USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > Los Angeles from the mountains to the sea : with selected biography of actors and witnesses to the period of growth and achievement, Volume I > Part 22
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Over the gateway of Lincoln High School is the most sig- nificant word in education, "Opportunity !" It is a word to thrill us who live in the United States where so much is offered free and where the most democratic thing that exists is the public school.
Citizenship is the all-embracing subject from the kinder- garten to the highest grade. It is taught to the little ones, beginning with the story of the flag and the oath of allegiance and follows through all the grades. Civies and statesmanship are studied in the upper grades, holding the ideal always of the duties and privileges of the American citizen. This study is the open door through which a foreigner must enter, and our schools are carrying the burden of Americanization of the country.
Los Angeles was the first city where the school training given along the line of Americanization was recognized by the Federal Government, and a certificate testifying to a certain course given in the schools entitles the foreigner receiving it to naturalization papers.
THE POLYTECHNIC HIGH SCHOOL
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It is ancient history to speak of the mothers' clubs, which were first organized in 1898-9. From this beginning has come the Parent-Teachers organization, which has become a part of the school system. In recognizing this organization as a definite part of school work, Los Angeles is unlike most cities.
This association in every way stands back of school work. The members take care of the poorer children in the way of clothing, and the clinics maintained by them have been of great value. They are generous in their gifts whenever needed, and have carried on many helpful things, especially in the neighborhood schools. The work they do is of great understanding, for only mothers can know the problems of other mothers. The various schools needing assistance on what might be called "motherly" lines, have only to appeal to the Parent-Teachers.
What the Los Angeles schools accomplished during the World war is a matter of school history and should be a matter of pride to the citizens. It demonstrated effectively the immense power of organization and system. The quick- ness with which it could be mobilized and the records of the war years show the enormous part the schools played in win- ning the war, both by way of the application of subjects tanght to the needs of the hour and the larger opportunity the schools afforded for reaching the homes in lessons of patriotism, thrift and conservation.
It was a gratifying revelation to know what the schools are accomplishing all the time and an inspiration to observe how quickly the school power could be utilized and diverted in practical answer to the country's call.
In 1917, as soon as this country entered the war which was devastating the world, Dr. Albert Shiels, then superintendent of schools, appointed a general committee under which all other committees worked for the period of the war. He asked at once that the course of study, so far as possible, be diverted to patriotic lines. English classes were to develop the work along patriotic lines in the oral and written work. The manual training departments were charted, revealing young men and women who were fitted to assist in actual work. All the schools became 100 per cent workers and members of the
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Red Cross organization. The library became a center of education. Books on the various countries at war were dis- played, bulletins issued by the various departments were kept on file. All patriotic literature in the way of various pam- phlets on thrift and conservation were carefully collected and arranged.
A survey was made of the high schools at the end of June, 1917, and it was found that in the shops there were many hundred boys who had been trained for forge, foundry and pattern making. There were boys who were skilled in wood- work and boys who could be used in field work and surveying. There were many who were skilled in printing and who could prepare mechanical drawing for army equipment and appa- ratus. There were hundreds of girls and boys who were ready as competent stenographers, typists, telephone operators, stock and routing clerks.
In the sciences several Imindred were ready for wireless telegraph operators, others trained along electrical lines, in- stallation of ground telephones, and still others who would be useful in higher chemistry departments. This survey was of use to the Government, outlining the possibilities of the young men and women of the nation, and on whom it might rely for technical work.
Agricultural departments in the schools immediately be- came of the most vital importance, not only teaching conserva- tion and thrift but promising actual supplies. Thousands of pupils in all the schools were engaged in school gardening. In the rural districts great things were accomplished. The boys in one school, for example, began their school at seven in the morning in order that they might be ready to go to the ranches at 11 o'clock, where their labor was needed. Everywhere boys and girls worked for their country in the schools and after the school hours, according to the school plan.
The domestic science departments immediately turned their work into war work. All cooking was thrift cooking following the national plan. Sewing likewise followed the war outline. In the latter department the girls contributed their work in sewing to the making of children's dresses and other things needed at the Red Cross shop.
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Lessons in first aid nursing were given to the older girls, and all the girls sewed on the usual Red Cross necessities and knitted the much-needed woolen articles.
In connection with the Red Cross shop, a notable achieve- ment was the work by the boys in the manual training depart- ment in the making of toys for the Christmas trade and to be kept in stock.
Lessons as taught in the schools on thrift and conservation along intelligent and specialized lines, went directly to the homes, and the mothers were as earnest as the children in applying the principles learned to the daily life.
Salvage work in the schools earned much money. In this department as well as all other departments, the art teachers and pupils assisted with war posters. In the Liberty Loan drives and conservation the posters were most effectively used.
Each issue of the Liberty Loans and Thrift Stamps were sold in enormous numbers through the schools. The grand total of the second Liberty Loan bought by the teachers, the children and their friends, amounted to $1,178,150.
At the time of the war the military department of the public schools became more prominent. It has always been known that this department did much for the physical devel- opment of the boys, increased a certain manly outlook on life, made the boys more amenable to school law, giving them a rigid sense of obedience to a higher authority. Personal loy- alty to the school was increased in the fine esprit du corps.
Since the war, military training has been put on a different basis with definite Federal encouragement and aid. The United States Government has taken over this department as far as furnishing instructors, equipment in the way of guns, uniform and all other expenses. The departments are still under school supervision.
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' Train- ing Corps, which includes high schools and colleges. A sum-
Vol. 1-17
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mer camp is held each year. This year, 1920, 150 Los Angeles boys are in military camps.
This aggregation of trained boys in the country is con- sidered 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 citi- zenship of tomorrow.
This organization knows no national or racial discrimina- tion, and the boys who salute our flag and accept our com- mands are from the peoples of every nation within our hos- pitable 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 refer- ence, 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 concerning science, dis- covery and invention in modern study. Sociology, citizenship
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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 countries. 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 voca- tional training in our public schools. Investigation proved that the people who were working at trade occupations were frequently technically trained but could never reach a high efficiency so long as the limitation of limited education exists.
There was the group also of young people academically trained in high schools and colleges without a trade or profes- sion in sight, who were obliged to add other years of educa- tion 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 sup-
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plement 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 mer- cantile establishments or in factories, and (c) wage earners who through the instrumentality of the schools will receive supplementary 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, ap- preciate.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 this 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 short- ening 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
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exhibits which the schools have from time to time are im- portant revelations of what the science of farming may be- come. A farmer or rancher who has toiled for many years might well attend them to learn something of the application of soil culture along scientific 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.
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, 1920, 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
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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 has called for another bond issue this year and which has been 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 ou the past with its record of achievement, the future measured with the same scale is full of possibilities. In this swiftly changing 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 country, these opportunities may honestly be called glorious. Los Angeles has a glowing faith in its own possi- bilities and in school things there is a certain fearless ap- proach 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 somewhat 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 building, and a tract of 51/2 acres was bought on what was known as the Bellevue Terrace Orange Grove on Fifth and Charity streets (Grand Avenne). 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 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.
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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 attendance 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 "Nor- mal 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 purchased and subsequently another five aeres.
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 aet 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 Academie Senate consisting of the faculties and instructors of the university, of which Doctor Moore is one at this writing, and on whom the burden of the manage- ment 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 ob- served 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.
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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 An- geles are concerned, 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 over- shadowing 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 XIV
THE MEDICINE MEN
It seems that the practice of medicine is as old as civiliza- tion itself. We hear of doctors and medicine men with the first things known about the human race. Even savage peo- ples had their medicine men. Consequently, the history of medicine in Los Angeles can be traced back, in a way, imme- morially. 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 commu- nity. And this was long ago-long, long ago-hundreds and thousands of years before a white man even knew that Amer- ica existed and when the sabre-toothed tiger and other prehis- toric 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 Cali- fornia 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 attachment 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 Cali- fornia was ready to start. Three ships were in condition to
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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 orna- ments 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 Vicente Villa. On this ship were also the surgeon, Pedro Prat; Father Fer- nando 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 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 than 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.
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