Roosevelt High School - Bwana Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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935 BWZINH MR. CHARLES AMMERMAN Principal S even

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EKUEHR A MESSAGE FROM MR, AMMERMAN Thoreau tells us we should spend more time in building air-castles in Spain and more time in putting foundations under those air-castles . How different this is from the spirit of the times! We think we must do so many things. The day is so full. We do not give ourselves the chance to dream and plan. We accomplish so little. Thoreau is right. We need to build more air-castles in Spain . CHARLES AMMERMAN Six 935

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BWEHH A MESSAGE FROM MR. SACKETT The year I935 is significant to high school boys and girls because it marks the three hundredth anniversary of the founding of the first secondary school of America. I want to give you a little sketch of the history of our American public high school. By secondary education we mean, in general, education in high schools. Where there are junior high schools, the seventh and eighth grades are usually included in this classificationg junior colleges, where only two years of college work are taught, are also included. The first secondary school in America was the Boston Latin School. It still exists as one of the public high schools of Boston, and its principal, or head master as he is called, is Mr. L. Powers. On April 23, I635, only five years after the settlement of Boston and one year before the founding of Harvard College, the citizens voted that our brother Philemon Pormont shall be intreated to become schoolmaster for the teaching and nurturing of children with us. It was a school for boys onlyg girls had not yet had the opportunity of showing that they have equal mentality. It was a free school supported by donations of the citizens. When the colonists settled in America, they naturally tended to found schools similar to those of the home country. ln England at this time the prevailing secondary school was the Latin grammar school. This taught chiefly Latin and Greek, and its only purpose was to prepare for college. Pupils entered at an early age-when they were eight or nine-and they were ready for college when they were fourteen! But college in those early days con- sisted of only more Latin and Greek: the college graduate did not have as good an education as the graduate of a modern high school. So, in schools like the Boston Latin School, pupils entered early, and early in more than one sense, for school began at seven or eight in the morning. There was a two-hour intermission at noon, and then pupils returned for the afternoon session which lasted until nearly dark! Girls, however, were not entirely neglected. A few were taught before or after schoolg and they were taught also on Thursday afternoons, when boys had a half-holiday. Later they were educated in boarding schools called female seminaries. But the Latin grammar schools did not fit the pioneer conditions of America. ln 1749 Benjamin Franklin published a proposal that a new type of school be established that would put more emphasis on practical education rather than on entrance to college. The number of college students in those Eight 93