Townsend Harris High School - Crimson Gold Yearbook (Flushing, NY)

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SXVIMMINC POOL THE

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T. H. H. shared in everything. One of the handsomest of the new buildings was devoted to it. As for T. H. H. the changes were crystallized in a name. The name chosen for the school by a happy choice rested on Townsend Harris. No name could be more appropriate. As an educator noted for his ambitions and ideals, as a public servant famed for his integrity and broad-mindedness, finally as one of the founders of City College, he is peculiarly acceptable to the School and what it aims for. He has become an ideal for T. H. H. Studentsg his actions have become precedents. The prototype of T. H. H. was the Sub-Freshman Class, a one-year course that prepared students for entrance into college. In 1901 it was extended to two years and a year later it had grown to its present proportions. In 1905 T. H. H. opened under Professor H. Thompson. In 1906-07 Prof. Sim took charge, while Professor Thompson had sections in the main buliding of C. C. N. Y. The college moved to its present home in 1907. Prof. Sim took charge in the present T. H. H., while Professor Thompson moved again back to the Twenty-third Street building. Previous to 1907, T. H. H. occupied quarters in the Cass Building, 23rd Street, between Znd and 3rd Ave., a building now devoted to the technical training of girls, under the name of Manhattan Trade School for Girls. The T. H. H. thus established in 1907 met with an immediate and widespread approbation. The number of students who applied for admission was so large that, had not the precautions been taken of providing an annex for the surplus, there might have arisen insurmountable difficulties. Students living on the VVest Side above 100th Street, and on the East Side, 110th Street, went to T. H. H. uptown, the others to the Annex. The Annex The annex was the old City College building, on 23d and 22d Streets and Lexington Avenue. Only one who has been an Annex man, who has heard the echo on its sepulchrally hollow walls, who has paced its gloomy corridors with their dusty pictures and mustier trophies, who has tread its creaky staircases, with a heart-beat for every foot-fall, can know the esoteric secret of it. Outside was the world, the clangorous tolling in a hundred towers, the screaming from a hundred ferry-boats, the wrangling of the car with its own tracks, the shouts and rumblings that make up the audible world, inside there was the droning of study and the fusty mustiness that make study studious, and the inscrutable silence of it all. I remember passing from the recitation building of 22d Street to the office building on 23d Street over the strip of yard with its bare fences that separated them, to settle the petty delinquencies that are the spice of the student's life. And I remember the lingering over the old pictures and old banners, that seemed to bind a for- gotten world in their cob-webbed being, the sobriety and aesthetic gloominess that flickered in with the dim light through the windows. I was always impressed and constant familiarity did not diminish the awe in which I held it. The old building is down and, in a manner, what I have written is a requiem for it, and a memorial for the memories that went down with it. On the site, a College of Commerce, the plans of which are on file, in most respects a department of City College with another calling, is to stand. Prom that point on everybody is familiar with the T. H. H. history. Clubs rose and fell, teams developed a transient brilliancy and fell to a self-extinction. Upper A classes with their pother of dances and class days came and went,

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the ordinary course of a high school being modified to a strange environment and strange circumstancesg it is for me now only to make a few remarks on the activities of the school as they were manifested in the literature, the athletics and the society work. Academic Herald The literary history of the school may be comprehended in the one name- Academic Herald. Outside of the Tatler, a short-lived weekly, that existed but a very few issues during 1912, nothing has appeared to challenge the one monthly magazine. The Academic Herald was first published in 1907. lt commenced as a magazine similar to the City College Mercury, but ended in l9lZ as a full-Hedged high school periodical. Since then it has grown from a drab little magazine of l6 pages, commanding a circulation of 500 to an active virile paper of 32 pages, commanding a banner circulation of 2,000 or more. Practically everything was doubled except the price. That, as an important factor in the literary attainment of the school, remained the same. a convention that alone of the T. H. H. conventions stands in no fear of innovations. Quill Club Until the Advent of the Quill Club, the Academic Herald drew its editors from the VVebb Literary Society. This society was the fountain of the Academic Herald staff. A word of praise to the society itself, its attitude towards the school, its aid to the school, and a word of dispraise to the school that did not support it, is all that need be added. lt was a severe blow to hear that the NVebb Literary Society had disbanded. Since then the Quill Club has been slowly taking up the work which the VVebb relinquished. Its members are very well represented on the present Ac staff. Art Club VVhat the Quill Club does in the way of literature, the Art Society does in the way of art. All the Academic Herald artists may be seen, congregated in the society's room every Friday over oblong drawing sheets, chewing char- coal stubbs, with a true Bohemian abandon. So much for the school's literature. Just asithe two other societies represented the school in literature and art, so the Harris Debating Society represents Harris in the oratorical world. Athletics The Athletic activities of T. H. H. should properly center about the A. A. The A. A. is the strongest student activity in the school. lt is the power that sets up our teams and snatches us from an athletic oblivion. The athletic history of T. H. H., thanks to the unrelenting and rigorous curriculum system in force, presents no glory save vain-glory. Properly we should delve into the annals of Clinton H. S. for the history of T. H. H. Athletics. Clinton victories over Harris itself were due to Harris ex-members. In l9ll, T. H. H. won the Manhattan soccer championship. Since then the Soccer Teams of Harris were always so near, and yet so far away from the championship. The basketball teams always plunged into a rose bed at the beginning and then, when the P. S. A. L. games were scheduled, slid back ungracefully into an inferior position. So with the baseball teams. But it is surprising that under the conditions in Harris any records were made at all. The swimming team has shown itself invariably a good representative of Harris Amphibians. The wrestling team has always been victorious. That of all the other teams has reflected