West Night High School - Echo Yearbook (Cincinnati, OH)

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W. R. COOKK The Staff JOS. H. GROSSMAN. SAMUEL STERN ........ . . ..A550Ciate Editor WALLACE A. COOK. ..Ass't Business Manager .Editor-in-Chief hminesu Mhnuger GEO W. BURNS R. H. GRAVETT M. FREEMAN WARNER PISTDR M. NELSON F. R. WULFHORST LOUIS GORNE B. ECKHOFF C H. ELSTON M. MCCARTY A, NEUMAN ROBERT HAINES MISS HARTUNG 33 GEO. KOHLMAN WM. KLUSMEVER EMMA SCHMIDT HARRIS GINBERG A. N. NAISH j. M. HUGHES F FELIJKAMP W. WEHRUNG A. H. SIEMON H. JACOBS J05. STOECKEL F. S, DAVIS E NIEMEYER

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A Word For The Evening Schools EYOND peradventure there still linger in the public mind impressions unjust and fallacious relative to the evening schools, particularly the high schools. Such impressions are not en- tertained, however, by any person who really knows these schools as they are now. They are held by those only whose information has been obtained from prejudiced 0r ignorant sources, or those who never visit the schools to learn the truth regarding them, or those whose opinions of them are still colored by knowledge or reports of the conditions that existed in the schools, say some ten or twelve years since, When they probably were deserving of severe criticism. For it must be admitted frankly that at that time there was much which was objectionable in the night schools. The conduct of the pupils was in many instances deplorable. Some of their common pleasantries were to throw ink, wells about the room, to be noisy and unruly, and to annoy their teachers in all ways conceivable, unless the teacher was strong and masterful. Attendance was lamentably irregular; interest soon began to wane and largely died out; and room after room was closed because of the dropping out of the pupils. The course of study was ill-deflned, and every teacher freely followed his own inclination in the selection and presentation of his classework. Scant regard was had for the fitness of teachers for the work, and many were appointed who had little or no professional zeal, but desired the position only because of the salary attached to it, by which they sought to aid themselves in acquiring another profession, the law or medicine, or to eke out a meagre income gained in some form of day work. An immediate change for the better began when with wise foresight the Board of Education and its superintendent inaugurated the practice of selecting for the evening schools some of the best teachers in the day schools, teachers of professional pride and zeal and eminently successful experience, equipped with scholarship and imbued with the missionary spirit of sympathy, earnestness of purpose, and devotion to duty. For this is the sort of teacher the night schools need. Soon the work was organized, the course of study was harmonized, and order was wrought out of chaos. The result was strikingly shown in the improved quality of work done in the schools, the higher character and increased number of the pupils, and the unmistakable appreciation and approval expressed by the Board of Education in its quadrupling the annual appropriation for maintenance of the schools. The most remarkable improvements have been made in our evening high school situation. Some ten years since we had but one such school with an enrollment of perhaps four hundred. This Was then 34