VII Experimental Democracy
The high school pupil, after discovering himself, must next determine his relation to the community. It is one thing to break down what Mr. McAndrew calls the W. I. (Wooden Indian) attitude. It is quite another to relate pupils to the community in which they live. Yet this, too, can be done. The school is a society—incomplete in certain respects, yet in its broad outline similar to the city and the state. The social work of the school consists in showing the citizens of the school-community how to enjoy the privileges and act up to the responsibilities of citizenship. The Emerson School at Gary and the Union High School at Grand Rapids, organized into complete schools from the first grade to the end of the high school, are miniature working models of the composite world in which all of the children will live.
Particularly effective work has been done on the social side of high school organization at the William Penn High School (Philadelphia), where Mr. Lewis has turned the conduct of student affairs over to a Student Government Association, directed by a Board of Governors of eighteen, on which the faculty, represented by five members, holds an advisory position only. The Association gives some annual event, like a May day fete, in which all of the girls take part. It assumes charge of the corridors, elevators, and lunch rooms; grants charters to clubs and student societies, and assumes a general direction of student affairs.
“It really doesn’t take much time,” Irene Litchman, the first term (1912-13) President, explained. “We like it and we’re proud to do it. We used to have teachers everywhere taking charge of things. Now we do it all ourselves.” True enough, Madame President, and it is well done, as any casual observer may see. Similar testimony is to be had from the sick girls who have received letters and flowers, from the children whose Christmas has been brightened by Association-dressed dolls, and from the girls whose misunderstandings with members of the faculty have been settled by the Student Association.
Each class in the Washington Irving High School (New York) gives one reception a term to one of the other classes. In addition, an annual reception and play are given by the entire school. The plays for these occasions are written, costumed and staged by the students. Last year the reception was given to Mrs. Dix, wife of the Governor of New York, and the play “Rip Van Winkle” was acted by eighteen hundred girls. Such organizations and activities lead high school students to feel social relationships, and to assume responsibilities as members of the social group.
VIII Breaching the Chinese Wall of High School Classicism
A high school education is included, by progressive communities, in the birthright of every child. Since only a small part of these children are preparing for college, the school must offer more than the traditional high school course. The principal of a great Western high school which housed nearly two thousand children, pointed to one room in which a tiny class bent over their books. “That is probably the last class in Greek that we shall ever have in the school,” he said. “They are sophomores. Only two freshmen elected Greek this fall, and we decided not to form the class.” Time was when Greek was one of the pillars of the high school course of study. In this particular school, splendidly equipped laboratories, sewing rooms, and shops have claimed the children. The classics are still popular with a small minority, but the vast majority come to learn some lesson which will direct their steps along the pathway of life.
Everywhere the technical high school courses are gaining by leaps and bounds. The William Penn High School (Philadelphia), established in 1909, is to-day enrolling four-fifths of the girls who enter Philadelphia high schools. In some cities, technical work and classical work are done in the same building; in other cities, they are sheltered separately, but everywhere the high school is opening its doors to that great group of school children who, at seventeen or eighteen, must and will enter the arena of life.
The technical high school has not gained its prestige easily, however. The bitter contests between the old and the new are well portrayed by one dramatic episode from the history of the Los Angeles High School. Mr. John H. Francis, now superintendent of the schools of Los Angeles, was head of the Commercial Department in the Los Angeles High School. Despite opposition and ridicule the department grew until it finally emerged as a full-fledged technical high school, claiming a building of its own,—a building which Mr. Francis insisted should contain accommodations for two thousand students. The authorities protested,—“Two thousand technical students? Why, Los Angeles is not a metropolis.” Mr. Francis gained his point, however, and the building was erected to accommodate two thousand children. When the time for opening arrived it was discovered, to the astonishment of the doubters, that more students wanted to come into the school than the school would hold. When Mr. Francis announced that students up to two thousand would be admitted in order of application, excitement in school circles ran high, and on the day before Registration Day a line began to form which grew in length as the day wore on, until by nightfall it extended for squares from the school. All that night the boys and girls camped in their places, waiting for the morning which would bring an opportunity to attend the technical high school.
Though less dramatic in form, the rush toward technical high school courses is equally significant. It is not that the old high school has lost, but that the new high school is drawing in thousands of boys and girls who, from lack of interest in classical education, would have gone directly from the grammar school into the mill or the office.