The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1904-12-02
SEATTLE TEACHERS FILL SPICY
AFFiDAviTs IN THEIR FIGHT
FOR EXAMINATION.
II Is Claimed That Boys Become
BIase and Girls Become Silly
and Frivolous.

the members of the school secret So
cieties, interesting reading is afford
ed in a bundle of affidavits and let |
tiers which have been filed in Judge
Hanecys court as portion of the rec
ords in the school board case that has
become known as 1.-The legal war for
the determination of the Greek-letter
societies from the Chicago high
schools
Boys become blase and socially sat
lated at Is, and girls who wear short
dresses at school become silly and
frivolous from wearing low-necked
gowns at dances. The schoolboy Lo-
thariOs become good spenders and
persistent borrowers" The usual hour
for the high school parties to break
up is 1 80 o'clock in the morning. Then,
if nature rebels and the gay carousers
of the night before are drowsy and
dull in the classroom, the teachers
are met with "rebellions' organized
by the fraternities and sororities.
Such are few Of the sensational al
dispositions and letters.
Compared With Strikes.
In an affidavit couched in vigorous
language School Superintendent E. G.
Cooley compares the fraternity rebel
| lions to the strikes that have recent
| ly. developed in the Schools but ne
| stops just short of making the formal
charge that the aforesaid disgraceful
strikes are to be attributed to the OBJ
| jectionable secret societies, which,
however, he charges directly with in
citing INSTRUMENTATION and disobedi
! ence.
1.-The Greek letter societies are temp
tatiOns to extravagance-dress suits
gowns for girls and carriages for both;
this is socially very bad FORM says
woman teacher in letter among the
files.
Her letter was written in reply to a
request from the attorneys for the
school board.
1.-The societies multiply social func
tions so that the emphasis is laid not
upon getting an education, but upon
Dances the letter continues. Our
buds blossom too soon in this fore
ing process, and health as well as
learning suffers. The poor, the shy,
the stranger, the Jewish children, are
all embittered by the sight of joys
which are denied Them
In another paragraph, this trench
ant letter writer, who is Katherine
Curling, a teacher in the Hyde Park
high school since 1891, asserts that
the managerial positions in the socie
ties give opportunity for the develop
ment of defaulters in embryo.
Temptations to Dishonesty.
THE temptations to dishonesty are
magnified by these societies. she says
athletic and dramatic money has
been handled in ways, to say the least
of them, queer
L. Wilson of the West DECISION high
school, tells over her name how she
/ 9th do fr11it at nt
at reform of 1.-The late hour sys-
tenn in vogue at high school dances
and other social functions. Her criti-
cisms of parents, as we'll as pupils,
are scathing and sensational.
In regard to social affairs in gen
eral,'' she says, ''it is both surprising
and shocking to know the license that
parents allow their children. The fond
parents are so ambitious for social
preferment that some of them seem
to give little heed to considerations
of health and of mental and moral
school parties to break up is about
80 in the morning, I understand.
Il tried once to make one of the
social meetings of our pupils a gener-
al affair and had it understood that
all were to go home at II o'clock The
members of the committee and myself
succeeded in carrying out our pro-
gram with considerable effort, but l
gave up the problem; as learned the
custom of the three sides of Chicago
was against me-
Social and Moral Loss.
Then comes this delicious bit of phi
losophy from Miss Wilson:
Il regard it as a distinct social and
moral loss for young people to be to-
gether in a state of emotional excite
ment long after fatigue has set in.
Then, too, older men are sometimes
present, who are not so safe compan-
ions in dancing as the schoolboys".
With a dash of patriotism as a flaw