University High School

University High School students in biology lab. c. 1945

In 1919, University High school was established on the University Campus as a laboratory for University students preparing to teach.  The school’s secondary purposes  were  providing a high school for young people from communities that lacked a four-year high school and assisting entering university students fulfill high school deficiencies ‘while carrying forward their college work.  Meeting in Science Hall every morning, approximately fifty pupils attended annually.  The girls outnumbered the boys by about three to two.  The program of studies at University High School included training in languages, mathematics, social science, natrual science, vocational studies, music, and physical education.  Students at University High School also had the opportunity to get involved in extracirricular actives; pupils published a school newspaper, participated in speech and drama contests, and organized a football team called “the Pups.”

University High School closed in 1946.  Enrollment had dropped to thirty-four and practice for aspiring teachers could be shifted to Vermillion public schools.  USD made contracts  with the Vermillion Board of Education for student teaching with Dr. Mark Dezell serving as supervisor.  Because University payment for the use of facilities and critic teachers equaled the former cost of the University’s school, no money was saved.

University High School Students study mammals at the University museum c. 1945

–Information gathered from the Collection:The University of South Dakota by Cedric Cummins, University Archives. Images: USD University High School Bulletin, Series XLV, April 15, 1945, No. 6.

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Ten Rules for Losing Control of a School

Timeless advice for teachers from an 1892 edition of the The South Dakota Educator:

“1. Neglect to furnish each pupil plenty of suitable seatwork.

2. Make commands that you do not or cannot secure the exection of.  Occasionally make a command with which it is impossible to comply.

3.  Be frivolous and joke pupils to such an extent that they will be forced to “talk back.”  This will “break the ice” and they will soon learn to be impertinent in earnest.  or be so cold and formal as to repel them.

4.  Allow pupils to find out that they can annoy you.

5.  Promise more in your pleasant moods than you can perform and threaten more in your “blue spell’ than you intend to perform.

6.  Be so variable in your moods that what was allowable yesterday is criminal today or vice versa.

7.  Be overbearing to one class of pupils and obsequious to another class.

8.  Utterly ignore the little formalities and courtesies of life in the treatment of your pupils in school and elsewhere.

9.  Consider the body, mind, and soul of a child utterly unworthy of study and care.  Let it be a matter of indifference to you whether a child is comfortable or  uncomfortable.  Consider that it is unimportant why a child enjoys one thing or dislikes another, and that it is not your buinees to aid him in forming a worthy character.

10.  Let your deportment toward parents and officers be such as will cause you to lose their respect and confidence.”

–Information from The South Dakota Educator vol. IV, no. 12

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