By Mabel Bright
There was a time, not longer than five or six years ago, when an English teacher in the Elizabeth City Graded Schools reproved her class for saying correctly that Robert Burns was the author of the well-known lines:
O wad some gift the giftie gi’ us
To see ourselves as ithers see us---
“Why no!” she answered with emphasis, “that is the most famous quotation from Shakespeare’s Hamlet!” That same year an instructor who had taught high-school Latin the past session was asked by a group of Latin students in the class-room one day who wrote Vergil. She said she had forgotten! And still further, the graduating class that year was obliged to take over all of the geometry and algebra they had studied the year before in which they had successfully passed their examinations. The school authorities had retained for the whole previous year the services of a mathematics teacher whom they considered utterly incompetent and allowed him to continue his work at the expense of his students.
All that seems to be a thing of the past now. If the staff of teachers at work here this year are not perfect, it must be remembered that perfection is humanly unattainable, and they are certainly a credit to the town and the school and a great help to the pupils. The wrangling shades of Burns and Shakespeare are no longer discerned hovering fearfully on the edges of the English classes in wait for fresh outrages to be committed upon their memories. The great old Roman, Vergil, the immortal bard whom Tennyson calls the “wielder of the stateliest measures every molded by the lips of man,” may now lift his head and forget the same of the implication that anybody “wrote” him. And even old Euclid, who has always rather seemed to deserve a little retaliation in the way of torment, doubtless breathes more easily when it is proved that “In the right-angled triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the two sides.” Better times have come, and they have come to stay.
Doubled In Three Years
The Elizabeth City Graded Schools have increased in quantity as well as in quality. For example, the graduating class of 1918 numbered just 18 students, while the class of 1923 is 48 strong. In five yeas the number of graduates has been almost tripled, while the lower grades in both the high-school and the grammar-school are filled to overflowing, and some of the primary classes have been forced down into basement rooms. In fact, the increased attendance is a problem that only the completion of the new high-school building will solve.
After many years of makeshift and crowded conditions during which it is said that children were actually turned away for lack of room, the town saw the need of larger quarters and the erection of a splendid building was begun on the site of the old Davis lot just across the present high-school on Road street. Work on this continues slowly, but to those who have fought and plead for it for years and years it is a triumph and a victory. To the children and teachers who have been working at such a disadvantage it is a chance of bigger and better things. Ever since the school began taking an interest in basketball the teams have been obliged to use the gymnasium at the Community Building for their game and practices, but now with room for a gymnasium right in the school building, think what can be accomplished! The physical culture side of education has never been stressed by the schools here, but every year the value and importance of athletics seems to be more and more realized by those in authority. Whether or not regular gym work for all the classes will ever be a part of the school routine here as it is in all the city schools no one seems to be able to say just yet, but something of the kind certainly ought to be undertaken as the school enlarges.
. . . .
The Witch of Fairy Dell
The grammar and primary schools have come in lately for more than their former share of attention, although there is much yet to be desired in this respect. Only a few years ago when pupils completed all the required grammar school work they were transferred to the high school as quietly as if they had something dishonest. Now there is a regular grammar school commencement, and a yearly play or entertainment given by the combined forces of the seventh grades each spring. This year’s performance is a light opera in three acts called “The Witch of Fairy Dell” to be presented in the high school auditorium Tuesday, May 29 at 8 p.m. Music will be furnished by Miss Ethel Jones, assisted by the high school orchestra. . . .
In the cast are: Inez Hill, Virginia Hufty, Susie Davis, Mrs., Hester B. McMullan, Jane Elise Hastings, Flora Griggs, Mary Fearing, Alma Mann, Bertha Simpson, Evelyn Pickett, Margaret Connery, Keith Saunders, Earl Dean, Rennie Williams, Julian Aydlett, Tyer Sawyer, Lucille Trueblood, Myrtle Simpson, Vivien Turner, Lucille Gregory, Katherine Lister, Dorothy Richardson, Gertrude Templeman, Susie Willey, Evelyn Puckett, Naomi Bailey, Edna Sanderlin, Doris Cartwright, Naomi Woodard, Mary L. Bailey, Elvene Culver, Lillian Boyce, Mildred Lacy, Jean Hudson, Mary Leigh Shoop, Mildred Tatum, Hailie Silverthorn, Ruth Dozier, Margie Fearing, Virgilia Banks, Lydia Cohoon, Gladys Adams, Monterey Lomax, Belle Miller, Ruth Jones, Rebecca Stevens, Clara Pritchard, Kate Hall, Louise Harris, Pearl Skiles, Vertie Love, Alice Gibbs, Katie Rogerson, Helen Bright, Emerald Gregory, Gertie Cartwright.
. . . .
From page 2 of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., May 25, 1923
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