Oak Grove Coburn High School - Oak Leaves Yearbook (Vassalboro, ME)

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GLIMPSES ABOUT OUR CAMPUS

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OAK LEAVES We cherish the tradition that an Oak Grove girl can always be recog- nized by her good manners. We know that the same high standards of ad- mission will be required of all graduate students in the new department and we are sure that when they have had the advantages of the technical training and personality development at Oak Grove they will be equipped for positions needing skill, culture and character. SCIENCE IN SIGHT All of us who were at Oak Grove last year noticed the growth of our Science Department, but none of us realized how much more rapidly it was to advance. Now we have five separate courses in our Science Department: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Physiography and General Science, besides the Nature Study and Physiology in the Junior Department. New appa- ratus has been added and we have laboratory work in every one of Miss Humphrey's classes. We also have many original features in our work and Miss Humphrey is always getting interesting collateral things to add color to our regular projects. In connection with Physiography we have had many illustrated booklets put out by the great railroads showing the latest and most attractive pictures of lakes, mountains and natural beauties. Room V is a regular menagerie or rather an aquarium. We have a handsome big aquarium with four different kinds of goldfish. There is one brilliant yellow one named Amber and another with a mixture of colors called Rainbow. A charmingly feminine one with long draperies is named Desdemona, while another type that is dark is called Othello. In a big glass bowl we have another interesting pair of drowsy sal- amanders. The brown one with the brilliant orange vest is called Fire and Smoke, while the other one with bright orange spots is called Sally ishort for salamanderl. We had two other little salamanders, but their appetites were not good and so we took them back to the frog pond. Another bowl has a blinking turtle named Peter Whiflle, while in a fourth bowl are several kinds of water bugs we have harvested ourselves. Another goldfish bowl holds tadpoles too numerous to name of all sizes and ages, with tails and without. One of the most fascinating of our exhibits, however, is a glass ant house filled two-thirds full with fine soil and a colony of ants which we can watch in all their industrious community life. We have a royal queen and all her court and the ants have been good enough to make their subter- ranean streets close to the glass on one side so that we have a full view of them. Doubtless we shall have a great many more additions before OAK LEAVES is printed, but these are our most interesting ones at present. We know all about the diet of these various members of our aquarium and menagerie and are learning more Biology than textbooks contain. Cer- tainly science that we see is far more interesting than what we read about. 6

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O A K L E A v 1-: s OUR LEGISLATIVE PRINCIPAL It is rather common for a school to have a principal, but it is quite un- usual to have one who is a member of a State Legislature. The nineteen thirty-one session of the Maine Legislature opened immediately after the Christmas holidays and lasted until Easter, but that doesn't mean that our principal was absent from Oak Grove for three months, however, for with the granite tower of Maine's Capitol visible from our own campus, Mr. Owen was here a part of every day and always in the evening, until the busy closing sessions. We all took a great interest in legislative proceedings and indirectly learned many things about Civics. The most delightful social affairs for us were the ones when Mr. and Mrs. Owen invited all the Seniors and Juniors to be their guests at the Legislature one afternoon and when to our surprise we were also the guests of our principals at a formal dinner party at the Augusta House that evening. The next week Mr. and Mrs. Owen entertained eight Seniors who were not able to go in the first group. We all felt that our principal really deserved a change for more mas- culine society after being the head of a girls' school for six years, and we were delighted to cooperate in making his absence easier, but meanwhile, we got many pleasures and benefits from having a legislative principal. WE ARE MUCH ENTERTAINED Another popular project was launched in the Oak Grove program this year when our school brought distinguished guests here for our enjoyment in what we call the Entertainment Course. It was altogether fitting to open the course with a concert by our own talented violinist, Walter Habenicht, 8