At the beginning of the twentieth century about one in twenty American teenagers graduated from high school; by mid century over half of them did so; and today six of seven do. Along with this expansion in graduation, the experiences of high schooling became more significant. Though diversity existed at the school level, by the interwar period most high schools offered courses in "higher" academic subjects (literature, mathematics, and ancient and foreign languages), while they gave large numbers of students a chance to practice music, drama, and other fine arts. This essay contributes to the existing literature by drawing upon and challenging several elements from previous lines of thought. Following the "contested-terrain" literature, the author has based his interpretation primarily on student writings at two Cleveland high schools between 1890 and 1918. To make claims about the cultural work of comprehensive high schooling, no substitute supercedes the recorded words of students. However, he has not found schools to be a particularly open terrain for cultural contest. This study seeks to understand how students constructed their participation and engagement in high schooling. The author's conclusions are largely consistent with the claims of previous "cultural critics" and some parts of the "social control thesis." Student-writers repeatedly deployed major components of liberal individualism (self-made manhood and female domesticity in particular) in ways that served larger bodies of power such as the professions and the state. A final implication of this study is that American comprehensive high schools reproduced a complex constellation of liberal ideas and fashioned them to serve the dictates of the liberal corporate state. (Contains 1 figure and 42 footnotes.)