Valley High School - Tiger Tales Yearbook (West Des Moines, IA)

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Y - Y s i Q V , l ANNUAL E Y 0 V 0 6 5 lt IS W D M fig, f A ,L x if1LX,ff, 17 t for - X l WJ' -WM J ,VZ '4fl'3 .W SAMA QL.. -as 1 f , , .fl 'hr 1 fyfiff, , I ji A , 1 , I , Q7 t C 1 1,1 MQ, Y , X W g? N .ff,jf',jif F, '- .asuuwt , , F , This little sketch is the result of a very hurried review of some of the more interesting facts of our high school history, and it is anything but a satisfactory account of the very interesting history of our school. The author would be glad to receive material and suggestions from former students and others preparatory to the preparation of a more correct account of the school at a later date. 5 OTHING could be more modest or unassuming than were the beginnings of West Des Moines High School. On the second floor of a little brick school house situated at Sixth and School Streets, on a portion of what are now the grounds of Crocker School, a few pupils, with one lone teacher, assembled some time in September, IS64, to in- augurate the work of the new high school. The first formal step toward the establishment of this school had been taken May 30, l864. On that date Rev. Simon Barrows, county superintendent of schools, appeared before the board of directors of what was then officially known as the School District, City of Des Moines, West Side, and urged the necessity and propriety of opening a high school. Thereupon the board appointed Messrs. l-l. McClelland, W. H. l..eas, and M. S. Dicker- son a committee 'lto examine into and report upon the propriety and feasibility of establishing a high school next fall. Acting upon this report the board decided on July l to establish a high school in the fall, elected Mr. Barrows principal, and requested him to furnish a schedule of studies. Some time in September an examination of candidates for admission was held by the board, assisted by Mr. James S. Ross, 50 per cent being the passing grade. At this exam- ination Miss Louisa Napier won the honors with a grade of 94 per cent, a fact which secured for her shortly after a situation as teacher in the schools of the town. A committee appointed by the board October ll, to classify the schools and draft a course of study with special reference to requirements for graduation, reported about two weelcs after that the course was not yet ready owing to the recent excitement on accountgafw rebel raiders in the state. But the members of the committee must soon have laid down their arms and returned to the pursuits of peace, for a somewhat extended report was made by them and adopted November 9, l864. The following was accordingly the first course of study of the West Des Moines High School: fifteen

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OUFICCII

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Penmanship, Declamation, Composition, Singing. Grade C. -Spelling, Reading, Dehnitions, Arithmetic, Grammar, Algebra, Penmanship, Dec W lamation, Composition, Singing. Grade B.+Algebra, Geometry, Natural Philosophy, Latin, Composition. Grade A.-Trigonometry, Astronomy, Latin, Surveying, Botany, Composition, Rhetoric. It is an historic fact that four students escaped nervous prostration and were graduated from that course at the end of four years, having supposedly toiled through the entire list from spell ing to surveying. During its first year the high school had to give up its commodious quarters on the second floor and move into the primary room, which department was crowded and needed more space. At the close of the year Mr. Barrows appears to have severed his connection with the school. Although the only record regarding the election of the second principal names D Hornby as the successful candidate, the salary for the position, during the latter part of the year at least, was drawn by Mr. F. W. Corliss, who remained as principal until the fall of l868, when he was succeeded by Mr. W. A. Willis, who served until l870. Upon the completion of the Second Ward building, now Lincoln School, in 1868 the high school was moved to the third Hoot of that building, occupying one large room and two small recitation rooms. There were at this time three teachers for the school, but the number of pupils is not recorded. Professor Snow, Miss Mann, and Superintendent H. Thompson are named as principals between I870 and IS73, each serving one year. Ar this time began the hve years of ser vice of Mr. A. N. Ozias, who did much to organize and strengthen the work of the school and to give it standing locally and abroad. During his term the enrollment ran from IOO to 150, and three teachers were employed. Another of the long occupancies of the principalship begins in l878, when Princ1palL B. Cary assumed the position. Mr. Cary was very popular with pupils and patrons and the high school was a prominent factor in the town life. For a number of years two literary societies existed in the school which held meetings alternate Friday evenings in the high school room, and these evening entertainments were very highly considered by the young people in the school and out. Some of the literary and musical numbers appearing on these programs were of considerable merit. Each society ran one of the old-fashioned school papers, which were read instead of being printed, and these occupied fully as important a place in the school life as The Tafler does today. Allied to the literary society work were the declamatory or so-called oratorical contests the first of which, in I875 or I87 6, was won by Will, now judge, McHenry. Later the school entered the state declamatory contests, which are still being carried on by the smaller schools of the state. These contests toolc the place to some extent of the athletic contests and interscholastic debates of the present day, which were then unknown. The gold medal for first place at these contests was won for West Des Moines in 1882 by lda Clemens, in I884 and ISS5 by Edith Payne, in l886 by Rose St. John, and in I887 by Florence Musson sixteen Grade D.- Spelling, Reading, Definitions, Arithmetic, Geography, Grammar, U. S. History