To the young men of Edison:
Back in the 'thirties Dr. John Louis Haney, President of the famous academic high school called Central, waged a long and finally successful campaign to take that school from Broad and Green Streets where it has been since 1854 and move it to Ogontz and Olney Avenues. Dr. Haney was a man of determination and substantial influence. He was persistent. And in 1939 the Central High School moved from its building at Broad and Green Streets built about 1900, to a beautiful and well-appointed new building where it is now located. Dr. Haney insisted publicly that the new site was the geographical center of Philadelphia County and the logical location for the Central High School. In private he deplored the fact that the neighborhood of the school was rapidly "deteriorating" - that large numbers of students of minority groups, including blacks, were trying for admission to the school and that the elite alumni - graduated in days gone by - deserved a better Alma Mater to come back to than Central was then rapidly becoming. It was these alumni, high among them Judge McDevit, who supported Dr. Haney in bringing about the removal of the school to its new "better" neighborhood. Of course, the Board of Education had to be induced to allow the move and they were induced. And so Central High School, dodging its obligation to the area it had occupied for almost a hundred years, took its serene way to Ogontz and Olney. Now, Central High School was not the only "famous'' high school in Philadelphia. Most other high schools had begun to be established after 1898 when Alexander Adaire of the Board of Education of that day led a campaign to expand secondary education. But before his day - back in 1885 - there had come into existence a Manual Training High School at Nineteenth and Wood Streets. This school through a series of moves and changes began operation at Eighth and Lehigh Avenue about 1904. From the start it attracted a distinguished group of students who were interested in an engineering career rather than the purely academic one as were the Central students. This was then the "famous" Northeast High School and in its new location it waxed great, really the only rival in prestige in the city of the illustrious Central High School. This Northeast was so attractive that at one time it attracted so many students - citywide - that it spread far beyond the modest limits of the plant at Eighth and Lehigh and grew to number more than five thousand. It rivaled in drawing power and in public esteem the very ancient - founded in 1836 - Central High School. And one of the alumni of Northeast who sat on the Board of Public Education when Central was allowed to "retire" to Ogontz and Olney Avenues was Mr. William Loesch, a powerful representative of Northeast and of the Philadelphia banking Fraternity. From the time that Central was moved in 1939, Mr. Loesch continued to remind his colleagues on the Board and the top school administration that his school - the Great Northeast - deserved a similar treatment. Build a new Northeast, he urged, in a more "favorable" environment. He had acquiesced in the move of Central, now it was his turn and that of Northeast. And so the Board of Public Education - composed of men and women of wisdom and dedication - took the first steps in one of the most stupid developments of which they were authors. They began to build a new structure at Algon and Cottman Avenues and resolved that it should be the new Northeast - not a new home for the Northeast students but a new co-ed high school which would, without effort on its part, become heir to the illustrious past of the school at Eighth and Lehigh. In the fall of 1956 a new principal was sent to the old Northeast to administer the school while the then-principal was relieved for one term to organize the new school. During the ensuing months the new principal, who was slated to remain at Eighth and Lehigh, was apprised gradually of the facts that the new school would denude the school from which it moved of all trophies, all traditions, alumni concern, funds, and community support. As much of the staff as could be utilized in the new location was to be transferred with the name of the institution. In the decrepit plant which has stood at Eighth and Lehigh since 1904 was left almost the entire student body - which was considered not at all. Any student whose father or grandfather had graduated from Northeast could go to the new school. All others were abandoned along with the crumbling structure that housed them. To these students, many of whom had come from distant parts of the city, it was all tragedy - bald, stark tragedy - and finally, at long last, the Superintendent of Schools admitted privately that his agreement to the move of Northeast was a stupid and highly regrettable act. Thus we come to February, 1957. A
few select students were gone, the bulk of the old, experienced staff is
gone, the trophies of years of athletic endeavor, the traditions, the alumni,
the funds - all are gone. It should not be surprising that there
was much disquiet at Eighth and Lehigh. The new staff was fully
|
two-thirds new, inexperienced teachers
or substitutes. The building was already failing into decay.
It wasn't the beginning of a bright, new dream, it was the middle of a
horrible nightmare. And on this first morning of the life of the
Thomas
A. Edison High School the new principal met with the senior class in
the auditorium and for almost two hours attempted to persuade them to take
their tragedy in stride and to highly resolve to cooperate with him to
make the new school a great one. At the end of the meeting the students
- who had every right to feel cheated and wronged swarmed from the building
to march all the way to the Administration Building and to the office of
the Daily News to protest and to demand the restoration of their
school identity. No one in authority was willing to listen but the
Daily
News ran an article and a photograph - and thus died the protest.
The Board of Education, those dedicated educational statesmen, who were
trying valiantly to develop "magnet" schools which by their unique curricula
would attract students of all levels and of all groups from all parts of
the city, had by one foolishly sentimental - ''We did it for Bill Loesch"
- action destroyed a natural magnet school which needed only a new building
to continue its illustrious career. Instead the Board left at Eighth
and Lehigh what they had mentally classified as "refuse" - and disdained
by the alumni of Northeast - and left a new principal to make a
school of it. They even compounded their sin by expecting that principal
to "dedicate' the new school their folly had created. But he declined
"until we have something to dedicate.'' Meanwhile, the new Northeast
with a student body almost entirely recruited from its new "better" community
became from the first a fine "favorite" school, staffed by eager and experienced
men and women and destined by the nature of its community to wax wealthy.
Thomas A. Edison High School was dedicated. By this time there was something to dedicate. The new principal had searched the city for like-minded men and had established an "Honorary Alumni Association" for Edison students. This association had as its president Mr. William Dean, president of I-T-E Circuit-Breaker Company and a one-time associate of Thomas A. Edison in some First World War experimentation. Among its distinguished members were Judge Herbert McMillen, Superintendent John Taulane and Dr. Charles U. Shellenberger, General Secretary of the Philadelphia YMCA. The principal had appealed to the school community for support and there was a burgeoning Home and School Association. He had waged a determined campaign to staff his school with competent personnel and he had been ruthless in weeding out the unacceptable. He had led his school in choosing fitting colors and had written for it a "Fight Song" and a School Hymn. On all sides he nagged and badgered on behalf of "his students'' and in 1959 there was something - something a-borning that could be dedicated. And thus ends the story of the beginning of Edison High School. Space and time would not permit us to record the upward struggle by which Edison became what it is today. But memory finds some spots that are bright, indeed. The accomplishments in football, in basketball and in fencing brought comfort and even, on occasion, enthusiastic cheers. It was wonderful to see how the young men responded to the Science and Industry Fairs. The Occupational Shops gave a real lift to some of the flagging spirits. Not to detract from the scores of young men of Edison to whom scholarship of more or less value were awarded, it is exhilarating to recall a young man who went to Princeton on a full tuition scholarship, another who went to Harvard on a similar scholarship, and a third young man - almost blind - who set a straight "A" record every report period and who went to Lehigh University on a full tuition scholarship won in open competition! It is good to look back on the time when the whole staff took training in how to teach reading and actually raised the median reading level of the school by one and one-half years in only five months. And it is good in our minds to review the birth and development of the Motivation Program and the establishment of the Electrical Academy. But all of this is in the past - much of it still bearing fruit in the present and bidding fair for the future. It is extremely difficult to contemplate the future in a political situation which is largely forbiddingly motivated by obstinate racist leanings; but surrender - even under such circumstances - is foreign to the spirit of Edison. We must persist and we must prevail. In the offing there must be a new, adequate plant and with the capable leadership of your present principal that day must not be far distant when the imperative needs of Edison will be met. Look back with the brilliant and effective leader you now have to the anguished days of Edison's birth. Look back at the clear upward path his predecessors have hewn out of the wilderness of difficulties. Look back and rejoice that you belong to a group of people who are endowed with the fighting spirit of pioneers. Look back and highly resolve that your future and the future of Edison shall be no less bright than the brightest of all the school in your ken. Remember! and remember, too, that final victory requires sacrifice and courage and, above all, persistence! God Speed You! "We love you, young men of Edison" Robert Wayne Clark,
|
|
|
|
|