Introduction
In 1927, when the school year began, the Galt Joint Union High School published a bulletin for the students and their families that included the following:
Knowing about things is not being educated; it is being instructed. Education is the appreciation and utilization of the value of knowledge, of its quality rather than its quantity. It is the conviction that we are forced to recognize a rational principal underlying all things.
Education is not from civilization on one hand and culture on the other. And “civilization” is too often used as though it were a synonym for culture, which it is not.
Civilization is essentially the substituting for the laborious methods of nature—including one’s own and one’s slaves’ muscular exertions – the labor-saving devices of machinery, whereby life is rendered easier. Since the scientific renaissance, civilization has been essentially the application of the discovery of the laws of the universe, and the properties of matter and of energy, to the solution of the problems how to secure the leisure necessary for thought and recreation.
Culture is something far beyond both education and civilization. It is the desire that all the activities of mind and body should be interpenetrated by the enjoyment of the beautiful; it is the suffusing of the common-place with the gracious spirit of beauty until the natural man becomes transfigured into a being of a higher and more exquisite order.
Clearly culture has to be based on education; a cultured person must be an educated person, but an educated one need not be a cultured one. You can have an educated evil person, and a civilized evil person, but you cannot have a cultured one; for the love of beauty—culture—pervades everything in the life physical, mental and moral.
This matter concerns you, young man—young woman—about to enter High School.
Your are challenged—
First. To choose a good high school of about 300 students or less.
Second. To function therein as a conscientious student.
Third. To enter society equipped as a true citizen and statesman—not only with scholarship for higher educational institutions, but also with character.
“I will study and get ready and maybe my chance will come.”—Abraham Lincoln.
To the Students and Patrons of Galt Joint Union High School:
It is with genuine appreciation and gratitude that I join in extending a hearty greeting to every Student and Patron and young person who may receive a copy of this, our second Bulletin.
After a most delightful visit to England, Holland, Germany, Czecho-Slovakia, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, and France, during the past summer, visiting their educational institutions and representing the California State Teachers’ Association and California State Principals’ Association at the International Conference of New Education at Locarno, I can feel safe in stating that I visited no school equal to our own Galt High School, and yet gained many new ideas and exchanges of thought that will possibly be helpful to us during the coming year.
With additional teaching force for the new school year, each student of Galt High is assured a still better choice of subject matter. The Board of Education and the people of the Galt Union High School district have gone to a great expense in providing one of the finest school plants in this part of the State. I sincerely hope you will make the best of these unusual opportunities being offered you.
To the prospective and new students of The Galt Union High School, may I make an earnest appeal? Bring with you the highest ideals and most worthwhile standards of your home life as your contribution to our school life. After becoming a member of our Student body, do your best to live up to the traditions of our school, in loyalty and good citizenship.
With your help and loyalty I wish to make Galt High one of the outstanding schools of our State. First, by developing personality in our young people; second, by exalting those personal qualities that underlie good citizenship and success in life, and last by teaching the simple rules of manners, courtesy and conduct.
Yours for Galt High,
WILLIAM RUTHERFORD,
Principal
The Galt Area Historical Society offers a book of our local history called Tapestry. Click here for more information.
Last edited 27 February, 2005
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