USA > California > A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I > Part 55
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In May, 1854. Hon. Stephen C. Foster, on as- suming the office of mayor, in his inaugural mes- sage urged the necessity of increased school facilities. He said: "Our last census shows inore than 500 children within the corporate limits, of the age to attend school, three-fourths of whom have no means of education save that afforded by the public schools. Our city has now a school fund of $3.000." He urged the build- ing of two school houses, the appointment of a school superintendent and a board of education. At the next meeting of the council an ordinance
330
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
was passed providing for the appointment by the council, on the first Monday of June each year, of three school commissioners or trustees, a superintendent and a school marshal. William McKee, an educated young Irishman, succeeded him in the school. McKee was a suc- cessful teacher. The Los Angeles Star of March 17, 1855, in an able editorial urged the planting of shade trees upon the school lot. "When the feasibility of growing trees upon the naked plain is fairly tested the owners of lots in the neighborhood will imitate the good ex- Sanford, trustees; and G. W. Cole, school mar- . ample," said the Star. To test the feasibility the
At a meeting of the council held May 20, 1854, Lewis Granger moved that Stephen C. Foster be appointed city superintendent of common schools ; Manuel Requena, Francis Mellus and W. T. B. shal. The nominations were confirmed. Thus the mayor of the city became its first school superintendent, and three of the seven members of the council constituted the board of education. The duties of the superintendent were to ex- amine teachers, grant certificates and hold annual examinations of the schools.
The board of education and the superintendent set vigorously to work, and before the close of the school year school house No. I, located on the northwest corner of Spring and Second streets, on the lot now occupied by the Bryson block and the old City Hall building, was com- pleted. It was a two-story brick building, cost- ing about $6,000. It was well out in the suburbs then, the center of population at that time being in the neighborhood of the Plaza. School was opened in it March 19, 1855, William A. Wallace in charge of the boys' department, and Miss Louisa Hayes principal of the girls' department. Co-education then, and for many years after, was not tolerated in the public schools of Los An- geles. Previous to the completion of the build- ing. in the fall of 1854. T. J. Scully taught a public school in a rented building, and Ygnacio Coronel taught a school in his own building on the corner of Los Angeles and Arcadia streets. Mrs. M. A. Hoyt and son taught a public school in a rented building north of the Plaza in 1854- 55-56.
School house No. 2, located on Bath street, now North Main street, was built in 1856. It was a two-story, two-room brick building. It was demolished when the street was widened and extended.
Wallace, after a few months' teaching, laid down the birch and mounted the editorial tripod. He became editor and publisher of the Los An- geles Star, but the tripod proved an uncom- fortable seat, and he soon descended from it.
trustees bought twelve black locusts at $1 apiece and planted them on the school lot. The shade trees grew, but when the green feed on the "naked plains" around the school house dried up the innumerable ground squirrels that in- fested the mesa inade a raid on the trees, ate the leaves and girdled the branches. McKee, to protect the trees, procured a shotgun, and when he was not teaching the young ideas how to shoot he was shooting squirrels. There was no water system then in the city, and water for domestic purposes was supplied by carriers from carts. McKee used water from the school barrel to water the trees. The "hombre" who supplied the water reported to the trustees that that gringo "maestro de escula" (schoolmaster) was wasting the public water trying to grow trees on the mesa where "any fool might know they wouldn't grow." The trees did survive the squirrels' attacks and waterman's wrath. They were cut down in 1884, when the lot was sold to the city for a city hall site. From 1853 to 1866 the common council appointed the members of the board of education and the school superin- tendents. From 1866 to 1870 the school boards and the superintendents were elected by popular vote at the city clections. In 1870 it was discov- ered that there was no law authorizing the elec- tion of a superintendent ; the city in school af- fairs being governed by three trustees the same as country districts. The office was discontinued for two years. In 1872 a special act of the legis- lature created a city board of education consist- ing of five members and gave it power to appoint a superintendent. The following is a list of the persons who have filled the office, with the years of their service :
J. Lancaster Brent, ex-officio . 1853 to 1854 Stephen C. Foster. 1854 to 1855
Dr. Wm. B. Osburn 1855 to 1856
331
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Dr. John S. Griffin. 1856 to 1857
J. Lancaster Brent.
. 1857 to 1858
E. J. C. Kewen
1858 to 1859
Rev. W. E. Boardman 1859 to 1862
A. F. Heinchman .. 1862 to 1863
Gustavus L. Mix. 1863 to 1864
Dr. R. F. Hayes. 1864 to 1865
Rev. Elias Birdsell. 1865 to 1866
Joseph Huber, Sr 1866 to 1867
H. D. Barrows. 1867 to 1868
Andrew Glassell
1868 to 1869
Dr. T. H. Rose.
1869 to 1870
No Superintendent 1870 to 1872
A. G. Brown. 1872 to 1873
Dr. W. T. Lucky 1873 to 1876
C. H. Kimball 1876 to 1880
Mrs. C. B. Jones. 1880 to 1881
J. M. Guinn. 1881 to 1883
L. D. Smith. 1883 to 1885
W. M. Freisner 1885 to 1893
Leroy D. Brown
1893 to 1894
P. W. Search.
1894 to 1895
J. A. Foshay
1895 to 1906
E. C. Moore (present incumbent ) . 1906 to . . ..
The office in earlier years was filled by law- yers, doctors, ministers and business men. It was not until 1869 that a professional teacher was chosen superintendent; since then profes- sional teachers have filled the office. The high school was established in 1873, during the first year of Dr. Lucky's terin. It was the first, and for several years after its organization the only high school in Southern California. At the time it was established there were but six high schools in all California. Now there are twenty-five in Los Angeles county alone. The first teachers' institute of Los Angeles county was organized in the old Bath street school house, October 31, 1870. It was held there because the school building on the corner of Spring and Second streets was considered too far out of town; the business center of the city being then on Los Angeles street between Arcadia and Commercial. There were no hotels south of First street. The officers of the institute were W. M. McFadden, county superintendent and president ; J. M. Guinn and T. H. Rose, vice-presidents, and P. C. Tonner, secretary. The entire teaching force of the city schools consisted of eight teachers, and from the county there were thirty, a total of thirty-eight for city and county, and the county then included all the area now in Orange county.
During the '6os, on account of the sectional hatreds growing out of the Civil war, the public schools in Los Angeles were unpopular. They were regarded as a Yankee institution and were hated accordingly by the Confederate sympa- thizers. The public school teachers during the Civil war and for some years afterwards were required by law to take an oath to support the constitution of the United States before they could obtain a certificate. This jarred on the sensitive feelings of some of the pro-slavery pedagogues, and refusing to take the oath, they were compelled to quit the profession. The Los Angeles News of July 17, 1866, commenting on the public school system of California, says : "In New England the public schools educated the people up to the negro equality and the same object is sought to be accomplished in this state ; and unless parents and guardians take matters promptly in hand their children will be educated up to the New England standard of social ideas * * and infidelity." *
The editor of the News charges the State Board of Education with "making regulations for the government of the public schools and introducing therein a series of books that make these institutions but little more than schools for disseminations of the doctrines of abolitionism." (Whittier's Poems were among the books of this series.)
"Under one of these regulations teachers are required to have certificates of competency from a state board of examiners, accessible only to the purely loyal. Thus the representatives of New England negro equality have been forced into the public schools throughout the state to corrupt the minds of the youth with their damnable doc- trines of social equality."
With such teachings from the public press it is not strange that the public schools of the city were poorly patronized. In the school year of 1865-66 the total number of school census chil- dren between five and fifteen years of age was 1,009. Of these 331 were enrolled in the public schools during the year, and 309 in the private schools; 369 were not enrolled in any school. According to the News, the total average daily attendance in the six public schools was 61 ; in the three private schools 103-nearly fifty per
332
HISTORICAL. AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
cent greater than that of the public schools. Twenty-one negro children were enrolled in a separate school. The education of these twenty- one little negroes was regarded as a menace to the future ascendency of the white race. Out of such mole-hills does political bigotry construct impassable mountains! In 1870 County Super- intendent McFadden in his report said of the public schools of the city: "Los Angeles is far behind her sister cities of the same population and wealth in educational interest. Her school buildings are illy constructed, incommodious, in- conveniently located and conducted on a sort of guerrilla system". (no commanding officer or head to them). "Out of seventeen hundred and eighty children between five and fifteen years of age, hut 1,200 have been enrolled in either public or private schools, and the average daily attendance in the public schools is only 360." Probably no other city of the United States out- side of the former slave states can show in the past forty years so remarkable a change of opinion in regard to the public schools as can Los Angeles. That the extracts from the Los Angeles Daily News previously given reflected the sentiment of a considerable proportion of the city's population in regard to the public schools is evidenced by the statistics of school attend- ance. The enrollment in the public schools in 1865 was only thirty-three per cent of the census children, while the enrollment in the private schools was thirty per cent. The average daily attendance of the private schools was nearly fifty per cent greater than that of the public schools. In 1905, forty years later, the enroll- ment in the public schools exceeded eighty-five per cent of the number of census children, while the enrollment in private schools had fallen be- low seven per cent. Immigration, a more en- lightened public sentiment and the mollifying of sectional hatreds are largely responsible for the change. About 1880 the separate schools ' for negro children were abolished and colored chil- dren were allowed to attend school with the whites. The following table gives the number of census children, enrollment, average daily at- tendance and number of teachers in the schools at different periods from 1855, when the first report was made, to 1906:
No. census
Av. Daily
Year
children Enrollment
At.
No. teachers
1855
753
150
52
3
1865
1,000
331
61
6
1870
1,780
750
360
8
1880
3,579
2,098
1,343
32
1890
10,843
8,115
6,841
18I
1895
20,679
16.719
11,798
377
1899
26,962
20,314
14,189
484
1900
30,354
21,640
15,156
500
1905
39,664
34,326
24,595
728
1906
44,143
36,264
.
1,050
The school census age on which apportion- ments of school moneys were made was between four and eighteen years from 1855 to 1865; from 1865 to 1870, five to fifteen years, and from 1870 to the present time, five to seventeen years. The last school census taken before the enlargement of the city by annexation was in 1895. A por- tion of the increase since then must be credited to the annexation of Vernon, Harmony, Uni- versity, Rosedale, Highland Park and Garvanza districts. In 1904 the city council let a contract to build a polytechnic high school building. A site had been secured on the south side of West Washington street between Grand avenue and Flower street. The contract price of the build- ing was $170,000. In addition to this the heating and lighting cost about $20,000 more. The building was ready for occupancy in September, 1905. The machinery plants were gradually in- stalled. The enrollment at the end of the first year numbered 1,061, the number of teachers employed twenty-three.
In 1903 a change was made in the city charter in regard to the board of education. The board since the adoption of the charter of 1889 con- sisted of nine members, one from each ward. This proved to be unsatisfactory. It usually re- sulted in the election of a partisan board, and politics to some extent figured in school affairs. The change made the board to consist of seven members elected from the city at large. The first election after the change in the charter re- sulted in the selection of a non-partisan board named by a committee of one hundred citizens. The members of this board were John D. Bick- nell, Charles Cassett Davis, J. M. Guinn, Joseph Scott, J. S. Slauson, W. J. Washburn and Em- met H. Wilson.
333
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
The board made a new departure in the method of calling an election for school bonds. For more than thirty years the city council called bond elections for the building of school houses, let the contracts and had the buildings erected. This divided responsibility was not satisfactory to school boards. In March, 1905, the school board called an election for the issuing of bonds to the amount of $780,000 under the provisions of the law for issuing school district bonds. There was scarcely any opposition to the bonds at the election, but to sell them it became neces- sary to obtain the opinion of Dillon & Hubbard, attorneys of New York, and experts on all ques- tions in regard to the validity of bonds. Several technical points had to be determined by the supreme court of the state. The validity of the bonds was established by the court, and here- after boards of education will call elections for school bond issues.
In 1906 twenty-one grammar and primary grade school buildings were erected, at a cost of $450,000 for sites and buildings. These have a seating capacity for 6,000 pupils. So rapid was the increase in the school population of the city in the years 1905-1906 that this great in- crease in school facilities proved inadequate, and temporary buildings had to be resorted to before the close of the year.
A high school annex to the classical high school is in course of construction and will be completed early in 1907. This building complete will cost $120,000. Bonds to the amount of $40,000 were voted in 1905 for the purchase of a site and the building and equipping of a parental home for the education and industrial training of truant school children. A site containing ten acres has been purchased and the erection of a building begun.
COUNTY SCHOOL REPORTS.
The first Los Angeles county school report that I have been able to find, and probably the first ever made, is that of County Superintendent J. F. Burns for the school year ending October 31, 1855.
It is as follows :
Total number of schools in the county. . 6
Total number of teachers
Total number of children 9
school attending
Whole number of days taught 399
Average daily attendance
I34
Total number of census children between 4 and 18 years 1,522
Amount paid teachers by trustees $1,276
Amount paid teachers by patrons 766
Total teachers' wages $2,042
Amount spent for building and pur- chasing school houses $ 8,230.75
Total amount expended on schools of
the county $10,272.75
Report for the school year ending October 31, 1860:
Number of schools in the county (3 gram-
mar, 4 primary )
7
Number of teachers (6 male, 5 female) . II
Total number of pupils enrolled 460
Average daily attendance 140
Total number of census children between
4 and 18 years 2,343
Paid for teachers salaries $4,827
Value of school houses built
7,000
Total amount expended on schools during year
$11,827
The following table gives the number of cen- sus children enrollment and the number of teachers employed at different periods between 1866 and 1906 in the schools of the county :
Year
No. Census Children.
Enrollment
Enrollment
Private Schools
No. Teachers
Public Schools
1866
2,445
581
424
14
1869
4,424
1,344
534
28
1876
9.319
5,469
8.29
86
1880
10,602
6,055
572
130
1885
15.130
11,368
1,031
211
1800
23,390
19,068
1,829
391
1895
33,729
25,450
. .
....
839
1905
07.875
55,116
4,223
1.431
1906
75.924
61,827
4,399
1,614
The censiis age from 1866 to 1876 was be- tween five and fifteen years. From 1876 to date, between five and seventeen years.
In 1889 the formation of Orange county from
600
1900
47.227
32.396
Public Schools
830
334
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the southeastern part of Los Angeles took away from the latter county 4,095 census children, 31 districts and 72 teachers.
NAME AND LOCATION OF THE HIGH SCHOOLS OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.
Alhambra, Bonita (Lordsburg), . Citrus (Azusa), Compton, Covina, El Monte, Ex-
celsior (Norwalk), Glendale, Hollywood, Ingle- wood, Jewel (Gardena), Long Beach, Los An- geles, Los Angeles Polytechnic, Los Nietos Val- ley (Downey), Monrovia, Pasadena, Pomona, Redondo, San Fernando (Fernando), San Pedro, Santa Monica, South Pasadena, Pasadena, Whit- tier, Wilmington.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
POSTAL SERVICE OF LOS ANGELES.
T HE postal service of California when it was a Spanish province was entirely un- der military rule. The carrying of official orders and proclamations necessitated the es- tablishment of a. mail system. Soldier couriers made semi-monthly trips between Monterey, the capital, and Loreto, near Cape St. Lucus. From there the mail was taken across the Gulf of Cali- fornia by sailing vessels to La Paz and forward- ed to the City of Mexico. There was a regular schedule of the day and the hour of the courier's arrival and departure at cach mission and presidio. An hour's stop was allowed the courier at each station. The habilitados (paymasters) acted as postmasters at the presidios, and received eight per cent of the gross receipts for their com- pensation. At the pueblos the alcalde, or some officer detailed to act as administrador de cor- reos (postmaster) received and distributed the small packages of mail. The compensation for his services was small. It did not require much of a political pull to get a postoffice in those days. It would be interesting to know the amount of revenue derived from the Los Angeles postoffice a hundred years ago. As there were not more than half a dozen of the two hundred inhabitants of the pueblo that could read and write at that time, the revenue of "La casa รณ administracion de correos la estafeta" (postoffice) was not large. and it is probable that there were not many as- pirants for the position of postmaster of Los Angeles a century ago.
Under Mexican rule the increased number of vessels plying between Mexican and Californian ports did away to a certain extent with the carry-
ing of mail by land, still the old route overland to Loreto and across the gulf by vessel to San Blas was kept open. A shorter route by way of Sonora and the Colorado river was used when the Indians would allow it. I find in the old pueblo archives an order from Acting Governor Jimeno, dated August 24, 1839, authorizing the prefect of Los Angeles to appoint three col- lectors of duties, the revenues derived from such collection to be applied to the establishing of a monthly postal service to Lower California and thence to Mexico.
News from the outside world traveled slowly in those days. An American pioneer at Los An- geles notes in his diary the receipt of the news of the death of President W. H. Harrison in 184I. It took the news three months and twen- ty days to reach California. A newspaper from the States a year old was fresh and entertaining when Dana was hide droghing at San Pedro in 1835.
After the American conquest of California the military authorities established a regular serv- ice between San Francisco and San Diego. Sol- dier carriers, starting from each end of the route, met at Dana's rancho near San Luis Obis- po, and, exchanging mail pouches there, each then returned to his starting point. It took a fortnight for them to go and return. The fol- lowing extract from an "Act to establish certain post routes" is the first legislation by Congress to give California a mail service :
SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the Postmaster-General be and is hereby authorized, to establish Postoffices, and appoint deputy post-
335
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
masters at San Diego, Monterey and San Fran- cisco, and such other places on the coast of the Pacific, in California, within the territory of the United States, and to make such temporary ar- rangements for the transportation of the mail in said territory as the public interest may re- quire; that all letters conveyed to or from any of the above-mentioned places on the Pacific, from or to any place on the Atlantic coast shall be charged with forty cents postage; that all let- ters conveyed from one to any other of the said places on the Pacific shall pay twelve and a half cents postage; and the Postmaster-General is authorized to apply any moneys received on account of postage aforesaid to the payments to be made on the contracts for the transportation of the mails in the Pacific ocean ; and the Postmaster-General is further au- thorized to employ not exceeding two agents in making arrangements for the establishment of postoffices, and for the transmission, receipt and conveyance of letters in Oregon and California, at an annual compensation not exceeding that of the principal clerks in the Postoffice Department. Approved, August 14, 1848.
After the soldiers were discharged in the lat- ter part of 1848, a semi-monthly, or perhaps it might be more in accordance with the facts to say a semi-occasional, mail service was estab- lished between San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. The mail was carried by sailing ves- sels (there were no steamers on the coast then). Wind and weather permitting, a letter might reach its destination in three or four days, but with the elements against it, it might be delayed a fortnight. Masters and supercargoes of ves- sels took charge of letters and delivered them to the owners or agents of some shipping house at the port, and in some way the letters reached their destination. This mail service was not es- tablished by the government.
There was no stage line for conveying pas- sengers or mails from the embarcadero of San Pedro to Los Angeles previous to 1851. Before that time a caballada (band of horses) was kept in pasture at the landing. When a vessel was sighted in the offing the mustangs were round- ed up, driven into a corral, lassoed, saddled and bridled, and were ready for the conveyance of passengers to the city as soon as they came ashore. As the horses were half-broken broncos and the passengers were mostly newcomers from the States, unused to the tricks of bucking mus-
tangs, the trip generally ended in the passenger arriving in the city on foot, the bronco having landed him at some point most convenient to him-the bronco-not the passenger.
In 1849 Wilson & Packard, whose store was on Main street where the United States Bank now stands, were the custodians of the letters for Los Angeles. A tub stood on the end of a counter. Into this the letters were dumped. Any one expecting a letter was at liberty to sort over the contents of the tub and take away his mail. The office, or rather the postoffice tub, was conducted on an automatic free delivery sys- tem. Col. John O. Wheeler, who had clerked for the firm in 1849, bought out the business in 1850 and continued the "Tale of a Tub," that is, continued to receive the letters and other literary contents of the mail bags and dump them into the tub. There was no regularly established postoffice, and, of course, no postmaster. An officious postal agent of San Francisco found fault with the tub postoffice and the free and easy delivery system. The colonel, who had been accommodating the public free of charge, told the agent to take his postal matter else- where.
The first postoffice in California established under American rule was that of San Francisco, established November 9, 1848. The postoffice at Los Angeles was established April 9, 1850; J. Pugh was the first postmaster. The second was W. T. B. Sanford, appointed November 6, 1851. The third was Dr. William B. Osburn, appoint- ed October 12, 1853. James S. Waite was ap- pointed November 1, 1855; J. D. Woodworth, May 19, 1858; Thomas J. White, May 9, 1860; William G. Still, June 8, 1861 ; Francisco P. Ramirez, October 22, 1864; Russell Sackett, May 5. 1865 : George J. Clarke, June 25, 1866; H. K. W. Bent, February 14, 1873; Col. Isaac R. Dunkelberger, February 14, 1877; John W. Green, February 14, 1885. Green was succeeded by E. A. Preuss, who was succeeded in turn by Green. Green died in office and H. V. Van Dusen completed the term. Gen. John R. Mathews was appointed December 20, 1895, who was succeeded by Lewis A. Groff, March I, 1900. The present postmaster, M. H. Flint, took charge of the office March 1, 1904.
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