USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Farmington > History of New Britain, with sketches of Farmington and Berlin, Connecticut. 1640-1889 > Part 19
USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Berlin > History of New Britain, with sketches of Farmington and Berlin, Connecticut. 1640-1889 > Part 19
USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > New Britain > History of New Britain, with sketches of Farmington and Berlin, Connecticut. 1640-1889 > Part 19
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When the New Britain School Society was organized in 1796 it included four school districts - the East with a school house on East Street, the West embracing Main Street and all of the society west of it from Dublin Hill to the Kensing- ton line, the northwest extending from Dublin Hill to Farm- ington, and Stanley Quarter, in the northeast part of the society. In 1803, at the annual meeting of the school society, it was voted that the committee " might spend one hundred dollars in each district for schooling." This was thought to be a very liberal appropriation at that time, but in 1805, in consideration of an increase in the number of children, the
* Portions of highways had been sold or granted to individuals previous to 1784. At a town meeting held in Farmington December 27th of that year, it was voted to make sale of the highways not necessary for public use, and to apply the avails to defray the expense of the schools in each society. The parish of New Britain appointed Col. Gad Stanley, David Mather, Lemuel Hotchkiss, and Jonathan Belden to make such sale. They sold from the highways of this parish land deemed unnecessary for travel, to the amount of £963 12s. 9d. besides ex- pense of selling, and this sum was set aside as the society school fund.
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amount was increased to one hundred and twenty-five dol- lars for each district. In 1807 the West district was divided, the portion set off agreeing to build a school-house without expense to the town. For twenty-five years afterwards the public schools were maintained in these five districts, being generally taught by men in the winter term, and by women in the summer season. In 1832 the Northeast, or Stanley Quarter district, was divided, and a new district formed, the Sixth or Shipman district. Two years later, or in 1834, the Middle district was divided by a line running east and west, coinciding with the South side of the Methodist church on Walnut Street. One of the school-houses was located on the South Green, and the other at the corner of West Main Street and Washington Street on a lot now owned and occupied by St. Mark's Episcopal Church. In 1838 a new district was formed from the North Middle district, called the Ledge dis- trict, and a school house built on Elm Street, near a ledge of rocks, at the intersection of East Main Street and Elm Street.
After the organization of the Society of New Britain in 1754, there were four "squaddams" or districts left in the Kensington parislı. On the organization of the Worthington Society in 1772, a part of these districts were included in the latter society. When Berlin was incorporated as a town in 1785, the addition of a portion of Middletown and of Wethersfield increased the number of districts and schools in the Worthington parish. The growth of this parish and that of Kensington was less rapid than in New Britain, but in 1838 Kensington had three school districts and Wor- thington five, or both together the same as New Britain. In the enumeration of children between four and sixteen, there were at that time 190 in Kensington, 416 in New Britain, and 321 in Worthington, or 927 in the whole town of Berlin.
The schools of the last century and the first quarter of this were unlike the schools of the present day. The earlier school-houses were generally unpainted buildings of the simplest form, often showing the marks of time and the
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action of the elements in their brown exterior, loose clap- boards, and general dilapidated appearance. The school- room was sometimes entered directly from the street, but more commonly a narrow entry on one end of the building, which served both as clothes-room and a place for storing wood and ashes, was also the hall-way of the school-room. The latter was usually nearly square, with a fire-place on one side. The writing-desks consisted of pine or oak boards, fastened to the walls of the room and supported by braces. About six inches of the back part of the desk was level, the remainder was inclined an inch or more to the foot, and its front edge was the support for the back of the pupils when facing the teacher. The seats were benches as long as the desks, or nearly the length of the room, often constructed of slabs, supported on wooden legs. When writing, and gen- erally in study, the children occupying these seats faced the wall, with their backs to the teacher ; when reading or recit- ing a lesson, the reverse. The younger pupils sat on lower benches nearer the center of the room ; these were without backs, and frequently so high that the feet of the children did not touch the floor. In cold weather the huge fire-place was filled with wood, making it uncomfortably warm for those near it, while the temperature of some parts of the room might be near the freezing point.
Though the school-houses were rude structures, they were nearly as good as many of the dwelling-houses. The chil- dren were not accustomed to luxury. They came to the school on a cold winter morning with the ruddy glow of health and exercise. The larger boys had fed the cattle and sheep, and the girls had milked the cows and made the beds in rooms never warmed by artificial heat. On Sunday they sat in the old meeting-house, which never had fire-place or stove, and they did not mind the whistling of the wind through the crevices of the school-house. In extreme cold weather they were sometimes allowed to "go to the fire," that the snow might melt from their clothes while they obtained a little warmth for their benumbed hands.
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In the earlier schools the only branches pursued were reading, spelling, writing, and sometimes a little arithmetic. In the ordinary district school there would be a half-dozen or more classes in reading and spelling ; and the usual routine was for the first or oldest class to read around in the Testa- ment as the first exercise of the morning; then the second class, and so in order to the lowest or A B C children. When all had read, or about the middle of the forenoon, there would be a recess, first of the girls and then of the boys, or vice versa. Then the recitations proceeded in inverse order, from the alphabet children to the oldest class in spelling, which completed the morning exercises.
In the afternoon a similar routine was followed, except that the reading book, filled with extracts from the orations of British statesmen and excerpts from standard authors, took the place of the Testament in the higher classes. The first class, and sometimes the second, had permission to write. The writing-book consisted of coarse, unruled foolscap paper, from one sheet to half a quire, folded in the shape of a writing-book and covered with stiff, brown paper by mothers at home. For ruling lines, each boy had a plummet, formed from running melted lead into a suitable mold. The pens were made from goose quills, and, with most of the pupils, required frequent mending. In one school, a boy who was very near-sighted, was permitted to study a little of arithmetic, as he could not see to work his examples at the evening arithmetic school. But this was an excep- tion, as it was supposed that this branch would interfere with the pursuit of the common English branches of reading, spelling, and writing.
The schools of New Britain and Kensington, including what was afterwards the Worthington parish, were favored by having some of the most intelligent young people of these parishes for their teachers. The best educated farmers, who worked upon the farms through the summer, after the crops were harvested would teach the winter school, as a matter of duty, as well as for the emolument. Lawyers and physicians were also to be found among the carly teachers.
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Mrs. Emma Willard, in describing the early schools of these parishes, says :
"There was also competition for the summer schools among the . young women of the best families, and it was no inconsiderable honor to a young lady to be invited to take the school, much more to keep it - and to keep it well."
The men who belonged in the place generally boarded at home, and some of the young women did the same. A few teachers from other towns " boarded around" with the fami- lies who sent to school, remaining a few days with each family, but this custom was never as prevalent in these parishes as in some other parts of the State.
Among the early teachers of the district schools were David Mather, the first selectman appointed in the old town of Berlin ; Gen. John Paterson, a graduate of Yale College, member of the first and second Continental congresses, gen- eral in the war of the revolution, and afterwards a member of the United States congress; Rev. Timothy Langdon, graduate of Yale ; Dr. Adna Stanley, also a Yale graduate, Dr. John Andrews, James G. Percival ; and among the women, Mary Smalley, daughter of Dr. Smalley ; Emma Hart, afterwards Mrs. Emma Willard ; her sister, Almira Hart, who became Mrs. Almira Lincoln Phelps, and others who had a national reputation, and left their impress upon the schools which they taught.
In these early schools, the influence of the teacher was often felt over a whole parish. Each school district was a neighborhood, somewhat like a larger family, where each person possessing a knowledge of the affairs of others, and meeting them on a common footing, would contribute to the welfare of all. The teacher, often one of the most intelli- gent and honored persons in the district, become naturally the leader, and by an acquaintance with each family, had an intimate knowledge of the home-life of the children. When to this was added a quick sympathy with them and with all the young people, in their plans and actions, the teachers were able to inspire many to high purpose, and
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to develop those intellectual and moral traits which make noble character and which distinguished so many of the early citizens who were educated in these schools.
Changes in the school laws made between 1794 and 1798, the establishment of the School Fund in 1795, and the first apportionment of the income from it in 1799, had tended to awaken a new interest in Common Schools. The care and management of schools had at that time passed entirely under the control of the school societies, but in the three societies of Berlin the pastors of the churches were continued as school visitors, and had the power of directing the measures adopted for school improvement. Arithmetic had become an accepted study in most of the day schools, and some improvement had been made in teaching before 1800.
In the summer of 1804, Emma Hart taught in a little school-house within the precincts of a mulberry grove on Worthington Street. This school, then the central school of Berlin, was, perhaps, a representative school of the town. Miss Hart's first day's experience in it, in her own words, is as follows :
"I began my work by trying to discover the several capacities and degrees of advancement of the children, so as to arrange them into classes ; but they having been, under my predecessor, accustomed to the greatest license, would, at their option, go to the street door to look at a passing carriage, or stepping on to a bench in the rear, dash out of a window, and take a lively turn in the Mulberry grove. Talking did no good. Reason- ing and pathetic appeals were unavailing. At noon, I explained this first great perplexity of my teacher life to my friend Mrs. Peck, who decidedly advised sound and summary chastisement. 'I cannot,' I replied ; 'I never struck a child in my life.' 'It is,' she said, 'the only way and you must.' I left her for the afternoon school with a heavy heart, still hoping I might find some way of avoiding what I could not deliberately resolve to do. I found the school a scene of uproar and confusion which I vainly endeavored to quell .. Just then Jesse Peck, my friend's little son, entered with a bundle of nice rods. As he laid them on the table before me, my courage rose, and in the temporary silence which ensued I laid down a few laws, the breaking of which would be followed with immediate chastisement. For a few moments the children were silent, but they had been used to threatening, and soon, a boy rose from his seat, and, as he was stepping to the door, I took one of the sticks and gave him a moderate
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flogging ; then with a grip upon his arm which made him feel that I was in earnest, put him into his seat."
She then exhorted the children to be good, etc., but in- formed them that she must and would have their obedience. But she says :
" The children still lacked faith in my words, and I spent most of the afternoon in alternate whippings and exhortations, the former always in- creasing in intensity, until at last, the children submitted, and, this was the last of corporal punishment in that school."
Miss Hart was only seventeen years old, but her tact and enthusiasm gave her such signal success that the school soon became distinguished in that neighborhood. The next sum- mer she had a select school of the older boys and girls, in an upper room of her father's house on the old road, or West Street, Berlin. Her success was so marked, especially in the management of children, that she was employed the follow- ing winter "to keep the winter school" in the Southwest district, Kensington. It was a great innovation then for a woman to be placed in charge of a winter school, but Miss Hart was successful in this, as in her other efforts, and her work gave a new impulse to education in Berlin. Miss Almira Hart, afterwards the renowned authoress and teacher, Mrs. Phelps, a younger sister of Mrs. Willard, a few years later, both in Kensington and New Britain, did much to raise the standard of education and improve the Common Schools, by her enthusiasm and skill in teaching. In 1813 she was principal of the academy in Berlin, where the progress of scholars from New Britain was such that she was invited to teach in the latter parish. She taught a select school for a time on Main Street, and was afterwards induced to teach the district school in the Center district, and still later to teach a similar school in Hart Quarter.
The formation of new districts in the New Britain Society between 1832 and 1838, and in some cases the erection of new school-houses, seemed to awaken a new interest in Common Schools. Efforts were made to secure competent teachers, and the local interest excited resulted in frequent
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visits to schools by parents and others. It was about this time, or in the winter of 1838-39, that in the parish of New Britain four thousand dollars was subscribed towards establishing a County Seminary for the education and train- ing of teachers for Common Schools .*
The next winter, 1839-40, Mrs. Emma Willard, who had been absent from her native State more than thirty years, and had won a national reputation by her work in Westfield, Mass., in Middlebury, Vt., in Waterford, N. Y., but more especially as the founder and principal of the Troy Female Seminary, returned to her home on a visit, and being invited by the school committee and by vote of the electors of Ken- sington to take the oversight of the Common Schools of that place, she did so. For months she devoted her entire energies to the four schools of the parish. On alternate Saturdays she met the four teachers and others, and gave them instruc- tion in methods and in some of the higher studies. On the tenth of September a public examination of the four schools was held in the church, which was crowded not only with people from the different parishes of the town, but with visitors from other parts of Connecticut and from other States. ¡ . Hon. Henry Barnard, LL.D., then Secretary of the Board of Commissioners of Common Schools, had co- operated with Mrs. Willard in this work, often visiting the schools with her, attending the public examination, and re- porting the result of the experiment to the Board of Com- missioners and to the General Assembly.
A Common School Association was formed in Kensing- ton, which held semi-monthly meetings through the winter of 1839-40, and did much to awaken the interest which secured the call of Mrs. Willard, and so fully sustained her in her work. At this time, 1840, probably no town or parish in the State had better schools or a livelier interest in educa- tion than Kensington. The Worthington parish, and, to
* This was one of the earliest movements of the kind in America.
t At this examination the exercises at the church were continued with un- abated interest from nine o'clock in the morning to half-past six in the after- noon, with one hour's intermission.
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some extent, New Britain, participated in the interest and in the advance made in Common Schools.
In New Britain, where the School Society had been divided into so many small districts, it was seen, in a few years, that the sub-division was a disadvantage to the schools ; they gradually deteriorated in character, and private schools were established to provide better instruction for those who were willing to support them.
In 1846 and 1847, several attempts were made by the friends of education to improve the character of Common Schools. In the latter year, a special committee, consisting of Rev. S. Rockwell, Rev. C. S. Sherman, Rev. W. P. Patter- son, Noah W. Stanley, C. W. Baldwin, Walter Gladwin, F. T. Stanley, Marcellus Clark, and Hezekiah Griswold, was appointed to consider the subject and report a plan for the improvement of the Common Schools. The committee, after several conferences and careful investigation, at an adjourned meeting held Nov. 27, 1847, made an extended report, in which the establishment of a High School and the adoption of measures for the improvement of the district schools were recommended. The report was accepted, and a committee of nine, consisting principally of the members of the former committee, was appointed to carry the proposed measures into effect, but at a meeting held January 15, 1848, the whole matter was indefinitely postponed.
This action was a great disappointment to the friends of school improvement, and their next recourse was to the General Assembly, which was considering the question of establishing a State Normal School, withi Model and Prac- tice schools. This act establishing such schools was finally passed in 1849. Soon after the passage of the act, New Britain offered to provide a suituable building, apparatus, and library, and to place all the schools of the village under the management of the Principal of the Normal School and model schools as schools of practice. This offer was accepted by the trustees of the Normal School in February, 1850.
To provide for the new arrangement, a part of the plan
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proposed by the special committee in 1847 was adopted, and the First, Second, and Eighth districts were consolidated into one school district, known as the First, or Central district. A system of graded schools was organized, consisting of a High School, an Intermediate School, and four Primary Schools. As soon as the Normal School building could be prepared, the High School was opened in that building in the present Grammar School room, the Intermediate and one Primary in the basement, and three of the Primary Schools were taught in the old district school buildings. The consolidation of the districts and the gradation of the schools resulted in a largely increased attendance, which was undoubtedly augmented by the fact that the schools in the Central district were made free. Temporary rooms for a part of the pupils were secured in the basements of two of the churches, but as soon as the east wing of the Normal building was completed, the Intermediate and one Primary School were transferred to that building, and the High School room was enlarged to provide seats for three hundred stu- dents.
There were, in 1850, 671 children between the ages of four and sixteen in the New Britain School Society, of whom about 400 were in the Central district, and nearly all were in the schools. Pupils from other districts and from other school societies were also received upon the payment of a small tuition fee. The. schools were all placed under the charge and general supervision of the Associate Prin- cipal of the Normal School, and the following teachers were employed in the public schools : High School, Rev. J. M. Guion, Rebecca B. Smith, and Mary Andrews ; Intermediate, Ellen S. Cornwell and Ellen Andrews; Primary schools, Misses L. Dowd, A. J. Goodrich, and S. Dickinson.
The action of the Central district in establishing a system of free graded schools was in advance of most places in the State. The free High School was scarcely known in Connecticut when the New Britain High School was established, and the public schools of the State were not
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HISTORY OF NEW BRITAIN, ETC.
generally free, until nearly twenty years after the Central district had decreed that its schools should be entirely free to all within its limits.
Mr. Guion remained principal of the High School until September, 1852. On the opening of the autumn term, no principal had been appointed for the High School, and David N. Camp, then a teacher in the Normal School, had charge of the High School during the autumn and a part of the winter term. In the autumn of 1852 the High School room was divided by placing a partition across the room near its center, and in the east, or rear portion of the room, the. Grammar School was organized and placed in charge of C. Goodwin Clark, for many years a teacher in Boston.
In December, John D. Philbrick, of Boston, was appointed Associate Principal of the Normal School. He was then in charge of the Quincy School, but in a few weeks he came to New Britain, and passed much of the time in the High School until the appointment of Moses T. Brown as Prin- cipal, April 11, 1853. Mr. Brown remained through the spring and summer, but resigned to teach in New Haven, and was succeeded by J. W. Tuck, who was Principal until 1857. His successor, Rev. Charles Wheeler, filled the posi- tion until 1858. J. N. Bartlett was then called to the place, and remained in charge until his appointment as Associate Principal of the Normal School in 1864. J. R. Creevy then became Principal, and the next year was succeeded by J. H. Peck, who has been Principal of the High School from 1865 to the present time. In 1885 Lincoln A. Rogers was appointed assistant, taking the department of natural science. The other teachers of the High School in 1889 were Annie G. Bartlett, Mary E. Welles, and Mary E. Edwards.
After Mr. Clark retired from the Grammar School it was placed under the charge of Miss A. Augusta Thompson. Her successors have been Jane L. Thomas, Mary V. Lee, Kezia A. Peck, Susan Martyn, and Lucy G. Angell. The latter, in 1889, was assisted by Grace M. Langdon and Mary J. Hanna. Mary L. Hale was then in charge of the Inter-
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mediate, and Clara M. Vile of the Primary School in the High school building, and E. K. Christ was teacher of draw- ing, writing, and German.
On the completion of the building for the Normal and Model Schools, the outside schools in the Central district were given up, and the children attended school at the Nor- mal building, and in rooms opened in the basement of one of the churches. The increase in population and in the number of children led to the erection of the Rockwell school- house on South Main Street in 1867. In 1869, a new school- house was erected in the sixth district to take the place of one burned a few months before. The large Burritt School building completed and opened in 1871, so increased the school accommodations of the town that at that time ample room was provided for all who attended school.
At a town meeting held October 13, 1873, the districts of the town were consolidated into one school district, and the schools placed under control of the town. A school com- mittee of twelve persons appointed by the town has had charge of the schools since the consolidation. This committee has appointed as Acting School Visitors, Charles Northend, 1873- 1880, H. E. Sawyer, 1880-1882, J. N. Bartlett and John Walsh since 1883. Mr. Northend and Mr. Bartlett were superintendents.
In 1875-76 a new building with four school-rooms was erected in the south part of the city ; in 1877-78, one to ac- commodate 220 pupils in the southeast part; in 1880 one with accommodations for 420 at the corner of Grove and Broad streets, and in 1883 a building with seating capacity for 250 children was erected in the west part of the city, on Lincoln Street. In 1889 the principals of these schools and others were:
Burritt School, Mary J. Brown ; Rockwell School, Carrie E. Wil- cox ; Northend School, Rachel H. Fales ; Smith School, Mary J. Tormay ; Bartlett School, Jane E. Barnes ; Lincoln School, Mary A. McArdle ; Osgood Hill School, Hannah C. Maloney ; Shipman School, Kate F. Rus- sell ; Stanley Quarter, Mary Blake.
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