Students of history

They may have hopped horse-drawn carriages to school, taken classes in public speaking and debate, and worn wool skirts to their ankles or bow ties.

But Malden High School students, class of 1899, still hated homework, rallied for the big game, and fretted over their first kiss, just like teenagers of today.

In the 1940s, students practiced air-raid drills and built medical stretchers out of wood in Mr. Tolman's shop class. But they still poked fun at teachers and left too much trash on the floor. Class of 1976 members were very hip - they did "the bump" or "hustle" at Sadie's Lounge, a Stoneham discotheque. But they, too, were nervous about the prom, and sad to leave high school behind.

"Kids weren't really all that different," said Joanne Iovino, a Malden High alumna who volunteered this summer to read hundreds of old school newspapers, magazines, and yearbooks dating back to 1857 in preparation for the school's 150th birthday celebration next weekend.

"There was one piece [from the 1890s] where the boys were upset because the girls would eat lunch in their rooms and then throw things out the window, like apples they hadn't finished. The boys were outside having recess, and they wanted it stopped because they were being hit with food."

It's doubtful the girls who attend Malden High today would fling food at boys to get their attention - that's what text messaging is for.

Of course, no two decades were alike for high school students. Evolving styles, social norms, the state of gender and racial equality, and world events - wars especially - combined to lay a distinct stamp on each era. At the same time, the ABC's of student life - friends, inspiring teachers, and the thrill of accomplishment by way of a field hockey goal, an A in French class, or an acceptance letter to college - remained constant.

"High school . . . has given us two priceless gifts - good times and good friends," states the student editorial from the 1924 yearbook.

"WooHoo Seniors. We did it!" wrote 2007 graduate Steph Melo in her yearbook biography. "Thanks to all you guys for making these years absolutely incredible. To my friends and family, I love you dearly. Don't ever forget '07 'cause we're pretty darn amazing . . . peace, one!"

Iovino and her fellow volunteers surveyed a wealth of historical texts, everything from issues of the "Blue and Gold" student newspaper, in publication since 1915, to a 20-volume set of leather-bound student work presented at the Paris Exposition of 1900 as exemplary of American education.

Writing the histories of Malden High's students, sports, and clubs, they relied on their own memories, too: Iovino graduated in 1964, Diane Lind and David Haskell in 1954, Mary Hampton in 1966, and Barbara Tolstrup in 1948.

What was different about high school in their day? Headmaster John B. Matthews, for starters. Pictured in the 1958 yearbook wearing a three-piece suit under the headline, "Responsible for our school's success," he was revered by the student body. When his voice came over the loudspeaker, it was as if God were speaking.

His modern-day counterpart, principal Dana Brown, can most often be found in the corridors or cafeteria, wearing a funky tie or even a Patriots T-shirt, talking and often joking with students.

"He's just regular with them," Iovino said.

In the early days, Greek, Latin, and rote memorization formed the bulk of the curriculum.

"There was very little creativity," Iovino said. "Even their penmanship - it was all alike."

New subjects were introduced when the need arose - vocational classes during World War I, computer classes in the 1980s, Mandarin Chinese in this decade, and so forth.

School proms and dances - like the 1950s Vocational Valentine dance, which featured a band on a carousel - were almost always big affairs. Skirt lengths rose, fell, rose again - then finally gave way to bell-bottoms and blue jeans. Senioritis struck many a class in April and May, while school spirit soared and plunged periodically, according to editorials in the school newspaper.

Neatness was rarely a student's top priority.

"With the present shortage of janitors," read the Blue and Gold on May 7, 1943, "it would help if students kept the floors clean. Nuff sed?"

Students forever loved to joke around.

"We all like Roe," read Rose "Roe" Ballas's yearbook biography from the 1920s. "She is the sort of girl who would get up and offer you her seat on the Elevated if you were an old fossil."

And nobody ever, ever liked homework.

Asked to write a composition about her walk home from school on Nov. 7, 1899, ninth-grader Ethel Shorey described what two of her classmates were talking about as they left the building that day:

"I think it's horrid," said one.

"So do I," said the second girl. "It's the driest subject we ever had."

"From what they said," Shorey continued, "I guessed they had to write a composition on what they saw during a 10-minute walk."

The volunteers uncovered some surprises about Malden High's history as well. Hampton found that 1920s students had to graduate twice during the year - once in January, once in June - in order to get promoted. Haskell learned that one of the school's most beloved football coaches was an African-American, Matthew Washington Bullock, who broke the color line in 1905.

Students purchased the school's first American flag in the late 1800s because they were ashamed their school didn't have one, while graduation gowns weren't introduced until the Great Depression. Many, it seems, had become too embarrassed to attend the ceremony in their shabby outfits, group volunteer Brendan Duffy learned.

The school fielded a polo team at the turn of the 20th century, the rifle club was teeming with boys and girls in the 1950s, and, for close to 75 years, nothing thrilled students as much as drama and debate. Theater was so popular that even the German club or the political science club competed in schoolwide contests at the end of the year, Lind found. The annual senior play, meanwhile, was a high school staple until the mid-1960s.

For decades, debate was just as exciting.

"Just like you would encourage everybody to go to a football rally, they would cheer on the debate team," Iovino said. "I remember one of the topics - this must have been a big draw - was, 'Should electric engines and steam engines on railroads be combined?' "

"I have a better one," Lind said. "The first debate that the girls had was, 'Was the horse more beneficial than the cow?' "

Indeed, what once passed for normal is difficult to imagine today. Volunteer Paula Neville found stories of boys who heroically marched off to war, experienced the heat of battle, then returned to high school as if nothing had changed.

Gender, race, and religion divided the student body for more than a century, much as they did society. Girls weren't allowed to join Malden High's Literary Society, the oldest of its kind in the country, so they formed their own group. When Jewish students arrived in Malden in the 1920s, they weren't allowed in Christian clubs. "It was not a pejorative thing. It was just, 'That's how it is,' " Tolstrup said.

Back then, the big game - like the 1960 Tech Tourney against Somerville that was followed by basketball fans throughout New England, or the annual Malden-Medford football rivalry - was all-encompassing. Nowadays, student interests are much more varied: Clubs celebrate Latino, Vietnamese, and Haitian culture, work to prevent cruelty to animals, and promote understanding between gay and straight people.

If a student can't find a class he or she likes, that person can sign up for one of more than 300 classes offered online at the high school, some taught by professors in different nations.

Perhaps that is the biggest change in the life of a modern-day high school student. The Depression, world wars, John F. Kennedy's assassination - for so long, nothing that shook society was ever talked about in class, as if students weren't a part of their changing world, the volunteer researchers said.

Then came the 1960s and 1970s - student empowerment, a student bill of rights, the abolition of the dress code, and Vietnam War protests on the school's steps.

In 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks, the students - not the administrators - took it upon themselves to organize a memorial service and get a dialogue going.

Last year, Lind, a teacher evaluator at the high school, where more than 80 languages are now spoken, sat in on a class where overseas child sweatshops were being discussed.

"A young man raised his hand and said, 'I was in one,' in very broken English," she said. "There is an honesty now. You can't keep the world out if it is right here."