Think on These Things

The Great Depression, World War II, The Atom Bomb and the United Nations. The years 1937 to 1954 span what has been called "The Greatest Generation". They also represent a high point is public education. There are about 500 columns here, as they were printed in The Russ, the student newspaper. San Diego High School in those days had 3000 students and a faculty of over 100. The columns cover subjects from the prosaic -- keep the campus clean -- to poetic. You can follow the effects that the events of the day had on the school. Problems finding work for graduating seniors, boys preparing for military service, Hitler's war in Europe, and learning about the United Nations. Two themes run through the columns: the importance of the three R's and the school's role in teaching young people about democracy. Now, 50 plus years later, public education is battered by fads (like the New Math) and by the heavy hand of Federal Bureaucracy. It's refreshing to be able to look back and see what once was.