Palo Alto High School - Madrono Yearbook (Palo Alto, CA)

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FEET 600 4060 200 ° 200 400 I. First public school — where Telephone Co. is at pres- ent. As pictured, the building was a small, wooden frame with a flag pole. It was erected by the carpenters in town in 1894. II. The first high school classes were held in the second story of this grammar school building, which stood where the Channing soccer field is now. III. This is the location of the fiirst separate high school building. It was donated by Mrs. Zschokke in 1897 for use 6 EVOLUTION PALOZALTO Santa Clara County California as a high school until the city could build one of its own. It is still standing as a remodelled home in its original loca- tion of 526 Forest. For a picture, see page nine. IV. Channing school was the first city high school. It was erected in 1901 for a cost of twenty thousand five hundred dollars. V. Our own Palo Alto Senior High School was built hav US)iN ts).

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iy Mel | WISE FoREWORD The ““Madrono” this year is designed to be a lasting realization of the memories of school days of 1947 and to recall, in so far as this yearbook permits, the highlights of fifty years of Palo Alto’s educational growth. In Paly’s infancy the ‘““Madrono” was a monthly publi- cation, a continuation of a monthly paper, ‘Red and Green.” It is explained that the name change was peculiarly apt in that the small native shrub ‘“‘madrone’’ has a deep red bark and shiny green leaves. After the “Campanile” was started during World War I, ‘““Madrono”’ became the class annual. In keeping with the traditional high standards of the past, the staff of 1947 has earnestly endeavored to publish a beautiful and complete yearbook, one which will be permanently commemorative of the years 1897-1947.

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1897 T0 1947 @© B99 In July, 1894, a little group of Palo Altans, ledebyeMrsAs beZschokke, Prof.) Gs D. Marx, and Mr. D. L. Sloan, met to discuss the possibilities of establishing a high school here. Largely through their efforts, Palo Alto High School was founded two months later. From the very beginning, Stanford Uni- versity was a driving force behind the pro- ject, helping to supply the necessary teach- ers and prescribe the course of study. As a result of this, graduates of the high school who received the principal’s recommenda- tion were invited to enter Stanford without taking an examination. Dr. David Starr Jor- dan, then head of the university, was from Cornell, as were many of the early high school teachers recommended by him. Palo Alto High School was to follow Eastern scholastic traditions and become the first high quality public school in the West. This influence lasted for some twenty years, while Stanford remained under Dr. Jordan, but then pulled away from the old university charted course and began to follow the lines of other state-sponsored schools. On September 13, 1894, Palo Alto High School opened with an enrollment of twenty pupils, who paid six dollars a month tuition. Two upper rooms of the old public school on Channing Avenue, torn down in 1926, were used, and the original faculty was comprised of Mr. Glanville Terrell, Principal; Mr. M. W. Greer, and Miss Margaret Foster, all highly recommended by Stanford. In 1897 the high school was crowded out of the public school, originally intended for gram- mar school students, and forced to use a private building, erected for this purpose by Mrs. Zschokke a foremost proponent of the high school. Occupied by the school until 1901, this building, remodelled as a residence, is still standing at 526 Forest Avenue. The second semester of Palo Alto High School's first year, 1894-1895, saw thirty- five pupils enrolled. The original three years of the course were called Junior, Middle, and Senior, and were divided into ‘Classical’ and ‘Modern Language” courses. Students were expected to take one or the other for all three years. There were no science or vocational courses. The chief aim of the high school was to prepare the students for college; items not directly connected with this aim were excluded. The Live Oak stated in 1897, “The excellent standing with which the pioneer graduating class entered the uni- versity this semester will tend to increase the favor which our high school has already gained, and the proficiency of the present crops of teachers will add greatly to the value of the school.” Extra-curricular activities, moreover, were not absent from school life, and as early as April, 1896, Paly High had a baseball team. In October, 1897, a football team was or- ganized. In November, the high school eleven, according to the Times, ‘suffered an overwhelming defeat at the hands of the Manzanita Team .... the score being 14 to 0, and the losing eleven quitting about the middle of the second half.” The article went on to say, ‘There will be no games between the two teams in the future, as it has ceased to be valuable practice for Manzanita, and has proved too discouraging to the High School.’ Social activities were also being held, and the “programme” of a dance given by one of the first senior classes listed a grand march, three schottisches, two polkas, three waltzes, and the lancers. Commence- ment exercises were probably the most im- portant social functions of the year. Inciden- tally, in the old days each class had its own Latin motto and its colors. In 1900 the High School Board called for “offers and prices of real estate suitable for the High School site, in lots of not less than one quarter nor more than one full block,” and ‘competitive plans for a high. school building of six rooms, with seating capacity for not less than two hundred pupils, and suitable offices, halls, closets, with heating apparatus, and basement laboratory with cost not to exceed thirteen thousand dollars.” One year later, on April 8, 1901, the new high school building was dedicated. Comp- leted and furnished at a total cost of twenty thousand dollars, the building, which was the first built by Palo Alto for use exclus- ively as a high school, is known to many today as Channing Avenue School, and so needs little further description. In 1909 the wooden gymnasium was added at a cost of three thousand, four hundred and thirty-one