South High School - Tiger Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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Where There Is No Vision the People Perish The pavilion at Lake Harriet with its beautiful commanding view nearly marks the spot where, in 1836, stood a small log cabin-the first school house in what is now Minneapolis. The historian of the time tells us there was no Floor but the bare ground, stumps of trees were the chairs. The first school in territorial Minnesota, not connected with missions, was on the site of the First Presbyterian Church in St. Paul-a little log hovel, covered with bark and chinked with mud, previously used as a black- smith shop. It had but one room about ten by twelve feet. The seats were planks chucked in the cracks of the log walls, the teacher's desk was a rickety cross-legged table, the ornamental curiosity of the room, a hen's nest in the corner. My own First recollection of a village school is that of a room filled with sixty pupils. A big stove on one side of the room toasted and roasted those who were near itg the pupils on the farther side shivered with cold. The room during the arithmetic recitation was so full of chalk dust that one could almost cut the atmosphere. The ventilation of the room was supposedly carried on through little openings, the size of mouse holes, bored in the mop boards. The teacher was a man who threatened to break every bone in the body with an old hickory stick if the culprit did not behave, and on one or two occasions he nearly carried out his threat. As one views these pictures, and then thinks of improved school methods and of our magnificent buildings with modern technical equipments, labora- tories, libraries, and capacious assembly halls, accommodating thousands at a time, one is filled with amazement at the progress made even in the span of a life. The grandfather rode in a creaking cart drawn by a team of oxen, his grandson rides in a high power motor car, he even essays the wings of the wind-the aeroplane. In our fathers' time the three R's were suffi- cient: today, a preparation for all the needs in a highly complex life is para- mount and necessary. So, along with the molding of the spirit and the fash- ioning of the physical well-being, we are striving to fit the youth to his vocation, to his trade, and to his profession. We are even encroaching on the traditional rights and precincts of the University and the College by appro- priating the work of the first two years. I wish I could vision for you the still greater strides that are to be made in our state and in our nation. As to our local community, I have been dream- ing for the past ten years of a great high school for South to be built on the banks of the Mississippi, facing not only the wide expanse of the river but surrounded by the charming natural parks of the city, with a big, big bowl hollowed out of the bank-a stadium that is right, where fifty thousand people could enjoy the great outdoors, the classic theatre, the Greek games-better still, the American games, the boat races, the tremendous chorus, the opera, 5

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JOSEPH JORGENS

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X 11, 'fx Ll ff If TLi1f-P 1 .5 fi , 1 i n D T-E--L-:E ' 3 ' , ' ' .' I , V i t ' ' Nasiit. n v A -is G t 4 dv A ' - ' 5 I E . fag:-an I 4 '-'il 'N'5?. N V J' l' Q iff - Q M AR! Af .Ili .5 Q K ii M' ff' in A F- and the forensic. In my imagination I can see a massive classic scholastic castle silhouetted against the eastern sky obscuring even that friendly city on the other bank. I can see at the end of the vista between the stately trees, by the sheen of the moon playing beneath the beam of the speeding bark, the South High crew in her fine new racing shell coming home from its run on the course. It is a great picture I have all to myself and so, too, I fear, darkling in its loneliness, is the fabric of my dream. JOSEPH JORGENS. With the Editors The Every Student Tiger After several years of travel over the globe, spreading the great ideas of Liberty, Democracy, and Victory, the Tiger has come back to South High to devote itself to Every Student. It aims to describe to the students their own life at South High School. The Tiger Board hopes that the Every Student Tiger brings out two great ideas: FIRST-That we have democracy along educational lines. Any one walking through the halls of South High or looking over the pages of the Every Student Tiger may observe Every Student, during one period at the forge, learning to form tools out of the raw material. The next period he may be seen in a Virgil class, following Aeneas from Troy to Italia, or in a French class striving to comprendre et de se servir de la langue de Moliere et de Foch. SECOND-That democracy is not confined to the curriculum, but is also evidenced in school activities. For instance: any student, who is worthy of being called by that term, may have an opportunity to work on the South- erner, our school paperg or on the Tiger, our school annual. If he is a good English student, he is eligible to become a member of any of the literary clubs, such as Inkpah and Meridian. Or, if he is interested in foreign litera- ture and history, he may join any of those organizations, as the Edda, Span- ish or Le Cercle Francais. To our educational and cultural activities are added the physical activi- ties. Therefore, students may go in for football, gymnastics, track, basket- ball, or volley ball-winning their places entirely on their own merit-by their own individuality entirely. If Every Student can sing with some talent, he may add to his own and others' pleasures by joining the Glee clubs, which furnish, perhaps, some of our most enjoyed entertainment. 6