Oakfield High School - Oak Leaves Yearbook (Oakfield, WI)

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OAKFIELD HIGH SCHOOL

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 9akftclt fidjool While we are in need of great Cni versifies and Colleges, we need equally good High Schools. Mere size is entirely unimportant. If the spirit of scholarship can he maintained in a small institution, several of them may he more useful to society than one large High School. There is a certain psychological limit of size beyond which organization becomes increasingly difficult, while a well organized small school renders to its students the greatest value. Oakfield High School is one of these small schools performing educational functions with great efficiency to its students. The teachers work as a unit and are competent to guide and direct the policy of the institution. Each teacher is held responsible for the whole to the whole. Each is a friend to every student, knows every student, his strength and his weakness, and each student is an intrigal part of the institution. Oakfield High School is one of these small schools, performing educational functions with great efficiency to its students. The Oakfield High School offers two strong courses of study to its students, is well equipped for its work, and is equal to any High School in the state of its size. It has a good building an excellent library and a well equipped laboratory. Several student organizations of tlu school make its school life pleasant and beneficial. The German Circle, organized by the influence of Miss Breitkreutz, serves the function of a factor in the social life of the school and makes the work of the German classes more efficient and practical. The lyceum gives the student body opportunities of public speaking, parliamentary practice, and social ease of unquestionable value to students in future life. The athletic asssociation has taken charge of all athletic sports and are now maintaining teams in foot ball, base ball, basket ball, tennis and field sports. The Oakfield High School courses of study are adapted to the needs of students. Thru them the practical side of life is developed and the student is given a training that will lit him better for the various occupations in life. The course is based upon the principle of training the student to do things by developing the power to do, to accomplish by accomplishing daily tasks of school life. The school has a strong corps of instructors. M iss Binnie has charge of the department of English and American History. Miss Breitkreutz, the department of German and Commercial subjects, and Principal Curtis of Mathematics and Science. Miss Watson, Miss duttin and Miss Donaldson have charge of the work in the Grammar, Intermediate and Primary Departments. The functions of a school board are performed by C. II. Moore M. I)., A. N. McChain and W. E. Bristol. To the interest and efforts of this board, to the earnest work of its teachers and to Principal L. G. Curtis the school owes its greai efficiency and progress.

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THE TRUE CITIZEN “The ideal citizen is the man who believes that all men are brothers, and that the nation is merely an extension of his family.” Such a man will try in every way to better the condition of his country as he would his own family, and if he be a true citizen, he will place his country’s interests above those of his own. A true citizen will be well mentally, morally and physically. I am going to deal with the development of the moral side with a view of showing how a higher grade of citizenship may be established. But this moral side must not be the only one to be highly developed for the other two must be developed co-equally with it. A person generally proves to be a detriment to society in whom any one of the three is highly developed to the exclusion of the other two. An old writer has said, “Cultivate the physical exclusively, and you have an athlete or savage, the moral only, and you have an enthusiast or a maniac; the intellectual only, and you have a diseased oddity,--it may be a monster. It is only by wisely training all of them together that the complete man may be found.” Ever in life our attention is called to treatises dealing, more or less, with citizenship from the educational and the political points of view, but the other side of citizenship—the higher, the moral and ethical—is sadly neglected. In the path of life there are two trails. One lies upon the highlands where, as we climb higher, our toil gradually becomes easier. Flowers grow by the wayside and upon it the rays of the sun linger the longest. The other path lies on the lower fields where gloomy shadows gather long before the close of day. The true citizen follows the upward path and, as he draws nearer to the goal, his toil is crowned with success. This crown is the result of years of industry, perseverance, courage, honesty and faithfulness to duty. The follower of the lower path has been drawn there by the practice of procrastination, by the lack of self respect, courtesy, ambition and noble ideals. He looks back over his shoulder with longing as he presses onward. The life which a true citizen leads is formed by his ideals. What should these be? In prominence stands a warm fervor for his country with a strong desire to do something worthy of it; then the knowledge that life itself is the only thing worth knowing and not false standards; and finally that, as character is the greatest force in the world, he is going to be a man. Our success depends upon ideals like these. We can truly say that if a person aspires to be the most accomplished cheat ami succeeds in this, when compared with another man, he will still be below the man who has honestly striven to accomplish some good end, but has failed. Tho the former may lie educated intellectually and may speak words of learning and religion, he is still low. Therefore it is necessary, if our life is to be a success, to have high ideals. “No man ever really does a great thing who loses his character in the process” dust as soon as it is found that a man is going to preserve his manhood and stand by his ideals, against all opposite inducements, he becomes a power in the world. He