Yeshiva University High School For Boys - Elchanite Yearbook (New York, NY)

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the elclmnite eight lute unprecedented proportion of them -9002-continue their studies in in- stitutions of higher learnings. An increasing number of the best of them proceed with their academic work in the Yeshiva College, the newest de- velopment of the Yeshiva Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, car- rying forward the work begun in the T. A. But, even before that institu- tion was opened to them, the gradu- ates of the Yeshiva High School were enrolled in many colleges and profes- sional schools pursuing post graduate sciences, or the various studies in the arts and preparing themselves for error made of the true state of affairs, is that all, or nearly professions. A common by most people, ignorant all, of our graduates become rabbis. To refute this erroneous belief, I examined our records for the profes- sions entered into by the graduates of our first seven classes'-from 1919 to 1925-and I found the following results: Lawyers-19, Rabbis-6, Business f22g Physicians-5, Public School Teachers-12g Hebrew Teachers-213 High School Teachers --8, College Teachers-3, Cantors-2, Account- antsf2, Actor-1 Maui, This gras a totem 131 out of 163 graduates for those seven years. The data for the remaining 32 was of too meagre a nature to include in this summary. However, the number in- cluded in this survey gives a fairly accurate idea of the activities which our graduates pursue upon completing their studies in our High School. V77 VV V

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84311671 litemtiwc by making the curriculum of our school as rich in content and as varied and diverse in character as those ob- tairlfin most city high schools. The instructing staff comprised some of the most outstanding scholars and teachers in the school system, men who have since made their mark in the field of education as school prin- cipals, heads of departments, and edu- cators of note. In June, 1919, we graduated our first class, six young men who were among the enthusiastic pioneers who entered in 1916. This group was fol- lowed by one of six young men in 1920 and by twenty-two men in 1921. The numbers grew in successive years reaching their peak in 1931, when sixty-eight young men received their diplomas, signifying the successful completion of four years of study. To date, including the class of 1937, there are seven hundred and forty-six C7463 graduates of the Talmudical Academy, and over two thousand others who spent one or more years Within its time honored walls, either downtown on Montgomery Street and East Broadway, or in our present magnificent home on the Heights. If it is true that an institution is to be judged, not by its physical structure, nor by its equipment and teaching conveniences, a even by its faculty, however brilliant that may be, but by the scholastic -smel- UE' results it achieves and by the kind of men it turns out into the world, it behooves us at this time to make a survey of the first twenty years of our existence, and to take stock of our efforts along these lines. As to scholastic achievements, judged by the results of the state-wide Re- gents examinations and the percent- age of scholarships Won by our gradu- ates in competition with those of the other city high schools, both private and public, I am happy and proud to report that our school has always stood at, or near the very top. Asked to explain the superior work of Yeshiva high school boys, a former teacher, not a Jew, said: When my attention, some years ago, was first directed to their work-, I accepted the stories of their excellent results as part of the enthusiastic exaggera- tion natural to earnest advocates of any movement. As soon, however, as I came to join the faculty of the T. A., the high school department of the R, I. E. T. S., I found that there actually was a definite and distinct superiority in the quality of the work. Even the larger proportion of foreign- ers did not bring the attainments in English as low as those of the city high schools, and in other subjects results surpassed those of the public schools by even greater margins. State scholarships awards to graduates of consistently high standing proved that this excellence was no temporary phenomenon, but was maintained throughout the entire Yeshiva High School course. Of the rich fulfillment of this great promise, of the influence of these formative years on the character and life-purpose, only the man's full life can speak. The Yeshiva High School is too young an institution for more than half-way glimpses down the days of its graduates. A survey of the activities of our graduates after they complete their high school studies brings to light the remarkable fact that an exceptional, if not an abso-

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nine litcx tlfllil' THE EXPERIMENT by DR. PINKHOS CHURGIN HE Talmudical Academy is one of the educational achievements in this celebrated aggregate of experi- ments which is represented by our great institution. The Talmudical Academy made its advent twenty years ago without the fanfare and usual heated excitement that a new experiment evokes. There was no preparatory activity heralding its com- ing. Then the necessary equipments were lacking. It came into being by the simultaneous power of an active vision and creative personality which was actuated by the inarticulate and providential forces of the Jew's will to live. That is how the history of the Talmudical Academy began and how it advanced from one stage to another to become a signal institution and the only one of its kind in the United States. It has grown from a mere unobserved experiment into an educational organization which re- fiects credit on orthodox Jewry and which is becoming a real factor in the secondary education of this State. It is only tragic that the Talmudical Academy is still the only institution of its kind in the United States, that the Jews in America have not been yet sufficiently awakened to the ne- cessity of having many more schools of this type. There is still present among us the fear of segregation which is manifested in the actions as well as in the arguments of those who still stay away from active support of our institution. This fear of segre- gation has its seat in the assimila- tionist tendencies of a century, which we believed to have entirely passed away but which is still with us in a different garb. Those still believe that segregation is the main spring of Jew hatred. They hope, it would seem, that by eliminating segregation antisemitism will vanish with it. This is a narrow view and a very tragic one of the problem of this complex which is called antisemitism. The antisemite does not have to go far to find a motive for his philosophy against Jews. On the other hand no one can claim the complete absence of segregation. There is segregation and there will be segregation in the life of the American Jew. There is segregation of religion. There are local differences even among Chris- tians of the same denomination. No- body will become hateful of the Jews who are honestly trying to assert their own spiritual personality or for trying to preserve their religious and na- tional identity. Such an honest seg- regation will not only not arouse our Christian neighbors against us but must have the effect of instilling re- spect for us. Of course we insist that segregation, our segregation included, should be entirely a voluntary one. But under all circumstances we should not be deflected in our course for the opening of new reservoirs of power for our continuity by external con- siderations. We must preserve our existence- no matter what the reac- tion of others towards us may be. 4Conti11.u.ed on Page 173