Principal 1879-1908
(1972 Maroon and White)
Oscar M. Waring was a scholar fond of Greek and Latin who also was at ease speaking German, French, Spanish and Italian. He rose from birth into a large family in Virginia through early schooling in Ohio to Beaver Academy in Pennsylvania and Oberlin College in Ohio. As a young man he studied law. He married young and after the death of his young wife he moved to Washington, D.C. to practice law and engage in other literary work. Shortly he was called to teach mathematics a Alcorn College in Mississippi and later accepted a position as a principal of a public high school in Louisville, Kentucky.
The year 1877 marked the beginning of a new chapter in history of education for Negroes in St. Louis. Mr. Oscar Minor Waring was one of the first Negroes employed to teach in the public schools in St. Louis. In 1879 he became the first Negro to serve as Principal of the Charles Sumner High School. As an administrator his colleagues spoke of him being a strong principal—positive and kind—scholarly and very active in his work—one who showed great respect for his faculty.
During his administration John Pope and Emma Vashon were certified by the Board of Education in 1885 as the first Negro pupils to complete the prescribed high school curriculum and therefore became the first graduates of the Sumner High School. The need for teachers was so great that top students were hired to teach others in lower grades before they had completed the requirements for high school graduation. By 1891the needs and the qualifications had grown to the point that 14 young ladies were first certified graduates from the Sumner Normal Training Class to teach in the St. Louis Public Schools.
From the beginning, Mr. Waring chose the best Negro Instructors to teach standard high school courses at Sumner. A tribute to the excellence was contained in the Annual Report of Superintendent Soldan in 1901 which stated “Sumner High has sent pupils to almost every college which admitted colored students.” The school had outgrown its facilities and by 1895 Sumner High and Normal Training Class moved to 15th and Walnut Streets and as Mr. Waring’s administration came to a close a new building was ready to be built on its present site.
When Mr. Waring resigned in 1908 because of failing health at the age of 71 he left a dedicated faculty to guide the youth to the fruition of huis dream of the Sumner High School continuing in the front rank of American High Schools. It was Mr. Waring’s philosophy that, “No one can do his best work in all its richness without a sound fundamental education and greatest of all a sterling character.
