PRINCIPAL MASON A. HAWKINS.

The test of individual worth is measured not only by distinguished
achievements of one particular period; indeed not only by evidences
of sound scholarship and high technical or professional skill that se-
cure recognition, but also by a progressive, constructive program
that yields fruit consistently through a number of years.

Such has been the history of the administration of the present
Principal of the High School. Since the time Prof. Hawkins as-
sumed the office the school has shown a consistent development in
those essentials that have put it into the ranks of the most pro-
gressive and efficient secondary schools in the country, and will keep
it there. The course of study has been modified and greatly enriched
so that it needs now only the physical adjunct of a new, commodious
and adequate building in order to meet in a large degree the needs
of the community which it serves. The responsibility for any failure
of the present courses of study to meet in a large way the demands
of the situation rests not with the Principal and his faculty, but
with those powers that provide new school buildings. The organiza-
tion of those auxiliary forces that do so much toward developing a
healthy professional and academic atmosphere has been effected under
his direction. Educational faculty meetings, in which the obligations
of the teacher to the parents of the school, the need of broad vision
and sympathy and the requirement of high professional skill are em-
phasized, are one of these important adjuncts.

It must be evident to any careful observer, too, that the interests
of one with the deep insight and broad vision of Prof. Hawkins
cannot be confined within school doors. So we find him president of
the Colored Health Association of Maryland; a member of the Board
of Provident Hospital; treasurer of the Association for Helping the
Blind, and connected with a number of other institutions or activities
of a charitable or philanthropic character.

And so one might go on indefinitely pointing out how the interest
and influence of the present Principal of the High School touch almost
every phase of the life of those people among whom and for whom he
is working, and of whose race he is a distinguished member. How-
ever, enough has been said to show that Prof. Hawkins is a sound
scholar, progressive educator and excellent administrator.