Worcester morning daily spy., 1898-02-28

PRINCIPAL D. W. ABERCROMBIE
discharge of great opportunities and
rich privileges. We have no mean trust
20 administer. Our school is now of
such magnitude and promise that it
calls for our best wisdom and truest
devotion We have been equal to the
task of beginning to lay noble founda-
tions, but we should not forget that we
are still at the foundation period. As
vet we but see the outlined perspective
of the ideal school, which has inspired
and led lis on AS we listen then to the
statement of the past years progress,
may we not congra tulate ourselves over
much or deceive ourselves with the
feeling that our school is so prosperous
as to be beyond the need of further care
and assistance?
We have been wonderfully blessed,
but Lam bound to believe that we have
had a right to expect the results we
have so far achieved; else faith in God
and in mans highest efforts would fail.
The school has maintained its aver
age growth of the past 10 years. There
was an enrolment of 220 pupils in the
fall term, as against 203 for the fall term
of 1896. The school also maintains it's
democratic character. Never before
have we had so many poor boys or so
many boys on special reduced rates.
When the dormer rooms are full we use
other higher-priced rooms at dormer
rates. The earnest boy is received and
encouraged and assisted.
Our generosity in these ways mark
edly affects our receipts from tuition.
The eight years preceding the erection
and use of Walker Hall saw the income
Of this school increase about 800 per
cent From our entrance into this build
ing dates the real departure from the
conditions of the school that had con-
tnued so long; and in the eight years
since we have seen our income grow 700
per cent beyond what it was 10 years
ago. Three hundred per cent of this in
crease has come with the FIVE years
use of Dexter and Adams halls.
One instructor has been added to the
school this year. besides the man who
has charge of the work in manual train
ing, and who is not on the faculty. We
have now fourteen men on the faculty,
comprising the principal, five masters
and eight instructors. The return of
Mr.. Snyder to the school as master in
the sciences, is to be noted with special
satisfaction, because of his knowledge
of the school and sympathy with its
ideals, his great energy and ample fit
ness to develop the work of his import
ant department.
In our masters we have body of
men in whom we may have genuine
pride for their character, ability and de-
votion to the school. All of them are
men OF successful experience and of sue
cessful experience in our own school. 1t
would seem that we are approaching the
time when the school is to have
the great advantage of a permanent
body of able teachers. Our present mas
ters have been with us from three to
seven years.
The test of the quality of schools
teaching is not to be found alone in the
marks on which a boy is promoted from
class to class or in the results of college
admission. 1t should be sought through
out his college career and all his sub
sequent life work. 1t is gratifying, then,
to know that our boys acquit them
selves honorably in college Last June
members of our class of 1898 won the
following honors: At Amherst, Edwin
and Gilbert Grosvenor, commencement
orations; at Brown, Gregory Walcott,
class oration and commencement ora
tom at Harvard, Arthur Bryant Latin
Grafton at commencement; at Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology, Ernest
Videto, a two hundred dollar prize in
architecture; at Yale, Arthur E,Well
commencement Grafton Thus six boys
from the class that was graduated from
our school four years before, won the
highest academic distinction at five of
our greatest colleges and universities.
for special comment, is the completion
and opening Of the Kingsley laborato-
ries.
Among all the advances our school has
made, none except the erection of Walk
or Hall. and that only because it
marked the departure from the old pol
icy of the school, has been SO significant
and eyentful
The audience that gathered in re-
sponse to the schools invitation, the
pre-eminent distinction of the gentle
men who spoke our hopes for
lis, and the authoritative character of
their addresses marks October 80, 1897
a ''red-letter day in the schools hsto-
ry. 1t has not been our lot to inherit a
great past, as some Of our oontempora-
rles, but it shall be our fortune to es-
tablsh a noble future.
May / cite from my report Of a year
ago regarding the schools aim and ten
dency?
when our new enterprise is complet-
ed and the building is erected and
equipped we shall be ready to take the
necessary next step in educational prog
ress.
tThere are three points which we
eho,,ld notice. First no community