The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-05-16
The high school.

To!the Editor Of The Press:
The oft-repeated criticism that il is not worth
while to support high school TO graduate half
Q dozen boys seems one of the most unreason-
able that could be made. An examination OF
the catalogue for series of years shows that
the number Of boys in the school has ranged
from 135 in 1864 to 1S7 in 1870 and 1876; the
number OF girls from 161 in 1864 to 256, aud
among the names can be recognized those of
the children of all classes of citizens from the
poorest to the richest.
1t is said that the high school education un.
fits them for practical life, yet there can be re-
cognized in those catalogues, after lapse Of
ten and fifteen years from graduation, the
names of men who are already prominent in
every department, professors, lawyers, mer-
chants, mechanics and mariners. OF the girls,
many are excellent teachers, many are sup
porting themselves in clerkshlps and many
more are accomplished matrons bestowing
their culture upon their own children. How
many Of tho fifteen hundred different pupils
who have attended the schools since 1864
would wish to see il abolished? Is not
school which is always educating four hun
hundred pupils doing good work?
/ III uUth DUk lOlttW thot hSIduco many w uot
| graduate, none are benefited. Pupils 90 to
school to learn and not to graduate. If q boy
enters college without waiting to graduate
that is more to the credit of the school. II a
boy quits school for business, he only does
what our critics wish to oblige all to do at the
end of the grammar school course.
| II is claimed that boys who enter business
| early are the most successful We have some
| marked examples Of success won under the
| pressure of difficulty, with the spur of neces-
sity, but then how many have been kept back
at the same timer Why do our prominent
business men, who have fought their way up
aud educated themselves, or gone without, give
their boys thorough schooling? Does their
good Judgment desert them in this matter?
II we wish 20 see how this fighting up
against difficulties works, let us so back five
hundred years to the time when nearly every
one was obliged TO make his mark when he
| signed his name; when a book was so valuable
| that 1t could bc pledged like rare jewel.
| Then our merchants would be village huck-
| sters; our shoe manufacturers would be cob
1 blers at the bench; our clothing dealers would
sit cross-legged; our lawyers would be petty
| ministers would be barefooted dirty friars, and
our farmers and laborers would be little better
! than seris We should nearly all be ignorant
| alike, we should gain our news by gossipipg at
| the corner, and should hail with delight our
\ great teacher, the wandering ballad singer,
| who would entertain us with ballads as in
| structive as those which Barnums chorus give
| us now.
Then It is said our successful men come
from the country where they did not have the
advantages of high school education. Some
times they did have those advantages. But 1t
must be remembered that the population OF
| the State is twenty times larger than that of
| Portland, and their brightest boys come here
| for a wider field Just as an equal proportion OF
ours 90 to larger cities So, II one in twenty, OF
our leading men, Is city bred boy, the city
holds its own, Just as, II one in six OF our
high school boys succeed, they hold their own
with tho grammar school boys
But what is success2 Ii ninety per cent. OF
business men fail once, may not man who
goes through life paying all his bills, be con-
sidered success? 1t is not fair to compare
every one with the foremost. We must COM
y pare with the average IL the average Of our
| wealth Is $1,000 head, q man who saves more
than that for each of his family, and gives
| them a better star. than he had, Is success.
| But society advances with each generation,
The graduate Of the old red school house can
remember how other graduates came in from
the haying field, sat around the table, each
eating with his knife and passing the cider
pitcher from mouth to mouth. Would he
wish his children TO go back TO that school Of
table etiquette? Cannot he recognize an
equal advance in general information? There
we're plenty Of people in the world then who
had got beyond that, aud now that we are be-
yond II In manners we are bound also 10
keep up in the matter Of education.