The San Francisco call., 1906-07-08
FRIEND whose son and daugh-
A ter graduated from one of the
a outside county high schools this

"A ter graduated from one OF the
L a outside county high schools this
year asked me down into the
country with him to attend the gradu-
ating exercises.
The fire hit me pretty hard" he
said. on the way down, but it would
not have strapped me so completely if
it hadn't been that the youngsters
graduated this year"
He spoke as though the astonishing
statement were perfectly obvious, so
did not comment. But the curtain at
the opera-hous in which the exercises
were held had sooner gone up,
showing the graduates, nine boys and
eleven girls, seated in a semlcircle on
the stage. than l saw what he had
meant. The boys, with one exception,
were attired in full evening dress, with
shirt fronts as stiff as their rhetoric
proved later on, while the girls wore
creations in white" which no male
being not a dressmaker could describe.
The stage had been elaborately deco
rated by the class" There We're banks
! of expensive flowers, not ordinary
flowers from the front yard, but
dorist-provided and arranged. There
was nothing cheap about that high
/ school class, except the boy in the sack
coat.
/ My sympathies were about equally
/ divided between the burned out father
at my side and that boy l pictured the
lad, poor and sensitive and proud.
/ struggling through the high school,
denied the butterfly frills of his asso-
ciates. The smartest of the bunch,
probably, thought l. But l was mis-
! taken. He wasn't. His Grafton showed
/ him merely a sack coat boy in the
! .1s-% xI.. Il
coat, back seat air about him that dis
posed of him for the evening, and for
all time. for that matter. The smart
est in the group, it pains me to say,
/ sported the stiffest whitest shirt. the
| best fitting claw-hammer, and looked
as though he might have cologne on
| his handkerchief. At the distance L
could not determine this but if cologne
on the handkerchief is part of the
get-up of up date high school
| male graduate the cologne was there
! That boy dealt with the mysteries OF
electricity with astonishing reckless
ness, but he left the impression that
it is in him one day 70 find out some
thing about the mysterious current
really worth while. However, the
claw hammer creation" "-incased class
was neither better nor worse than a
/ high school class of two decades back
| The several members impressed upon
our minds that Beyond the Alps Lies
Italy" and other we'll known high
school classics. The address on elec-
i tricity, too. was not unfamiliar 1t was
! plain to be seen that however claw
hammers and creations may improve
the appearance of the body they in no
/ way strengthen the old high
school system of improving the mind.
My friend. to whom my entire fund
! of sympathy was extended after the
/ ~t.aIy I<Nx- InI irR4f ale
the tolerance at our disposal. told me
later that 1t had cost him $50 to fit up
the boy and sos to fit up the girl, the
! one 10 and the other II years of age.
/ The boy got along with one claw
hammer, but the girl had to have a
ball dress in addition to the creation
/ in white. Then there We're class dues
+ and class pins and class photographs,
and high school fraternity dues and
fraternity pins and fraternity photo
graphs, and class receptions, and the
class ball, and the fraternity ball, and
a long list of other essentials that ate
up more than a hundred dollars addi-
tional. 1t was not difficult to see why
fire and the graduation of son and
daughter the same year should dis
courage man.
But it's all in the game" said he
! philosophieally. Il would not like TO
have my boy look like that sack-coat
i parody.
And / must confess that had I boy
in that class / wouldn't either.
But the thought came to mind, could
not the high school game be played diff
| ferently? Do the costly frills of the
modern high school make for better
students, better and more effective men
4 and women, better citizens than were
4 turned out under the old system when
the simple life prevailed in all walks of
i life, not as fad, but as matter of
i course?
AS my friend told his story another
i high school class came up before me,
at the graduating exercises of which
the boys all wore sack coats and the
girls ginghams There was no stage,
no curtain. no furnished flow
eTs, NJ. hint of perfumery on the hand
kerchief. Had one Of the boys ap-