Remembrances - 1904 Graduation Announcement

Among the treasures at the Historical Society's Meeting House, is an assortment of old graduation announcement, most of them from the late 1890s to the 1930s, They honored the high school graduates from Acton and New Bethel High Schools, and sometimes recognized the eighth grade graduates from the district schools, many of whom did not go on to high school.

The announcement was the gift of Marilyn Mayfield, of Southport. She found it among her grandparents' belongings several years ago. They -- Clyde and Ethel Gray -- did not attend Franklin Township schools, but had friends who did.

The announcement at hand, with a vellum-like cover in which 1904 is cut, has as its first page, "The members of the graduating classes of the New Bethel and Acton High Schools jointly request your presence at their Commencement Exercises, to be held at the Acton Presbyterian Church, Thursday Evening, April Fourteenth, Nineteen Hundred Four, at Eight O'clock."

The Program included Music and Class March, Invocation by Rev. Randolph Carver, Class address by Jonathon Rigdon, Presenting Diplomas by State Supt. F.A. Cotton, and the Benediction by Rev. Carver. "Music" separated each part of the program, and was supplied by "Montani Bros." The Class Colors were "Old Gold and White."

There were seven graduates from the New Bethel Class. They were Ethel Brown, Ida Toon, Lizzie Wilson, Carrie Adams, Martha Williams, Pearl Eaton, and Jessie Showalter. From the Acton Class were four students: Clarence Yoke, Mary Taylor, Ethel Humphrey, and Mary Rabourn. (Of the 11 students, only one boy!)

Of interest to me, since I am helping to write a new township publication about our local schools was the State Superintendent's name, Fassett A. Cotton, mentioned in one of the histories (James Madison, The Indiana Way) as an ardent educational reformer in the early 1900s, advocating the closing of the "backward" district schools and the promotion of high schools with improved teaching methods and expanded curriculum. He and other reformers promoted practical and vocational education, such as provided by the Indianapolis Manual Training School, which opened in 1895 to become a model for industrial high schools.

A final page in the booklet includes the School Officers, H.L. Cook, County Superintendent, H.J. Brown, Trustee, L.E. Swails, instructor and W.R. Swails, instructor. The Township Advisory Board was James T. Mathews, James W. Spicer and James H. Gibson.