USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and its people, Vol. I > Part 42
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CITY SCHOOL HISTORY.
Under the consolidation act of 1886 by which the eities at the month of the Kaw river were formed as one eity under the name of Kansas City, Kansas, the schools of the eity were organized with an enrolment of 3,643 pupils and a teaching foree of 56 teachers. At the (Jose of the school year 1909-10 the enrolment was 13,951. At the time this work goes to press the enrolment is over 14,000. The public schools of that city as they exist today are the result of twenty-five years of growth and development. It would doubtless be a surprise, if not a complete revelation, to the patrons and taxpayers of that eity
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if they would take the opportunity to visit for a day their schools and school buildings.
The schools, teachers and buildings that are held in fond reeollec- tion by the adult population of the city today are no more to be found. Twenty-five years have made a great change in life and the form and manner of living. That period has made even a greater change in the methods of instruction, the course of study and the comfortable housing of the city schools. The schools of a quarter of a century ago were good schools. They were very simple in their course of study, were comparatively inexpensive and in a very large measure fulfilled the needs of the times. At the present time, in all the addi- tional subjects of the course, music, drawing, language, literature, ad- vanced mathematics, natural and physical sciences, commereial branches, manual training, domestie seience, domestic art, physical culture, ethical instruction, medical inspection and compulsory atten- dance, the daily program in a cross section reveals all the important and necessary factors in the social, commercial and industrial life of the city.
COST OF THE SCHOOLS.
A good, modern school system costs a great deal of money. It is a heavy investment by the taxpayers of the city-an investment in the lives of the boys and girls who are to be the men and women of to- morrow. In 1886 the cost per pupil enrolled in the city schools was $11.40 per year. In 19I0, the cost per pupil was $24.06. In 1886 the maximum yearly salary paid for grade teachers was $440; the maximum yearly salary in 1910 was $720. The maximum yearly salary for high school teachers, in 1886, was $720; at the present time it is $1,395. In 1886 the expense of operating the schools was $41,533; in 1910. $318,267.71. In 1886 the average number of pupils per teacher, based on enrolment, was 66; at the close of 1910 the average number of pupils per teacher was 40. In 1886, 55 teachers were employed; at the present time, 402.
The first annual report of the schools of Kansas City, Kansas, gives the names of six teachers who at the present time are on the teaching force of the city. They are Lillie Babbitt, Lizzie Collins, Sadie Par- sons, Kate Daniels, J. J. Lewis and M. E. Pearson. The only janitor remaining in the service is W. A. Maffitt, now of the Whittier school, then a janitor of the Wood, and now known as the Cooper school. In the twenty-five years, Kansas City, Kansas, has five superintendents of schools-John W. Ferguson, four years; Arvin S. Olin, three years ; L. L. Hanks, five years; L. E. Wolfe, four years; M. E. Pearson, the present incumbent, nine years.
The High School was organized in the Riverview school building in 1886, with Dr. John Wherrell, principal. Two years later it was
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moved to the Palmer Academy building at the corner of Seventh and Ann. This is now known as the Central School building. In the fall of 1899 the High School was taken to its present location, Ninth and Minnesota avenue. The first principal was Dr. John Wherrell, followed in order by Eugene A. Meade. George E. Rose, W. C. Me- Croskey, J. M. Winslow and II. L. Miller, the present ineumbent. In twenty-four years 1,219 have graduated from this school.
Sumner High School (col.) was organized in 1905, with JJ. E. Patterson. who served three years, as its first principal. .J. M. Mar- qness, the second principal and the present inenmbent, is now serving his third year.
Argentine High School, with a very efficient organization, became a part of the Kansas City school system following the annexation of Argentine, January 1, 1910. F. D. Traey was elected principal to sneceed Minnie J. Oliverson, who was transferred to the Kansas City High School.
SCHOOL OFFICERS.
Kansas City, Kansas, now has forty schools; in 1886 there were only nine. The following have served as presidents of the Board of Education : J. M. Squires, Jos. H. Gadd, Thos. W. Heatley, W. E. Barnhart, Alfred Weston, Thos. J. White, B. A. Spake, Dr. E. D. Williams and Dr. J. A. Fulton, the present incumbent. The first clerk was Jesse D. Jaquith, followed in order by J. P. Root, M. G. Jones, F. G. Horseman and W. A. Seymour, the present incumbent. Those who have served as members of the Board of Education sinee 1886 are as follows: J. M. Squires, S. W. Day, W. G. Mead, W. J. Brous, Jas. F. Nettleton. J. P. Northrup, E. P. Godsill, Benj. Franklin. Jas. Gibson, W. S. Beard, Chas. Shipley, J. S. Perkins, Joseph Gadd, William Tennell, George Loomis, B. L. Short, E. G. Wright, C. Silene, Milton Underhill, William Smith, C. E. ITusted, F. H. Barker, II. M. Bacon, D. W. Austin, Jacob Stevens, William Thompson, W. S. Hanna, 1I. E. Smith, Thomas W. Heatley, Morrill Wells. Allen Chadwick, Wm. Fletcher, Harry Bell, A. W. Carfrae, Robert Campbell, W. E. Barn- hart, Alfred Weston, Ferman Westfall, E. E. Trowbridge, George N. Herron, James Fee, Sr., A. D. Gates, Chas. M. Bowles, George MeL. Miller, F. M. Campbell, W. R. Palmer, J. R. Richey, E. F. Taylor, T. J. White, Dr. E. D. Williams, B. A. Spake, David Friedman, W. E. Griffith, Dr. J. A. Fulton, U. A. Screechfield, W. R. Trotter and Grant S. Landrey.
THE CITY'S FORTY SCHOOL BUILDINGS.
There are now forty school buildings in Kansas City, Kansas, the aggregate value of school property being $1,392,716. The schools, the number of class rooms in each and their location, follows :
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Abbott, 12 Fifteenth St. and Troup Ave.
Argentine High,
8 Twenty-second St. and Ruby Ave.
Armourdale,
12 Fifth St. and Shawnee Ave.
Armstrong,
4 Eighth St. and Colorado Ave.
Baneroft,
8 Splitlog Ave., bet. Fifth and Sixth Sts.
Bruee,
2 Second St., bet. Ohio and Riverview Aves.
Bryant,
9 Seventeenth St. and Webster Ave.
Central,
11 Twenty-fifth St. and Wood Ave.
Chelsea,
6 First St., bet. Central and Lyons Aves.
Donglass,
4 Sixth St. and Rowland Ave.
Emerson,
8 Twenty-eighth St. and Metropolitan Ave.
Eugene Field,
8 Fourth St. and Parallel Ave.
Everett,
8 Everett Ave., bet. Fourth and Fifth Sts.
Franklin,
8 Holly Street and Metropolitan Ave.
Garrison,
1 346 S. Eighth St.
Grant,
1 Twenty-ninth St. and Nebraska Ave.
Greystone,
Hawthorne,
16 Waverly Ave., bet. Eleventh and Twelfth Sts.
Horace Mann,
11 State Ave., bet. Eighth and Ninth Sts.
Irving,
8 Riverview Ave., bet. Mill and Ninth Sts.
John Fiske,
12 Valley St. and Wyoming Ave.
Kerr,
4 3650 State Ave.
Lincoln,
4 Twenty-fourth St. and Strong Ave.
Longfellow,
13 Orville Ave., bet. Tenth and Eleventh Sts.
Morse,
4 Twenty-first St. and Muncie Blvd.
Park,
8 Twenty-fourth St. and Ohio Ave.
Phillips,
2 Third St. and Delaware Ave.
Prescott,
16 Thirteenth St. and Ridge Ave.
Quindaro,
6 Twenty-seventh St. and Farrow Ave.
Riverview.
12 Seventh St. and Pacifie Ave.
Stanley,
4 Thirty-eighth St. and Metropolitan Ave.
Stowe,
8 Second St. and Virginia Ave.
Sumner High.
18 Ninth St. and Washington Blvd.
Whittier,
5 Boeke St. and Gilmore Ave.
No. 33,
2 Seventh St. and Shawnee Road.
Lowell,
16 Baltimore St. and Miami Ave.
Oakland,
4 Hudson St. and Abbie Ave.
High.
56 Ninth St. and Minnesota Ave.
Cooper,
12 Washington Blvd., bet. Ninth and Tenth Sts.
Dunbar,
9 Seventh St. and Ann Ave.
NIGHT SCHOOLS.
Three years ago the superintendent of schools was asked to visit the night schools in a number of eastern and middle west cities. The matter was discussed before the women's elbs and the Mercantile Club had a number of patrons' meetings, and strong endorsement given, in pursuance of which steps were at once taken to inaugurate a practic- ał plan. At the beginning of the school year 1909-10, Principal H. C. Miller, of the High School, kindly offered his serviees without com- pensation to organize and manage a night school to be held in the Kansas City High School, Ninth and Minnesota avenue. Consent Vol. I-25
13 Sixth St. and Waverly Ave.
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HISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
was given by the Board of Education and a school was organized which, during the term, enrolled three hundred pupils. A tuition of two dollars per month was charged, eight teachers were employed who were paid two dollars per night. The success of the school was very grati- fying indeed.
At the present time the night school in the Kansas City High School has an enrolment of three hundred and fifty-five and eight teachers are employed. J. M. Marquess, principal of the Sumner High School (col.), early in the present year obtained permission to organize and maintain a night school in the Sumner High School building. The enrolment at the present time is one hundred and thirty-three, with six teachers employed. Tuition in these night schools is free to pupils under twenty-one years of age; twenty-one years of age and over, one dollar per month is charged. Classes have been organized in arithmetic, English, bookkeeping, penmanship, stenog. raphy, typewriting, Latin, German, French, manual training, sewing, physies and mechanical drawing. A large, enthusiastic elass of foreign- ers has been taught to read and write the English language.
The marked sueeess of the night sehool work gives rise to the hope that in time it may be extended and schools organized in many different parts of the city. Teachers from day schools have been employed to do the work of instruction.
HIGH SCHOOLS.
The city now has three well organized high schools. These schools are located in three well equipped buildings, all comparatively new and entirely modern. The enrolment in the Argentine High School at the close of the year 1909-10 was 174; Sumner High School (col.), 207; Kansas City High School, 1,035. The enrolment at the present time is: Argentine, 181; Sumner, 228; Kansas City, 1,060; total, 1,469. The total number of high school teachers employed at the present time is 60.
On the completion of the south wing of the Kansas City High School and the north wing of the Sumner High School during the year 1909-10 these buildings were made complete high school buildings. In laboratories, gymnasiums, work shops, art departments, libraries, elass rooms and office rooms they offer accommodations for all the various departments counted essential to the work of a first class high school and a well rounded modern course of study. An analysis of the enrolment of the three high schools shows the following: English, 1,252; mathematies, 1,037; Latin, 738; history, 401; free-hand drawing, 368; physical training, 318; physiography, 281; sewing, 243; penmanship, 188; German, 187; cooking, 172; public speaking, 172; physiology 158; physics, 138; woodworking, 136; typewriting, 116; chemistry, 104;
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HISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
mechanical drawing, 85; botany, 72; bookkeeping, 64; shorthand, 51; commercial geography, 45; civics, 44; economies, 36; psychology, 35; French, 34; commercial spelling, 32; zoology, 18; metal working, 18; Spanish, 14; Greek, 6.
MANUAL TRAINING AND INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.
Manual training is now organized for the sixth, seventh and eighth grades and the first, second, third and fourth years in high school. The high schools are equipped with benches, tools, lathes and forges and machinery for cabinet-making, wood-turning, pattern-making, forging and lathe and heavy metal working. In the grades are twelve shop center equipments.
There has been a great movement in education during recent years toward a more vital, tangible and practical form of instruction. As an expression of this, manual training is now an important factor in every important school system. At first the sole object of manual training was to teach the child to make something with tools. It is now considered more and more that manual training is designed chief- ly to bring the child into sympathy with the industrial side of life. Manual training has now taken its place along with other time-honored branches as being an educative process and includes more than the handling of tools. It is the wakening of the entire industrial side of life.
Industrial and vocational education begins where manual train- ing ends. While manual training should awaken the industrial side, it does not now appear that it should enter the vocational. It is now dawning upon those who are interested in the educational work and the industrial and vocational life in this country that our general school system lacks one school in order to be a complete system. This new school to complete our general system should not be a high school, should not be part of a high school, but should be a new institution into which the elementary schools lead the boys and girls who must enter industrial life. It must also be a real school in which all the educative processes of the mind are just as potent and active as in any other school, and just as the normal school is organized and devel- oped under the care and the sympathies of the teachers, the law school of the lawyers, the medical school of the doctors, so must this new industrial school be organized and breathed into life under the care and the sympathy of those who labor.
Kansas City, Kansas, is a great industrial center. What the city needs at the present time is not a larger number of professional men, but a greater number of industrial institutions and a greater number of skilled workers-workers trained in heart, head and hand for the home, civic and industrial life of that great, growing, manufacturing
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HISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
city. It appears that it is time for the laboring men, the manufac- turers, the professional men and the educators of Kansas City to get together in the discussion of the advisability of a great industrial school within its limits.
PLAY GROUNDS AND SCHOOL YARDS.
Beautiful, well-kept school yards enhance the value of school prop- erty, contribute to the use and the comfort and improve the neighbor- hood, and also exert an influence upon the lives of the boys and girls who attend the school.
People are awakening to the fact that more provision must be made for playgrounds. Schools must give more attention to organized play. The physical development of the child is now considered an important part of its education. No longer can the school assume that its work ends with mental development. It is now the whole child that goes to school. It is the whole child that is to be developed for its highest possibilities. The school ground, under the supervision of the teachers, in all seasons of the year. forms the best possible play- gronnd.
The physical welfare of 14,000 children and 366 teachers housed in forty different school buildings demands that the board give atten- tion to this matter.
WYANDOTTE COUNTY SCHOOLS.
The act of congress, approved January 28, 1861, admitting Kan- sas into the Union as a state. under the constitution. provided, among other things, that sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six in every township of publie lands in the state, and where either of these sections or any part thereof had been sold or otherwise disposed of, other lands, equivalent thereto and as contiguous as might be, should be granted to the state for the use of schools. But. as all the lands composing Wyandotte county were owned by the Indians under treaties with the United States, before they were surveyed and sectionized, it was not in the power of the government to set aside and donate the sections named for school purposes in this county.
As soon as the state was organized, the legislature passed a law providing for a free school system. This law has been amended to suit the times, and section 271 of the present school law reads as fol- lows: "For the purpose of affording the advantage of a free educa- tion to the children of the state, the annual school fund shall consist of the annual income from the interest and rents of the perpetual school fund as provided by the constitution of the state, and such sum as will be produced by the annual levy and assessment of one mill upon
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HISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
the dollar valuation of the taxable property of the state; and there is hereby levied and assessed annually the said one mill upon the dollar for the support of the common schools in the state, and the amount so levied and assessed shall be collected in the same manner as other state taxes."
The law further provides (Section 298) that "in all school dis- triets in the state in which there is a good and sufficient school build- ing, a school shall be maintained for a period of not less than four months between the first day of October and the first day of June, in each school year."
SCHOOL DISTRICTS ORGANIZED.
As soon as Wyandotte county was organized, its subdivision into school districts was begun and continued as the population increased, and necessity demanded, until it was wholly subdivided. Since the late of organization it has been foremost among the counties of Kansas in the education of its boys and girls. In all the years of its history there has not been a time when the superintendents of schools, intrusted with the direction of educational work, were unmindful of their obligation to permit nothing to stand in the way of educating the children. As evidence of the good record, the people can point with pride to three splendidly equipped county high schools outside of the city of Kansas City, Kansas, and distriet schools in which are employed the best teaching talent obtainable.
SCHOOL STATISTICS.
In 1911 Mr. H. G. Randall, who had been superintendent of the county schools four years, upon his retirement from the office, an- nounced the following as representing the Wyandotte county schools exclusive of those in Kansas City, Kansas: Number of publie schools, 32; number of teachers, 57; total enrolment in schools, 2,835; number of parochial schools, 7; number of teachers in parochial schools, 27; total enrolment in parochial schools, 1,227; average salary of men teachers in sehools with one teacher, $61; average of men teachers in schools with two or more teachers, $76; average salary women teachers in schools with one teacher, $48; average salary of women teachers in schools with two or more teachers, $51; average salary of men teachers in high schools, $117; average salary women teachers in high school, $68; total value of school property, $110,000; total assessed valuation of school districts with two or more teachers, $12,848,525. The total amount paid out for school purposes during the year 1909-10 was $51,652.41.
Rosedale, Bonner Springs, Edwardsville and Chelsea High Schools
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HISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
are operating under the Barnes County High School law and are free to all children in the county.
The superintendents of the Wyandotte county schools since the organization of the county have been: Dr. J. B. Wilborn, Dr. Fred Speek, Benjamin T. Mudge, Michael Hummer, E. T. Heisler, William W. Dickinson, L. C. Trickett, H. C. Whitloek, D. B. Hiatt, T. M. Slosson, Clarence J. Smith, E. F. Taylor, Fannie Reid Shusser, Melinda Clark, Charles E. Thompson, Henry Mead, H. G. Randall and George W. Phillips.
PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS.
There are seventeen Catholic parochial schools in Kansas City, Kansas, and seven schools in the county outside of the city. In all of these about 3,000 pupils are enrolled. St. Peter's High School, re- cently erected. is one of the finest institutions of the kind in the middle west.
THE CITY'S GREAT PUBLIC LIBRARY.
Notable among the institutions of the city that contribute to the welfare of its people is the public library of about 20,000 volumes, occupying the magnificent Carnegie building in the old Huron Park adjoining the historic burial ground of the Wyandot Indians. The building itself, erected in 1903 at a cost of $75,000, is a gift of Mr. Andrew Carnegie. It was designed by William W. Rose, erected un- der his special supervision, and is intended to meet the requirements of the city for many years to come. Yet it is not the building, or its splendid equipment, or its admirable adaptability to library uses, that causes the citizens to point to it with pride. It is the library itself, the books, and their uses, that make it dear to every man and woman and every boy and girl in Kansas City, Kansas.
A WOMAN ITS FOUNDER.
The library is a monument to a truly great and good woman, Mrs. Sarah A. Richart, whose thirty years of residence in this community were devoted to the educational uplift. and every page in every book on the shelves of the library is an eloquent testimony to the character of this noble woman. Herself a school teacher for many years, Mrs. Richart's active interest in everything pertaining to education in the community left a strong impress on those with whom she eame in contact. Always the friend of those in sickness or in trouble, the helpful adviser for the young, with whom she delighted to associate, many good and useful men and women today owe much of the best of themselves to her encouragement and inspiration she imparted to them. Many young teachers also went to her for advice and en-
HISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
391
DIEI
CARNEGIE LIBRARY, KANSAS CITY, KANSAS.
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HISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
couragement, and no one ever did so without receiving practical help in his work. She was for several years a member of the Wyandotte county board of examiners of teachers.
DOGS BOUGHT THE BOOKS.
Perhaps it was the interest in education that first turned her at- tention toward helping build up a public library in Kansas City, Kan- sas. More than any one person did she sacrifice for its upbuilding. To her ingenuity must be given the credit for a plan whereby the yellow eur, the lean, lank hound, the brindle bull dog, as well as the dainty poodle, could be put to such noble uses as to become an aid to education and literary culture. This happened nearly ten years ago, and this woman-the then president of the Federation of Clubs- evolved the plan.
The story has its humorons side. Perhaps the yellow, whining cur that made night hideous in Oakland avenue gave the Rubaiyat to the library. The brindle bull pup from Minnesota avenue may have contributed as his mite "Soldiers of Fortune." The Royeroft edition of the poets may have been purchased with the tax money of some Miami avenue dog. It has been said that every dog has his day, so in this instance every dog contributed something to the Public Library. For many months they did thus. The idea of making the dogs pay for the books, originated by Mrs. Richart, spread east, west, north and south. It was something new-the dog license revenue was a new source of income for libraries throughout the length and breadth of the land. Many were the letters received asking for the details of the plan, and many library and school officials took it up and made use of it.
CLUB WOMEN TOOK THE LEAD.
But the plan, when and how it started, and what it accomplished ! At this time, as is now the case, the women's clubs of the city were federated together into a central body. The extension of the work of this organization was the subject under discussion. There were two factions, as there is always likely to be, because of opinions and policies, where strong minds are contending. In this case one faetion wished to fit up a club room for women The other faction wished to use all the revenues available to build up the library, the nucleus of which had been formed by the efforts of the club women.
When it came to a vote the library faction won. Mrs. Richart was chosen first president of the Federation of Clubs, and since then that organization has stood as the standard of ethical eulture in Kan- sas City. Kansas. The library grew until it was too large an under- taking to be maintained on the slender revenues of the Federation.
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HISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
"We must have money," Mrs. Richart exclaimed with seriousness at one of the meetings.
The Kansas legislature declined to enact a law under which lib- rary revenue could be derived by taxation. Then it was that the howl of the dog suggested itself to this grand good woman.
"This city is overrun with dogs that pay no license," Mrs. Riehart told Mayor R. L. Marshman.
The mayor listened intently. The plan appealed to him. He had been having trouble with Bob Green, the negro dog cateher. IIe wanted to find a way out.
"I will colleet the dog tax for one-half of it, and turn the other half into the treasury," Mrs. Riehart suggested.
"What would we eall you?" the mayor asked with a puzzled look.
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