Piedmont High School - Summit Yearbook (Lawndale, NC)

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Piedmont High School. 15 perfect quiet of rural life so necessary to sustained mental effort. Su nday Schools and Churches. Two flourishing Sunday-Schools are within easy reach of us. The Baptists have regular appointments for preaching at New Bethel and at Lawndale. The Methodists hold regu¬ lar services at the latter place. These churches are less than one mile from the school. All students are urged to attend at least one of these churches. Students are required to at¬ tend daily roll-call, which consists of singing, reading of the Scriptures, and of prayer. At these services, occasional short talks will be made by the Principal and others, for the purpose of encouraging the students and inciting them to higher ideals and nobler efforts. The school is distinctively Christian, but is not denominational. English. The various colleges of our country claim that but few pupils are thoroughly prepared to enter the regular college classes in English, and hence they have inaugurated what they call sub-junior classes, or, in plainer terms, they are forced to do preparatory work in English, which should be done in the preparatory schools. This is not as it should be; our mother tongue should not be neglected, and while it is our purpose to prepare our students thoroughly in Latin, Mathematics, His¬ tory, Political Science, etc., much time will be devoted to train¬ ing the pupils in the elementary principles of composition, spelling, punctuation, paragraphing and grammar. An effort will be made to inculcate in our students a taste for good literature. In the higher classes the following books will be read and studied: The Sir Roger de Coverly Papers, George Eliot’s Silas Mar- ner, Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield, Scott’s Ivanhoe, Irving’s Sketch Book, Longfellow’s Evangeline, Matthew Arnold’s

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14 Piedmont High Schooe. At the beginning of the past session it was found that our dormitory was taxed to its limit. The trustees and the friends of the school have once more made enlargement possible. A new building will be ready for us by the beginning of the next session. This new building, forty by sixty-eight, two stories high, with a large basement will give us a splendid dormitory for girls, a large and conveniently arranged auditorium, and a large room for the primary department. Other improvements are contemplated. This school is no longer in its infancy. It is not an experiment. It has ten years of steady growth be¬ hind it, a large patronage and many friends for the present; and glorious possibilities for the future. Our water cannot be surpassed. A well, dug through nine¬ ty feet of almost solid rock, is conveniently located for our use, besides at a distance of not more than four hundred yards from the school are springs of health-giving sulphur and chalybeate, water. Situated on the top of a majestic hill sloping in every direc¬ tion, thus giving perfect natural drainage; commanding a mag¬ nificent view of hills, vales, grassy undulating plains, and of the Blue Ridge in the distance; shaded by a forest of stately oaks; enlivened by the music of rippling water; with excellent drinking water and air free from the taint of malaria, nature has made this an ideal spot for an educational institution of a high order. But what has man done towards perfecting it? He has given us daily mail, communication with all the world by telephone and telegraph, a railroad within a mile of the school, a dormitory adequately furnished, large recitation- rooms, fitted with patent desks of the most approved pattern, and last, but not least, by his efforts as instrument ' s in God’s hand we are unpolluted by bar-rooms, gambling dens and other moral dangers of town and city life, which too often blight the lives of boys from Christian homes and blast the hopes of their dearest friends. We are nearly one mile from Lawndale; thus we have the advantage of the village with the

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i6 Piedmont High School. Sohrab and Rustrum, Tennyson’s Princess, Shakespeare’s Mer¬ chant of Venice, Hawthorne’s House of the Seven Gables, and others as they are suggested by our needs. These books have been prescribed for entrance by the South¬ ern Association of Colleges. Latin. The first year in this course will consist of a thorough prep¬ aration of the lessons in Collar and Daniel’s Beginner’s Latin Book and a special drill on the paradigms and vocabulary. When a good working knowledge of the elementary principles of the language has been secured the class will read the second and third books of Caesar. The second year’s work in this department will consist of a careful reading of Caesar, Books I and IV, and a review of Books II and III, with drill work in grammar and composition. The third year’s work will consist of a study of Cicero’s Ora¬ tions against Cataline, four books of Virgil’s HLieid, a review of prose composition, varied with original exercises. While the primary ob ject of this department is the thorough preparation of pupils for entrance to the classical colleges, much stress will be laid on the relation of the Latin language to our mother tongue. o Mathematics. The work in the college preparatory course for the first year will consist of a careful study of Arithmetic, with the view of making the students proficient in business calculations and in preparing them to be successful teachers of arithmetic in our public schools. The elements of Algebra will be studied. In the second year Wentworth’s New Algebra will be com¬ pleted and Wentworth’s Complete Algebra will be begun. In the third year Wentworth’s Complete Algebra will be mastered and Wentworth’s College Algebra and Wentworth’s Geometrv will be begun.