UC-NRLF 
 
 ISA 
 
 SEMI-CENTENNIAL 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL 
 
 OF 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 OIF"T OF* 
 
 ^Received 
 Accessions No.,5~6^y . Class No. 
 
) 
 

 1838 
 
 THE 
 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL 
 
 OF PHILADELPHIA 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE PUBLIC MEETING 
 AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC 
 
 MONDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 29, 1888 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 SEMI-CENTENNIAL COMMITTEE 
 
 1888 
 
PRESS OF 
 
 GEORGE H BUCHANAN AND COMPANY 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Alexander Dallas Bache, A. M., LL. D. Born in Phil- 
 adelphia, July 19, 1809, and educated at the Military Academy, at 
 West Point. He was Principal of the High School from its organ- 
 ization until September, 1842, when he assumed the Presidency of 
 Girard College. He subsequently became Superintendent of the 
 United States Coast Survey, and so -continued until his death, in 
 1867. 
 
 John Seely Hart, A. M., LL. D. Born January 28, 1810, 
 in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Elected Principal, September, 
 1842. Resigned December, 1858, Died March 26, 1877. 
 
 Nicholas Harper Maguire, A. M. Born September 21, 
 1814, in Burlington County, New Jersey. Principal of the High 
 School from December, 1858, to September, 1866, when he resigned. 
 He is now Principal of The Horace Binney Grammar School, Phil- 
 adelphia. 
 
 George Inman Riche, A. M. Born in Philadelphia, in 
 June, 1836, and graduated at the High School. President of the 
 High School Faculty from September, 1866, to January, 1886, when 
 he resigned. 
 
 Franklin Taylor, A. M., M. D. Born November, 1846, in 
 Philadelphia. Served as Principal of the High School from March, 
 1886, to September, 1888, when he resigned. 
 
 Zephaniah Hopper, A. M. Born in Philadelphia, Septem- 
 ber 9, 1824, and graduated at the High School. Elected to the 
 Faculty in July, 1854, and is now Professor of Geometry, and served 
 as Acting President prior to the election of Professor Johnson. 
 
Henry Clark Johnson, A. M., LL. B. Born in Homer, 
 N. Y., June n, 1851, and graduated at Cornell University ; elected 
 President of the Faculty in October, 1888, and is now in office. 
 
 George Stuart, A. M., Ph. D. Born in Philadelphia in 
 August, 1831, and graduated at the High School. Elected to the 
 Faculty in September, 1866, and is now Professor of the Latin 
 Language. 
 
 David "Wesley Bartine, A. M., M. D. Born near Lang- 
 horne, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, March 26, 1837, and educated 
 at the Pennsylvania State Normal School. Entered the School as 
 Professor in September, 1866; formally elected by the Board of 
 Education, November 13, 1866, and is now Professor of Algebra. 
 
 Edwin James Houston, A. M. Born at Alexandria, 
 Virginia, July 9, 1844, and graduated at the High School. Elected 
 to the Faculty in March, 1867, and is now Professor of Physical 
 Geography and Natural Philosophy. 
 
 Jacob FarnumHolt, A. M., M.D. Born at Greenfield, New 
 Hampshire, and graduated at Harvard University, and at the Medi- 
 cal Department of the University of Pennsylvania. Elected to the 
 Faculty in October, 1867, and is now Professor of Anatomy and 
 Physiology, and Natural History. 
 
 Max Straube. Born at Erfurt, Prussia, and educated at the 
 Universities of Leipsig and Heidelberg. Elected to the Faculty in 
 November, 1874, and is now Professor of the German Language. 
 
 George W. Schock, A. M. Born in Montgomery County, 
 Pennsylvania, August 4, 1825, and educated in the Public and 
 Private Schools of Montgomery and Philadelphia, and the Honor- 
 ary Degree of A. M. conferred upon Kim by Princeton College in 
 1874 Elected to the Faculty in February, 1875, an d is now Pro- 
 fessor of Higher Mathematics. 
 
Ill 
 
 Frederick Foster Christine, A. M. Born at Medford, 
 New Jersey, August 17, 1834, and graduated at the High School. 
 Elected to the Faculty in March, 1880, and is now Professor of 
 Mental and Political Science. 
 
 Monroe Benjamin Snyder, A. M. Born near Quaker- 
 town, Pennsylvania, March 13, 1848 ; educated at the Bucks County 
 Normal and Classical School ; at Pennsylvania College, Gettys- 
 burg, Pennsylvania, and graduated at the University of Michigan. 
 Elected a Teacher in the High School October i, 1873, an< ^ * s now 
 Professor of Astronomy and Applied Mathematics. 
 
 William Houston Greene, A. M., M. D. Born at Colum- 
 bia, Pennsylvania, December 30, 1853, graduated at the High School 
 and at Jefferson Medical College. Elected to the Faculty in Sep- 
 tember, 1880, and is now Professor of Chemistry. 
 
 George Howard Cliff, A. M. Born at Tobyhanna, Penn- 
 sylvania, May 3, 1859, and graduated at the High School. Elected 
 to the Faculty in September, 1883, and is now Professor of English 
 Language, Composition, and Elocution. 
 
 Henry Willis, A. M. Born in Philadelphia, January 21, 
 1851, and graduated at the High School. Elected to the Faculty, 
 March 9, 1866, and is TJOW Professor of History. 
 
 Albert Henry Smyth, A. B. Born at Philadelphia, June 
 1 8, 1863, and graduated at the High School, and received the Hon- 
 orary degree of A. B. from the Johns Hopkins University. Elected 
 to the Faculty in April, 1886, and is now Professor of English 
 Literature. 
 
 William A. Mason. Born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
 December 25, 1854, and educated at the Normal Art School, Massa- 
 chusetts. Elected to the Faculty in April, 1887, and is now Pro- 
 fessor of Drawing. 
 
IV 
 
 Oscar C. S. Carter. Born at Philadelphia, March i, 1857, 
 and educated at the University of Pennsylvania and at the Polytech- 
 nic School of Mines. Elected a Teacher in the High School in 
 1880, and is now Associate Professor of Chemistry. 
 
 John Mather Miller, A. M, Born at Philadelphia in July, 
 1861, and graduated at the High School. Elected a Teacher in the 
 School, June, 1888, and is now Instructor in English Language and 
 Literature. 
 
1838 
 
 OPENED OCTOBER 26, 1838 
 
 Authorized by Act of Assembly, June 13, 1836 
 Power to confer degrees granted by Act of Assembly, April 9, 1849 
 
 ON Monday evening October 29 1888, the great audito- 
 rium of the Academy of Music was filled with an 
 enthusiastic audience, to celebrate the semi-centennial of the 
 foundation of The Central High School of Philadelphia. At 
 a few minutes after 8 o'clock Colonel Robert P. Dechert, who 
 had been selected as chairman of the meeting, came on the 
 stage, with ex-Governor Robert E. Pattison, the President of 
 the Associated Alumni. They were followed by a long line 
 of distinguished graduates and invited guests, and the applause 
 which was elicited became enthusiastic when the Faculty en- 
 tered : Professors Zephaniah Hopper, George Stuart, John F. 
 Holt, Edwin J. Houston, D. W. Bartine, George W. Schock, 
 
 The addresses were kindly reported stenographically by Mr. R. A. West, of the ^6th class. 
 
F. F. Christine, Max Straube, Monroe B. Snyder, Win. H. 
 Greene, George H. Cliff, Henry Willis, Albert H. Smyth, W. 
 A. Mason, O. C. S. Carter and John M. Miller. The Select 
 and Common Councils and the Board of Education were well 
 represented, and among other prominent guests were ex-Gov- 
 ernor Curtin, ex-Governor Pollock, Director Louis Wagner, 
 Provost Pepper of the University of Pennsylvania ; William 
 V. McKean, Colonel William B. Mann, General George R. 
 Snowden, James MacAllister, Superintendent of Public Educa- 
 tion ; Judges William B. Hanna, D. Newlin Fell, Joseph C. 
 Ferguson, James Gay Gordon and F. Amadee Bregy, Colonel 
 M. Richards Muckle, Commander James M. Forsyth, U. S. N. ; 
 General James W. Latta, Major William H. Lambert, Professor 
 Fetterolf, of Girard College ; Professor Samuel Mecutchen, Pro- 
 fessor James McClune, Professor George J. Becker, Professor 
 George W. Fetter of the Normal School ; Henry M. Dechert, 
 Dr. Henry Hartshorne, Joel Cook, Professor Daniel W. 
 Howard, Charles H. Cramp, Edward Shippen, B. F. Teller. 
 
 After the rendition by the Germania Orchestra, under the 
 leadership of Professor Charles M. Schmitz, of an overture, 
 " Concert," by Bach, the Rev. John E. Cookman, D. D., of 
 New York, offered prayer. 
 
 COLONEL ROBERT P. DECHERT, 
 
 the chairman of the meeting, then spoke as follows : 
 
 In the celebration of the fifty years' successful existence 
 of the Central High School of Philadelphia, it may not be inap- 
 propriate to rapidly trace the origin and advancement of public 
 education in our Commonwealth, and the causes which have 
 led to placing her free-school system upon a basis so firm that 
 it is not excelled by that of any of her sister States. 
 
 William Penn was a scholar of large cultivation, and in 
 the constitution he prepared for the new colony, ample provis- 
 ion was made for maintaining schools for the education of the 
 
youth ; and the law of 1683 contained a requirement that such 
 schools should be established. 
 
 There were schools, though probably not to a considera- 
 ble extent, under the rule of the Swedes and of the Dutch. 
 
 The Constitution of 1776 provided that "a school or 
 schools shall be established in each county by the Legislature 
 for the convenient instruction of youth, with such salaries to 
 the masters, paid by the public, as may enable them to instruct 
 youth at low prices." 
 
 The Constitution of 1790 directed that " The Legislature 
 shall, as soon as conveniently may be, provide by law for the 
 establishment of schools throughout the State, in such manner 
 that the poor may be taught gratis'' 
 
 At the commencement of the present century it was with 
 difficulty that the prejudices against the public schools could 
 be made to disappear. The poor people, whose children were 
 intended to be benefited by the establishment of these schools, 
 could not be persuaded to avail themselves of the advantages 
 offered. By reason of the constitutional provision for the main- 
 tenance of schools in which " the poor may be taught gratis," 
 they were regarded as charity schools. 
 
 It was not until the passage of the Act of 1834 that the 
 common-school system of Pennsylvania was placed upon a firm 
 and perpetual basis. This law was in effect an extension of the 
 Act of 1818, that had applied to the County of Philadelphia 
 only. 
 
 Abandoning the idea that public schools were to be estab- 
 lished for the education of the poor only, the Legislature direc- 
 ted that each school district should maintain a competent 
 number of common schools for the education of every child 
 within the limits thereof, who should apply either in person, 
 or by his or her parents, guardian or next friend, for admission 
 and instruction. 
 
 This law, passed under the potential influence of Governor 
 Wolf, Joseph Ritner and Thaddeus Stevens, at once caused a 
 stimulating effect upon educational interests in all parts of the 
 Commonwealth, and although unsuccessful efforts were made 
 the following year to repeal this law, yet from its passage, 
 
steady but gradual advancements were made in the common- 
 school system. 
 
 It is related by a gentleman of large experience with this 
 system of education, that upon the adoption of the law of 1834, 
 he met on the banks of the Juniata a bare-footed little boy, 
 with patched trousers, but bright countenance, a pupil of the 
 public school, who, hearing on the road one day that free pub- 
 lic schools were soon to be established which would be open 
 for the education of every child, exclaimed : " Oh ! I'm so 
 glad, for then they won't call me a charity scholar any more ! " 
 And off he ran to tell his widowed mother the good news, that 
 would remove the stigma from her boy and the sting from his 
 own wounded pride. 
 
 An appeal was presented to the Supreme Court of the 
 State for an interpretation of the words " that the poor may be 
 taught gratis" which was given in these words : 
 
 " It seems to be believed that the last clause of this sec- 
 tion of the Constitution is a limitation to the power of the Leg- 
 islature, and that no law can be constitutional which looks to 
 any other object than that of teaching the poor gratis. The 
 error consists in supposing this to define the maximum of the 
 legislative power, while in truth it only fixes the minimum. It 
 enjoins them to do thus much, but does not forbid them to do 
 more. If they stop short of that point they fail in their duty ; 
 but it does not result from this that they have no authority to 
 go beyond it." 
 
 These difficulties are happily removed by the provisions 
 of our present Constitution, adopted in 1 874, in which it is 
 directed " that the Legislature shall provide for the mainte- 
 nance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public 
 schools, wherein all the children of this Commonwealth above 
 the age of six years shall be EDUCATED." 
 
 This command of the Constitution makes it possible for 
 every child in the State to receive the common-school educa- 
 tion if desired, and it may safely be predicted that in the en- 
 lightened history of the Commonwealth no efforts will ever be 
 made to retard this advancement in civilization. Governor 
 Wolf was a devoted friend of the common schools of this State, 
 
ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE. 
 
and to him more, perhaps, than to any other individual are we 
 indebted for the liberality of the State in the education of her 
 youth. 
 
 On June 13, 1836, Governor Ritner gave his official sanc- 
 tion to a law which, among other provisions, authorized " the 
 controllers of the public schools for the City and County of 
 Philadelphia, whenever they should think proper, to establish 
 one Central High School for the full education of such pupils 
 of the public schools of the first school district as may possess 
 the requisite qualifications." 
 
 From this law sprang the Central High School of Phil- 
 adelphia, whose history we are assembled to celebrate. Its 
 corner stone was laid near Juniper and Market Streets on the 
 nineteenth day of September, 1837, and it was opened for the 
 uses for which it was intended, on October 26, 1839, with four 
 (4) professors and sixty-three (63) students. 
 
 In September, 1854, the school was removed to its pres- 
 ent location. 
 
 Of the original professors, William Vogdes but a few 
 years ago passed to his long home, and Professor E. Otis 
 Kendall still lives to celebrate this semi-centennial as an hon- 
 ored member of the Faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 His profound learning has placed him in the foremost rank 
 among the distinguished scholars of our country. 
 
 The School was opened without a President, but Alexan- 
 der Dallas Bache, having been chosen by the Trustees under 
 the will of Stephen Girard, as the first President of Girard Col- 
 lege, and finding that under the terms of the will no instruction 
 could be given except in the College buildings upon the grounds 
 selected, offered his services to the Board of Control, without 
 any compensation. His services were accepted, and to him 
 are we largely indebted for the standard of the Central High 
 School. 
 
 Professor Bache was a graduate of West Point, who had 
 become a professor of mathematics in the University of Penn- 
 sylvania. He was a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin, 
 himself a friend of popular education and the founder of the 
 Franklin Institute and the American Philosophical Society. 
 
Professor Bache had not only an association with the liter- 
 ary and scientific societies of that day, but he had the strong- 
 support of the people who composed them. His offer to or- 
 ganize the Central High School was gladly accepted, and he 
 was made the Advisory Superintendent of Schools of the First 
 District, with the special commission of organizing this School, 
 of which he became the Acting President. 
 
 He had been sent to Europe for the purpose of observing 
 the improvements that might have been introduced into edu- 
 cational institutions there, with the view of adopting them here. 
 He took advantage of his experience abroad, and organized 
 the school into classes of a four years' term, and composed of 
 three courses. One was entirely confined to English studies ; 
 the second was the same, with French and Spanish, and the 
 third was the same, with Greek and Latin substituted for 
 French and Spanish. 
 
 In 1840 Professor Bache became the salaried President, 
 and continued to perform his responsible duties until 1842, 
 when he resigned to become the President of Girard College, 
 and subsequently became the distinguished Chief of the United 
 States Coast Survey. It has been said that during his incum- 
 bency of the latter office, so great was his regard for the school 
 which he had founded, that in the appointment of his assistants 
 he invariably gave preference to the graduates of the Philadel- 
 phia High School. 
 
 Of the members of the first graduating class a number are 
 still living, and they are honorable and useful members of our 
 community. 
 
 Professor John S. Hart, an adjunct professor of languages 
 in Princeton College, who was highly recommended by the 
 Faculty of that institution, succeeded Professor Bache. 
 
 He was a gentleman of good system, high culture and 
 excellent capacity, and firmly maintained the discipline and 
 high reputation of the school until December, 1858, when 
 he resigned to assume the editorship of the religious publi- 
 cations of the Presbyterian Board of Education. He subse- 
 quently became the President of the Normal School of New 
 Jersey. 
 
NICHOLAS H. MAGUIRE. 
 
Professor Hart was succeeded as President by Professor 
 Nicholas H. Maguire, in January, 1859, who served until Sep- 
 tember, 1866, and who now fills with honor the position of 
 principal of one of the grammar schools of the city. 
 
 During his administration, in 1861, a resolution was 
 adopted by the Faculty, which provided that any pupil of the 
 advanced classes enlisting in the military or naval service of 
 the United States should be entitled to graduate with his class; 
 and any pupil of the lower divisions might resume that posi- 
 tion in the school which he resigned when so enlisting. 
 
 Professor George Inman Riche, for twenty years, Dr. 
 Franklin Taylor, and Professor Hopper a graduate of the first 
 class, have since successfully upheld the management of the 
 school. 
 
 During the existence of the Central High School 12,367 
 students have received the benefit of its instruction, and up- 
 wards of 2,500 have graduated the full course of four years. 
 Its graduates are to be found in the regular Army and Navy 
 of the United States, and during the War of the Rebellion many 
 of them gained distinction in the cause of their country. They 
 have filled the highest executive functions of the States ; they 
 have sat in the Halls of Congress ; they have formulated the 
 laws ; they have ranked with the highest in the cause of edu- 
 cation, in theology, medicine and surgery ; they have practised 
 in the Courts and have interpreted and administered the laws 
 on the Bench ; they have gained distinction in journalism and 
 are engaged in banking and manufactures, and in mechanical 
 and scientific pursuits ; and whatever station they are filling 
 they are at least performing their duties as citizens of the 
 Republic. 
 
 We have every reason to hope that under the intelligent 
 management of the new President, Professor Henry Clark 
 Johnson, who is with us this evening, the high standard of the 
 Central High School of Philadelphia will continue as it has 
 existed during the past fifty years. 
 
 Colonel Dechert.was succeeded bv the 
 
10 
 HON. MICHAEL ARNOLD, 
 
 one of the judges of Court of Common Pleas No. 4. His 
 topic was " The Administration of Professor John S. Hart," 
 and he said : 
 
 A history of the Central High School of Philadelphia for 
 the last half century is, in a great part, a history of John S. 
 Hart's most successful years as a teacher. Born on the 28th 
 of January, 1810, he attended Wilkes-Barre Academy, in this 
 State, and Princeton College, where he was graduated. Then 
 he became principal of an academy at Natchez, Miss. ; then a 
 tutor in the college in which he had been a student, and after- 
 wards the principal of a preparatory school at Princeton until 
 September, 1842, when he became the principal of the Central 
 High School in this city, where he remained until December, 
 1858. Excepting the space of two years, from 1872 to 1874, 
 when he was professor of the English Language and Literature 
 and Rhetoric in Princeton College, his last and greatest work 
 in teaching was done here in Philadelphia, where he died on 
 March 26, 1877. Of the first fifty years' existence of the 
 High School he was its principal during sixteen years, or about 
 one-third of the time. The school was opened in October, 
 1838, but it had no principal until November, 1839, when 
 Alexander Dallas Bache was chosen. In September, 1842, 
 Professor Hart was appointed to the position. Some of the 
 students of the first class remained in the school and graduated 
 under Professor Hart's instruction, so that his influence may 
 be said to have been felt from the beginning. During the six- 
 teen years he presided over the school 3,728 scholars attended 
 and received the benefit of his wise and successful government, 
 and it is not too much to say of him that he gave the school 
 the tone and direction which have assured the character and 
 standing it has attained. Even before the student entered the 
 High School he was, in his course of preparation in the gram- 
 mar schools, instructed in grammars written by Professor 
 Hart, so that his name was familiar before acquaintance with 
 him began. His " Class Book of Poetry" made us familiar 
 with the best works of the most renowned poets who wrote in 
 
the English language. His books seemed like hands reached 
 out to help us in our efforts to get upon the plane upon which 
 he stood. Those of us who had the honor to be his pupils 
 remember him with affectionate regard. He was grave and 
 firm, but not forbidding. His manner was polite and gentle. 
 There was no harshness in his speech, even when he 
 chided or condemned us. In his daily tour through the class 
 rooms, with his book containing the record of our behavior, 
 while we may have dreaded the contents of the book, we did 
 not cower before the man. If the record in that book por- 
 tended condemnation, he was always ready to hear an appeal ; 
 but when it became necessary to pronounce the sentence, it 
 was done with a firmness which -did not waver. " And yet he 
 was kind." 
 
 A retrospect of the administration of Professor Hart would 
 be incomplete without a reference to the excellent gentlemen 
 and professors who assisted him in his labors. Without re- 
 gard to their seniority, I will mention them as their names 
 come up in memory. Dear, good and worthy men, we owe 
 them a debt of gratitude which can never be paid ! The labors 
 of a teacher are irksome and exhausting, and always insuffi- 
 ciently compensated. We make no sacrifices, and do but lit- 
 tle of our duty when, thinking of the great benefits that we 
 have received at their hands, we simply say we acknowledge 
 our obligations and merely thank them. 
 
 Who that ever sat before Professor William Vogdes will 
 forget him ? Even in the lower schools we were taught arith- 
 metic with books written by him. How we tried to play 
 pranks before him, and how, looking askant, he discovered us ! 
 Well, he has gone to his reward revered and lamented. 
 
 Then there was Professor Henry McMurtrie, who taught 
 us anatomy and physiology, of sutures, foramens and protu- 
 berances. He, too, wrote a book a scientific lexicon. 
 
 Professor E. Otis Kendall taught for more than seventeen 
 years in the High School. He is now one of the Faculty of 
 the University of Pennsylvania. To me he appears to-day as 
 erect as he was when I first saw him, so long ago that I will 
 not mention it. Long may he live to enjoy as he possesses 
 
12 
 
 the highest respect of the people for his learning, his purity 
 and his godly life. 
 
 There was Francis A. Bregy, who taught us French. He 
 was always vivacious and good humored. It was our fault, as 
 it was our loss, that the seed he cast over us fell too often on 
 stony ground. He was a good, kind man, with beaming face 
 and radiant smile. Peace to his memory. His good name 
 is kept alive by a worthy son now sitting in judgment in the 
 Court of Common Pleas of this County on your lives, your 
 property and your names. 
 
 Professor Henry Haverstick taught us Latin. He was a 
 grave and serious man, lenient, perhaps too lenient, to our 
 neglect of his instructions. Those of us who have in our 
 vocations and callings learned to value now that which we did 
 not value then, must look back with regret upon neglected 
 opportunities, but we cannot put any of the blame upon good 
 old Professor Haverstick. Here, it seems to me, is a good 
 place to consider some of the objections to public high schools 
 and indulge in a comparison between them and the universi- 
 ties. It is often said that public high school instruction is 
 superficial, disjointed and defective. If this be so, it is attribu- 
 table to the pupils, rather than to the teachers and the course 
 of study. But is it so ? I venture to say that it is not. The 
 education of a student is not completed on his graduation. He 
 is then simply indoctrinated with knowledge which he must 
 increase in the course of life to which his mind is bent. I 
 speak now of what is commonly called scholastic education. 
 That being brought to the height to which colleges, acade- 
 mies, universities or schools can raise it, the student is then 
 turned out to select his profession, his business, or his trade. 
 In his vocation he receives further and more elaborate instruc- 
 tion, and no matter what course of life he pursues, he must be 
 a student all his life, else he will fail. Now this Central High 
 School of ours has given the last and all of the higher instruc- 
 tion to many distinguished men, who have in their special 
 walks in life figured as conspicuously as authors, writers, 
 inventors, discoverers, professional men, clerics, soldiers, states- 
 men, bankers, merchants and tradesmen, as the graduates of 
 
I 
 
 
 GEOKGE STUAHT. 
 

any university or college in the land. Graduates of the High 
 School have attained the highest honors in the councils of the 
 nation, in peace and in war, and they may some day compete 
 with any of the best scholars of the age for the Presidency of 
 the nation. One of the objections to the School is that it does 
 not complete the education of its students in the ancient and 
 in the modern foreign languages. Perhaps that is true as to 
 the majority of the graduates, but the fault is with the pupils, 
 after they leave school, and not the instructors nor the system, 
 Any one so inclined may obtain the solid ground-work of a 
 good linguistic education in the High School on which he may 
 erect a superstructure of full, complete and accurate knowledge 
 in the languages. One of the present professors of the High 
 School, George Stuart, was a pupil of the institution. His 
 mind was bent to the acquisition and mastery of the Latin lan- 
 x guage, and he now not only teaches in that branch of educa- 
 tion, but he is also the author of books of instruction in it, which 
 are used extensively in the higher academies and colleges. He 
 is a conspicuous example of the truth I have before asserted, 
 that the pupil who will can obtain the ground-work of a good 
 classical education in the High School. I believe his education, 
 so far as attendance at school is concerned, was completed at the 
 High School, for as he graduated in February, 185 2, and became 
 a professor in it in January, 1853, he did not have much time to 
 attend other places of instruction. I point to him with pride. 
 
 Professor Martin H. Boye taught us chemistry and phy- 
 sics. He wrote a book on pneumatics. He taught us how to 
 exhaust a receiver, and that in a vacuum feathers are as heavy 
 as lead. We have lived to see the time when some receivers 
 exhaust everything they touch. 
 
 Professor James A. Kirkpatrick taught us phonography. 
 He was a precise man, good, amiable and patient. 
 
 I call to your memory Professor Alexander J. MacNeill. 
 He taught us writing and drawing. He is dead, but I fear 
 that if he could see how his pupils hold their pens now his 
 spirit would rap them on the knuckles. 
 
 Professor Edward VV. Vogdes was the assistant to Profes- 
 sor Hart. He taught us moral science, not the most exciting 
 
study you may recollect. To boys who had to go to Sunday 
 school and to church every Sunday, with a positive direction 
 to remember and bring home the text, Wayland's Moral 
 Science was a little bit dull. Then he taught us political econ- 
 omy, with the usual result. Whether you should be in favor 
 of a tariff for revenue or a tariff for protection was left to your 
 own choice, and I regret to say that you are not yet all of one 
 mind on the subject. Professor Vogdes, too, has gone to his 
 rest, but his teachings yet perplex us. 
 
 You will remember Professor James McClune, still with 
 us, but bowed down in years. He essayed to teach us urano- 
 graphy or the history of the heavens. Not many years hence 
 Professor McClune will dwell among those stars with which 
 very few are more familiar than he. 
 
 I speak next of Professor Daniel W. Howard. He taught 
 us history, sacred and profane, true and mythological. He 
 introduced you to gods and goddesses without number, and 
 some, I fear, without character. It was simply impossible for 
 you to keep up your acquaintance with them. As Professor 
 Howard yet lives, let me say of him that he was always a favor- 
 ite of the students, and he deserved and possessed their affec- 
 tionate regard. 
 
 Professor James Rhoads instructed us in logic, rhetoric 
 and elocution. If you knew as much as he, you would have 
 more to be thankful for and less to regret. There was always 
 good order where he was, for when he caught you in mischief 
 and gave you five notes, he gave them to you to keep. But, 
 notwithstanding his strictness, he was a just man, and possessed 
 the respect of all his pupils. 
 
 Professor Rembrandt Peale taught us writing and draw- 
 ing. He was the author of '' Peak's Graphics." John C. Cres- 
 son was a chemist. After enlightening school-boys, he en- 
 lightened the whole population by keeping the city gas up to 
 the standard. James C. Booth gave up the business of refin- 
 ing boys and went to refining gold at the Mint. George J. 
 Becker was teacher in writing and drawing. Frederick A. 
 Roese instructed in German. James Lynd became a judge in 
 this county. Of John Sanderson, Oliver A. Shaw, John F. 
 
ZEPHANIAH HOPPER. 
 
15 
 
 Frazer, Elvin K. Smith, David Stock, Thomas B. Cannon, 
 Frederick G. Heyer, Samuel S. Fisher, Henry S. Schell, James 
 B. Fisher and William H. Williams, as teachers, I am unable 
 to speak, for want of information concerning them, except that 
 I find that they were in the faculty during Professor Hart's 
 administration, and by their labors helped it to success. 
 
 Many of the professors were graduates of the School. 
 Other educational institutions in this city and elsewhere 
 obtain their principals and teachers from the High School. 
 This fact shows that the school is capable of preparing some 
 of the best instructors of the age, and that it contains within 
 itself the means of self-perpetuation. 
 
 I now call your attention to the veteran of the faculty, 
 who since 1854 has been a constant, faithful and most compe- 
 tent teacher. Zephaniah Hopper is his name. He taught us 
 mathematics, geometry and the like. You ought to bow your 
 heads to him in reverent gratitude for a long life spent, not 
 without sacrifice, for your good. I mean no disrespect to the 
 very excellent and well-accredited gentleman who has been 
 called to the Presidency of the High School, nor yet to the 
 worthy members of the Board of Education, who are giving 
 their best judgment and labors for the advancement of this 
 institution, when I say that if they had made permanent the 
 several temporary appointments of Professor Hopper to the 
 Presidency, they would have had the hearty approval of the 
 graduates of the High School. In the various changes and 
 vicissitudes of the school, when its government needed a head 
 Professor Hopper, like Cincinnatus of old, was called to pre- 
 side over its destinies, and he guided it successfully. I wel- 
 come our new President heartily. I expect much from him, 
 and I believe that I will not be disappointed. I hope that 
 the school will continue to be a separate and independent 
 institution of finished scholastic instruction, and not a prepara- 
 tory school for any college or university. Such it was under 
 Professor John S. Hart, and such let it continue to be under 
 Professor Henry Clark Johnson. Join me, my friends, in say- 
 ing, "All honor to John S. Hart." 
 
i6 
 
 After the conclusion of Judge Arnold's address, Colonel 
 Dechert introduced 
 
 DR. S. SOLIS COHEN, 
 
 who spoke as follows upon the subject, " The Central High 
 School as a Teacher of Science." 
 
 The work of the High School as a teacher of science 
 received its greatest impetus, and attained its present high 
 development, under the presidency and with the active co- 
 operation of the scholar who was at the head of the school 
 during my own student days Professor George Inman Riche. 
 It seems but just and proper, therefore, that the consideration 
 of our theme should be preceded by an expression, however 
 inadequate, in appreciation of the great services which that 
 scholar rendered to the school, not in one department alone, 
 but in all. To adequately set forth from the records Professor 
 Riche's twenty years of wise and fruitful labors, labors not 
 exceeded in earnestness or in value by those of any former 
 Principal, and which may well serve as an example to his 
 successors, is a duty that can only'be fitly performed by the 
 historian of the school ; but all who, like myself, were fortu- 
 nate enough to share the influence to which it is due, can 
 testify to the sense of personal obligation, not to be forgotten 
 throughout life, awakened by his kindliness and sympathy ; 
 and to the elevating and inspiring influence of the devotion to 
 duty and the high principle daily set before them by his word 
 and deed. 
 
 We have met to-night not only to celebrate an anniversary, 
 but also to consider in what manner we can best strengthen 
 and extend the good influences of an institution. It must not 
 be forgotten that the High School is a Public School. Sup- 
 ported by the community at large, the Public School must 
 render a due return to the community at large. Its function 
 is neither to impart culture for the sake of the happiness that 
 culture may bring to its possessor, nor to supplant the better 
 methods of the home, the workshop, the office, or the technical 
 school, in teaching household arts, trades or professions, but 
 

 JACOB F. HOLT 
 
to fit its pupils for the intelligent discharge of the duties that 
 will devolve upon them as citizens, as members of the social 
 family. But while public education must be general, and not 
 special, the duty still remains to place practical preparation for 
 life and its duties first, mere accomplishments, the ornaments 
 of education, last. 
 
 Standing at the head ot a vast system of public instruc- 
 tion, the High School occupies a position of peculiar import- 
 ance and responsibility. Its methods and its standards strike 
 the keynote which determines the whole educational compo- 
 sition. The work of a school occupying a position of this 
 dignity in a community of the magnitude of our own, should 
 be stamped by a distinctive and characteristic feature, one not 
 of limited, but of general interest and utility. While it is true 
 that some of the graduates of the High School enter other 
 schools for special training in that which is to be their life- 
 work, yet the vast majority of graduates, and of those who 
 take but partial courses, go directly into that greatest of 
 universities, the world of action. So far as school can equip 
 them, they must go forth fully equipped. What branches of 
 knowledge, then, are of sufficient importance and interest to 
 give distinction to a school, and at the same time of admitted 
 use and necessity to men of every station and of every calling? 
 
 The answer to this question is not difficult. The con- 
 ditions are perfectly fulfilled in those very departments of the 
 High School which are now admittedly in a state of the 
 highest efficiency, for amid all the criticism, just and unjust, 
 visited upon the school, they have not been assailed, the 
 departments devoted to the teaching of that knowledge of 
 Nature which we call Science. 
 
 As taught in the High School, the study of Natural 
 Philosophy is properly divided into departments of Geology, 
 Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, and Biology, with their in- 
 dispensable auxiliaries, Mathematics and Drawing. The staff 
 of teachers includes distinguished names. Chiefly through the 
 exertions of Professor Houston, and largely as a result of the 
 public interest awakened by his lectures on Applied Physics 
 to the Artisans' Night School, well equipped laboratories have 
 
i8 
 
 gradually been established, which offer every facility both to 
 teachers and to students. 
 
 In speaking of the value of these studies to the State, it is 
 unnecessary to dwell upon the part taken by practical applica- 
 tion of scientific researches in the shaping of our present 
 material civilization. The facts are familiar to all. Nor will 
 time permit more than a hasty outline of a phase of the subject 
 worthy of earnest consideration. 
 
 The graduates of the High School go forth to workshop 
 and counting-room, to editorial room and pulpit, to battlefield 
 and hospital, to the judge's bench and to the executive chair. 
 In all of these walks of life a knowledge of science is necessary 
 to the achievement of the highest success. The merchant 
 must be familiar with the varied facts concerning the produc- 
 tion and distribution of the commodities in which he deals, 
 and should be cognizant of the larger laws underlying the laws 
 of trade. The mechanic best performs his work when he 
 comprehends the laws of action of the machinery with which, 
 and the materials upon which, that work is done and that 
 determine the fitness of the finished product for the purpose 
 to which it is to be put. Not only the physician, but the 
 lawyer, the teacher, the preacher and the statesman, who deal 
 in different degrees with the body and mind of man, should 
 understand the facts and laws of functions and development : 
 a knowledge, too, whose general diffusion among men and 
 women would vastly diminish the sum of human misery. 
 
 But there is yet another factor in education, greater in 
 itself, and more essential to the well-being of the community, 
 than the accumulation of facts, however important, or the pre- 
 paration for any special pursuit in life, however useful or 
 ennobling ; and that is, the engendering of correct habits of 
 thought. And herein, to train the student, in Matthew 
 Arnold's expressive phrase, "to think straight and see clear," 
 lies the supreme usefulness of laboratory studies and of ex- 
 perimental demonstrations of natural laws. They teach him 
 that, without which, his text-book of logic is but so much 
 waste paper ; without which the facts of history are as meaning- 
 less as the vagaries of a dream, the true significance of the 
 
19 
 
 terms cause and consequence. Furthermore, he learns, and 
 let our daily papers, with their long lists of lives sacrificed to 
 carelessness or ignorance tell us how wofully lacking in such 
 knowledge are men and women, high and low, the invaria- 
 bility of nature, the utter impassiveness of its operations. In 
 the remotest corner of the infinite universe there is no such 
 thing as chance or accident. The fire-damp brought into 
 contact with a naked flame explodes, regardless of the results 
 to human beings. The oxygen cares not whether its fiery 
 combination be effected with a fragment of charcoal in a bell- 
 jar or with the floors and rafters of a crowded factory. The 
 force of gravity acts impartially to hold the sun and spheres 
 in place, or to hurl into ruin, through rotten bridge or mis- 
 placed switch, the swift-speeding train with its load of hu- 
 manity. There is no " trusting to luck " ; there is no hoping 
 for supernatural interference to save us from the consequences 
 of our own doing. 
 
 Natural Science, too, is the basis upon which other studies 
 must be built. Only with the just ideas of cause and effect, 
 and the knowledge of the universal reign of law, gained in the 
 laboratory and the observatory, does the student become pre- 
 pared to understand the facts of language, history, art and 
 literature, which thus find their natural relations, no longer 
 isolated fragments of knowledge, but the records of the move- 
 ments of the great tide of human endeavor, as it restlessly 
 surges against the shores of the unknown, forever falling 
 back in ebb, forever rushing forth in flood again. And from 
 these data, still co-ordinating them by means of the laws of 
 Nature, he advances to the crown of education, to the study 
 of man, social science. And finally, in its relations to that 
 which is the ultimate guide of conduct, that upon which de- 
 pends the happiness of men and the stability of nations 
 religion science is the necessary foundation of an unshakable 
 faith. 
 
 Thus from every standpoint we see that the High School, 
 which is to round out and complete the education the State 
 offers to its children, which is to exercise superintending 
 powers over the preliminary schools and set the educational 
 
20 
 
 standard for the community, which is, by its distinction, to 
 shed lustre upon our city, and even as that city is renowned 
 for its homes, become renowned for teaching the knowledge 
 that shall make those homes prosperous and happy, from 
 every standpoint, we see that the High School will find its 
 true future as indicated by the tendency of its present, in 
 becoming a great teacher of science, neglecting nothing 
 necessary to a well-balanced education, but subordinating mere 
 accomplishments, to practical preparation for life and its duties. 
 
 All the addresses upon the programme were delivered by 
 graduates of the school, and as reference was made by the 
 speakers to distinguished graduates, or to former or present 
 professors, the applause was frequent and hearty. 
 
 HON. WILLIAM N. ASHMAN, 
 
 one of the judges of the Orphans' Court, was the next speaker. 
 The subject assigned hint was " The Value of the Central 
 High School in its Relation to the Public Schools." His 
 address follows: 
 
 When your committee did me the honor to invite me to 
 say a few words upon this occasion, and they laid careful 
 stress upon the " few words," they asked me to name the 
 subject. I replied that I would try to answer one or two 
 objections which had been urged against the High School ; 
 and as the committee did not demur, I supposed that my theme 
 would be entitled to correspond, in some degree, to that sug- 
 gestion. But I was afterwards notified that I would be 
 expected to speak upon " The Relations of the High School 
 to the Rest of the System of Public Education," or something 
 of that sort. I am forced to one of two conclusions, either 
 the committee did not recognize any difference between these 
 topics, or else and that I am afraid is more plausible they 
 thought that no matter what subject might be chosen or 
 assigned, it was not within the range of human probabilities, 
 that I would have much to say about it in my speech. They 
 
FRANKLIN TAYLOR. 
 
21 
 
 doubtless had in mind the case of the clergyman who was 
 recounting to his pupils the miracles recorded in the New 
 Testament. When he came to the instance where the multi- 
 tude were supernaturally fed, his memory failed him, and in- 
 stead of saying that the 5,000 men were fed with five loaves, 
 he told the children that five men ate 5,000 loaves of bread. 
 A friend who was present attempted afterwards to point out to 
 him the mistake, but the good man replied very promptly : 
 "Oh! that is of no consequence; one miracle was just as 
 great as the other." 
 
 There is a large class of persons whose entire intellectual 
 capital consists of their capacity for mischief, and who have 
 constituted themselves into a kind of body corporate of prosecu- 
 ting officers, and self commissioned to file an indictment against 
 every human institution. They could hardly be supposed to 
 have left out of their calculations, such a promising object of 
 invective, as a system of public education. Hence, every part 
 of that scheme, by which the Commonwealth would rear its 
 children to the duties and privileges of citizenship, has been 
 successively the point of their attack ; and their malice has 
 reached a head (if you will pardon the pun) when it has 
 reached the High School. According to them, that school is, 
 at best, a cumbersome ornament upon a structure which was 
 already hardly strong enough to bear its own weight ; or to 
 vary the metaphor, it is a sickly creature, the offspring of 
 political enthusiasm, which will be most tenderly treated when 
 it is buried out of sight. It is possible that some who share 
 these sentiments may have come to this place with a vague 
 hope of assisting at the obsequies. I entreat these philan- 
 thropists, for their own sake, to be careful how they handle 
 the remains. It may happen to them as it did to the Irish 
 undertaker, who exclaimed, when the hearse was at the door 
 and the mourners were assembled, " The funeral cannot start 
 just at present; the corpse is not dead yet." The school is 
 not dead yet, either. 
 
 The one overmastering objection to the High School, and 
 for which all other objections serve as masks, is that it is 
 expensive. So it is, and so are most other good things. A 
 
22 
 
 man's wife is usually expensive, but is matrimony to be 
 abolished on that account? The Church is expensive, but 
 will you do away with religion ? An honest government is 
 expensive, will you therefore surrender your franchise as a 
 voter to the first ward politician who will promise to boss the 
 job at the lowest figure? I repeat it, all good things are 
 expensive, but and every line of history demonstrates the 
 truth of this bad things are more costly still. It is a false 
 economy which wo.uld undertake to square a question in 
 morals by the rules of arithmetic. The nation whose common 
 people have no resources of culture, who are prompted by 
 no precepts of religion and who are ruled by the few and not 
 by the many, is already bankrupt, I care not how wide may 
 be its commerce, nor how vast the treasure in its exchequer. 
 
 Another complaint is even more pitiful. It is said that 
 the training at the High School unfits its recipients for their 
 proper after-sphere in society. I would like to learn from 
 these objectors what, in their opinion, is the proper sphere of 
 the American school-boy. I had thought, but it now seems 
 illusorily, that all spheres were open to him, and that whether 
 he went into the world armed with a college diploma, or with- 
 out any diploma at all, all spheres were possible to him. The 
 argument begs the question, for it assumes that the college 
 always fits its matriculants for their several posts in life. But 
 it is not true. I can point you to men in the pulpit (not in 
 this city) who ought to be in the penitentiary, and to men on 
 the bench (also not in this city) who would be more usefully 
 employed if they were mending shoes on another and different 
 kind of bench ; yet these men passed to their avocations 
 through the sacred doors of a college. I do not think that 
 colleges should be abolished because these men have disgraced 
 them. The fault lies neither with the college nor the school ; 
 it lies with the individual. Concede, if you choose, what these 
 objectors mean although they do not say it, that the boy who 
 is educated in the public schools should aspire to no higher 
 pursuits, if there are higher, than those of trade or the indus- 
 trial arts, and what then ? Will the bookkeeper make mis- 
 takes in his balance-sheet because he is able to compute the 
 
23 
 
 distances of the fixed stars, or will the tailor cut your coat 
 bias when it should be cut straight, because he occasionally 
 composes an ode to the moon? Why, you all know some 
 college-bred man, who, on a cloudy night, can distinguish the 
 moon from the Great Dipper, and who even writes sonnets for 
 the Sunday newspaper ; and you know, too, that he cannot do 
 anything else. 
 
 The framers of our Public School system, and here, you 
 will observe, I am about to glide into the subject which was 
 assigned by the Committee, had two questions to consider. 
 One of these questions lay on the surface, and admitted of but 
 one answer. Every child in the Commonwealth is entitled, as 
 by a birthright, to an education. It was not philanthropy, but 
 the stern mandate of the law of self-preservation, which dictated 
 this answer. In fixing the limits of that system, however, no 
 foreign scheme of popular instruction could safely be adopted. 
 Abroad, the citizen, outside of a small and privileged caste, 
 was a subject, and the duties which he owed to the State were 
 exclusively those which the subject owes to his sovereign ; 
 here, the citizen was not only a subject but a ruler, and the 
 very contrariety of these relations enlarged tremendously the 
 scope of his duties, and added something of subtility to their 
 character. It was not enough that he should master those 
 rudimental forms of learning which were essential to his ef- 
 ficiency as a bread-winner ; he must know something of the 
 theory of government, and something of the history which 
 illustrates that theory. Here, and at once, was involved a 
 wide departure from any training which had been devised for 
 the masses in the Old World. A course of study adapted to 
 the capacity and the means of the humblest pupil might be 
 projected, which within certain limits, could be made to fulfil 
 these requirements. Such a course was mapped out and fol- 
 lowed ; and the history of the experiment is the history of the 
 Common School System of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Another question was to be met, which was even more 
 emphatically than the former, an American question, and it 
 was a necessary outgrowth of the new doctrine of political 
 equality. The lines which elsewhere separated the aristocratic 
 
24 
 
 from the servient classes were wanting in our Republic, and 
 every man was the peer of his neighbor. 
 
 Beautiful as this theory was, no sane mind ever believed 
 that it could be harnessed to do full duty in practice. The 
 mere accident of wealth would create an aristocracy, more hate- 
 ful than an aristocracy of blood, which in time would draw to 
 itself, like its European prototype, an undue share of political 
 influence. Now what was the outward and visible mark 
 which more than anything else distinguished the favored 
 classes of Europe from the commonalty ? Could it be doubted 
 that it was the superior facilities for literary culture which fell 
 to the lot of the former ? ]ust so far, then, as the door to 
 these privileges should be thrown open to the masses, so that 
 no patented title to the prerogative of intellect might be claimed 
 by any class or individual, just so far would it be possible to 
 maintain the equilibrium of our political and social forces. In 
 one word, our ancestors felt that they could never approach an 
 ideal political, equality until they had secured an absolute 
 equality in the opportunities of learning. It was the badge of 
 his degradation, that the peasant of England or Germany was 
 shut up to the scanty modicum of training, which answered 
 for his simplest needs as a buyer or seller or workman ; *it 
 should be the glory of the American citizen, without distinc- 
 tion, except of merit, that he had access to the richest stores 
 of academic wealth. You may call this a dream ; but repub- 
 lican institutions will never rest on an assured basis until it 
 shall have passed into a reality. When you come to the last 
 analysis, you will find that political power is due not to wealth 
 nor to numbers, but to intellect; and if the means of attaining 
 that power are to be equally free to all, the opportunities for 
 developing the intellect must be equally open. In other words, 
 and in spite of all declamation to the contrary, the moment 
 poverty is a bar, in the case of one who is otherwise worthy 
 of the attainment of the highest scholarship, you have political 
 inequality, no matter what may be the form of your govern- 
 ment. When, then, the pioneers of public education added to 
 the narrow range of study of the common schools the wider 
 curriculum of the High School, they took but one step, per- 
 
GEORGE W. SCHOCK. 
 
25 
 
 haps a long one, in the right direction. The goal will never 
 be reached until a college or a university, founded by the city 
 or by the Commonwealth, and endowed as an institution should 
 be endowed, which represents the central idea of American 
 freedom, shall stand open and accessible to the child of the 
 humblest and poorest citizen. The High School is only a rude 
 tracing in outline of the edifice which is to be. Blot it out, as 
 its enemies would bid you, and you not only destroy the sym- 
 metry of so much of our school system as would be left, but 
 you also relegate that system to a level with the schools in 
 which are taught the pauper peasantry of Europe. 
 
 I beg to add another word. After all our efforts are ex- 
 hausted, the golden gifts of knowledge will be won by a 
 chosen few, .and they are the noble ones to whom the mere 
 appliances for learning may be an aid but never can be a 
 necessity. To such as these, the highest scholarship is a 
 boon, because it shows how narrow are the bounds of human 
 research, and how vast is the domain which lies beyond it ; 
 and because, while it deepens their humility, it also increases 
 their strength. These men are tied to no school, and are 
 enrolled in no social order. They are God's men ; born to 
 create schools and to obliterate ranks. But what of the class 
 to which you and I belong ? What can books or professors do 
 for us, except guide us to that point where the broad highway 
 of thought leads into the Infinite, and leave us to journey 
 thereafter alone. The High School takes us that far; the 
 most amply-endowed college cannot take us much farther. 
 And this brings me to a fact, which I will hand over to the 
 objectors against the High School to ponder. Grant, if 
 you will, that the studies in that school are superficial ; may 
 there not be, nay, is there not, such an evil as overtraining ? 
 Remember, the portals of our colleges are practically barred 
 against the children of the poor; and the material upon which 
 those institutions work is taken from among the wealthy and 
 the well-to-do. And what is the result ? Why, hundreds of 
 American youth, of the laissez-faire order, enter these semi- 
 naries for the same reason that they wear a silk hat because 
 it is respectable to do so. Every day that I live I see young 
 
26 
 
 men, blushing I was about to say but young men in this 
 age do not blush, over the honors of the class-room and the 
 greater honor of the sheep-skin, but out of whose small brains 
 the mills of the schools have ground all capacity for self- 
 thought and independent endeavor. These men annoy me. 
 They have learned by rote certain axioms of philosophy, and, 
 in what may be termed the mechanics of learning, they are 
 above criticism; in the realms of the imagination where 
 thought is creative, they are beneath all criticism. The little 
 learning they have gotten is as cumbrous an implement in their 
 hands as a steam plough in the hands of a dentist They are 
 simply and only respectable. If there is one being in the 
 world for whom I have an abiding, an immovable and an un- 
 utterable contempt it is a respectable man. In an age panting 
 with brave thoughts and ringing with braver deeds, he floats 
 above the struggle an insect in the sunlight. What matters 
 it to him that great problems on which the destiny of the State 
 depends must be solved ; would you have him descend to the 
 turmoil of politics ; he is too respectable ! What matters it 
 that capital cries out against labor, and labor against capital, 
 and that wise counsels are needed to avert the ominous con- 
 flict; his wealth is assured, and he is respectable! What 
 matters it that great wrongs appeal for vengeance, that the 
 starving ask for food, and the ignorant for knowledge, and the 
 erring for help, shall he go down to the slums, or confront 
 the criminal in his lair ; why, he is a respectable man. I would 
 rather be a reformed burglar, or a converted horse-thief, than 
 I would be a respectable man ! Thank God, the High School 
 could not if she would, and would not if she could, give birth 
 to such a nerveless spectre of manhood. Her men may be 
 scantily decked with the insignia of learning ; but they are to 
 be found where the work is hardest and the battle uncertain. 
 Against all the obloquy which may be heaped upon her, our 
 School will point to the lives of these her children as the vin- 
 dication of her fair name and the reason for her being. 
 
2 7 
 
 After the applause with which Judge Ashman's speech 
 was received had subsided, the Chairman presented the poet 
 
 and author, 
 
 GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND, 
 
 who recited an original poem : 
 
 The High School man his mother knows, 
 Whate'er his stature, now or then, 
 As yonder city tower grows 
 Toward the feet of William Penn. 
 
 Plain as his form above the throng 
 To such a patron we refer, 
 Though we are many thousand strong 
 We look not down but up to Her. 
 
 Prim Quaker dame her strength we bless 
 Who culled us with her shepherd's crook, 
 She found us straying purposeless 
 And in our hands she put a book : 
 
 It saved us half our fathers' pains, 
 It gave us some career to see, 
 The world flew wide and opened lanes 
 Of golden opportunity. 
 
 That bare brick-yard almost as hard 
 As Pharaoh's brick-yard to the Jews, 
 Now seems to us the palace yard 
 Where Pharaoh's daughter let us choose. 
 
 God bless the sunny corner spot ! 
 The cool wide halls, the basement paves, 
 The living men requited not, 
 The old professors in their graves ! 
 
 The forethought like the glance of Mars 
 Where e'er the Philadelphian rules, 
 That built a dome to seek the stars 
 Among his constellated schools ! 
 
 From this re-union, brethren, let 
 God-like imagination grow 
 Above the sneering earth and set 
 Our standard lofty as the snow ! 
 
 Good will, good words for fellow friend ; 
 Appreciation warm and fond ; 
 As if this world were at an end, 
 And we were graduates beyond. 
 
28 
 
 The second part of the programme commenced with an 
 address by 
 
 COLONEL CHARLES H. BANES, 
 
 upon " The High School during the War." His address was 
 peculiarly interesting in being very largely reminiscences of 
 his own experience. 
 
 As a soldier, I shall obey orders; and yet, if in occupying 
 but ten minutes of time, I attempt to solve a problem more 
 difficult than any ever presented to me while a student of the 
 school, that is to condense into so short a time the history of 
 the High School during the four years of the rebellion, and 
 make a failure, I trust that you will be lenient. Ten minutes 
 of time is not sufficient to weave a garland of roses for the 
 humblest soldier who lies dead upon the battlefield. 
 
 " The best thing we have from history," said Goethe, " is 
 the enthusiasm which it excites ; " and if in this brief recital, 
 by the occasional mention of a name, or of some fragmentary 
 piece of history, I shall awake in the hearts of the young men 
 who are now in the High School, and in our fellow-citizens 
 who manifest their interest by their presence here to-night, 
 feelings of patriotism, this brief time will not have been en- 
 tirely wasted. 
 
 The records are far from complete, and in this matter 
 Philadelphia has not kept pace with other cities. I had the 
 honor, during the war, of serving with young men from the 
 colleges and schools of New England, the West, and of our 
 own State. I have visited a number of these institutions, and 
 find that the authorities have erected tablets to the memory of 
 the dead, and published, in some cases, elaborate memorial 
 volumes. The best that has been done for our Philadelphia 
 High School boys is in the form of a little roster printed for 
 Professor Nicholas Maguire. From this little volume, supple- 
 mented by personal reminiscences, I make a few brief records. 
 
 The first forty-nine classes were all represented in the 
 forces of the Union, and in every branch of the service, in 
 the infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineers corps, in the 
 
MAX STRAUBB. 
 
2 9 
 
 steamers, ironclads and monitors of the navy, and in the staff 
 and medical departments. 
 
 The very first class, in anticipation of the horrors of war, 
 sent a chaplain, Rev. D. G. Mallery. I remember him, when 
 a lad, and I take it that Rev. Mr. Mallery learned from his 
 training in the school what it took an army chaplain who was 
 a friend of mine, a year or two of experience in the army to 
 acquire. The person to whom I refer I met at the close of a 
 fight on a hotly contested battlefield, with all the evidences of 
 the horror and havoc of war about us, and I said to him, " My 
 friend, you said when you entered the service, that you did 
 not believe in a place of future punishment. Have you changed 
 your views ? " " Well," he said, " I will tell you frankly, after 
 having been in the army for a year, I think that if there is no 
 such place there ought to be." 
 
 Rev. D. G. Mallery entered the service to look after 
 the souls of the soldiers, and there were thirty-one surgeons 
 who came from the Philadelphia High School to look after 
 their bodies. As I am speaking with limited time, I must 
 omit to mention all, but I cannot fail to name Dr. S. B. Wylie 
 Mitchell ; Dr. Martin Rizer ; Dr. Zebedee Ring Jones ; Dr. 
 Michael O'Hara ; and also Dr. Daniel S. Lamb, who is now in 
 charge of the United States Medical Museum at Washington. 
 
 What shall I say of the battlefields on which the young 
 men from the High School were engaged ? To even mention 
 them would render necessary a recital of the list from Bull 
 Run to Appomattox. I shall take the time to read off but a 
 partial list of names of the young men who were killed or mor- 
 tally wounded on these fields. The first regular army officer 
 who fell was Lieut. John T. Greble, at Big Bethel. Then there 
 was Topographical Engineer Orlando G. Wagner, killed at 
 Yorktown ; Hamilton Donahue, killed at Richmond ; Joseph 
 S. Miller ; Color-Sergeant Samuel Bolton ; and George B. F. 
 Hamilton. And let me stop here to say one word. Recently 
 I examined the list of volunteers from Harvard. Many of 
 these were distinguished soldiers, whom I met in the army, 
 and with whom I served. I was impressed, however, with the 
 fact that the greater proportion of men from Harvard were 
 
30 
 
 officers. While the High School sent many officers, it had 
 the honor also of furnishing a long list of privates and non- 
 commissioned officers. These men did the hard righting. I 
 mean, of course, no disrespect to commissioned officers. All 
 honor to the men who planned and led ! But there are so 
 very few privates living now that it is a great pleasure to me to 
 say that the High School was nobly represented in the ranks. 
 
 At Chancellorsville there fell General Gustavus W. Town. 
 Colonel Elisha Hall was killed at Salem Heights. The gal- 
 lant young Lieutenant, Robert T. Park, who won his promotion 
 on the field, was mortally wounded at Antietam. In the Grant 
 campaign fell Charles H. Brightly; Franklin B. Miller; Lieu- 
 tenant Edward E. Coxe; Edwin Ford and others, and there is 
 a long list of wounded, which I have here, some of whom lost 
 arms and limbs, but whose names time will not permit me to 
 read. In the list from which these few hasty disconnected selec- 
 tions are made there are two names suggestive of the fact that 
 the home influence of the old professors for patriotism was 
 effective. William Vogdes, Jr., and Theodore McMurtrie, sons 
 of professors, served in the Army of the Potomac, and repre- 
 sented honored fathers. Among those who survive are many 
 of our well-known citizens Cokmei Robert P. Dechert, who 
 presides to-night ; General James W. Latta ; Colonel Weider- 
 sheim ; Major Wm. H. Lambert and others. 
 
 This army list would be incomplete if I omitted a little 
 fellow Charles B. Johnson who was the drummer boy of one 
 of the sturdiest regiments that entered the service. 
 
 On board of thirty-two of our war vessels High School 
 boys answered the beat to quarters. Lieutenant-Commander A. 
 Boyd Cummings was killed on the steamer Richmond at Port 
 Hudson. Lieutenant James Roberts, of the Marine Corps, was 
 killed on board the ram Switzerland, and George Gideon, chief 
 engineer, was killed on the frigate Minnesota. I wish I had five 
 minutes to talk about Gideon. I remember him well, and his 
 life is a lesson to every young man in Philadelphia who desires 
 to be successful. Among the survivors, who have remained 
 in the navy, the School is honored by Commander James M. 
 Forsyth. On the frigates Niagara, the Minnesota, New 
 
Ironsides, Portsmouth, St. Louis and the Kearsarge I am 
 mentioning some of the historic vessels of the Navy were to 
 be found the young men of the Central High School as sailors, 
 petty officers or commanders, and at the close of the war, one 
 of the first re-unions of soldiers was formed by High School 
 boys. The published record, by Professor Maguire, shows that 
 classes '31, '35, '36, '37, '39 and '43 furnished a larger number 
 of men than any of the other classes. But from all the first 
 forty-nine classes of the school there came young soldiers, who 
 represented in the fullest sense the City of Philadelphia. In 
 the class rooms from which they graduated, as well as in the 
 ranks, the sons of mechanics touched elbows with men who 
 led in the great enterprises and activities of the day. Liter- 
 ally, the school illustrated all classes and conditions of men. 
 Hundreds of the graduates enthusiastically entered the service 
 of the country at the first threatening of danger to the Union. 
 They represented the College of the City of Philadelphia, and 
 as its sons they manifested the public spirit of that city, which 
 vaunteth not itself. 
 
 That system of education cannot be otherwise than whole- 
 some and patriotic which develops men of this character ; and 
 our appreciation of its influence can best be shown by in- 
 creased confidence in its purposes, and by broader and deeper 
 plans for its future development. So doing will create a monu- 
 ment to the memory of the Soldiers of the Alumni more 
 enduring than marble, and the influence will be perennial. 
 
1 888 
 
 3 
 
 NEW BUILDING, DEDICATED JUNE 28, 1854 
 
 NUMBER OF STUDENTS ADMITTED 12,367 
 
 Upon the conclusion of Colonel Banes' address, the 
 Chairman said : 
 
 It was intended that the next address should be delivered 
 by the 
 
 HON. WILLIAM M. SMITH, 
 
 President of Common Councils, upon the subject, " The 
 Reasons which led to the Organization of the Central High 
 School," but upon entering the building this evening, I re- 
 ceived a letter from Mr. Smith, informing me that he would be 
 unable to speak by reason of physical indisposition. 
 
 I will therefore call upon William H. Staake, Esq., to 
 read Mr. Smith's letter and also several other letters which 
 have been received from absent graduates. 
 
HENRY CLARK JOHNSON. 
 
33 
 
 After the reading of these letters the chairman said : 
 I now have the honor and pleasure of introducing and 
 welcoming 
 
 PROFESSOR HENRY CLARK JOHNSON, 
 
 the newly-elected President of the Central High School. 
 
 Professor Johnson, rising and bowing, was received with 
 cheers and loud calls for an address. After some hesitation, 
 he said : 
 
 The notice I received of this meeting to-night stated dis- 
 tinctly that no speeches would be made 'except by graduates 
 of the School ; and therefore", I came here entirely unpre- 
 pared ; but after hearing what I have of the record which the 
 School, has made for herself, I feel my misfortune in not being 
 one of her graduates. I cannot but be proud of her past, 
 and when another half century shall have rolled around, I 
 hope that some one may be able to say of me and of my 
 colleagues as great and grand things as have been said ol 
 those who have gone before me. I sincerely thank you for 
 your very kind welcome. 
 
 After the cheering, with which Professor Johnson's re- 
 marks were received, had subsided, the chairman announced 
 that the next address was to have been delivered by the 
 
 HON. LEWIS C. CASSIDY, 
 
 ex- Attorney-General of Pennsylvania, but Mr. Cassidy had 
 sent word in the morning that by reason of illness he would 
 be unable to be present, and the chairman then introduced 
 
 JOHN F. LEWIS, ESQ., 
 
 the Chairman of the Semi-Centennial Committee. His ad- 
 dress was as follows : 
 
 It is with unassumed diffidence that I venture to speak 
 in place of so distinguished an orator as the Hon. Lewis C. 
 Cassidy. Had he addressed us, his learning would have edified 
 
34 
 
 while his eloquence charmed ; but I feel upon this occasion, 
 as I trust I shall upon every other, that I would not be true 
 to myself were I unwilling to offer my tribute, humble though 
 it be, to the honor of the Central High School of Philadel- 
 phia. The causes which led to her organization, her value in 
 connection with the public school system, that which she did 
 in the cause of freedom and union, and her work as a teacher 
 of science, have been ably treated to-night. Her record has 
 been laid before us, and we have turned it page after page. 
 What a memorial it presents to the wisdom and foresight of 
 those who founded the school and mapped out for it the posi- 
 tion it should occupy in the educational system of Philadel- 
 phia. 
 
 The Act of Assembly of June 13, 1836, by virtue of 
 which the High School was founded, authorized the School 
 Controllers for the City and County of Philadelphia, to establish 
 one Central High School for the full education of such pupils 
 of the public schools as might possess the requisite qualifica- 
 tions. The tuition to be afforded was not to be distinctively 
 classical nor distinctively scientific, not academical merely, nor 
 yet entirely collegiate, but it was to be full, complete and 
 rounded, the Omega of its own Alpha. It was to be liberal 
 in the highest degree, and this liberality was expressly recog- 
 nized by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, by the Act of April 
 9, 1849, giving the Controllers power to confer upon graduates 
 of the School academical degrees in the arts, and the future 
 growth of the School was evidently contemplated when the 
 further authority was given in the words, "And the same and 
 like power to confer degrees, honorary and otherwise, which 
 is now possessed by the University of Pennsylvania." The 
 tuition afforded by the School was to be the limit of the State's 
 duty and interest to furnish gratuitous higher education. The 
 High School is no preparatory institution. It has a grander 
 aim than to be the means of filling free scholarships. It is the 
 final stage to which the primary, secondary and grammar 
 schools are but steps. It is the ne plus ttttraofthe public edu- 
 cational system of the First School District of Pennsylvania. 
 
35 
 
 As the High School is the embodiment of the duty of the 
 State, it aims to give a practical education fitted to graduate 
 intellectual bread-winners. Its curriculum leans less, there- 
 fore, towards the humanities than toward those practical 
 branches which enable the student to employ the mind as well 
 as the muscle in his support. The studies constitute what the 
 Germans call the " Brodwissenschaften" and what Sir William 
 Hamilton aptly terms the " bread-and-butter sciences." They 
 are the foundation stones of an education, and upon them the 
 student may rear any kind of superstructure. Her graduates 
 are found in every walk of life, and by reason of the solidity of 
 their education are distinguished alike for eminence and 
 success. 
 
 At the risk of tiring you, I will read the names of a few 
 of the former pupils of the school who have been successful in 
 business : E. W. Clark, the banker ; John R. and James S. 
 Whitney, the car-wheel manufacturers ; the Messrs. Cramp, 
 the ship-builders ; William W. Justice, John Story Jenks, Ben- 
 jamin P. Homer, George Philler, president of the First National 
 Bank ; the late Joseph W. Drexel, the banker ; Clement R. 
 Wainwright, Conrad B. Day, John H. Catherwood, A. Gra- 
 ham Elliot, John P. Green, vice-president of the Pennsylvania 
 Railroad ; Clement A. Griscom, C. G. Hancock, Clarence S. 
 Bement, George S. Eox, the banker ; Edwin T. Eisenbrey, 
 
 E. Dunbar Lockwood, Joseph S. Harris, president of the Le- 
 high Coal and Navigation Company; Conrad F. Clothier, 
 Oliver Landreth, whose seeds bring forth an hundred fold ; 
 John S. Newbold, Richard Y. Cook, of Cook & Bro.; Harry 
 
 F. West, president of the Philadelphia Warehouse Company ; 
 Robert Glendenning, Charles H. Banes, president of the Mar- 
 ket Street National Bank ; Thomas Dolan, Thomas Bromley, 
 Alfred H. Love, who has just declined the nomination of Vice- 
 President of the United States by the Equal Rights Party ; 
 John J. MacFarlane, president of the American Life Insurance 
 Company, Sailer & Stevenson and De Haven Brothers, the 
 brokers ; Stephen O. Fuguet, Frank K. Hippie, president of 
 the Real Estate Trust Company. 
 
36 
 
 In the curriculum of the school free-hand and mechanical 
 drawing have always had a prominent part, and we therefore 
 find among her graduates many distinguished artists. I will 
 name but a few : Bispham, the animal painter; Bensell, Knight, 
 William Sartain, Hamilton, the marine painter; Sword, and 
 Richards the marine and landscape painter. 
 
 The school has been peculiarly prolific of authors and 
 journalists. There may be mentioned, Ignatius Donnelly, the 
 author of the " Great Cryptogram " and many other works ; 
 Frank R. Stockton, George Alfred Townsend, Joel Cook, of 
 the Ledger and the American correspondent of the London 
 Times ; James Rankin Young, Executive Clerk of the United 
 States Senate and the ablest political writer in America ; Ste- 
 phen N. Winslow, of the Commercial List and Price Current ; 
 Charles E. Warburton, of the Evening Telegraph ; Charles T. 
 School, of the Evening Star ; George H. Boker, J. Barclay 
 Harding, Henry C. Titus, of the Legal Intelligencer ; Stock- 
 ton Bates, Rev. Robert M. Patterson, of the Presbyterian Jour- 
 nal ; Alexander J. McCleary, Addison .B. Burk, and too many 
 others to mention. 
 
 The studies of anatomy and physiology, together with 
 those of chemistry and physics receive special attention, and 
 among the graduates of the School are therefore found many 
 distinguished doctors and scientists. 
 
 I will name but a few : Richard J. Levis, Bushrod W. 
 James, Wm. B, Atkinson, Daniel S. Lamb, chief of the United 
 States Medical Museum, at Washington ; Robert M. Downes, 
 Aitken Meigs, J. Solis-Cohen, S. Solis-Cohen, Albert L. Gihon, 
 Medical Director of the United States Naval Hospital, at New 
 York ; John E. James, Charles S. Turnbull, W. W. Keen,. 
 Louis Elsberg, of New York ; James M. Barton, T. H. An- 
 drews, Alexander H. Laidlaw, of New York ; Andrew Mac- 
 Farland, Benjamin B. Wilson, Charles A. Oliver, Louis J. Lau- 
 tenback, Melancthon Ruth, of Washington ; Gordon M. 
 Christine ; Joseph Leidy, Jr., G. Oram Ring, J. B. Longshore, 
 of Camden ; Michael O'Hara, Wm. B. Trites, A. Rusling 
 Rainear, Charles M. Thomas, and Thomas H. Carmichael. 
 
EDWIN J HOUSTON. 
 
& 
 
37 
 
 Among scientists the school is honored by the names of: 
 B. Howard Rand, Charles M. Cresson, the chemist ; Robert 
 Ellis Thompson and Harrison Allen, of the University of 
 Pennsylvania ; William H. Wahl, of the Franklin Institute ; 
 George Davidson and A. O. Peale, of the United States Coast 
 Survey; Edwin J. Houston, who has done so much to en- 
 lighten the city ; Elihu Thompson, the electrician, whose 
 recent discovery of electric welding is a stage in the progress 
 of science ; J. Vaughn Merrick, Albert R. Leeds, Charles 
 Kroeh, of the Stevens Institute of Technology ; Henry Leff- 
 man, the analytical chemist ; John L. Ogden, Chief Engineer 
 of the Water Department, and Professor William H. Greene, 
 of the Central High School of Philadelphia. 
 
 Among clergymen may be mentioned : Samuel Laird, 
 Reese F. Alsop, Robert C. Matlack, John E. Cookman, Joseph 
 S. Kennard, Herman L. Duhring, Ignatius F. Horstman, Day- 
 ton Roberts, Elvin K. Smith, John K. Murphy, D. T. Bickley 
 Joseph Williamson, Edward J. Galvin. I will name no more. 
 Glory not in this world, but in the next, is the evidence of their 
 success. 
 
 The school has produced more lawyers than members of 
 any other profession : George Harding, David W. Sellers, Mal- 
 colm Hay, of Pittsburg ; George L. Crawford, William Ernst, 
 Mayer Sulzberger, Henry T. King, John G.Johnson, Henry R. 
 Edmunds, Robert H. Hinckley, P. F. Rothermel, Jr., William 
 H. Staake, E. Cooper Shapley, Thomas Hart, Jr., Joseph R. 
 Rhoads, William C. Hannis, S. Edwin Megargee, John I. 
 Rogers, Alfred C. Ferris, Henry J. McCarthy, Robert N. 
 Simpers, Henry C. Loughlin, Ernest H. Davis, James M. 
 West, Abram M. Beitler, Joseph M. Pile, Edward H. Weil, 
 Emanuel Furth, Charles Biddle, John B. Collahan, Jr., Frank 
 P. Prichard, Andrew J. Maloney, Theodore P. Matthews, J. 
 Alexander Simpson, Jr., Robert K. Finletter, John Sparhawk, 
 Jr., James R. Booth, Matthew Dittman, J. Henry Williams, 
 Jacob Singer, Ormond Rambo, Joseph A. Sinn. You will 
 observe the list is already too long to continue. 
 
 Among lawyers who have distinguished themselves in 
 other capacities may be mentioned : Hon. James T. Mitchell, 
 
38 
 
 William B. Hanna, William N. Ashman, Michael Arnold, 
 Joseph C. Ferguson, James Gay Gordon, There are thus three 
 Judges upon the Common Pleas Bench and three out of four 
 upon the Orphans' Court Bench who are graduates of the 
 School, and after the next election, I feel safe in saying that 
 there will be one less in the Common Pleas and one more on 
 the Supreme Bench. Hon. Robert E. Pattison, Ex-Governor 
 of Pennsylvania ; Hon. Leon Abbett, Ex-Governor of New 
 Jersey ; Hon. Charles F. 'Manderson, United States Senator 
 from Nebraska ; Hon. Edward Patterson, Associate Justice 
 of the Supreme Court of New York ; Colonel Robert P. 
 Dechert, County Controller ; General James W. Latta, Hon. 
 Lewis C. Cassidy, Ex-Attorney General of Pennsylvania ; Hon. 
 William M. Smith, President of Common Council ; Samuel 
 B. Huey, Samuel F. Flood and Thomas E. Merchant, of the 
 Board of Education ; William Nelson West, Ex-City Solic- 
 itor ; Joseph L. Caven, lately President of Common Council ; 
 Walter E. Rex, formerly Register of Wills ; John J. Ridgway, 
 Ex-Sheriff, And I feel it an honor to add the name of an attor- 
 ney who has distinguished himself as one of the ablest educators 
 Pennsylvania ever produced, George Inman Riche. 
 
 These lists have been prepared from memory, and the 
 material was so abundant that greater discretion was exercised 
 in determining what names to omit than what to insert. I can 
 mention six bank presidents and twenty bank cashiers in this 
 city alone, all former pupils of the school ; and, I might add, 
 all in the city still. Many of the men whose names I have 
 mentioned owed their success in life to the school alone. 
 They were nursed with no silver spoon. I have in my mind 
 the names of four brothers, graduates of the school, one of 
 whom has been for years an officer in the largest bank in 
 Philadelphia, another an officer in the largest trust company, 
 the third a prominent merchant in St. Paul, Minn., and the last 
 for thirty years the indispensable head of the United States 
 Assay Office, in New York, and their father was the watch- 
 man of the old school building. 
 
 Need I ask, in conclusion, whether, in the face ot such 
 results, the Central High School should not receive the foster- 
 
GEORGE INMAN RICHE. 
 
THK -.$> 
 
 :Vj 
 dt 
 
39 
 
 ing care of this community and its jealous protection from 
 ignorance, envy and pride. It may be necessary as the popu- 
 lation increases to establish a Northern High School and a 
 Southern High School, but God grant that the day may never 
 come when Philadelphia shall not hold in her heart, for the 
 full education of the pupils of the public schools, one Central 
 High School, and cherish its maintenance as her most sacred 
 duty. 
 
 Upon the conclusion of Mr. Lewis' address, Colonel 
 Dechert introduced the 
 
 HON. ROBERT E. PATTISON, 
 
 Ex-Governor of Pennsylvania, who spoke upon the topic, 
 " The duty of the State to furnish gratuitous Higher Educa- 
 tion." 
 
 My only apology for attempting at this hour to say any- 
 thing upon the subject that has been assigned to me is that 
 such an occasion will not take place again within the next 
 fifty years. I do not know which astonished me the most, 
 the assumption of the committee in assigning to me a subject 
 such as is named upon the programme, to be responded to in 
 ten minutes, or my consent to answer in that time. 
 
 It is a very old theme. It has received the attention and 
 consideration of philosophers, teachers and educators of every 
 age since the first dawn of imparted knowledge. It has 
 called forth more literature and as many statistics as any other 
 subject that I know of, except the one that you all ought to 
 be familiar with at this time, to wit, the Tariff question. 
 
 What I shall have to say, therefore, at this hour of the 
 entertainment and upon this subject will simply be by way of 
 suggestion. Ought the State to furnish gratuitous higher 
 education ? I desire, first, to eliminate from it any idea of a 
 gratuity, or charitable benefaction. It is neither a gratuity 
 nor a charitable benefaction. It is an absolute and indispensa- 
 ble necessity in popular government. The founders of the 
 Republic treated it as necessary in the ideal form of govern- 
 
40 
 
 ment they were founding upon the American Continent. They 
 believed that popular government could not be founded upon 
 popular ignorance ; and that doctrine, assumed by them more 
 than two hundred years ago, is as good to-day as at that time. 
 The appreciation of its truth is more essential at this hour in 
 the history of the Republic than at any time in the past. 
 Among the first purposes in the formation of the Colonial 
 Governments was provision, not only for an elementary educa- 
 tion, but for higher education. As early as 1647, the Com- 
 monwealth of Massachusetts, by legislation, made special pro- 
 vision for the education of the children of citizens, both of tax- 
 payers and of non-taxpayers, in the higher branches of learn- 
 ing. It was this foresight and innate knowledge of the needs 
 of Republican government that paved the way for the devel- 
 opment of that historic body of men who displayed the great- 
 est measure of wisdom ever gathered together upon the earth 
 and astonished the cultured courts of Europe. It was from 
 the elementary schools and from the high school, developed 
 even in the earlier days of colonial government at the public 
 expense, that there were brought forth the men who conceived 
 the idea of an independent government and eventually of a 
 Declaration of Independence. 
 
 The idea of the colonies on the subject of education was 
 carried into the formation of the state governments. All of the 
 earlier States constituting the American Union made provision 
 for education not only in the elementary branches, but in the 
 higher branches. The States, as they came into the Union, 
 adopted the same provisions, and the State of Indiana, in the 
 first constitution, adopted in 1816, provided for a general sys- 
 tem of education ascending in a regular gradation from the 
 township schools to a State university, and, as has been already 
 said to you, Pennsylvania has an imperative command in its 
 constitution that a thorough and efficient system of education 
 shall be provided. Article 10 says : " The General Assembly 
 shall provide for the maintenance of a thorough and efficient 
 system of public schools, wherein all the children of this Com- 
 monwealth above the age of six years may be educated." 
 Now, since the law considers all to be children who are under 
 
twenty-one years of age, it seems strange that the framers of 
 the constitution intended children to remain fifteen years in 
 school studying only reading, writing and arithmetic. And I 
 pause here for a moment, and you will pardon me, although 
 the hour is late, to cite very high authority. President John 
 Adams, in his work on government, declares that laws for the 
 liberal education of youth are so, extremely wise and useful 
 that to a humane and generous mind no expense for this pur- 
 pose would be thought extravagant. Mr. Madison also wrote 
 to the same effect, and enlarged upon this question of educa- 
 tion, saying that learned institutions ought to be favorite ob- 
 jects with every free people/ They throw that light over the 
 public mind, which is the best security against crafty and dan- 
 gerous encroachments on the public liberty. 
 
 Such are a few of the declarations of the eminent states- 
 men and scholars concurred in by all of their most distin- 
 guished contemporaries. " They are the deliberately ex- 
 pressed opinions of men by whose wisdom and foresight 
 States were formed and a Nation created." The caution and 
 advice they gave the men of their day we ought to be pre- 
 pared to accept, receive, expound, and extend, to-day, in our 
 public school system. 
 
 Again, higher education is necessary for the protection of 
 property. As had been said by a distinguished writer, Mr. 
 Horace Mann, " without a sense of the inviolability of property, 
 your title deeds are but waste paper." Higher education, 
 under our forms of government, is necessary for the protection 
 of the person. Without a sense of the sacredness of person 
 and life you are only a watch dog whose baying is to be 
 silenced that your home may be more securely entered and 
 plundered. A guilty few can destroy the peace of the virtu- 
 ous many. One incendiary can burn faster than a thousand 
 industrious workmen, can build. And this is as true of the 
 social rights as of material edifices. These questions have been 
 referred to, to-night, upon this platform ; but I advert to them 
 again because I believe in their importance. The questions of 
 communism, of socialism, of anarchism only appear among us 
 to-day because the people who hold those opinions are with- 
 
42 
 
 out that proper educated thought of which every American 
 citizen should be in possession. 
 
 Teach men to think, and there will be no rioting. Let 
 reason possess the minds of our fellow-citizens, and justice will 
 reside in their hearts. Teach them in order that they may have 
 wise conceptions and educated views of our government. Alle- 
 giance, and fidelity, with proud enthusiasm, will then prevent 
 any disturbance on the part of its intelligent, educated, and 
 thoughtful citizens. 
 
 Higher education is necessary because there is a demand 
 for it. The institution known as " the Chautauqua Circle," 
 with its sixty thousand members scattered throughout the 
 union, is an illustration. It is a voice in the wilderness crying, 
 " Make straight the way to higher education." Here, in this 
 local community, the Temple College is just being instituted, 
 and such demands are made upon the authorities for admission 
 that provision can hardly be made for proper accommodation. 
 The magnificent gift with the provisions made for a private 
 High School under Mr. Cahill's will, where more than nine 
 hundred students can be instructed in the higher branches of 
 learning, emphasizes the demand for a higher public system 
 of education. It is more important, at this period, that we 
 should have such institutions to provide for a higher educa- 
 tion, than it was fifty years ago to provide for elementary edu- 
 cation. 
 
 Higher education is necessary because it develops the 
 lower branches and system of education. Every community 
 is better by reason of the presence of a Public High School in 
 its midst than it would be if it had no High School. " There 
 will be more educated people in every town maintaining a 
 High" School than there would be without it." It gives in- 
 creased efficiency to the elementary schools. Huxley has 
 well put it, that no system of public education is worthy the 
 name, unless it creates an educational ladder with one end in 
 the gutter and the other in the university. 
 
 Higher education is necessary, because of the benefit it 
 confers upon the citizens. There are at present more than 
 ten million children enrolled in the public school system of 
 
DAVID W. BARTINE. 
 
43 
 
 the country between the ages of four and twenty-one, and less 
 than one hundred thousand students in the paid universities, 
 colleges and private academies. If an educational system is 
 regarded as so highly beneficial to those who are able to pay 
 for it, the same advantages should be given by the State to 
 those who are unable, otherwise you limit the higher educa- 
 tion to the children of the well-to-do, for only the well-to-do 
 would have the means to pay for it, and this might prove a 
 damaging, perhaps a perilous, venture for the State. Let it 
 not be said of our country, in this the nineteenth century, 
 where education has done more to advance the interests of 
 humanity, under the ideal form of popular government, than 
 any other, that we have men and women seeking education, 
 and yet with a surplus in our Treasury we are not willing to 
 give to them that which will perpetuate our institutions. 
 
 And higher education will perpetuate our government. 
 Wealth and industry will not give permanence to a govern- 
 ment " for the people and by the people," or Holland would 
 still be free. Intellectual culture and a just appreciation of the 
 sublime and beautiful are insufficient guards, or Greece would 
 not have yielded to a foreign oppressor. Extensive sway will 
 not give stability to freedom, or Rome would have escaped the 
 cruel domination of the Caesars. Bravery and an enthusiastic 
 admiration for military renown will not sustain liberal govern- 
 ments, or France would not have thrice exchanged a republic 
 for an empire. Even with upright rulers, chosen by them- 
 selves, and a knowledge of divine law, the Jews desired and 
 obtained a king. Wealth and industry, intellectual culture, 
 heroic achievements, the control of extensive territory, and up- 
 right rulers may assist to extend, but they alone will fail to 
 perpetuate free institutions. This must be accomplished by 
 an education diffusive as the atmosphere, vivifying as the light 
 of day, and imbued with wisdom from on high. Let such an 
 edacation pervade the body politic, and the benign institutions 
 of this republic will be as enduring as the mountains which 
 ridge its vast domain. Neither foreign foes nor misguided cit- 
 izens will ever desecrate the sanctuary or mar the temple 
 which has been consecrated to liberty. Those who have lab- 
 
44 
 
 ored for the improvement, elevation and freedom of men will 
 pass from the stage of action cheered by the assurance that 
 their efforts have not been in vain ; and the great and good 
 of every age will turn from the melancholy contemplation of 
 crushing despotism and distracted republics to admire a pros- 
 perous, enlightened and happy people, gathered from every 
 land, bowing to the same God, and governed by the same lib- 
 eral institutions. 
 
 The exercises of the evening were closed with 
 THE BENEDICTION, 
 
 pronounced by the REV. SAMUEL LAIRD, D. D., as follows : 
 
 The Lord keep thee and preserve thee ; the Lord make 
 His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee ; the Lord 
 lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace. Amen. 
 
SEMI-CENTENNIAL RECEPTION, 
 
 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3O, 1888. 
 
 The following article is taken from the Public Ledger of 
 Wednesday, October 31, 1888. 
 
 " A reception under the auspices of the Associated Alumni of the 
 Boys' Central High School, at St. George's Hall, last evening, formed a 
 fitting conclusion to the exercises marking the fiftieth anniversary of the 
 founding of the institution, the occasion affording an opportunity to in- 
 troduce the newly-elected President, Professor Henry Clark Johnson, to 
 the Alumni generally, and enabling the latter to renew acquaintances 
 formed in school life. Across the front of the stage and scattered through 
 the hall and on the stairways was a profusion of chrysanthemums, palms 
 and other foliage and flowering plants, and concealed in the mass of 
 greens on the stage the Germania Orchestra played at intervals pleasing 
 musical selections. The occasion partook of the nature of a social gath- 
 ering, and was as enjoyable as it was informal. 
 
 The officers of the Association and members of the Executive and 
 Reception Committees, to whom were assigned the agreeable duty of 
 welcoming the guests and fellow alumni, were as follows : Ex-Governor 
 Pattison, President ; John F. Lewis and John R. Fanshawe, Vice-Presi- 
 dents ; Charles Biddle, Treasurer ; George B. Hawkes, Recording Sec- 
 retary ; George J. Brennan, Corresponding Secretary, and Frederick 
 Schober, Master of Archives. Executive Committee Mr. Lewis, Chair- 
 man ; Prof. E. J. Houston, who was also Chairman of the Committee on 
 Public Library ; Stephen W. White, Chairman of the Committee on Pub- 
 lication ; Colonel Robert P. Dechert, Chairman of the Committee on 
 Public Meeting, and John T. Elliot, Chairman of the Finance Com- 
 mittee. Reception Committee John J. Weaver, Chairman ; General 
 J. W. Latta, Charles Biddle, Jacob Singer, Daniel W. Grafly, William 
 Harkness, Jr. .David Hoffman, John T. Elliot and John F. Lewis. 
 
 Mingled with the assemblage were men prominent in many walks 
 of life, including clergymen, scientists, members of the bar, journalists, 
 manufacturers and merchants." 
 
 LETTERS OF REGRET. 
 
 " Many letters of regret were received by the committee in charge 
 from alumni who were prevented from being present, among whom were : 
 
 Major L. Cooper Coleman, U. S. Engineers, Cleveland, O. ; W. 
 Irving Vinal, U. S. Coast Survey, Wood's Holl, Mass. ; J. SnowdenBell, 
 
46 
 
 Pittsburg ; the Rev. Reese F. Alsop, Brooklyn; Hon. Leon Abbett, New 
 Jersey ; A. O. Peale, U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, D. C. ; 
 Clement A. White, Schenectady, N. Y. ; H. S. Teal, Chicago ; Prof. H. 
 W. Knauff, St. Paul; Rev. M. Byllesby, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; 
 T. M. McMurtrie Kerr, Jr., New York ; H. M. Clair, Jr., Dallas, Texas ; J. 
 W. Mindil, Port Allegheny, Penna. ; Thomas H. Child, New York; Dr. 
 G. K. Hassenplug, Denver ; Prof. Cyrus Adler, Johns Hopkins Univer- 
 sity, Baltimore ; Russell P. Jacoby, Newark, N. J. ; Aaron Haas, Atlanta, 
 Georgia ; Wilson R. Steady, New York, and Joseph W. Richards, Beth- 
 lehem. 
 
 " Governor Beaver, who had been invited to be present, sent 
 the following communication : " I am honored by the invita- 
 tion of your Executive Committee to attend the semi-centen- 
 nial reception of the Central High School of Philadelphia, to 
 be held at St. George's Hall, Thirteenth and Arch Streets, on 
 Tuesday evening, October 3<Dth. It would give me great 
 pleasure to be present on the occasion of this reception, form- 
 ing a part of the semi-centennial of your High School, and I 
 would certainly avail myself of the opportunity to testify my 
 appreciation of the educational advantages offered to the young 
 people of Philadelphia, by joining you on the occasion, were 
 it not that engagements elsewhere demand my attention on the 
 evening named." 
 
 WHO WERE THERE. 
 
 The following is as complete a list of those present as 
 could be obtained : 
 
 Ex-Governor Pollock, Henry C. Loughlin, William H. 
 Staake, Prof. John F. Holt, Prof. Henry Clark Johnson, Dr. 
 
 C. M. Cresson, Judge Michael Arnold, Col. Robert P. Dechert, 
 John J. Weaver, Dr. S. Solis Cohen, Walter E. Rex, Joel Cook, 
 Thomas W. Marchment, Isaac N. Solis, Isaac R. Childs, 
 Charles Biddle, George S. Fox, Addison B. Burk, James D. 
 Ferguson, Col. Charles S. Greene, Edward T. Steel, Col. John 
 I. Rogers, Prof. James MacAlister, Emanuel Furth, James H. 
 Ridings, Joseph L. Caven, Stephen W. White, Jacob Singer, 
 
 D. W. Grafly, Albert B. Weimer, Col. Charles H. Banes, Prof. 
 Z. Hopper, Prof. M. B. Snyder, Joseph S. Harris, Prof. E. 
 

 MONROE B. SN.YDER. 
 
47 
 
 Otis Kendall, LL. D., Prof. Francis N. Thorpe, Ph. D., Samuel 
 W. Pennypacker, Samuel R. Louchheim, John M. Campbell, 
 Alex. P. Colesberry, Dr. Wm. Pepper, Geo. Harding, D. E. 
 Dallam, the Rev. J. Edgar, Ph. D., of Chambersburg ; Judge 
 F. Amadee Bregy, Thos. E. Merchant, Prof. A. H, Fetterolf, 
 Prof. W. L. Sayre, John H. Graham, John S. Jenks, Com- 
 mander James M. Forsyth, John H . Catherwood, Prof. 
 George H. Cliff, Adam Everly, P. A. Fagen, James Hughes, 
 Rev. E. C. Griffiths, James R. Gates, Henry R. Edmunds, 
 Alexander Adaire, Charles W. Alexander, Stockton Bates, R. 
 A. West, Clinton R. Woodruff, Jones Wister, B. Frank Ab- 
 bett, John R. Fanshawe, Professor James F. C. Sickel, Wm. 
 R. Dagee, Joseph S. Goodbread, Dr. Michael O'Hara, Wm. 
 R. Tucker, A. D. Lauer, W. A. Swayne, T. Guilford Smith, 
 
 E. Cooper Shapley, M. Burkhardt, Joseph E. Lame, Daniel 
 
 F. Lorenz, John Overn, Alfred llelmbold, Jr., Edward W. 
 Bart, John C. Young, Angus Cameron, John W. Selser, A. G. 
 Elliot, Dr. T. H. Carmichael, George J. Brennan, Dr. Henry 
 Hartshorne, Alfred C. Rex, John S. Kuen, John T. Monroe, 
 Harry G. Hassenplug, George B. Hawkes, H. W. Halliwell, 
 William M. Abbey, Wilbur F. Rose, Charles M. Peterson, A. 
 M. Manship, Joseph M. Truman, Jr., William N. Stevens, 
 William C. Carrick, William Roberts, Jr., J. I. Lenhart, J. G. 
 Hammer, Howard W. Lewis, Willfom H. Castle, C. A. Kurl- 
 baum, Dr. Charles M. Thomas, J. M. Murray, J. M. Pile, 
 Frank D. Mawhinney, A. E. Irwin, Richard Y. Cook, Joseph 
 A. Sinn, J. G. Cope, Thomas A. Gummey, Joseph P. Mum- 
 ford, Adolph Eichholz, Edwin L. Griffiths, Arthur R. Cobb, 
 J. O. Deshong, Charles H. Elliot, Samuel L. Taylor, John 
 Mason, Horace B. Pearson, John Harris, W. H. Loughlin, 
 George H. Buchanan, James G. McCollin, George N. Seeler, 
 James M. Martin, B. F. Barnes, Geo. P. Buzby, J. A. Stam- 
 bach, John C. Dounton, John Heins, Geo. M. Beringer, Louis 
 J. Lautenbach, M. D., Charles A. Pearson, Jacob S. Hess, George 
 P. Morgan, E. Dunbar Lockwood, Ira E. Walraven, J. H. 
 McClement, Wm. B. Rogers, Wm. A. Flanagan, B. F. Dennis- 
 son, Harry F. West, George J. Garde, Major W. H. Lambert, 
 
4 8 
 
 Alfred M. Klein, David Klein, Dr. E. Tileson Ward, VV. A. 
 Levering, Clarence S. Kates, Horace N. Kates, Andrew J. 
 Morrison, W. J. Prentice, Frank S. Christian, Wm. H. 
 McKinney, Thomas A. Robinson, E. Z. Moyer, Charles A. 
 Randall, John M. Miller, Samuel T. Child, Edward Lewis, 
 George W. Kendrick, Jr., Victor A. Ellis, Hibbert S. Holby, 
 Robert H. Hinckley, William T. Gummey, Charles H. 
 Biles, Clinton R. Woodruff, Dr. John R. Stevenson, Jesse 
 J. Barker, Charles H. Lefevre, Jacob M. Rommel, Sid- 
 dons Harper, W. B. Rommel, C. M. Towne, C. V. McManus, 
 G. Harry Davis, Alfred H. Wright, Charles S. Lincoln, J. Sel- 
 lers Bancroft, Florance W. Grugan, George D. Melloy, Wm. 
 A. Davis, Hugh DeHaven, Joseph J. Babcock, John Rommel, 
 Jr., William O. Dunne, Dr. Ambler Tees, John J. Macfarlane, 
 John M. Nuller, William Wood, Walter Zimmerman, Wm. 
 F. Sheerer, Jr., W. F. Monroe, F. H. Evans, D. F. Murphy, 
 Henry J. McCarthy, William A. Child, Dr. W. B. Trites, Ben- 
 jamin T. Moore, Randall Chase, Prof. H. B. Whittington, 
 Charles H. Rutter, David B. Hilt, Dr. Charles S. Turnbull, Dr. 
 Harry F. Baxter, Russel B. Chipman, Ralph Fullerton, Will- 
 iam L. Dubois, Harry S. Hopper, Henry G. Harris, Frederick 
 D. Langenheim, Judge Robert N. Willson, Judge William B. 
 Hanna, Judge James Gay Gordon, Dr. M. J. Grier, Capt. John 
 P. Green, John F. Lewis, Dr. A. R. Rainear, Wm. Nelson 
 West, Prof. Edwin J. Houston, John T. Elliot, Prof. Frederick 
 F. Christine, Joseph Murphy, C. T. Harrop, Prof. D. W. Bar- 
 tine, John W. Brown, Marcus I. Brock, J. Howard Morrison, 
 George W. Seeler, James F. Martin, Louis Ashbrook, John 
 Mason, Eugene R. Albertson, Thomas H. Clarke, Judge Will- 
 iam N. Ashman, Samuel Sailor, John L. Kinsey, James S, 
 Whitney, Dr. John R. Stevenson, Dr. Rynear Williams, F. R. 
 Shattuck, Dr. J. Solis Cohen, William S. Divine, Armour D. 
 Acheson, Edward Lewis, Prof. Edgar A. Singer, Owen Shoe- 
 maker, W. H. Lewis, Joseph M. Wilson, Wm. M. Burkhardt, 
 John Gallagher, Oliver P. Cornman, William H. Child, John S. 
 Stevens, Prof. H. Willis, Samuel T. Benner, Franklin L. Lyle, 
 Charles F. Abbot, William T. Shoemaker, Charles F. Gummey, 
 Albert E. Zacherle, J. G. Cope, Samuel B. Wylie, S. Edwin 
 
49 
 
 Megargee, B. F. Banes, William H. Scott, Genl. William J. 
 Latta, William Harkness, Jr. 
 
 Every graduating class was represented. From the first 
 class, even, there were present George Harding, Thomas Tol- 
 man, Dr. Charles M. Cresson, William M. Abbey, William B. 
 Keen, Benjamin P. Horner, James G. McCollin, Thomas H. 
 Clark, of this city, and Charles S. Fithian, of Bridgeton, N. J. 
 
 The reception recalled many pleasant memories of school 
 days, and the desire was unanimous that such a reunion should 
 be held annually. 
 
THE 
 SEMI-CENTENNIAL COMMITTEE 
 
 consisted of one member appointed from each class by Mr. 
 John F. Lewis, who was elected Chairman by the Associated 
 Alumni at a meeting held February 15, 1888. The commit- 
 tee was as follows : 
 
 Chairman JOHN F. LEWIS. 
 Class 
 
 1 George Harding 
 
 2 Edward W. Clark 
 
 3 Stephen N. Winslow 
 
 4 William D. Gardner 
 
 5 Charles S. Lincoln 
 
 6 Charles H. Cramp 
 
 7 William Ernst 
 
 8 William Stirling 
 
 9 Charles S. Greene 
 
 10 Lewis C. Cassidy 
 
 11 James S. Whitney 
 
 12 Charles H. Banes 
 
 13 Lewis H. Redner 
 
 14 William M. Smith 
 
 15 William M. Singerly 
 
 16 John C. File 
 
 17 Kensel Wills 
 
 1 8 Charles F. Gummey 
 
 19 James T. Mitchell 
 
 20 Edward H. Binns 
 
 21 Clement R. Wainwright 
 
 22 Leon Abbett 
 
 23 John T. Elliot 
 
 24 William A. Levering 
 
 25 William Harkness 
 
 26 Joseph M. Pile 
 
 27 Edme H. D. Fraley 
 
 28 James W. Latta 
 
 29 Charles W. Alexander 
 
 30 John G. Johnson 
 
 31 Stephen W. White 
 
 32 Henry R. Edmunds 
 
 33 Joel Cook 
 
 34 Daniel W. Grafly 
 
 Secretary HARRY S. HOPPER. 
 Class 
 
 35 John J. Weaver 
 
 36 Jesse G. Hammer 
 
 37 Robert P. Dechert 
 
 38 Benjamin O. Loxley 
 
 39 Richard Y. Cook 
 
 40 Holstein De Haven 
 
 41 William G. Macdowell 
 
 42 Stockton Bates 
 
 43 Edwin J. Houston 
 
 44 Walter E. Rex 
 
 45 William H. Staake 
 
 46 Thomas W. Ayres 
 
 47 Adclison B. Burk 
 
 48 S. Edwin Megargee 
 
 49 P. F. Rothermel, Jr. 
 
 50 Alfred C. Rex 
 
 51 Albert N. Heritage 
 
 52 Charles S. Turnbull 
 
 53 Charles F. Ciller 
 
 54 Joseph Esherick 
 
 55 Craig N. Liggett 
 
 56 George J. Garde 
 
 57 J. Alexander Simpson, Jr. 
 
 58 Robert N. Simpers 
 
 59 Harry M. Albertson 
 
 60 Solomon Solis Cohen 
 
 61 Howard W. Lewis 
 
 62 Albert E. Zacherle 
 
 63 John C. Dounton 
 
 64 Angus Cameron 
 
 65 Albert B. Weimer 
 
 66 Harry S. Hopper 
 
 67 Henry C. Loughlin 
 
 68 Gordon M. Christine 
 
Class Class 
 
 69 Jacob Singer 83 George H. Bickley, Jr. 
 
 70 David Hoffman 84 H. Frank Moore 
 
 71 Louis J. Lautenbach 85 Francis C. Adler 
 
 72 Charles Bicldle 86 Clinton R. Woodruff 
 
 73 Samuel B. Wylie 87 Howard W. Dubois 
 
 74 T. Walter Gelwicks 88 George S. Garrett 
 
 75 Charles H. Edmunds 89 Harry V. Wille 
 
 76 John I. Harrison 90 William E. O'Donnell 
 
 77 William Attmore Davis 91 William H. Stafford, Jr. 
 
 78 Harry H. Senior 92 Morton Z. Paul 
 
 79 Louis P. Brenan 93 F. E. Schemmerhorn 
 
 80 Frederick J. Halterman 94 William W. Wood 
 
 81 Oliver P. Cornman ,. 95 Frank L. Newburger 
 
 82 Archibald R. Dewey 96 Herbert S. Lund 
 
 THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
 
 appointed by the General Committee, was as follows, the 
 members being the Chairmen respectively of sub-committees: 
 
 JOHN F. LEWIS, ROBERT P. DECHERT, 
 
 Chairman. Public Meeting. 
 
 EDWIN J. HOUSTON, JOHN J. WEAVER, 
 
 Memorial Library. Reception. 
 
 STEPHEN W. WHITE, JOHN T. ELLIOT, 
 
 Publication. Finance. 
 
 HARRY S. HOPPER, Secretary. 
 
 The Finance Committee raised sufficient money, not only 
 to pay expenses, but also to hand over to the Public Library 
 Committee quite a handsome sum ; and the Reception Com- 
 mittee also paid expenses and added generously to the Li- 
 brary Fund. 
 
 THE MEMORIAL LIBRARY. 
 
 As a memorial of the Semi-Centennial, the establishment 
 of a library has been adopted. Such a library in connection 
 with the studies of History and English Literature would enable 
 the students to broaden the instruction received from the pro- 
 fessor directly and thus be of great educational value. A 
 
52 
 
 scientific library would also be of great benefit to the scholars 
 and induce a spirit of original research which would in time 
 undoubtedly bring forth rich fruit. 
 
 About 1,000 volumes have been collected thus far and a 
 sum of money raised which greatly encourages the committee in 
 its work. Professor Edwin J. Houston is chairman of the Sub- 
 Committee on Library, and contributions of books or money 
 may be sent to him at the School. If the Memorial Library is 
 to be made a success, the work of the Semi-Centennial Com- 
 mittee has but just commenced and its labor should continue 
 until the number of volumes received is worthy to commemor- 
 ate the great event which occasioned their collection, 
 
OFFICERS OF ASSOCIATED ALUMNI. 
 
 President, 
 
 ROBERT E. PATTISON. 
 
 Vice -Presidents, 
 
 JOHN F. LEWIS, JOHN R. FANSHAWE. 
 
 Treasurer, 
 
 CHARLES BIDDLE. 
 
 Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretary, 
 
 GEORGE B. HAWKES. GEORGE J. BRENNAN. 
 
 Master of Archives, 
 
 FREDERICK SCHOBER. 
 
 MANAGERS. 
 
 JOSEPH L. CAVEN, JOHN J. WEAVER, 
 
 ROBERT P. DECHERT, GEO. INMAN RICHE, 
 
 DANIEL W. HOWARD, JACOB SINGER, 
 
 HORACE M. RUMSEY, Louis P. BRENAN, 
 
 WILLIAM M. SMITH, HENRY R. EDMUNDS, 
 
 ROBERT W. FINLETTER, JAMES GAY GORDON, 
 
 DANIEL W. GRAFLY, JOHN S. JENKS. 
 
GEORGE H. CLIFF. 
 
THE 
 
 CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL 
 
 OF PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE H. CLIFF 
 
PRIOR to the year 1833 the public school system of Phila- 
 delphia was very defective, and the opportunities it gave 
 for acquiring an education were both meagre and discouraging. 
 The growth of the schools was slow and tedious, and during 
 occasional brief periods, the movement was backward rather 
 than forward. In 1831 Thomas Dunlap became President of 
 the Board of Control, and under his progressive influence the 
 aspect of educational affairs radically changed. He quickly 
 perceived the faults of the " Lancasterian " system, which had 
 been in obligatory use since 1818. He succeeded in institut- 
 ing a thorough reform of the existing school's, securing the 
 erection of new buildings and the establishment of the infant 
 departments, out of which grew the primary schools. The 
 active friends of education urged the need of legislative action 
 to secure for the entire State the common-school privileges 
 then enjoyed only by the city of Philadelphia. The Act of 
 June, 1834, which provided that townships, boroughs and 
 wards should constitute school divisions, and that taxes should 
 be levied in order to maintain schools at public expense, awak- 
 ened a most intense opposition in many parts of the State, and 
 had it not been for the powerful support of Thaddeus Stevens, 
 George Wolf, Joseph Ritner and men of like stamp, this first 
 broad and general public free-school law would have been 
 repealed and its beneficent purposes annulled. On the con- 
 trary, however, these earnest friends of education succeeded 
 in moulding public sentiment in favor of the free public schools, 
 so that in 1836, the Legislature amended and improved the law 
 of 1834. The amended Act repealed the statute requiring the 
 use of the " Lancasterian " system in Philadelphia, rendered it 
 obligatory that all children in the city over four years of age 
 should be educated, and, most important of all, authorized the 
 establishment of " one Central High School." 
 
During its early years the public school system was very 
 generally regarded in the light of a public charity, an impres- 
 sion not easy to dispel. At the time of the passage of the Act 
 of 1836, there were no public schools of a high order in the 
 city of Philadelphia, and such as then existed were just emerg- 
 ing from the odium of charitable institutions. There was a 
 general awakening to the need of better and more advanced 
 educational facilities, the public mind being doubtless largely 
 moved in this matter by the magnificent bequest of Stephen 
 Girard. A High School being authorized by the Legislature, 
 its immediate erection was determined upon by a number of 
 public-minded citizens, and, through their influence, the Board 
 of Control was moved to take the necessary steps. Closely 
 following the favorable action of the Legislature, came the ap- 
 pointment by the Board of a citizens' committee to visit other 
 cities and inspect their schools. The members of this commit- 
 tee were George M. Justice, Morton McMichael, Sr., and 
 Thomas G. Hollingsworth ; and, in company with President 
 Dunlap, of the Board of Control, they visited the schools 
 of New York and Boston. 
 
 Just at this point it may be of interest to note the names 
 of a few of the leading spirits of the Board of Control then in 
 office. This body was composed of representative citizens, and 
 the office was held to be one of much honor. The president 
 was Thomas Dunlap, an active, pushing and progressive man, 
 whose influence was powerful and fruitful in educational 
 matters. Richard Penn Smith was secretary of the Board. 
 Morton McMichael, then a young man, and just rising in 
 prominence, was a diligent member, as were also Judge James 
 Campbell and Richard Vaux. George M. Wharton was chair- 
 man of the High School Committee, and his fellow-members 
 were George M. Justice, Andrew Hooton, James Carstairs 
 and Thomas G. Hollingsworth, all of them men of note and 
 prominence, whose names are familiar to all acquainted with 
 Philadelphia history of the last half century. 
 
 In 1837 the Board of Control purchased a building site 
 on Juniper Street, facing upon Penn Square, and about midway 
 between Market and Clover Streets, the latter a small thorough- 
 
fare recently closed and covered by Wanamaker's store. 
 Plans were prepared for a building to accommodate about three 
 hundred and fifty pupils. The corner stone of the first High 
 School was laid with appropriate ceremonies on September 19, 
 
 1837- 
 
 The structure was completed and opened for use on Octo- 
 ber 21, 1838. The building was of brick, with a marble front. 
 The side walls were painted white, and, on the whole, it was a 
 more imposing structure than that in use at this day. It was 
 shaped like the letter " T," the main structure running east 
 and west, with a cross structure extending north and south. 
 In the angle formed by the wing on the south side was the 
 playground, while south of this stood the Pennsylvania State 
 Armory. North of the school building, a tavern stood on the 
 corner of Market and Juniper Streets ; and the sheds, into 
 which the farmers drove their teams on market days, stood in 
 the angle of the school building, close to its walls. At the 
 southwest corner of Thirteenth and Market Streets was the 
 warehouse of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In those days 
 Thirteenth Street was lined with quiet homes, in Clover Street 
 were small houses, while Chestnut Street in that vicinity was 
 then a fashionable part of the town and was filled with the 
 residences of leading and wealthy citizens. 
 
 This first building was three stories in height, each floor 
 containing three rooms, which were subsequently divided, as 
 there was created a demand for more rooms. The most con- 
 spicuous feature of the new school was the observatory, 
 rising from the rear of the main building. This depart- 
 ment of the new institution of learning was at the time the 
 pride of the city, its superior equipment being famed through- 
 out the land and well known even abroad. The apparatus was 
 finer than that of Harvard University, and its instruments 
 were often used by the observers of the Naval Observatory at 
 Washington. Professor E. Otis Kendall gave a detailed 
 description of this department of the school in a report to the 
 Board of Control in 1842, and this document is of no little 
 interest, considered from the standpoint of to-day, when astro- 
 nomical science has progressed to a point so far in advance of 
 that it then occupied. Professor Kendall wrote : 
 
" The instruments may be used for a two-fold purpose 
 to furnish practical instruction in one of the most important 
 branches of education, and thus prepare youths for becoming 
 engineers, surveyors or navigators, and to subserve the ad- 
 vancement of practical astronomy. The discovery of comets, 
 nebulae, etc., may be made with the comet-searcher and equa- 
 torial. The positions of the planets may also be observed 
 with reference to the fixed stars in their vicinity by the filar 
 micrometer, and their dimensions and the distances, dimensions 
 and period of their satellites may, in the same way, be deter- 
 mined I cannot, in justice to the makers of these 
 
 instruments, refrain from remarking that they are the most 
 perfect specimens of mechanism ever imported into the United 
 States, and already their constitution has been studied by 
 practical mechanics of this and other cities, and thus the 
 importation of these instruments has produced an effect upon 
 the manufacture of astronomical instruments similar to that 
 which followed the introduction of the first locomotive from 
 the British manufactories." 
 
 The opening of the school, on October 26, 1838, was 
 marked by no formal exercises and the occasion was charac- 
 terized chiefly by its entire simplicity. The class first admitted 
 contained sixty-three members, of an average age of twelve 
 years and ten months. Several members of this first class 
 are to-day numbered among the prominent citizens of Phila- 
 delphia. Thomas H. Clark, now police magistrate of the 
 23d District; William M. Abbey ; Dr. Charles M. Cresson, 
 the eminent chemist and gas expert; George Harding, an 
 attorney of note ; James A. Kirkpatrick, afterwards Professor 
 of Phonography and for many years Secretary of the Faculty ; 
 Samuel McCutcheon, Professor of Higher Arithmetic and 
 Mensuration from 1876 to 1880, were among the first sixty- 
 three to enter the school. 
 
 The Faculty of the school in its first year included but 
 four members. Enoch Wines, A. M., presided over the de- 
 partment of Languages. John Frost, LL. D., taught history, 
 and his text books were widely used and very popular in 
 those days. E. Otis Kendall, A. M., now Vice-Provost of the 
 
FREDERICK F. CHRISTINE. 
 
University of Pennsylvania, had the departments of Higher 
 Mathematics and Astronomy. Mathematical branches were 
 also taught by William Vogdes, LL. D. Although there 
 was no regular organization of the Faculty, Professor Wines 
 assumed the duties of Principal, while those of Secretary 
 were performed by Professor Vogdes. As to a curriculum, 
 there then existed hardly anything that could be thus dignified. 
 The character of the course of instruction may, however, 
 be inferred from the known ability of the instructors and the 
 branches assigned to them. 
 
 In its second year the school began to assume a more 
 definite shape. At this time Girard College was in course of 
 erection and its President-elect, Alexander Dallas Bache, 
 LL. D., tendered his services to the Board of Control until the 
 completion of the college building should enable him to begin 
 his work there. Gladly accepting this offer, the Board placed 
 Professor Bache in the position of Advisory Superintendent of 
 Schools, with a special commission to organize the High 
 School, of which he was at the same time made acting prin- 
 cipal. During the year the staff of instructors was increased 
 by the addition of Henry McMurtrie, M. D., whose depart- 
 ment embraced the branches of Natural History, Anatomy, 
 Physiology and Hygiene. 
 
 The period of Professor Bache's contact with the school 
 was distinctively formative. The first principal of the High 
 School was a man of exceptional attainments. A West Point 
 graduate, he had, after a successful career as a teacher in the 
 University of Pennsylvania, been sent to Europe by the Trus- 
 tees of the Girard Estate to visit the schools of Europe. The 
 experience gained abroad, re-enforced by the ripe culture of 
 a well-stored and disciplined mind, made him admirably fitted 
 to the task of shaping a course for the High School to follow- 
 in the years to come. It was his duty to arrange in systema- 
 tic order the somewhat aimless forces of the school, and pro- 
 vide an efficient and judicious policy of instruction. That he 
 was fully equal to these tasks, and that he accomplished them 
 in an able manner, is shown by the results obtained during the 
 period of his brief administration. It was mainly during the 
 
8 
 
 year 1840, that Professor Bache outlined and put into opera- 
 tion the policy that his judgment told him was best suited to 
 the needs and capabilities of the students. Under his 
 guidance the school quickly assumed a well-defined policy and 
 rapidly rose to an advanced position among the educational 
 institutions of the land. J. A. Deloutte was added to the 
 Faculty as Professor of the French Language ; Rembrandt 
 Peale, the distinguished artist, was given the branches of writ- 
 ing and drawing ; and John Sanderson was placed at the head 
 of the classical department to succeed Professor Wines, who 
 devoted himself exclusively to mental and moral science. 
 
 The plan for the reorganization of the school, proposed 
 by Professor Bache and adopted by the Board of Control in 
 1840, provided for a system of instruction running through four 
 years, with semi-annual examinations in January and July. 
 Prior to this time, all pupils had been required to pursue a 
 course of classical studies, but under the reorganization there 
 were provided three courses, from which students were privil- 
 eged to choose. The English course of two years, which was 
 designed for those pupils who must enter business as quickly 
 as possible, omitted the study of ancient and modern languages, 
 while the time set apart in the other courses for this purpose, was 
 devoted to some of the advanced English studies of the third 
 and fourth years. The principal course, of four years duration, 
 was intended as a more thorough and complete preparation 
 for business life, including, in addition to the studies of the 
 Extra-English course, the modern languages, French and 
 Spanish. The Classical course, intended for students desiring 
 to follow professional life, included Greek and Latin in place 
 of the modern languages. Concerning the reorganization of 
 the courses of study, Professor Bache said : " The arrangement 
 of the recitations was founded upon the time which experience 
 in similar schools, especially in those so-called 'Real Schools' 
 in Germany, has shown to be necessary for the full develop- 
 ment of the system, modified, however, by the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of the school, which required, in some cases, a de- 
 parture from the best possible arrangement." 
 
The eminently practical character of the school at this 
 time is well indicated by Professor Bache's report for the term 
 ending December, 1840. There were then in the school at 
 the commencement of the term, one hundred and eighty-nine 
 pupils, distributed as follows: Principal course, 71 percent.; 
 Classical, 22 per cent. ; English, 7 per cent. This shows the 
 practical tendencies of the school. In the report to which 
 reference is made above, Professor Bache outlined two of the 
 cardinal principles of his pedagogic creed. He wrote, " I 
 fear, however, that the importance, especially in a college for 
 the training of men for business, of models and apparatus to 
 keep the attention of pupils directed to material objects, is not 
 so deeply felt by the Board as I would desire. Scholars may 
 be made by books, and a literary turn will result from training 
 by exercises in reading and composition. But if I understand 
 the objects of this High School, visible and tangible illustra- 
 tions by means of instruction should abound in it. The re- 
 verse is the case at present." 
 
 His other point was concerning the method of holding 
 examinations, which had been previously conducted orally 
 and in public. Professor Bache vigorously deprecated this 
 system, and established the practice of holding written exam- 
 inations. He said : " Public examinations have many defects 
 connected with their advantages. If a school contains many 
 pupils and each one is to be rigidly examined, they become 
 tedious ; and, if not thorough, they are apt to degenerate to 
 mere occasions for display, and although they may not be used 
 for such a purpose, they are liable to the suspicion of being 
 thus employed." 
 
 Professor Wines resigned his position in October, 1841, 
 and was immediately succeeded by Oliver A. Shaw, A. M., who 
 assisted in the department of Belles Lettres in addition to teach- 
 ing moral and mental philosophy, the branches taught by Pro- 
 fessor Wines. During this term the study of Spanish was also 
 first introduced. 
 
 At the close of this year, Professor Bache wrote, in his 
 semi-annual report : " The object of the High School being 
 especially to provide a liberal education for those intended for 
 
10 
 
 business life, the measure of its success must be sought in the 
 tendencies which it gives. In different reports I have called 
 the attention of the Board to the necessity for so directing the 
 Studies and other means of education, as to prepare our pupils 
 for, not to remove them from, business life. It is an opinion 
 entertained by some, that to give a youth a liberal education 
 is to place him inevitably out of the business sphere. With 
 view to directing the studies of our first class, who will be 
 entitled to certificates of graduation in July next, especially 
 toward the branches calculated to be most useful to them, I 
 addressed a circular to their parents, asking the occupation 
 to which their sons would go on leaving the High School. 
 The answers show that the tendencies of the school are right." 
 
 In September, 1842, Professor Bache retired from the High 
 School, much to the regret of the students and all interested 
 in the institution. The result of his three years of contact 
 with the school was the complete organization of the courses 
 of instruction, and the establishment of the school upon a 
 sound and permanent footing. His connection with the school 
 was during three of the most critical years of its history, and 
 the services he rendered in organizing the institution and shap- 
 ing its policy were of inestimable value. His services were 
 highly appreciated, and the Board of Control parted with him 
 with unfeigned regret. 
 
 Professor Bache was the idol of the students, and his 
 pleasant geniality, not less than his ready tact, did much to 
 popularize the school. He was a man of rugged build, with 
 a manly, almost handsome face ; and this, together with an 
 air of courtly kindliness and a certain mellow humor, com- 
 bined to form a striking and picturesque personality upon 
 which the memories of his students delight to linger. 
 
 Principal Hart's Administration. 
 
 Upon the retirement of Professor Bache, John S. Hart, 
 LL.D. , formerly Adjunct Professor of Languages in Princeton 
 College, was placed at the head of the Central High School. 
 Not only was Professor Hart highly recommended by the 
 Princeton faculty, but he was also widely recognized as an able 
 

 WILLIAM H. GREECE 
 

scholar and teacher of young men. The wisdom of the choice 
 made by the Controllers soon became apparent, for the new 
 Principal quickly showed himself admirably fitted to take up 
 the reins of government where his able predecessor had dropped 
 them. Professor Hart was a man of quiet and refined de- 
 meanor, but possessed of tireless energy and never-failing zeal. 
 As an instructor, his success was marked from the start, while 
 his ability as an executive enabled him, in a brief space of 
 time, to lift both the school and himself into positions of 
 national prominence. As a disciplinarian, he was the equal of 
 a regular army officer. His personal manner was gentle and 
 precise. While his first impression upon strangers was one of 
 coldness and formality, those who knew the man found him 
 a warm and genial friend. His influence upon the school was 
 most refining, and his enthusiasm never permitted his efforts in 
 behalf of the institution to flag. 
 
 The organization of the departments of instruction dur- 
 ing Professor Hart's first term was as follows : 
 
 Department of Belles-Lettres, Professor Frost, assisted by Professors 
 
 Shaw and Sanderson. 
 
 Department of Ancient Languages, Professor Sanderson. 
 Department of Modern Languages, Professor Deloutte. 
 Department of Theoretical Mathematics, Professor Kendall. 
 Department of Practical Mathematics, Professor Vogdes. 
 Department of Natural History, Professor McMurtrie. 
 Department of Natural Philosophy, Professor Frazer. 
 Department of Chemistry, Professor Booth. 
 
 Department of Graphics, Professor Peale, assisted by Professor Becker. 
 Department of Mental, Moral and Political Science, Professor Shaw. 
 
 At the close of his first term, Professor Hart subjected 
 the pupils to a public examination, having previously given 
 them written examination in many of the branches. An innova- 
 tion in examinations which he suggested at this time, and later 
 carried into effect, \vas the extension of the written examina- 
 tions to all branches, as far as practicable. It was his idea to 
 place these examinations in charge of eminent gentlemen 
 in no way connected with the school, believing that this course 
 would stimulate the pupils to a high degree of efficiency. 
 Whatever may have been the result in that direction, his 
 
12 
 
 policy certainly did secure the interested attention of many 
 scholarly and influential men who were called upon to con- 
 duct these examinations. Such men as Robert Bridges, Joseph 
 R. Chandler, George M. Dallas, Richard Dungleson, M. D., 
 Morton McMichael, S. V. Merrick, Hon. A. V. Parsons, 
 Richard Vaux, R. M. Patterson, and many others, less well 
 known, assisted at these public inquisitions. 
 
 As an indication of the condition of the school during the 
 first half-year of Professor Hart's administration, and as evi- 
 dence of the interest taken in it, the following extract from a 
 letter written to President Leech, of the Board of Control, by 
 A. V. Parsons, Superintendent of the Common Schools of the 
 State, may be of interest. After examining the High School he 
 wrote : " From a careful reading of the various reports made 
 by your Board, and other communications in relation to its 
 history and rank, much was expected by me from the pupils 
 and the professors. In the performance of the one, while ex- 
 hibiting a knowledge of the various sciences to which their 
 attention had been directed, I was not disappointed ; and the 
 superior qualification of the other for the stations they filled, 
 was apparent in every department of the school. The mind 
 was irresistibly convinced that these gentlemen are justly en- 
 titled to the distinguished reputation they have obtained, and, 
 in my opinion, it is one of the best institutions for the educa- 
 tion of youth which can be found in any country." 
 
 One of the most important results of the establishment of 
 the High School was the influence that it exerted upon the 
 other schools of the city. The carefully devised methods of 
 examining candidates for admission to the High School effec- 
 tually prevented the exercise of favoritism towards the pupils 
 from any particular schools, and the natural consequence of 
 this was a general elevation of the standard of instruction in 
 the Grammar Schools. From the Grammar Schools came the 
 supply of pupils for the High School, the scholars in the 
 lower grades being trained towards that definite end. Admis- 
 sion to the High School being based solely upon actual 
 merit, teachers and pupils in the Grammar Schools were alike 
 moved to put forth their best efforts. Prior to the establish- 
 
13 
 
 ment of the High School, the other schools of the city often 
 suffered from lack of pupils ; and up to 1837, the year in which 
 the High School was founded, the largest number of pupils in 
 the public schools was about 7,000. By the end of 1843, 
 however, not only were all the schools filled, but there were 
 many candidates awaiting admission, while 'the number .in 
 attendance had risen to nearly 35,000. 
 
 While the common schools, in their first years, were 
 popularly regarded as charitable institutions, the High School 
 suffered from a very different and quite opposite cause. From 
 its location in an aristocratic and wealthy quarter of the city, 
 as well as the advanced character of its studies, there crept in- 
 to the public mind a belief that the High School was an insti- 
 tution for the sole benefit of a favored class, for the advantage 
 of the sons of wealthy citizens rather than for the education of 
 lads less favored. This impression prevailed to such an ex- 
 tens as to be of actual detriment to the school, but Professor 
 Hart's prompt action quickly dispelled the illusion. To show 
 by whom the advantages of the school were most enjoyed, he 
 presented in several of his semi-annual reports statistics show- 
 ing the occupations and stations in life of the parents of the 
 pupils. 
 
 From all the sources of information within his reach* 
 Professor Hart concluded that more than three-fourths of the 
 pupils in the school were indebted to it for their only means 
 of pursuing a liberal course of study. 
 
 Professor Hart's indefatigable endeavors to reduce the 
 management of the school and the conduct of its studies to an 
 exact science, are well indicated by the elaborate reports that 
 he presented to the Board of Control. These documents con- 
 tain formidable arrays of statistics and tabulated information, 
 as well as a number of thoughtful essays upon various topics 
 connected with the school. 
 
 The conferring of academic degrees by the High School 
 dates from 1849. By the Act of Assembly of April 9 of that 
 year, it was decreed that " The Controllers of the Public 
 Schools of the First School District of Pennsylvania shall 
 have and possess the power to confer academic degrees in the 
 
14 
 
 arts upon graduates of the Central High School, in the City 
 of Philadelphia, and the same and like power to confer degrees, 
 honorary and otherwise, which is now possessed by the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania." In accordance with this legislation, 
 the Board of Controllers, on September 11, 1849, resolved 
 " That the degree of Bachelor of Arts shall hereafter be con- 
 ferred upon all pupils of the High School who shall merito- 
 riously complete the four years' course ; and the degree of 
 Master of Arts upon such graduates of not less than five 
 years' standing, as shall by their general merit, in the judg- 
 ment of the committee, entitle themselves to that distinction." 
 The Act of Legislature, by which the conferring of these 
 degrees was authorized, was very strenuously opposed in its 
 passage through the House of Representatives, and a humor- 
 ous attempt so to amend the measure as to include the degree 
 of Doctor of Medicine was defeated only after a protracted 
 debate. To Professor Hart is mainly due the credit of obtain- 
 ing this important legislation, and while many to-day may 
 doubt the propriety of a public High School conferring the 
 same degrees as those conferred by a University, yet it must 
 not be forgotten that in that day the curriculum of the High 
 School was fully equal to, if not better than that of many of 
 the existing colleges. 
 
 A probation of five years, instead of the usual period of 
 three years, for candidates for the degree of Master of Arts. 
 was determined upon by the controllers. President Hart has 
 left in his report for the year ending with June, 1850, 
 some account of the principles by which he considered the 
 conferring of degrees should be governed. So many warm 
 friends of the school regard the granting of power to confer 
 academic degrees as unwise, and as the only assailable feature 
 of the school's work, that Professor Hart's remarks on the sub- 
 ject may not prove inappropriate nor untimely. He wrote : 
 " In making the selection from the graduates of five years' 
 standing, reference was had, first of all, to moral character. 
 The possession of an unblemished character is not of itself a 
 valid claim to academic distinction. At the same time, the 
 want of such a character, it was thought, would operate as a 
 bar to the distinction proposed. 
 
HhNKY WlLLIb. 
 

15 
 
 " In regard to the more positive qualifications for the 
 honor, there is, necessarily, room for some difference of 
 opinion. It is proposed, on the one hand, to make the dis- 
 tinction real and valuable by carefully limiting its use, and, on 
 the other hand, so to limit it as not to exclude the really meri- 
 torious. While, therefore, unusual discrimination has been 
 employed in regard to the persons selected for the honor, more 
 than usual liberality has been exercised in regard to the occu- 
 pations in which it may be won. It has, in fact, been con- 
 sidered open to all who may have engaged with marked suc- 
 cess in any liberal pursuit. It^has not been easy, in all cases, 
 clearly to define what constitutes a liberal pursuit. But a few 
 general considerations served to remove a part of the difficulty, 
 and seemed to give an approximation, at least, to a correct 
 result. 
 
 11 The common practice of collegiate institutions seemed 
 to authorize, without further question, the conferring of the 
 degree upon such of the alumni of the High School as have 
 been admitted to any of the learned professions ; that is to say, 
 upon all who have studied Law, Divinity or Medicine, and 
 have been admitted by public diploma to practice in these pro- 
 fessions. The same is true of such as have devoted themselves 
 to science or literature, or have become favorably known by 
 their writings ; also, of such as are professors in colleges, or 
 are eminent as teachers in the Public Schools of the Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 " The mechanic arts are nearly allied to science. They 
 give scope also to an infinite diversity of talent and character. 
 A young man without ambition to excel, or any effort to em- 
 ploy intelligently in his trade the liberal education which he 
 has received, is certainly not entitled to special honor. On 
 the other hand, such honor could hardly be bestowed more 
 appropriately than upon one who should apply successfully the 
 principles of science to the mechanic arts, especially if, in order 
 to excel in his own particular calling, he should maintain 
 a course of reading and study in relation to it, or should em- 
 ploy his powers in the invention of new and improved modes 
 of applying human industry. Men of this description, and on 
 
i6 
 
 this ground, are admitted to the honors of the most exclusive 
 of all our institutions, the American Philosophical Society. 
 Such of the graduates of the High School as have been em- 
 ployed with marked success in Civil Engineering, in the United 
 States Coast Survey, upon railroads, in foundries, and large 
 machine shops, are as fully entitled to the honors of the insti- 
 tution as any whom it has trained. 
 
 " Commercial life does not ordinarily entitle to academic 
 honors. At the same time it is by no means incompatible with 
 just claims to such- a distinction. A young man engaged in 
 trade, if he be otherwise qualified for the business, will rise 
 more rapidly for having the foundations of a liberal education. 
 If, in order to such success, he maintains a course of reading 
 on the principles of trade, and studies to make himself, in con- 
 nection with his business, a man of general information and 
 enlarged views, his pursuits are liberal and entitle him to rank 
 as such. He always does thus rank in the common estimation 
 of mankind ; and the action of the Board in all this matter is, 
 not so much to create, as publicly to recognize, a distinction 
 really already achieved." 
 
 One of Professor Hart's distinguishing characteristics was 
 his very marked fondness for the study of Anglo-Saxon. The 
 continuous elevation of the standards of the High School 
 under his administration, and the consequent improvement of 
 the Grammar Schools, made it possible, and even necessary, in 
 1849 to transfer from the High School to the Grammar 
 Schools quite a number of studies. The branches thus trans- 
 ferred included the Constitution of the United States, the His- 
 tory of the United States, Mensuration and the elements of 
 Algebra, making altogether about a year's study. This 
 transfer made it possible to extend the course of instruction 
 in several of the High School branches, including General 
 History, Local History, Trigonometry, Surveying, Navigation, 
 Bookkeeping, Phonography and Elocution. Professor Hart 
 improved this opportunity to introduce a course in his favorite 
 Anglo-Saxon, which, with the existing course of lectures on 
 the early history of the English language, formed a new 
 department, which he took under his own personal charge. 
 
He argued that, as the ingredients of the English language 
 were Anglo-Saxon and Latin in the proportion of four-fifths 
 and one-fifth, the greater attention should be bestowed upon 
 the old English rather than the Latin tongue, as generally the 
 case. " If the study of Latin is important," said he, " because 
 from it we derive one-fifth of the words of the language, how 
 much more important is the study of the Saxon, the mother 
 tongue, which has given us the remaining four-fifths? If 
 every educated man could have the same familiarity with the 
 Saxon that he is obliged to have with the Latin, he would add 
 immensely to his knowledge of the power and resources of 
 his own language. He wouhd, moreover, by that very famil- 
 iarity with the native ingredient, acquire the best possible pre- 
 ventive against a Latinized mode of speaking and writing." 
 A study of the examination questions given by Profes- 
 sor Hart shows that his hobby was enthusiastically driven. 
 It was shortly before this, that the study of Phonogra- 
 phy was added to the curriculum of the school. Instruction 
 was given by Professor Kirkpatrick in the form of one lecture 
 and two recitations per week. Very good results were ob- 
 tained from this branch of study and some good short-hand 
 writers were developed under Professor Kirkpatrick's guid- 
 ance. 
 
 Commencement exercises were held in the school building 
 until 1848. In his report for the year preceding, President 
 Hart called attention to the need for better accommodations 
 for this purpose, suggesting that the exercises beheld in some 
 other building or hall. The February commencement in 1848, 
 was held in Musical Fund Hall, on Locust Street, and the July 
 exercises of that year were held in the hall of the Chinese 
 Museum, then standing at the northeast corner of Ninth and 
 Sansom Streets. Subsequent commencements were held in 
 various places, among others the following: July, 1856, Na- 
 tional Hall, Market Street, between Twelfth and Thirteenth 
 Streets; February, 1857, Jayne's New Hall; July, 1858, 
 Academy of Music; February, 1859, Musical Fund Hall; 
 July, 1859, Academy of Music; July, 1866, Musical Fund 
 Hall; June, 1878, Association Hall; February, 1887, Chestnut 
 Street Opera House. 
 
i8 
 
 In 1851 the department of Chemistry was much enlarged, 
 and Professor Boye, who had been giving but a portion of his 
 time to the school, was engaged to devote his entire attention to 
 that department. As originally constituted, the school day con- 
 sisted of six hours, from 9 A. M. to 3 P. M., with an additional 
 quarter-hour opening exercises. At first these six hours were 
 divided into six equal periods of one hour each ; but as the 
 school grew in numbers and the classes increased in size, it 
 was found necessary to divide the day into shorter periods. 
 Eight periods of three-quarters of an hour each were therefore 
 adopted, three of these divisions being set apart for recess. It 
 was found to be impracticable to permit the entire school to 
 take a recess at one time, so three divisions of the pupils were 
 made for that purpose. Under Professor Hart's administration, 
 the recitations were at first so arranged that the four senior 
 divisions of the school were dismissed daily at half-past one, 
 or one hour and a half before the close of the school. Divi- 
 sion E was also dismissed at half-past one, and Division F at 
 quarter-past two. Professor Hart's argument ,was that those 
 pupils who had spent several years in school were better fitted 
 for study at home, and that it would be better to have them 
 devote all of their school hours to recitation. To that end he 
 arranged their recitation hours to follow each other without 
 any intervals, and then dismissed them so that they might have 
 all their study hours together, and preferably at home. The 
 younger classes were given their hours of study in school, it 
 being Professor Hart's belief that this was necessary in order to 
 cultivate their habits of study. In 1851, however, this system 
 was revised. Having lost the playground, it was found neces- 
 sary to abolish the recess, as there was no longer any adequate 
 place in which the pupils could exercise. The period devoted 
 to recess was taken from the school day, and the closing hour 
 was fixed at quarter-past two, instead of three o'clock. In 
 subsequent administrations the number of study hours in 
 school were gradually lessened until, under President Riche, 
 they were entirely abolished. 
 
 From 1840 to the establishment of the Saturday morning 
 teachers' classes by Professor Hart in 1844, the meetings of the 
 

 ALBERT H. SMYTH. 
 

1 9 
 
 Faculty were regularly held on Saturday mornings. During 
 the continuance of these classes it was found necessary to dis- 
 continue the regular meetings of the Faculty, and for several 
 years they were well-nigh abandoned. Friday afternoon was 
 then made the regular meeting time, and when the teachers, 
 classes were discontinued in 1851, the old-time Saturday 
 morning meetings were resumed. These weekly sessions of 
 the Faculty were made to serve an important part in the disci- 
 pline of the school. All cases requiring discipline were re- 
 served for these meetings, and the guilty pupils were sum- 
 moned to appear before that dreaded tribunal. The mere ap- 
 pearance of a student at one of these sessions, coupled with 
 the consequent loss of half of his holiday, was usually suffi- 
 cient punishment for the offender. 
 
 In view of the important and rapidly increasing German- 
 speaking element in the population of the city, Professor Hart 
 deemed it advisable to add the study of German to the cur- 
 riculum of the school. Arrangements were made with Pro- 
 fessor Frederick A. Roese for two hours of instruction per week, 
 and the German Department was opened in May, 1852. 
 Divisions B and C were given this study, each of them receiving 
 one hour per week from Professor Roese. It was not expected 
 that this meagre allowance would enable the pupils to acquire 
 a thorough knowledge of the language, but it was hoped that 
 this abridged course would give the students an intelligent in- 
 troduction to the language, and thereby increase the probabil- 
 ity of their studying it more fully after leaving the school. 
 Professor Hart also held that, from even this small amount of 
 instruction, the pupils would add largely to their knowledge of 
 their own language, even if they did not further pursue the 
 study of German. 
 
 Like most institutions of similar public benefit, the Cen- 
 tral High School not only filled the demand for which it was 
 created, but it also cultivated a further demand, far beyond its 
 power to meet. The 350 pupils for whom the High School 
 building was originally intended, were thought to represent 
 the limit of the demand for academic education for many years 
 to come. The existence of the High School as an object of 
 
20 
 
 ambition beyond and above the Grammar Schools, caused a 
 rapid expansion of the lower schools, and a consequent in- 
 crease of the source of supply of the High School. Very soon 
 it was found that the accommodations of the High School 
 building were entirely inadequate to the demand. By sub-di- 
 viding the rooms, crowding the classes, and economizing space 
 as far as possible, the capacity of the building was increased 
 to something over five hundred. It was only by the exercise 
 of the utmost care that the demand could be kept within these 
 limits. The standard of admission was several times advanced, 
 the range of the preparatory studies was increased, examina- 
 tion questions were made more difficult, and, finally, the 
 limit of age for admission was restricted to thirteen years. 
 For a short time this had the desired effect, and the at- 
 tendance dropped from 506 in September, 1847, to 476 in 
 July, 1851. But this state of affairs could not long continue, 
 for the constant growth of the lower schools forced an increas- 
 ing number of pupils upon the High School, despite the addi- 
 tion of a full year of study and a year in age to the require- 
 ments for admission. It was clearly seen that the only 
 way out of the difficulty was to construct a larger school 
 building. 
 
 When the first building was erected for the Central High 
 School, the location chosen was thought to be in every way 
 desirable. It was but a few years, however, before the char- 
 acter of the surroundings underwent a marked change. The 
 tide of business soon swept around the High School building 
 and what was once a quiet and retired neighborhood, soon 
 became noisy and disturbed by the bustle of trade. Then, in 
 1850, the school suffered the loss of its playground, through 
 a change of ownership of the adjoining property, and upon 
 the spot where the boys had been wont to enjoy exercise and 
 recreation, there soon arose a warehouse belonging to the 
 Pennsylvania Railroad. The necessity for a new and larger 
 building becoming imperative, the old structure was sold to 
 the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1853, and the erection of a 
 new building was at once undertaken. The location then 
 selected was the present site at Broad and Green Streets. 
 
21 
 
 The corner stone of the new building was laid on the 
 afternoon of Tuesday, May 31, 1853. The ceremonies were 
 opened with prayer by the Rev. Bishop Potter, and addresses 
 were delivered by Mr. Nathan Nathans, Chairman of the 
 High School Committee ; Principal John S. Hart, Mr. G. M. 
 Wharton, Dr. R. J. Breckinbridge, of Kentucky; Judge John 
 C. Knox, of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ; Mr. Harlan 
 Ingram, Judge William D. Kelly, and Hon. Thomas B.Flor- 
 ence. Profiting by the lesson of the destruction of the papers 
 and documents deposited in the corner stone of the old build- 
 ing, there was placed in the box contained in the corner stone 
 of the new structure, a copper plate inscribed as follows : 
 
 CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL. 
 
 Corner stone laid May 31, 1853. Erected by the 
 
 Controllers of the Public Schools of the 
 
 First School District of 
 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 COMMITTEE ON PROPERTY, 
 
 Charged with the erection of the Building : 
 BENJAMIN BAKER, NATHAN NATHANS, 
 
 JOSEPH COWPERTHWAIT, JAMES PETERS, 
 
 JACOB C. SLEMMER. 
 
 COMMITTEE ON HIGH SCHOOL. 
 
 NATHAN NATHANS, GEORGE M. WHARTON, 
 
 THOMAS G. HOLLINGSWORTH, JAMES PETERS, 
 
 T. K. COLLINS. 
 President, DANIEL S. BEIDEMAN. Secretary, ROBERT J. HEMPHILL. 
 
 The building was completed during the Summer of 1854 
 and was dedicated on the 28th of June. The addresses were 
 delivered by the Rev. Dr. Henry A. Boardman and Morton 
 McMichael, and the prayer by Rev. Philip F. Mayer. For a 
 short time sessions had been held in the old " Model " school 
 building on Chester Street, it being necessary to vacate the old 
 High School building before the completion of the new. At the 
 opening of the new building there were on the roll the names 
 of about five hundred pupils and the class then entering 
 
22 
 
 numbered one hundred and forty-eight, the highest point 
 reached in the history of the school up to that time. 
 
 The most conspicuous feature of the new building was 
 the observatory, whose erection, said Professor Elias Loomis, 
 " formed an epoch in the history of American astronomy." 
 No expense was spared to make the observatory complete, 
 and, although in recent years, the appropriations for its main- 
 tenance have been small and droughty, yet it still occupies an 
 important position among the observatories in this country, 
 and is a monument of the progressive and liberal spirit of the 
 municipal authorities of a generation ago. 
 
 In September, 1854, Professor E. Otis Kendall, one of the 
 most valued instructors that the institution ever knew, with- 
 drew from the Faculty in order to accept a much easier and 
 more remunerative position in the University of Pennsylvania. 
 Professor Kendall was one of the original members of the 
 Faculty, and his services were of inestimable value to the 
 school. 
 
 The year 1854 witnessed one of the most significant 
 changes in the history of the school, namely, the abandonment 
 of the classical course. This action indicated an intention to 
 shape the school more closely to its intended and avowed pur- 
 pose. Experience had demonstrated that the mission of the 
 school was not the preparation of pupils for college or for 
 the professions. For such an object, a classical course was 
 manifestly needless. Professor Hart therefore dropped this 
 course from the curriculum and narrowed the choice of studies 
 down to the Principal and English courses. 
 
 Other changes in the curriculum quickly followed the 
 abandonment of the Classical course. Professor Roese, who 
 had been instructor in German for two years, resigned his po- 
 sition in September, 1856, and his department was abandoned. 
 At the same time Professor George Stuart, then an assistant in 
 the Classical department, withdrew from the school in order to 
 take a more acceptable position in Haverford College. The 
 withdrawal of these two instructors made it necessary to re-ad- 
 just the curriculum, a matter that was the more urgent at that 
 time because of the reduction of the appropriations by the 
 
23 
 
 City Councils. In considering the re-adjustment of the courses, 
 the English course came up for discussion. This course hav- 
 ing been always attended with serious practical difficulties, and 
 having been very limited in the number of its pupils, was not 
 considered of sufficient importance to warrant the expense and 
 trouble of its continuance. The English course, as such, was 
 therefore abandoned, and book-keeping, which was considered 
 its most important study, was made a part of the regular 
 course. This re-adjustment of the curriculum removed the 
 elective features from the course, and rendered all studies com- 
 pulsory the basis upon which the school ha$ ever since been 
 conducted and was practically an acknowledgment on the part 
 of the administration of the failure of elective courses. 
 
 The re-adjustment of the studies was one of the last acts 
 of Professor Hart's administration ; and in December, 1858, 
 his long and busy career as Principal of the Central High 
 School came to an end by his withdrawal from the Faculty to 
 follow other pursuits. 
 
 While Principal Hart's administration may be criticised 
 by the educator of to-day as characterized by too many experi- 
 ments, and the course of studies as encumbered by too many 
 studies, yet many of the brightest of the school's graduates 
 men alert, sagacious and successful, were pupils under Profes- 
 sor Hart ; and diligent inquiry has failed to reveal evidences 
 of the mental blight which is popularly supposed to result from 
 a diversity of studies such as his curriculum sanctioned. Any- 
 thing that may be written must do less than justice to his power 
 as an executive, his work as a teacher, and the dignity and 
 importance of his influence as a man. 
 
 Professor Maguire's Administration 
 
 Nicholas H. Maguire, A. M., succeeded Professor Hart, 
 assuming charge of the school in January, 1859. The interim 
 was filled by Professor William Vogdes. Principal Maguire's 
 advent was not marked by any radical changes in the policy of 
 the school or the courses of instruction. His views in regard to 
 the administration of the school differed somewhat from those 
 held by Professor Hart. Without at all relaxing the disci- 
 
24 
 
 pline of the school, President Maguire laid less stress upon its 
 importance, and did not believe that conduct should be made 
 a factor of such importance in determining the standing of a 
 pupil. One of his first steps was the separation ol the tests of 
 scholarship and conduct the abolition of the long-established 
 policy of deducting from scholarship the " notes " received for 
 misconduct. He said: "This practice was evidently unjust 
 and injurious. It destroyed all incentive to study; it deprived 
 the student of those honors which he had fairly won by dili- 
 gence and industry ; it gave a false estimate to the intellect, 
 squaring intelligence with the heedlessness of youth, forcing 
 mind to pay penalties it had not incurred; and it tended to 
 produce, by irritating and inflaming the passions, that miscon- 
 duct which it was intended to prevent. 
 
 " All the tests of scholastic qualifications are included 
 under scholarship and conduct. The first is the measure of 
 industry, energy and intellect ; the second, of obedience and 
 respect to authority and position. The first grades the mind ; 
 the second, subordination and docility. The first exhibits the 
 power to overcome ; the second, the disposition to submit. 
 An analysis of these two tests will show that they are essen- 
 tially different. The brightest scholars are not always the 
 most decorous ; nor do the most docile always exhibit the 
 highest order of talent. 
 
 " How far failures in either scholarship or conduct should 
 be allowed to affect the standing of a student, were early ob- 
 jects of consideration. An admitted pupil has the right to 
 attend school, and the right to progress from division to divi- 
 sion. Failures in conduct should be made to affect his right 
 of attendance ; while his right of progress should be based on 
 his proficiency in his studies. * * * A pupil whose intel- 
 lectual standing entitles him to promotion should be promoted, 
 if his misconduct does not give sufficient warrant for his expul- 
 sion from school." 
 
 After a lapse of three years, the study of German was re- 
 vived by Principal Maguire in 1859, with Professor Romain 
 Lujeane as instructor. 
 
 President Maguire occupied a rather difficult and trying 
 position, especially after the breaking out of the civil war. 
 

 WILLIAM A. MASON. 
 
25 
 
 The immediate interests of the school suffered severely from 
 the patriotism of the pupils a sentiment that was fostered and 
 encouraged to the great detriment of the school but to the 
 benefit of the nation. The faculty, in 1861, resolved " that any 
 pupil of the advanced classes, enlisting, is entitled to graduate 
 with his class, and a pupil of the lower division may resume 
 that position in the school which he resigned when so enlisting." 
 Many of the older pupils left their classes for the battlefield, 
 while the alumni of the school were to be found in many posts 
 of honor and service to their country in the army and in the 
 navy. 
 
 A partial list of the graduates of the High School who 
 held commissions in the army or navy, was prepared by 
 Principal Maguire. While this list does not, by any means, 
 show the entire extent of the part taken in the war by the 
 alumni, still, it serves to show that they lacked neither patriot- 
 ism nor ability. In addition to the hundreds of graduates who 
 served in the ranks there were the following commissioned 
 officers : In the army Assistant Adjutant-Generals, 3 ; Assist- 
 ant Adjutant-General, I ; Assistant Quartermaster (U. S. A.), I ; 
 Brigade Inspector, i ; Colonels, 1 1 ; Lieutenant-Colonels, 7 ; 
 Majors, 9; Adjutants, 9; Sergeant-Major, i; Chaplains, 2; 
 Surgeons and Assistant Surgeons, 37; Quartermaster, i; 
 Hospital Stewards, 4 ; Paymasters, 3 ; Captains, 42 ; Lieu- 
 tenants, 69; Quartermaster-Sergeants, 3; Sergeants, 18; Cadets 
 (West Point), 4. In the Navy Lieutenant-Commander, i ; 
 Ensigns, 2; Surgeons and Assistant Surgeons, 12; Chief 
 Engineers, 4 ; First Assistant Engineers, 4 ; Second Assistant 
 Engineers, 14; Third Assistant Engineers, 33; Midshipmen, 6; 
 Clerks, 6. In the Marine Corps Second Lieutenants, 3 ; Ser- 
 geant, i ; Acting Ensigns, 2 ; Acting Assistant Paymasters, 6. 
 Principal Maguire has recorded what may be considered 
 as his view of the proper sphere of the High School. In his 
 report for the year ending with February, 1861, he wrote: 
 ' The object conscientiously in view has been, not to cram 
 beyond digestion, with 
 
 " Things remote 
 
 From use obscure and subtle but to know 
 That, which before us, lies in daily life." 
 
not to send forth learned pundits, but useful, practical men, 
 prepared to advance the prosperity and morality of the com- 
 munity. No university, no college, pretends to complete the 
 whole education of its students, not even the whole instruction 
 of a particular branch ; no school of divinity, law or medicine 
 sends forth its alumni perfected theologians, lawyers or doc- 
 tors ; neither does the master mechanic congratulate his ap- 
 prentice, on attaining majority, with a perfect knowledge of all 
 the arts and mysteries of his craft. The endeavor is to afford 
 the proper basis for future attainments." 
 
 Again, in his report for 1864, he wrote: "The intellec- 
 tual, social and moral man is to be educated as well as the mere 
 man of business; the imagination, the judgment, the percep- 
 tive faculties must feel the influence, the thinking being as well 
 as the mere actor. The age is rushing on to the utilitarian to 
 the exclusion of the refining ; knowledge is estimated by its 
 remunerative value and not by its intrinsic worth other than 
 its relation to industrial pursuits. The education of the school 
 room is not, and should not be, a preparation for a trade, oc- 
 cupation or profession ; it should not be a specialty, but 
 should be such a discipline of all powers as will enable the 
 possessor to attain eminence in any pursuit to which inclina- 
 tion may lead. It is the foundation upon which to build." 
 
 The administration of Principal Maguire terminated with 
 his retirement early in 1866. A thorough reorganization of 
 the school was deemed necessary, and on March 15, 1866, a 
 special committee of the Board of Control, consisting of 
 Messrs. Samuel Scheide, William C. Haines, William M. 
 Levick, Nathan Hilles and John B. Green, was appointed to 
 investigate every department of the school, and report their 
 condition and the changes considered necessary. On May 8, 
 this committee submitted to the Board of Control the follow- 
 ing resolution : 
 
 " Resolved, That the Secretary of the Board be, and is 
 hereby, instructed to notify members of the Faculty of the 
 Boys' High School, that their term of service will expire on 
 the first day of September next; provided, that nothing here- 
 
27 
 
 
 
 in contained shall be construed so as to make any member of 
 the present Faculty ineligible to the position he now occupies. 
 
 Resolved, That the Committee of the Boy's High School 
 be, and are hereby, instructed to proceed in the usual manner 
 in organizing a new Faculty, as heretofore has been their prac- 
 tice in filling vacancies." 
 
 These resolutions were adopted on June 19, and, on 
 August 27, upon the recommendation of the High School 
 Committee, the Board elected the following new Faculty : 
 
 George Inman Riche, A. M., Principal. 
 
 James Rhoads, A. M., Professor of Belles Lettres and History. 
 
 James McClune, A. M., Professor of Theoretical Mathematics and 
 Astronomy. 
 
 Zephaniah Hopper, A. M., Professor of Mathematics. 
 
 James A. Kirkpatrick, A. M., Professor of Writing and Book-keep- 
 ing. 
 
 Edward W. Vogdes, M. D., Professor of Moral, Mental and Political 
 Science. 
 
 Louis Angele, Professor of the German Language. 
 
 Francis A. Bregy, A. M., Professor of the French Language. 
 
 Joseph W. Wilson, A. M., Professor of Practical Mathematics. 
 
 Henry Hartshorne, M. D., Professor of Anatomy, Physiology and 
 Natural History. 
 
 Daniel W. Howard, A. M., Professor of History. 
 
 George Stuart, A. M., Professor of the Latin Language. 
 
 Isaac Norris, M. D., Professor of Natural Philosophy and Chem- 
 istry. 
 
 Ten of the members of the new Faculty were former 
 professors of their respective departments, while seven of the 
 thirteen were graduates of the school. The new Faculty was 
 installed on September 3d, and a few days later the chair of 
 Drawing was filled by the election of Mr. John Kern, who for 
 twenty years had been teacher of that branch in the Franklin 
 Institute. 
 
 President Riche's Adminiseration 
 
 George Inman Riche, the new President, although a 
 comparatively young man, was well known in educational 
 circles. While a member of the Board of Control he had won 
 
28 
 
 no little distinction in correcting many abuses of power in the 
 Board, and in bringing about needed changes in the schools. 
 Abandoning the profession in which his fine talents as a 
 speaker and debater guaranteed a flattering career, he threw 
 all the energy of a fiery, impetuous nature into the work of re- 
 modeling the High School. The task was one of peculiar 
 difficulty. Many of the Faculty had been the young Presi- 
 dent's instructors, and while willing to concede to him great 
 talent in other directions, they viewed his advent as their chief 
 with no little suspicion. Besides, a large party in the Board 
 and in the community was hostile to the school, and, while 
 having no personal grievance against President Riche, yet 
 upon his shoulders the burden of their resentment fell. 
 
 It is an evidence of the mental adroitness of this youthful 
 President, and of his exceptional fitness for the position, that 
 in a remarkably brief space of time he succeeded in winning 
 the love and confidence of the Faculty, while the Board and 
 the community were not slow to appreciate the vivifying touches 
 of his bright genius. 
 
 The first thing to demand the attention of President Riche 
 was the needful revision of the curriculum. Knowing that less 
 than one-fifth of the students of the school entered profes- 
 sional life, he shaped the course of study on a strictly utilita- 
 rian basis. He drew the line sharply between those studies 
 teaching principles of extended application and those tending 
 to instruct in merely manual and mechanical operations in- 
 volving no principles of wider value. With keen insight, he 
 perceived that it was impossible in four years fully and com- 
 pletely to educate a student who entered the High School with 
 a mere grammar school preparation. It was possible, however, 
 harmoniously to develop all the powers of the mind, and by 
 the establishment of sound principles, to prepare the graduates 
 for contact with the world and its exigencies. The province of 
 the High School was considered by him both educational and 
 disciplinary the development of the character into cultured 
 and self-contained manhood and the training of the mind for 
 the actual problems of daily life. 
 
OSCAR C. S CARTER. 
 
2 9 
 
 Acting upon these principles, President Riche made, in 
 effect, a division of the studies of the school into the three parts, 
 viz. : those that were disciplinary, those that were practical, 
 and those that were for purposes of culture. 
 
 The curriculum was admirably adjusted, so as to introduce 
 at each step of the student's progress such studies as gave a 
 proper distribution of these disciplinary, practical, and cul- 
 ture effects. Just as the finest physical development is the 
 result of the training of all the muscles of the body, so the 
 proper execution of President Riche's scheme of studies must 
 result in the exercise of all the faculties of the mind, and 
 end in giving the student general power. The many direc- 
 tions in which success has been achieved by the student gradu- 
 ating under Professor Riche, is overwhelming evidence in favor 
 of his course, and proof of the soundness of his educational 
 views. 
 
 The changes made by President Riche were not imme- 
 diately of a radical character, nor did he seek to introduce any 
 practices widely divergent from those already in use. His 
 course of study was a slow growth. Believing that, after all, 
 the efficiency of a school rested with the teachers, and with the 
 teachers only, changes were made in the methods of instruction 
 rather than in the studies themselves. 
 
 His efforts in this respect were largely directed towards 
 improving and increasing the efficiency of the apparatus pro- 
 vided for the use of the science departments. The reforms 
 were not in any way obtrusive. They were so judiciously 
 chosen and so well timed that their effect upon the school 
 was marked without being revolutionary, and the institution 
 reached a point of efficiency never before attained. This ab- 
 sence of display was a feature of President Riche's administra- 
 tion, and, in this respect, a sharp contrast to the policy pur- 
 sued in the previous history of the school. 
 
 As has been said, while Professor Riche's administration 
 was, happily, not a period of momentous changes, yet it wit- 
 nessed many events of more or less significance. Among the 
 first changes made was the reduction in the number of studies. 
 This was followed by the abandonment of the so-called study 
 
30 
 
 hours which, in too many instances, were hours of idleness 
 and the dismissal of the school at two o'clock. 
 
 One of the important effects of Professor Riche's policy was 
 the placing of the physical, astronomical and chemical depart- 
 ments upon a more efficient basis. To this end, the old ap- 
 paratus, much of which has not been in use for years, was re- 
 furbished, and the already valuable cabinets were further en- 
 riched by the addition of new and costly apparatus. An 
 assistant to the department of Astronomy was appointed, 
 while the observatory was completely overhauled and brought 
 to a high state of efficiency. The results of the observations 
 made at the Central High School during the transit of Venus 
 in 1878 were of great value to science, and won no little 
 distinction for the school and the talented observer. 
 
 A chemical laboratory was also established. A large 
 room in the basement was fitted up for the purpose and pro- 
 vided with tables, where students could pursue independent in- 
 vestigations under the supervision of an assistant. The de- 
 partments of Physics and Chemistry soon became attractive 
 features to the students, and many a successful chemist or 
 physician among the graduates will doubtless remember the 
 awakening of the love of science, in the dim religious light of 
 that basement laboratory. 
 
 In connection with this subject, Professor Riche says of 
 his Course of Study : " The school is well supplied with appa- 
 ratus and material for the illustration of scientific facts and 
 principles. While it is, of course and of necessity, a school for 
 general, as preliminary to special training, and does not pre- 
 tend to furnish a technical education, it nevertheless cultivates 
 those practical tendencies which are calculated to prepare the 
 students for the growing demands of a practical age. * 
 It leads directly and legitimately up to the studies of the 
 technical school, and its students are well prepared to become 
 proficients in technical work." 
 
 A change of great and decided merit made by President 
 Riche, was the introduction of the department of English 
 Literature. In previous administrations but comparatively 
 little attention was paid to this important subject, the instruc- 
 
tion having been carried on in a desultory way by the already 
 overburdened department of Belles Lettres. Besides its great 
 value for culture, the study of literature tends to afford a relief 
 from the strain of severe studies, and the neglect of previous 
 administrations to introduce it in the curriculum is a matter of 
 surprise. Of this change Prof. Riche says : " A fair provision 
 is made for literary culture, and it is undoubtedly the fact that 
 the graduates of the school have, in innumerable instances, 
 distinguished themselves in those callings for which it has been 
 supposed that an exclusively literary and classical training 
 was required." 
 
 In February, 1885, Prof.-Riche resigned, to the regret of 
 all the friends of the school. He was President of the 
 school for upwards of nineteen years, the longest administra- 
 tion in its history ; and in that time thousands of students felt 
 the impress of his strong individuality. Possessed of rare 
 gifts as a speaker and having a crisp, incisive style, his ad- 
 dresses in the school and on commencement days and in educa- 
 tional assemblies, were always listened to with rapt attention ; 
 while his reports to the Committee and the Board would, in 
 themselves, form an excellent bodv of educational doctrine, 
 not less interesting than edifying. By instinct and breeding a 
 gentleman, Prof. Riche's influence upon the students was most 
 happy. Many a thoughtless lad has been saved from the 
 consequences of his mad pranks by Prof. Riche's considerate 
 kindness ; while, of all that eager, noisy crowd that thronged 
 the hallways and blackened the school yard, there were some 
 whose lives were changed by his word fitly spoken, many 
 who loved him with all the ardor of boyish hero worship, and 
 not one who did not fully respect him. 
 
 The successor to Professor Riche was Franklin Taylor, 
 who was at that time filling the chair of English Literature in 
 the school. Although his name headed the list of the Faculty 
 for two years and a half, he had actual charge of the school 
 less than ten months. 
 
 The main events are yet fresh in the public mind. Pro- 
 fessor Hopper was appointed acting President during the leave 
 of absence granted to President Taylor, and under his shrewd, 
 
32 
 
 careful management the threatened disintegration of the 
 school ceased and confidence was restored. 
 
 President Taylor resigned in September, 1888, and the 
 next month Henry Clark Johnson, Professor of Latin at the 
 Lehigh University, and a distinguished educator, was appointed 
 President. Friends of the school look forward to the future 
 with confidence and trust. 
 
 This closes the first half century of the history of the 
 Central High School. Its position in the community is now 
 established, and few can now be found who longer doubt its 
 efficiency or question its necessity. 
 
 The first popular misconception of the purpose of the 
 free public school was, as has been seen, the erroneous belief 
 that public schools were public charities, established from 
 philanthropic motives. Later, this impression was succeeded 
 by another, less injurious, perhaps, but none the less mistaken, 
 namely, the theory that the High School was for the benefit 
 of the rich favored few. Both of these fallacious theories have 
 happily been dispelled, and in thoughtful minds the High 
 School now is considered as an essential feature of our advanced 
 civilization. The ground upon which the public education rests 
 is that of necessity rather than philanthropy. The motive 
 throughout is that of self-preservation and self-protection, and 
 it is upon this selfish basis that our public schools are sup- 
 ported from the common treasury. The welfare of the nation, 
 the preservation of society, the perpetuity of government, all 
 demand that the education of the young shall not be commit- 
 ted to random hands. No one will attempt to dispute the 
 fatally evil consequences of permitting a vast majority of the 
 people to lapse into ignorance and illiteracy, and yet it is only 
 by the maintenance of free public schools that such a direful 
 result is avoided. 
 
 As the free common school is of inestimable value in 
 preserving the national fabric, so, also, is the high school in- 
 dispensable to the completeness and efficiency of the educa- 
 tional system. All, alike, without distinction, are entitled to 
 the benefits of the common school, but the position of the 
 high school is that of a more advanced goal, to be reached 
 
JOHN M. MILLER. 
 
33 
 
 only by those whose efforts and merits in the lower grades 
 entitle them to the right of further development of powers, if 
 likely to prove useful to the public. It is not alone for mak- 
 ing good citizens that public schools are a necessity, for if 
 that were the case, the lower grades might serve the desired 
 purpose. There are other needs than of peaceful, law- 
 abiding and moral citizens. There is great and imperative 
 need of men who excel in the arts and sciences ; men who are 
 able to wrest from nature those secrets of most value to man ; 
 men fitted to lead and direct in the affairs of State, and ad- 
 minister just and impartial government. Such abilities are 
 not the common possession of all men, nor are all men equally 
 endowed by nature with talents of such an order. 
 
 Bright minds there are whose development and cultivation 
 is a public necessity and duty. It is for such that the high 
 school is provided as a means of education, above and beyond 
 what is afforded by the common school. The wisdom of pro- 
 viding such institutions is obvious, and the profit to the com- 
 munity in actual dollars and cents, accruing from money thus 
 invested, is as much beyond doubt as it is beyond computa- 
 tion. Every dollar of tax paid for the support of the high 
 school yields a manifold return in the benefits derived from 
 the development and unfolding of the arts and sciences by 
 those to whom the high school has given training. Nor is 
 this monetary return the sole province of the high school. 
 Without its stimulus, the common schools would fall far 
 below the line of their possible accomplishment, and fail to 
 make that constant progress, without which usefulness soon 
 turns to inutility. It is the high school that furnishes to the 
 common schools the needful standard by which progress may 
 be gauged and adjusted. Universities, colleges, and other pri- 
 vate institutions of learning have spheres of usefulness ; but 
 their presence in any number can never affect the position of 
 the high school nor lessen the necessity for its existence. The 
 work of the private schools is, in its way, productive of re- 
 suits quite comparable to those of the public schools ; but the 
 private school rests upon a basis other than national necessity. 
 It can never be held to the responsibility which attaches to 
 the high school. 
 
34 
 
 In its application to the Central High School, the rule still 
 holds good, that " whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing 
 well," and not only well, but in the best possible manner. 
 Mere principles of business, which are too rarely considered 
 in such connection, would demand that a high school to 
 which is delegated such important functions, should be pro- 
 vided with the best that the world affords for the furtherance 
 of its objects, not only in its equipment and apparatus, but in 
 its staff of instructors. It is not enough for a high school to 
 follow in the wake of public demand, it should strive to lead 
 and shape that demand in the most advantageous direction. 
 The high school, above all other institutions, that does not 
 progress but merely holds its own, does not properly fill its 
 intended position, nor does it rightly discharge its duty to the 
 public from which it derives its support. 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY