Portland High School - Totem Yearbook (Portland, ME)

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THE 'TQTEM Foreword : If, in the years to come, the perusal of these pages shall bring back long-forgotten memories that shall bind together the past and the fu- ture,' if, when we are no longer actively in the game, this unpretentious outcome of our labors shall serve to teach others and recall to our minds the part that we have played, then our hopes will be fulyilled, and we shall be content. The Editors. 7 'C-'Q

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'THE Tomxazmi HISTORY OF THE PORTLAND HIGH SCHOOL Q4 get ORTLANDJS million dollar high school with its seventeen hundred gkji . . . . pupils IS the outgrowth of a Latin school for boys which began PNN tiki' with onlv twenty students. About the year 1821 this Latin Q J . . . gg school was organized to promote a higher education for boys than the grammar schools then afforded. Twenty scholars, drawn from the several grammar schools, were to compose the student-body. This school was first kept in a building on Exchange Street and was later moved to the Center Schoolhouse on Congress Street near Chapel Street. The teacher was Joseph Libby, a blacksmith by trade, who having been in- capacitated by a sunstroke for such labor, attended Bowdoin and gradu- ated in 1821. He was appointed principal of the Portland Latin School the same year, and of this and its successor, the high school, he was prin- cipal until 1850. Mr. Libby was a scholar and a successful teacher, re- vered by his pupils, although he carried the cowhide under his arm, and used it when needed. Often, inthoughtful mood, he would chew the end of his cowhide, reminding his pupils of the ruminating possessor thereof. In January, 1829, the Portland Latin School was divided into an English High School and a Latin School. These two schools were moved to one of the two buildings on the corner of Oak and Spring Streets, which were known as the Twin Schools. This arrangement of a double high school did not long continue, and, when in 1844 this building was torn down, the two schools were reunited again under the name of the English High School. The school was then transferred to the other of the Twin Schools which had, until this time, been a grammar school. The Boys' High School re- mained in this building until 1863. It was not until 1850 that the need of a high school for girls was realized. A schoolhouse was built on Chestnut Street, and the school was started with over one hundredepupils under the direction of Moses Woolson. The high schools for girls and boys were kept apart until 1863. This was in deference to the prejudice against co-education which then pre- vailed. In 1863 a new building was erected on the site of the present high school, as the separate schools had outgrown their accommodations. How- ever, the prejudice against co-education was still so strong that a brick wall divided the building, the girls having classes on one side, the boys on the other. In 1866, the Portland Fire destroyed the building, only the walls re- mained. The school was rebuilt, only to be burned again in 1911. How- ever, it was again rebuilt, and with minor alterations remained until 1918, when the present new high school was built, using the old building as a wing. In 1920 a third fire destroyed the old wing, which was rebuilt into a modern structure in harmony with the rest of the school. 9