The Fine Arts Wave to a Future Career

The fine arts at Washington High School are offered as elective courses. They include band, choir, art, crafts, and speech. The library, although not an art in itself, is considered so because of the reading we do and the knowledge we gain through books. Our library is extensively used by the students. It is well stocked with books-over six thousand volumes. Not limited to books alone, the magazine subscription list includes thirty-seven different magazines. Also, a library of records, poems, plays, readings,and music is available to the teachers for discussion and example to the class. Band and choir are offered to 'the students with musical abilities. Of the arts, music has the most universal appeal, and it offers us the opportunity to get away from the ordinary things of life. Music appreciation is gained through the class in rudiments of music. Arts and crafts are taken when there is a conscious attempt to express beauty in the form of the thing made and the decoration of it. Art makes us share in all the feelings of sorrow and joy, because a work of art is always the expression of a feeling. Famousartists and paintings are discussed and studied in the classes. In speech, the student gains practice and experience in speaking, and in useful forms of writing. Profitable to us in later life is the training in posture, poise, self-confidence and memorization. The students are able to participate in speech activities with other schools, as well. There is no better witness to the fact that the fine arts help to explain life and add happiness to it than the marked increase of interest in them which present-day education is showing.