Polytechnic High School - Polytechnic Student Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

Page 17 text:

ADELE HUMPHREY, Vice-Principal We who are fortunate enough to be born and reared in the United States take for granted the privilege of free high school education. It is ours for the taking. But people in other countries are more impressed by it than we are. They regard it as something of a phenomenon. Several years ago the Assistant Minister of Education of Germany was studying our schools. Several of us asked him to tell us frankly what faults he found in our American education. Our surprise was great when he told us that he had no criticism — only admiration: that he considered the American free high school the greatest contribution to education for two centuries. A French army captain gazed enthralled one day, here at Polytechnic, at the boys and girls going from class to class without orderlies, monitors, or guards to send them where they belonged. They could stage a riot, he said, but they prefer to get an education. This impresses me more than anything I have seen in your great country. In Europe the New Education Fellowship is modern- izing age-old classroom methods with ideas from our country. Student participation in government is making headway and all Polyites know where that had its beginning. Adele Humphrey, Vice-Principal 1 3 ADMINISTRATION 1935

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WILLIS A. DUNK Principal Standing where we can have a retrospective view of three hundred years of high school development we are profoundly impressed with the devotion of our educational leaders to the problem of preparing youth for the life that lies ahead of him. Schools and methods have changed and will continue to change, but each step indicates progress. During past years foundations have been laid upon which we can still add structures, as the years go by, to meet the needs of a chang- ing world. I think we shall all agree that to the extent by which we broaden our education we in a like measure in- crease our opportunities to establish ourselves in some field of activity in which we can center our interest and achieve results satisfactory to ourselves and of value to others. Education is not for self alone; it is a preparation for service. Our schools are maintained on that basis, and insofar as we have received, so should we freely give. As students and representatives of Polytechnic let us do our part in holding for higher ideals. Let us build bigger and better in order that we may stand shoulder to shoulder with those who have preceded us and those who are to follow. Willis A. Dunn, Principal ADMINISTRATION 1935 i 2

Page 18 text:

J.G.GOODSELU Vice-Principal The founding of the Boston Latin School in 1635 was an event the importance of which we can not measure. Three hundred years of secondary school history in the United States parallels our national history very closely. Our na- tional growth has been the greatest in the world and the public schools have constantly kept pace with the advance. At various times public education has been threatened, but men with vision such as Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, John Dewey, and Charles William Eliot aroused public sen- timent and championed the cause of education for everyone. Evolution in the thinking of educators and the practice in secondary schools is very interesting to note. In the Bos- ton Latin School a rigid, purely academic curriculum was adhered to. The aims of education as stated for students in Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, were: ... first, the promotion of True Piety and Virtue; second, in- struction in the English, Latin, and Greek Languages, to- gether with Writing, Arithmetic, etc. The liberalization of curricula today is apparent to all, throughout the nation. The chief characteristics of twentieth century education are the application of the questioning spirit of scientific research, and the future activities appear to lie in the direc- tion of fitting the youth to social conditions, with emphasis on creating social betterment and greater adaptability. J. G. GooDSELL, Vice-Principal ADMINISTRATION 1935 1 4