusetts, and who had come west for the purpose of teaching. was employed to assist Mr. Smith. Miss Summers wore curls and was very neat in her dress and precise in her pronunciation of words. From this time on until 1890 the entire work in the High School was done by the superintendent and one teacher, usually a woman. In that year two teachers were employed in the High School, and one of them may be justly called the principal. The first class was graduated in 1868. It consisted of five members. They were Isabelle Roberts, Addie M. Lancev. Imogene Up-degraff. Anna Snodgrass, and Sarah A. Pillsbury. During the forty-four years that have passed, forty-three classes have been graduated, having a membership of 577. During the present year fifty-two of them are attending higher institutions of learning. Many of the older graduates are holding important and responsible positions in life. They are judges and legislators. teachers and preachers, lawyers and doctors, bankers and business men. manufacturers and farmers. They are found in every trade and profession, enriching them with their energy and intelligence.

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one High School was established in a majority of the counties of the State. This may truly be called the initiatory period of High Schools in Illinois. Shortly after the Public School System was established in 1855. there were erected in Macomb four school bindings each containing a single room—one in each of the four wards. 1 he chapel on ood-hury Street is the old school building of the 1 hire! ard ; the other three buildings were of the same general character. As the number of scholars increased with the growth of the town a lean to was added to each of these buildings, and two teachers were employed in each: the younger children being taught in the lean to and the older in the main building. 1 here was no gradation farther than that the older children were taught in one room and the younger in another. This was the condition of our schools in 1865. In the Summer of this year a movement was set on foot to erect a modern school building of eight rooms, to establish a High School, and to employ a competent educator who should teach in the High School and also give unity .organization, and system to the remaining schools of the town. A substantial brick building was erected where the High School now stands, and Professor II. II. Smith of Galena was employed to teach in the High School and to supervise and grade the schools in the other wards. There seems to have been little or no opposition to this great movement, as all the leading men were in favor of it: but the men who were foremost in establishing a High School and in placing the management of the schools in the hands of a trained educator were James L. Anderson. Joseph F.. Wyne, William E. Withrow. (). F. Piper. Joseph Updegraff, Horatio Bartleson, and some others. I he man who possibly took the greatest interest in the movement was William E. Withrow, a graduate of Yale College and deeply interested in higher education. September 1st. 1866, the new order of things began with forty or fifty young persons assembled in the northwest room of the second story and Mr. Smith in charge. The students who attended the High School the two years of Mr. Smith’s administration recall with pleasure and enthusiasm those times. The whole east end of the second floor was the chapel. The platform with the organ occupied the entire south end. Here the pupils, not only of the High School, but also of the Primary and Intermediate grades of the building, gathered each morning for devotional exercises. A great choir occupied the platform. A standing committee selected the music a - 6 -

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THE FACULTY CHARLES C. WELLS, A. B., Principal. Blessed with the ability to make a successful church, educational, and society man. MARY ELLEN TAYLER, A. M„ Sciences. A recognized authority 011 all useful subjects, from the sciences to art. MARY A. HUGHES, A. B„ English. She considered it a pleasure to help 11s in whatever good we attempted. EMMA PONZER. A. B.. Languages. Her intellectual powers are made attractive by something so human in her relationship with 11s. BEULAH McGLINCH, Music. So kindly sympathetic; comforting to talk with.