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

Page 5 text:

OAK LEAVES 1949 L fr ',S ' Y ' ,, 7 1- 1+ AL' ' 1 ' . .e Q' I I3.. -p.- -. P - ' 4 l? 0- ' Vs' ,ss 'es vf- f A 'N EL' ', in Huw gf- ' 'f are-5 :P A. infix f Y f K, fl 1 .5 X xi- N1 Q ,N fx -'L -, ff I 4' N Lflx 1 f Ml lui.-41 , .. -iw - 1 f N..-' lbw - ' ri,:5u+i . 'W 3 ' xiii W- P , . WI.. . . J fiff' 1849-1949 When men and their families were pushing westward in the Gold Rush days of '49, five scholarly Quakers were meeting in the spacious old Colonial home of John D. Lang to plan better educational advantages for their child- ren. They selected a hillside among young oaks, and opened a school where their children might enjoy superior educational advantages amid guarded surroundings where character building should go hand in hand with Latin and Science . The teachers were excellent, the school immediately attract- ed patrons from a distance, a dormitory was built, and Oak Grove became a private boarding school in 1857. Friends contributed for its maintenance and endowment and Oak Grove was a flourishing school when the buildings were burned in 1887. Charles M. Bailey of Winthrop promptly built a large new building containing the recitation unit, a suite for the Principals, a wing for boys and a wing for girls. Oak Grove remained a coeducational school for nearly seventy-five years. Among its most noted graduates of those earlier days were Amy Morris Homans who established the first school of Physical Education for women in this country and later became head of the graduate school of Physical Education at Wellesley College, James Leon Williams who never attended any school except Oak Grove and yet became one of the greatest dentists of his day, making inventions for his profession which are still in use, winning distinction as an artist, and Writing several booksg and Rufus M. Jones who is not only a former student but was Principal at Oak Grove until he went to Haverford College in 1893. Oak Grove later went through a period of drepression and rapid changes of Principals having had twenty Principals in its first sixty-nine years. It was a time for young and vigorous Principals with a vision to come to Oak Grove, and refusing the Principalship of two other schools that were much better equipped, endowed and offered twice as large salaries, Robert and Eva Owen came to Oak Grove in 1918. During the first ten years they were laying strong foundations, increasing the acreage from 29 to 300 acres, studying at Harvard or in Europe during the summer, and making a careful survey of educational trends and opportunities. 3

Page 4 text:

.5.-' Z.-in N if , , R we f sn, ,Q T' X A 1 , Xi.. is A ,xii MSS K-Q,-Q H '- g f- 23 r '- fg, YK P C 'E QA' iid J W xl' wwfwfwfl W, V. PS' W?mWliWl13HVBN'wsW1mwwv, 3 ., 1 W

Page 6 text:

THEIR SIMPLE COMMENCEMENT GOXVNS CENTENNIAL POOL MIRRORS THE SENIORS IN