Medina High School - Medinian Yearbook (Medina, OH)

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®tjr Annual 25 BABY PICTURES

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24 Annual BABY PICTURES

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25 Annual PrpHi pnt’a Ahhrraa BRANCH PIERCE Ladies and Gentlemen : Our thoughts are full to-night of Medina High School, not alone because of the home sentiments and hopes which she represents, but more, she stands as the peculiar symbol, creator and protector of a civilization, the purity and luster of which is the one bright ray of hope in this horrible holocaust of the centuries. To-day as never before we witness the supreme test of a democracy when, across the blood-rimmed sea, those sturdy yoemen of our own race, our kinsmen, are torn and crushed and murdered, the mere pawns of kings. Never before was a democracy so prized as now, and at no time in our own history has public education, the protector and guardian of freedom, been held in such universal esteem. Looking with prophetic vision into the future and seeing there the need of more efficient educational facilities, and wishing to better the conditions for their children, our grandfathers founded in the year 1873, what is now our Medina High School. Unpretentious, indeed, were the beginnings of our Alma Mater; the corps of teachers included only the superintendent and one assistant, one iron clad course of study of three years into which all must fit, and the classes must certainly have been crowded for the records show an enrollment of fifteen students. The first graduating class, 1876, was composed of four members, the second in ’77, of only one. The first comparatively large class to finish, in ’88, consisted of twenty-one members, and since then through years of panic and prosperity the school has gone steadily forward. With the regularity of the sea- sons, classes large and small have left the old red building on the corner of Broadway with sharpened mind and animated hearts, and although perhaps not a dollar jingled in their purses, better prepared for life’s struggles than as if they wore the livery of kings. Gradually the value of a high school education here gained recognition ; the classes grew steadily larger, till in the year 1912 the high water mark was reached, it was thought for all time, when forty-six young men and young women of Medina county received their coveted diplomas. The school as a whole had also grown, for eight teachers now instructed three distinct courses of study for one hundred thirty-three students. With the increasing numbers, came additional recognition from abroad; colleges were finding out that students who bore the 0. K. of Medina High made good. In this way we became known as one of the best and most favorably considered high schools in this section of the state. To-day we are represented in no less than twelve of the large universities, and in all of them Medina Lligh has uniformly stood for a stamp of intelligent manhood and womanhood which has excited singular admiration and respect. But the record of the above named class was not long to stand, for greater triumph awaited the best loved high school in the state, for the last semester has witnessed a student body of two hundred and forty, with teachers working over time, crowded labora- ories, and overflow of assembly periods, all concentrating their efforts in the productions of the class which 1 present to-night. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you at this time for your hearty good will and approval the graduating class of 1915, the largest in the history of Medina High, embrac- ing twenty-two and one half percent of the whole high school, and forty-nine and one-half percent of all the young men and young women who graduate from high schools in this