Minnehaha Academy - Antler Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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CATALOG, MINNEHAHA ACADEMY 15

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CATALOG, MINNEHAHA ACADEMY dia, South America, Russia and other fields have addressed the school. These messages have widened the horizon of our students and given them a keen vision of the world’s need . Mission study classes are organized from year to year to study various fields. The school regularly sends delegates, both from the faculty and the student body, to the Student Volunteer Conventions. School Athletics A strong and healthy body is an invaluable asset for success in any field of endeavor. Regular exercise is therefore necessary for every person, but particularly for students. The school has a large field for out-door athletics, which is used in the fall and in the spring. The new building contains a large gymnasium which can be used at all times of the year, and also shower baths. Historical Outline Minnehaha Academy has just completed its ninth year, but the educational work it represents has a history of more than a third of a century. The beginning of the movement dates back to 1884, when Rev. E. Aug. Skogsbergh founded a school in his own home on Eighth Avenue South, Minneapolis. The number of students was large and increased from year to year. The school was moved several times but was located in the Swedish Tabernacle most of the time. On Janury II, 1905, seventeen men met in Minneapolis and began a new' chapter in this history. Led by D. Magnus, they organized a school association and purchased the ground on which Minnehaha Academy is now located. In 1910 this property and a considerable sum of money were presented to the Northwestern Mission Society, the organization uniting the Swedish Mission Churches of the Northwest. The school is owned and controlled by this body. The third chapter in the annals of this movement begins in 1911. At the annual conference of the Northwestern Young People’s Covenant, held in the summer of that year on the school site, the so-called Corps of Collectors was formed under the leadership of A. L. Skoog. This organization gathered a sum of over $27,000, by means of which the first school building was erected. The first school year began September 15, 1913. As this catalog is issued the second school building is being erected at a cost three times that of the first building. 'File enrollment has increased four-fold in nine years and now numbers over 400. 14

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CATALOG, MINNEHAHA ACADEMY Helping Hands Early in 1914, at the suggestion of the Board of Directors and under the leadership of Mr. A. L. Skoog a group of loyal friends of Minnehaha Academy formed an organization which bears the unpretentious but beautiful name of Helping Hands. This is an association whose members pledge to the school the sum of five dollars or more annually for a period of five years. The purpose is to defray as far as possible the current expenses of the school. It is the support of this organization that enables us to make our tuition rates as low as they are. Beginning with only a handful the membership has grown rapidly, and now exceeds twelve hundred. A quarterly bulletin published in the interests of the organization is sent free to all the members. Any person who realizes the importance of Christian education and wishes to have a share in it as centered at Minnehaha Academy is invited to enlist in these ranks. Blanks for membership will be sent on application to the school. Alumni Association The first class that graduated from Minnehaha Academy (1914) had 14 members. Some later classes have numbered over 100. The graduates of the school have organized an alumni association to keep in touch with each other and to promote the interests of the school. In the spring of 1922 it published an alumni directory. It has a membership now of about 600. The annual reunion is held in connection with the Commencement festivities in May. The devotion of our graduates to the school is a constant inspiration. Not less than 125 of them are already Helping Hands. Cl ass Memorials The graduating classes of Minnehaha Academy have established the beautiful custom of presenting a farewell gift to the school. This expression of their devotion to the school is valued all the more when one considers that most students have very limited means, especially at the end of a course that has meant toil and sacrifice throughout. The class of 1915 presented and installed a sanitary drinking fountain; the class of 1916 an educational filing cabinet for the Business Department: the class of 1917 a filing cabinet and a stenographer’s desk for the office; the class of 1918 a sixty-foot metal flag pole erected in front of the school; the class of 1919 an electrically oper 16