Woodbury High School - Warrior Yearbook (Woodbury, CT)

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13 reexport trade. They import raw materials from one country and export the manufactured goods made from these raw materials to other nations. Raw ootton is exported from India to Great Britain ' which in turn experts the cotton goods to Canada, Egypt, Australia, and India. Some nations support themselves by carrying exports and imports. The Netherlands is such a nation; here nearly everything but the soil has been imported. I am going to close with an illustration of the interdependence of industry. A few years ago, the women were introduced to the ide% of bobbing their hair. They took to the idea very strongly much to the dismay of the ccttcn textile manufacturers of New England. Before women bobbed their hair, they wore hair nets. These hairnets v ere, for the most part, made by the people of a certain section of China. When the Chinese no longer had a market for their own goods, they couldn’t buy as much. Since they bought most cf their cotton goods from the cotton manufacturers in New England, the textile mills lest their trade and this aroused their ire against the bobbed hair fad. This is only one of the many thousands of illustrations of the interdependence of business. No matter hew small a business is it is dependent on some other business O cusaeac oment 3c.e ay THREE HUNDRED YEARS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION Ccncetta Ida Rossi The year 1935 is important to us because it marks three hundred years of progress since the founding of Connecticut. Equally important and remarkable is the fact that, three hundred years ago, the ceremony which iB making us so nervous tonight, was instituted. Between votes concerned with the management cf the community cows, the Boston farmers unceremoniously founded cur first high school. The Boston Latin School, as this school was called, reveals by its very name that these hands which voted for it, blistered aS they were from wrenching rocks from stubborn Massachusetts fields, left the succeeding ten generations of young Americans a mental task as hard as their physical one had been, namely, the task of uprooting gerunds from the pages of CaBSar and Cicero as a college entrance requirement. Latin and a little Greek were the only subjects taught in these first schools, to boys between the ages of seven and fifteen, so we can readily see why the whipping post was needed as a stimulus to learning. At this timo there was little distinction between church and state and therefore the school was founded to train ministers and political loaders. Because of this, girls were automatically excluded and only beys of outstanding mental ability v e re eligiblo to attend them. The Boston Latin Grammar School was modeled in almost every respect after the schools in England which a few cf the settlers had attended, so it was not the outcome of an original idoa, nor of a democratic motive. Nevertheless, it was a beginning and the six

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14 million students of today regard these men as the fathers of the present system. It took our forefathers a long time tc realize that these schools should be for everyone, and net for a certain few, as the English schools had been. The founders had assumed that the public should pay the bill, but the people as a whole were not anxious to pay additional taxes for what they rogardod as education for the privileged classes. Gradually, as the power of the clergy declined, people began to think of revising the school system. Benjamin Franklin, to whom we owe so many fine things, said that ho saw little of value in the old curriculum and in 1750 founded an academy at Philadelphia which greatly resembled our high school of today. Students were no longer to be taught by tho red and they wero to be taught, net only Latin and Greek, but also English and Lfrithomatics. This emphasis on English soemed quite radical aftor the many years during which Latin had been the supremo longuago. However, evon this type of school did not make much provision for people who wore not going to college. It was still a college preparatory system. The first echool to be known as a high school.was established in Boston in 1821 and it was called the English High School. The term high school has since been identified with all public secondary education. This was a throe year high school and boys, in order to be admitted, wero required to be at least 12 years of age. Reading, writing, English Grammar, English Literature, arithmetic, geography, scionce, history, declamation, and logic wero taught. This school had as its aim,preparation for life and was definitely American. It came at a time v hen machinery was being invented v hich demanded mere efficient and trained labor than could be provided by children, so instead of working, children went to school to be fitted for the changes that industry was bringing about. Also in 1821, the first school for girls was founded in Troy, New York by Emma Willard. In 1826, Boston opened the first high school for girls and by 1860 co-educaticnal high schools had come to be the acoopted thing. At first it was claimed that tho high school beys were not as chivalrous as they had been when the girls were isolated and that the girls were not as lady like, but there developed between them a ccmr .deship and frankness which helped tc bring about this age in which v. men may meet men in business on an equal footing Since 1860, our high schools have progressed rapidly. High school courses have been extended to four years, electives have been introduced-, laboratory science, manual, domestic, commercial, and agricultural subjects have found a permanent place in the curriculum. Physical education, music, and art are mere recent additions. We are proud of what we have accomplished in three hundred years of secondary education, but we realize that there are weaknesses in the present system and we hope that in the future they may be pointed out and corrected, in order that we may continue to progress educationally .