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TARLAC NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL Circa 1902

Perhaps very few people know that the Tarlac National High School, formerly the Tarlac Provincial High School, was the first public High school that was ever established in the Philippines after the American Occupation.

The Province of Tarlac once belonged to the Pangasinan, Tarlac-Zambales schools division superintended by Mr. S.C. Newson. In October, 1900, Mr. Frank R. White was named deputy division superintendent for Tarlac Province and during his incumbency, the Tarlac Provincial high School was opened on September 1, 1902, with Mr. White as the first principal. He served only for two months after which he was appointed division superintendent for the Tarlac Province. He was succeeded by Mr. S.A. Campbell as principal of the high school. Classes were held in rented buildings and four American men and two American women assisted the principal in teaching. The students were classified according to their mental abilities. However, this system of classifying  students was abolished in 1905 in favor of another. The subjects taught were grammar, language physiology and music. A history book was used as a reader. All books and writing materials were given free.

White and Campbell did not stop after organizing an embryonic high school. Through their initiative and resourcefulness, they were able to secure a permanent building and to them goes the credit of having Tarlac build the first high school building in the Philippines. The site, a short distance south of the town plaza, contained 7,860 square meters. The building was made of Oregon pine and was 42 feet wide and 76 feet long. The upper storey contained two classrooms and an assembly hall, while the lower portion has four classrooms and the principal’s office. Aside from the equipment which was all imported from the United States, the total cost of Tarlac Provincial High School was P48,000. Superintendent White started the construction of the building and Superintended O.S. Rimold saw it completed. The Honorable James Francis, secretary of public instruction, opened it in January, 1904. Mr. George Egan was the principal. A large flag of the United State, a gift of the Martha Washington Society of New York, was unfurled at the time in honor of the first public high school in the Philippines. The building was used until 1915 when it was condemned as unsafe by the district engineer and was demolished. For a time, Tarlac had no high school building.

In 1905, the enrolment was 40. This increased to 382 in 1918. The intermediate department which was also housed in the same building as the secondary, had 85. In 1918, there were 368 pupils enrolled. The first Year of the Tarlac Provincial High School was permanently introduced in 1905; the Second Year, in 1906; the Third Year, 1910; and the Fourth Year in1917.

Woodworking and drawing were early introduced into the course and were done in the basement of the old government building facing the provincial high school. In 1906, this building was gutted down by fire and the equipment used in the course was lost. Woodworking and drawing were not again properly treated until three years later when a school shop was constructed on the site of the provincial capitol. It was built of reinforced concrete, 96 feet by 32 feet with two wings 30 by 26 feet. It was well preserved so that in 1918, it was housing 91 boys of the trade course.

Since June 1915, the provincial high school and the intermediate school have used rent-free, the primary school building of Tarlac and until October of 1917, a temporary building for the domestic science department. A new high school site containing 78,405 square meters has been acquired after two years of persistent effort on the part of the then superintendent of schools, Dr. Adam C. Deikum. The site contained three lots of 68,084, 5,419 and 4,902 square meters, respectively. These were acquired between April 20, 1917 and June 27, 1917.

Sufficient ground was in the site to hold all the departments of a high school together with a track, a baseball field and a school garden. Based on the estimates of enrolment increases, the Tarlac Provincial High School should be a building capable of serving five hundred secondary students. To this, P100,000 was needed. (The source of this article failed to mention when the new high school building was constructed.)

Athletics held a prominent place in the school life of Tarlac ever since Mr. White, school principal, started his pupils of the municipal school to play among themselves and against American soldiers. In 1906, the high school base baseball team played against teams outside the province for the first time when Mr. Barton took it to Manila. In the second year of the Central Luzon Athletic Association, organized in 1907 to include Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac and Nueva Ecija, Tarlac won the championship in baseball and in track and field. And in 1914, when Agno Valley Athletic Association was formed of Tarlac and Pangasinan, Tarlac won the baseball competition.