Henry K. White was the much respected principal of Bangor High School at the turn of the last century. “Good Old Cappy White,” as his students called him, was “a thorough scholar,” the best teacher of Greek in Maine and possibly New England. Back then, teachers taught more than one subject. Whether White was teaching Greek, Latin, mathematics, history or English, there was “always something doing in his classroom,” said a former student. That’s the highest praise any teacher can get.

White gave a speech to the Maine Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools a century ago that reveals he had one foot firmly planted in the 19th century and the other not so firmly in the 20th. He spoke from the “ripeness of experience with a force and vigor that is refreshing,” reported the Bangor Daily News on Oct. 27, 1905. I have supplemented Old Cappy’s comments with others from his annual report to the city of Bangor that year in which he struck similar themes.

Educators were debating what a high school should be doing back then, just as they are today. Public high schools had only been around in any number for two or three decades. Most were tiny, poorly equipped affairs, sometimes with as few as two or three teachers and a few dozen students. Most students didn’t go to high school, or if they did, they dropped out in a year or two.

“Privileged schools for privileged classes is emphatically not the American ideal. The public school is here for all,” White told his colleagues, showing he understood the principle that would guide American education through the rest of the century and beyond. Details were hazy, however. In the endless debate over whether academic achievement or social equality is more important, it’s pretty clear that White and most of his colleagues stood squarely for the former. Schools were for learning pure and simple, and if you couldn’t learn or you preferred football to Latin, they weren’t for you.

First of all, he made a list of all the things “the standard school” didn’t need. They could get rid of class officers, school newspapers and commencement exercises with caps and gowns and graduation parts. Fewer diplomas would also be a good idea. “Diplomas have been given in the high school so freely that they don’t mean what they should,” he said.

White was no fan of social promotion. In his annual report to the city of Bangor that year, he stated, “Some different method of promotion should be adopted in our school. Classes should be examined by someone who does not teach them, and scholars should be promoted largely on the basis of such examinations held at least twice a year.” Was he thinking of the state’s Maine Educational Assessment tests? I doubt it.

White condemned football as a distraction. “Boys who play on the team uniformly fall behind in their studies. … I am convinced that the game has no place in the high school. If young men want a football team, it should be raised without reference to school, and as a rule, scholars should not play on a team which plays games with other cities,” White wrote in his annual report that year to the city. Such comments took a great deal of courage since the football team had recently beaten Portland for the state title.

So, just what should “a standard school” offer? Why a male principal, of course, as well as some male teachers. “Men have almost disappeared as teachers,” said White. “Scholars will meet men when they go out into the world, and it will be a great surprise to some of them.”

Of course, every high school would have at least one other teacher, “and from motives of economy, this assistant may well be a woman,” said White. “The qualifications in her case should be practically the same as in the case of the principal.” Translation: Women teachers were not paid as well as male teachers, but they didn’t need to be trained as well, either.

A standard school should offer at least two courses of study: college and noncollege. Most of the subjects could be interchangeable, placing less of a strain on a small school’s two or three teachers.

Offering foreign languages would be difficult. Experts were required. One way to reduce the academic strain would be to get rid of four years of Latin as a requirement for college. “The time wasted on Latin in schools is shameful,” he said. “Of course there will always be students of Latin and Greek, but to insist that either is absolutely essential to a liberal education is folly.”

However, he saw no reason why well-trained teachers could not master subjects as diverse as history and physics well enough to teach them to high school students. If a small school could not offer the right courses to the “two or three” students who might be planning to go to college, then those students should seek out a bigger school, he concluded. With more than 500 students, Bangor High was one of the biggest high schools in Maine.

American education has been transformed since White gave his speech. Most of the micro high schools are gone, eliminating many of the problems he was trying to solve in his talk. Waves of immigrants, affirmative action, new ways of obtaining information and new theories of pedagogy all have had radical impacts.

Much of what White said sounds downright hopelessly old-fashioned today. But I suspect the proportion of classrooms in Maine schools where there is “always something doing” has not increased a bit since Cappy White walked the halls of Bangor High, and that’s what really counts.

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.