Grenville Emery, Harvard’s founder, was a graduate of Bates College in Maine, a former teacher at the Boston Latin School, and an author of algebra textbooks. The 1906–07 Harvard School prospectus.
Located on Western Avenue at Venice, the school promised students the benefits of California’s stimulating air, endless sunshine, and “all that goes to make life worth the living.” The name “Harvard” was a natural choice, the founder noted, since he had spent years preparing boys for Harvard University and had permission from Harvard’s president, Charles W. Eliot, to use the name. With its opening enrollment of forty-two boarding and day students—outfitted in stiff, high-collared blue coats—Harvard School was an immediate success; by 1905, its enrollment had swelled to nearly two hundred cadets. The school’s traditional curriculum focused on staples such as English, mathematics, science, history, and classical and Romance languages. In addition, boys learned manual arts, including wood- and metal working, and gained business skills in typing and bookkeeping. Boarders, comfortably housed in single rooms, were looked after by “two motherly and Named headmaster of Harvard School in 1912, Bishop Robert B. Gooden (right) was a native of Bolton, England, and a graduate of Trinity College in Connecticut. In 1931, he was named suffragan (assistant) bishop of Los Angeles.
sympathetic women.” On Sundays, boys polished correspondence skills by writing home—presenting drafts of letters to their instructors for “inspection and criticism.” Athletics, too, were a prime focus. Tennis was the school’s most popular sport, but the spacious campus also featured football and baseball fields, handball courts, and a track for running and cycling. There was ample room for Harvard’s four companies of cadets to drill three days a week, led by young captains who were “great strutters-around,” recalled mathematics teacher Clarence Barnes. By 1908, Harvard School boasted four grand sandstone buildings, including two
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