144 JOHN C. ALMACK
of these would hardly serve as a basis for the origin of the Missouri grading system. Both percentages and letters were used. Failures were very few. One year the Drain records 45 show two failures only, these being in "orthography " In a class of sixty-three students in general history two were marked as failures. Both were freshmen.
Athletics, lecture courses, student publications, 46 plays and oratorical contests were slow about being admitted. Prior to the opening of the twentieth century, school activities were largely unorganized. There were games, of course, in which members of the faculty participated. W. C. Hawley and O. C. Brown, professors at Drain, often played marbles in front of the school building. Basket ball was introduced about 1902, and inter-scholastic contests in this sport, baseball, football, debate, and oratory were thereafter featured. In 1901, W, R. Rutherford, J. C. Pettyjohn, and Gertrude M. Vernon of Mon- mouth won the debate series against Albany, Pacific, and Mc- Minnville. Mr. Julien Hurley, now state senator from Mal- heur and Harney Counties, represented the school in the state oratorical contest at Newberg in 1905. The Y. W. C. A. and the Y. M. C. A. were represented in all schools. After 1900 "lecture courses, recitals, and musicals were given by the lead- ing speakers and artists of the state."
Various inducements were held out to draw students. The one reiterated most regularly in the catalogues was the need of teachers, the number being given as six hundred annually. Weston established an appointment bureau in 1901, saying that there were many demands for teachers at salaries ranging from $50 to $85 a month. In 1904 the catalogue of Mon- mouth says :
"There is a good demand for teachers to take positions pay- ing from $40 to $75 a month. Capable, well trained men are in demand as principals. The salaries range from $60 to $120 a month. Although in many instances women fill these posi-
45 Records Drain Normal 1902-1903.
46 The first normal school publication was the Pacific Christian Messenger designed for general circulation, founded by T. F. Campbell in 1870. The first student paper was issued at Monmouth in 1905. Miss Ruby E. Shearer was the first editor of the Courier, as the magazine was called. It was published quarterly until the close of the school in 1909. After the rejuvenation of Monmouth normal a new quarterly, "The Norm," was started, and this publication is still in existence.
