USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Los Angeles county, Volume I > Part 37
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There are about 3,000 boys enrolled in the Junior "R. O. T. C." in the Los Angeles public schools.
The military training is in charge of seven United States officers under the command of Col. M. M. Falls, who is the head of the Western Division of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, which includes high schools and colleges. A summer camp is held each year. The year, 1920, 150 Los Angeles boys were in military camps.
This aggregation of trained boys in the country is considered of great importance by the Government, revealing a potential and trained strength in case of need, and which is not an "unknown quantity" but a classified asset in the citizenship of tomorrow.
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This organization knows no national or racial discrimination, and the boys who salute our flag and accept our commands are from the peoples of every nation within our hospitable boundaries.
One of the developments of the modern well equipped school is a library. Los Angeles is among the few cities which are in advance in this particular. The librarians who are trained especially for the work must have a college degree, in addition to library training in an accredited school.
Each high and intermediate school in the city has a library with a librarian in charge. The room is usually the most beautiful room in the school, well lighted and furnished as all modern libraries are. The school work naturally centers here, for all departments use it constantly in their reference work. Modern education no longer consists of isolated facts ; each fact has some relation to another. Each age has had a past and will have a future, therefore all history is a series of facts which have some bearing on each other. Therefore, there is constant need of collateral reading which the library supplies and which the librarian is able to arrange in a way so that it may be intelligently and quickly used.
As the library is primarily a place for immediate reference, there are many standard books of reference on the shelves. Each department is represented by special books. English departments, for example, require biographies of authors, collections of essays, poetry and many other books. History shelves are rich in biography, modern geography of this swiftly changing world and the comparative history of other nations in all ages, and of American history in every phase, with the last word in books con- cerning science, discovery and invention in modern study. Sociology, citizenship and Americanization all require books to enlarge and enrich text books.
In addition to the libraries of the high and intermediate schools, a city school library is maintained. It is a central library of many thousand volumes which are used by the teachers and the children of the elementary schools. The librarians are in constant touch with the teachers, and work with them in their book lists, following and amplifying the course of study with collateral material. In addition also to the books which are analyzed carefully according to the needs, collections of pictures are made and arranged in subjects as are the maps, records for phonographs and other educational aids. Everything is carefully classified, and when the schools are studying any particular country in their geography classes, they may have the benefit of a wealth of material to illustrate the teaching.
In 1853 Congress granted to the State of California the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections of public lands for school purposes. This included over 1,000,000 acres, 46,000 of which were reserved for a state university and 6,400 acres for public buildings.
Besides the alarming number of illiterates revealed in the draft, it was found that the youth of our country was not so efficient as in other coun- tries. This inefficiency became a Federal problem and the Smith-Hughes Act was passed, whereby Federal aid was given each state, to be matched dollar for dollar with state funds to carry out applied vocational training in our public schools. Investigation proved that the people who were work- ing at trade occupations were frequently technically trained but could never reach a high efficiency so long as the limitation of limited education exists
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There was the group also of young people academically trained in high schools and colleges without a trade or profession in sight, who were obliged to add other years of education in order to enter the work of life. It therefore became evident that education should be somewhat in duplicate and should be planned with the objective of the life work.
It was decided also from the testimony of the workmen and the employer that a skilled worker in any trade must supplement the training with a knowledge of the larger things that concern his work in an understanding of business and commercial conditions.
Generally speaking there are three classes of students who come under this vocational department: (a) Undergraduates who give their entire time to instruction; (b) those giving part of their time to instruction and part to earning in mercantile establishments or in factories, and (c) wage earners who through the instrumentality of the schools will receive supple- mentary education as a means of further training and advancement.
There are many in the first group who are more or less employed in wage earning occupations after school hours. Those who are in the second group are not thinking so much of the money earned as to the practical training which they are acquiring. In the last group are those who, perhaps, appreciate most the privileges of an added education, for their life work is already a matter of decision, and they have been in it long enough to know their limitations. These workers are less in need of technical and shop training, but do want and need a theoretical training. It may be seen how valuable to certain trades instruction in English, shop, mathematics, mechanical drawing and blue print reading might be.
In fact, when a boy or girl leaves high school, he or she will at least have something in the way of a foundation to build his "house."
In writing somewhat fully of his trade vocational work, it must be borne in mind that the high schools have their courses of study so arranged that students may also prepare, for the professions, entering the colleges and universities with much of the preliminary work already accomplished, thereby better equipped to begin their chosen work and shortening the college and special training necessary.
To understand the principles of great economic problems, investigation has shown that education must begin with the child.
In agriculture study, whatever the children do in the way of farming, raising vegetables or raising animals, the cost and the profit are considered and careful accounts are kept. These exhibits which the schools have from time to time are important revelations of what the science of farming may become. A farmer or rancher who has toiled for many years might well attend them to learn something of the application of soil culture along sci- entific lines, of improved methods in raising live stock and the infinite economies of modern detail.
The latest development in the work of education in Los Angeles is the application of the law which requires part time school attendance of all children between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years of age who are already employed in wage earning occupations. This law was passed in this state in May, 1919, and requires that all children between those ages must be given four hours each week from their employer's time in which to attend school.
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In addition the law requires that foreigners between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, who 'do not know how to spell, read and write, or have no knowledge of arithmetic beyond the ability of a sixth grade child, must attend these schools out of employer's time.
This bringing together of workers and employers, school and teachers, the parents and the home, is an evolution of fine democracy and in states where it has been tried seems, in a measure to be answering the call of the world. In the last year and a half, 1921, nineteen states have passed this part-time law. Under this law compulsory attendance is increased in a way which does not interfere with the earning capacity of the child.
Thirty years have now elapsed since the time of the first Teachers' Institute in Los Angeles, and at the time of which the teaching force had only increased to the number of five in the previous fifteen years. In the succeeding twenty years the school enrollment had increased to over 16,000 children with 379 teachers. The present enrollment is 141,744 children, for whom 3,537 teachers are required.
In addition to the 15 high schools, 8 intermediate, and 164 elementary schools, there are under the system, 6 development schools, 13 parental schools, 21 elementary evening schools and 6 evening high schools.
Los Angeles has also, probably more than most cities of the country, the problem of a floating school population. Tourists each year bring their children to the city to be placed for a few months in our schools, and for them the schools and equipment must be furnished in the same way that we care for our own children.
The crowded condition of our schools called for another bond issue last year and which was met by a large vote. With the $9,500,000 under this issue, it is expected that within the next five years other school buildings will be erected in the various parts of the growing city.
Looking back on the past with its record of achievement, the future measured with the same scale is full of possibilities. In this swiftly chang- ing world, with its many avenues of progress, the schools will ever keep pace.
To those who are familiar with the more conservative parts of our coun- try, these opportunities may honestly be called glorious. Los Angeles has a glowing faith in its own possibilities and in school things there is a certain fearless approach to the new ideas of education. It is a notable fact that some of the best things of modern educational work have been tried out and proven successes in the schools of Los Angeles.
The first normal school of the state was in San Francisco, and some- what later moved to San Jose.
By act of Legislature, in 1881, a branch of the school at San Jose was moved to Los Angeles. An appropriation of $50,000 was made for a build- ing, and'a tract of 512 acres was bought on what was known as the Bellevue Terrace Orange Grove on Fifth and Charity streets (Grand Avenue). To buy this tract the citizens of Los Angeles raised the sum of $8,000 by popular subscription.
One year later, August, 1882, the school was opened with an attendance of sixty-one pupils and three teachers. Charles H. Allen, the principal of the San Jose Normal School, was also principal of the branch school here.
Another year later the Legislature added $10,000 to the appropriation
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for the finishing and furnishing of the school. In the same year Ira Moore, who had been the principal of the State Normal School at St. Cloud, Minnesota, was elected principal of the normal school here.
The first class was graduated in 1884.
In 1887 the school here became independent of the San Jose School, and as the Los Angeles State Normal School was under the management of its own board of trustees.
It grew rapidly into an important institution, with so large an attend- ance that it became necessary to enlarge the school, and, looking to the future, a larger site was selected.
In 1907 the State Legislature authorized the sale of "Normal Hill," with the school buildings, and in 1911 granted an appropriation for a new location. A year later, twenty acres on North Vermont Avenue were pur- chased and subsequently another five acres.
On November 18, 1913, the cornerstone of Millspaugh Hall was laid, and in September, 1914, the school began its sessions in the new buildings.
Other buildings have been added and the plan has assumed noble and beautiful proportions. It is now a most harmonious and dignified group of buildings.
During the administration of Mr. Ernest Carroll Moore as president of the Los Angeles State Normal School, a change was made and by act of Legislature, the school became what is now known as the Southern Branch of the State University, under the control of the board of regents.
The active management of the University is under the president and an Academic Senate consisting of the faculties and instructors of the uni- versity, of which Doctor Moore is one at this writing, and on whom the burden of the management of the southern branch falls.
As Miss Smith thus concludes her eloquent narrative of the schools of Los Angeles, her reference to the normal school reminds us that a century ago there was at San Gabriel, the mother of Los Angeles, a normal school conducted by the Franciscan missionary fathers and in which young men were trained and equipped to teach in the various mission estab- lishments of the Province of California.
Also in this general resume of the schools, it will be observed that mention is made of public schools only, while the fact is that Los Angeles contains numerous parochial and private schools of the highest degree of culture and efficiency. So many and so excellent are these schools, indeed, that it is a matter of regret to us not to be able to write of them more fully because of the public character of this book. These non-public schools have a glory all their own which doubtless will be amply recorded by their own special historians.
But in conclusion, as far as the public schools of Los Angeles are con- cerned, it is almost needless to say that their splendor is a thing that has challenged the admiration of the whole world. The stranger within our gates is profoundly impressed at the very start with the greatness of our schools. Everywhere he turns he sees magnificent structures overshadow- . ing the architecture of Rome itself-structures reared by a progressive and forward-going citizenship, regardless of the weight of the burden of taxation which their system of education put upon their shoulders and which they have borne and continue to bear willingly.
CHAPTER XXV
THE MEDICINE MEN
It seems that the practice of medicine is as old as civilization itself. We hear of doctors and medicine men with the first things known about the human race. Even savage peoples had their medicine men. Conse- quently, the history of medicine in Los Angeles can be traced back, in a way, immemorially. When Los Angeles was the Indian village of "Yang- na" and its inhabitants went to worship there in a sacred spot known as "Vanquech," it was the medicine men of the Indian tribes who held the chief places in the community. And this was long ago-long, long ago- hundreds and thousands of years before a white man even knew that America existed and when the sabre-toothed tiger and other prehistoric beasts chased the natives up trees and into caves all the way from Santa Monica to the top of Mount Wilson, and maybe farther.
Doubtless, also, there was a physician with the expedition of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo when California was discovered in the year 1542; and with Sebastian Viscano's ships in 1602; and before that with Sir Francis Drake in 1579 when California was new to civilization, and the world was still young after its 200,000,000 years of revolution around the sun.
But the first physician that came to California of whom we have any record in the chronicles of white men was Dr. Pedro Prat, who came with Don Gaspar de Portola and Fray Junipero Serra in the expedition of 1769 which resulted in the founding of the mission and the permanent attach- ment of California to the world and civilization.
This is what we read in the old chronicles :
"After many months of great exertion, the expedition which had for its object the permanent colonization of California was ready to start. Three ships were in condition to make the voyage-two of them to be sent out together, and the third to be sent later as a relief ship.
"The two ships that were to sail upon the appointed day carried a portion of the troops, the camping outfit, the ornaments for the new churches that were to be builded, a goodly supply of provisions and cargoes of agricultural implements with which the Indians in the new country were to be taught to till the soil.
"The first ship to sail was the San Carlos, a barque of some 200 tons burden, under the command of Vincente Villa. On this ship were also the surgeon, Pedro Prat; Father Fernando Paron, one of the Franciscan missionaries ; twenty Catalonian soldiers under command of Lieutenant Pedro Fajes ; and many other important personages, and also a blacksmith, a baker and a cook."
"On the ship was the surgeon Pedro Prat." Here, then, we have the name of California's first doctor. And it turns out that he was a great physician, an honor to his profession, and that he had his hands full with
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the sick men who were around him, and that he worked hard and broke down under the strain that was upon him and gave up his own life, at last, in his efforts to save the lives of others.
In the Good Book it says that "Greater love hath no man that this that he lay down his life for his friend." This is what Dr. Pedro Prat did, and I think it a kind of shame that the members of the medical profession in Los Angeles and throughout all California have never yet raised a monument or a tablet or even a simple stone to commemorate the great love and service and the fine abilities of Dr. Pedro Prat.
We find in the old records that the people who came with this expedition of 1769 became sorely afflicted with many maladies, chief among which was the terrible scourge of scurvy. Their lives were hard and their constant diet of salt meats made scurvy inevitable. And, night and day, through all those desperate months while they wrought to plant Christianity and civilization on the soil of the strange new land to which they had come, it was Dr. Pedro Prat who had upon his devoted shoulders the heaviest burden to bear.
His scant supply of medicines that he had brought up with him in the ship from the peninsula soon ran out. But even this did not daunt him. He made a scientific study of the curative plants and herbs in the valleys and hills round about San Diego, and these he utilized, often with striking results, in the cure of the sick.
Like all great physicians, like all true doctors, Pedro Prat never gave a thought to himself while the cry of the sick was in his ears.
We read also in later of the old chronicles of other white physicians who came to California and made their headquarters in the various missions.
One hundred and twenty-five years ago there was in California a doctor whose name was Pablo Soler. There is ample testimony that he was a learned man and a great physician and surgeon. His name and fame still linger like a halo in the memory of the old times. He was renowned from one end of California to the other, and was a frequent visitor at the Mission of San Gabriel. He covered many miles of territory in his minis- trations throughout all the places which now compose the great City of Los Angeles. It is said of him that he was constantly traveling up and down the King's Highway like a great white angel of mercy healing the sick. Nor were his services given wholly to those in high state, the rich and the great. The poor Indians everywhere were also the beneficiaries of his skill and knowledge. Wherever Pablo Soler heard the cry of suffer- ing, he went to that place, no matter how lowly the sufferer might be nor how great the hardship that he himself was forced to endure.
It is a fascinating subject indeed, this story of the pioneer doctors of California.
No doubt the early physicians found the mild, gentle climate of Cali- fornia a great aid to them in the successful practice of their profession. The vital and virulent diseases assumed milder forms in this climate, and, of course, it is not to be wondered at that in comparatively modern times- say, fifty years ago-by way of boosting Los Angeles, no doubt, we find a committee of the Los Angeles County Medical Association furnishing the local Board of Trade with a very elaborate disquisition on the benefits to be derived from the Los Angeles climate. This report was drafted and signed
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by Drs. J. P. Whitney, H. S. Orme and George W. Lasher, and it is such a masterpiece that I feel it my duty to reproduce it in these pages, if for no other reason that our present denizens of this fortunate place may have the backing of scientific authority in whatever claims they may make con- cerning our climatic good fortune.
The report of the learned doctors bearing date of November 7, 1874, reads as follows :
"The interest felt in the climatic features of this portion of California by people abroad and the heads of families especially, is perhaps paramount to all others. By those who, from their extended knowledge acquired both by study and practical experience in travel, are best qualified to judge, the climate of Southern California is pronounced the best in the world and alike beneficial to those in health, the invalid and those liable to become victims of hereditary diseases.
"While the climate of the whole State has many features in common, as the wet and dry seasons, instead of the eastern winter and summer, and the prevalence during the summer or dry months, of the great northwest trade winds, sweeping steadily from the sea over the land, yet there are many points of divergence in different localities. This difference in climate is especially marked between Northern and Southern California. The mountain ranges and the valleys of all the northern portion of the State have a generally northwesterly trend, leaving the country open to the harsh sweep of the north winds. In Southern California, however, the trend of both mountains and valleys is from east to west, and the high Sierra, like a wall, shelters the land from these cold northerly currents. The result is a climate much milder and more equable in the upper portion of the State. It might be supposed that the country lying in the same latitude as the Carolinas would have some oppressive and debilitating summer heat. From this it is saved, however, by the tempered westerly trade wind, which daily blows inward to the land, bringing with it the cool- ness of the sea. There is a peculiar stimulus in this air coming in from the thousands of miles of salt water. One has to live by the sea to understand it. The key of the climate lies in this, that it has a warm sun and cool air ; hence the cool nights. One picks ripening figs and bananas grown in his own dooryard, and then goes to sleep under a blanket. The warm, yet not debilitating day furnishes one of the requisites in a climate for invalids. The cool, restful night, with its possibility of refreshing sleep, furnishes the other. The question is asked daily in letters from the East what disease and what class of invalids may hope for benefit in coming to Southern California. In reply it might be stated :
"1st. Persons of delicate constitution, either inherited or acquired, and who resist poorly the extremes either of heat or cold-perhaps who need a warm, equable, yet rather bracing climate.
"2nd. Persons inheriting consumption, but in whom the disease has not yet developed, or only to a slight degree. Many such persons seem to throw off the tendency and remain strong and well. Even if parents, coming with the disease, do not in the end recover, their children, growing up in this climate, have a strong chance in their favor of eliminating the inherited tendency entirely from their blood and casting off the family taint.
"3rd. Persons well advanced in consumption are often temporarily
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benefited. Such persons should think well, however, before leaving the comforts of their own home and undertaking the fatigue of even a week of travel by railroad. It should not be done unless under the advice of the family physician, and if they do come they should be accompanied by friends. The despondency of loneliness and homesickness diminishes greatly the chance of benefit.
"4th. Persons suffering with bronchial troubles are often much bene- fited. Such cases, however, and indeed many others, too often make the mistake of remaining for weeks or months without seeking the advice of a physician as to the particular locality suited to their complaint. The varieties of climate in Southern California are many. Some portions of the country have nightly a heavy fog ; other portions only a few miles away have no fog. Some sections are exposed to strong winds; others are sheltered. Some are low and damp; others high, warm and dry. Often persons go away disappointed, possibly worse, who, had they sought proper advice as to the especial locality suited to their complaint, might have received much benefit from their sojourn in the country. There are certain precautions, also rendered necessary for invalids by the coming on of the cool night air after the warm day, and by the cool breeze from the sea, which can only be learned by experience, which to an invalid is a costly teacher, or from the advice of a physician familiar with the climate and the peculiarities of the different localities.
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