USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Newburyport > City Officers and the Annual Reports to the City Council of Newburyport 1876 > Part 7
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give to all such education as would enable them to read intelligently the Scriptures, and to gain a knowl- edge of the ordinary duties; then, secondly, to edu- cate religious teachers, who frequently filled not only the duties of a pastor, but those of the physician, the magistrate, and the law-giver. Thus Harvard Col- lege was a public school, and still has some super- vision and support from the State.
We have carried the original plan further than was the first design. We have not gone to the length of the European countries, and taken all the universities to the same extent under the control of the govern- ment; but we have given, in all the larger towns and cities, the opportunity, to every boy and girl, to be- come an accomplished scholar without cost to them- selves or to their parents, more than they would be obliged to pay if they do not avail themselves of the opportunities afforded them. The State educates in the High schools in a course more thorough and com- plete than that of the colleges of a century ago: in more varied studies, and in more thoroughly-explored science and literature.
There are two systems of public instruction pur- sued in our Commonwealth, but these are not so op- posed as the theories which prevail. Opinion is more diverse than practice. One of the most eminent edu- cators in the United States has proposed that a na- tional university be established; that all education be taken in hand by the national government and the state governments; and that a complete and thorough system of school training be organized by authority of the State, and that it be directly under its super- vision. On the other hand, the head of the oldest university, and the most distinguished, takes the op-
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posite ground from that of the youngest, and each represents a large class. The other opinion is that the people should be taxed for nothing more than to furnish the keys of knowledge; to teach them to read, to write, and to reckon in numbers, and to leave them there, with the means of opening every treasure hid- den away in the literature and science of the past in the books which abound. This, we are assured, is enough to protect society, and taxation for instruc- tion farther than that is an injustice.
Between these two there is every variety of opin- ion, very few holding that education should be entire- ly separated from the State, and that children should be allowed to grow up in utter ignorance of book knowledge, if they are so unfortunate as to have no parents, or, still worse, if they have parents who are themselves so ignorant or selfish as to refuse to avail themselves of the privileges afforded for the instruc- tion of their children. There is a proposition to have the public money which is appropriated for school purposes divided among religious sects, according to the theological belief of the parents, thus building up a permanent wall of separation between the sects, and strengthening the prejudices which are already too strong; giving the sanction of law to divisions which are naturally more marked than any intelligent and liberal mind could desire. This proposition is so re- pugnant to the American idea of the separation of Church and State that it cannot prevail, and every year will render its adoption less and less probable. In Massachusetts we have, as was said before, two systems of education, each a compromise between the · most simple and the most elaborate plans for public education. In the country there are no High schools,
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and in the cities there is a complete course from the alphabet to a thorough preparation for the classical college or the scientific school.
The arguments of those who propose to take all education under government control are, that as all are taxed for the support of schools, so all should have an cqual chance for a thorough and complete education. It is said that the poor boy should have the same opportunities to enter the professions, to gain all the knowledge which has been accumulated by the human race, as the rich man's child has: that religion should be taught in the schools-but not sec- tarian religion, since religion is the foundation of mo- rality, and is the sanction by which morality is enforced; that as the results of knowledge are of more importance than knowledge itself, character should be trained in preference to the imparting of instruction; that this training should be complete from the rudiments to the highest which human cul- ture has attained, and that the thorough university training should be under government supervision; and some go so far as to say it should be open and free to all, without money and without price, since there is an injustice in giving to the rich man's child and the poor man's alike, the opportunity for education up to a certain point beyond the rudiments which are uni- versally conceded as necessary, and there stopping, where the rich man's boy can go on and complete his course of education, while the less fortunate boy or girl must give up further study from the pressure of poverty.
There are very few who would have education wholly unsupported by taxation. It is so evident that where the suffrage is so extended intelligence should
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be co-extensive, that it is generally conceded that some instruction should be imperative upon all who may become citizens and voters; that a knowledge of the rudimentary branches, at least, should be required by law, and should be furnished by the public purse. But there is a very wide-spread impression that the people are taxed more than they should be for public schools. It is argued that no man should be taxed to teach his children matters which are in controversy between him and his neighbor; that as all are taxed for the support of schools, none should be taught what all can not be taught; that it is better to leave the higher education free from all public support ex- cept what is voluntary, and that the young men who have the taste and the aptitude for literary and scien- tific pursuits will avail themselves of the opportuni- ties furnished by academies and colleges; that to help, by taxation, the inefficient and those without capacity for scholarship in higher branches of study, is to dis- courage them from undertaking mercantile and me- chanical pursuits, and those of manual labor, and that thus an injury is done where a benefit was intended. The argument is against the High school system, and it is forcibly felt by a very large part of the commun-
ity, and that not the least intelligent. It is a matter to be considered, when a system has been tried for many years and still many intelligent men are opposed to it, whether that system is perfect, or whether it may not be amended. It is a fact that many friends of education believe that we pay too dear for our whistle, and that the taxpayer should not be obliged to disburse for the education of his neighbor's children any farther than is necessary for his own protection, by giving him the keys of knowledge. We, as a
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board, express no opinion, but state the question and arguments, upon which we are as much divided as the community which we represent. The question is one of great importance not only financially but as one of justice and of the future prospects of the Common- wealth and of the Republic; as such we feel it and would give it the publicity of an official report.
ABSENTEEISM.
Upon this topic the report of last year dwelt at some length. Since then we have had more light. The amount of truancy in the schools of Newbury- port is not large, while the number of children who absent themselves from the schools with the leave of their parents is large, and is suggestive of danger from the indifference, the selfishness or the poverty of the parents of children who should be attending the schools. In the High School, truancy or absenteeism is not of so much importance, since a boy or girl who is of the age and qualifications to enter that school, and has not interest enough to be constant in attend- ance, is better off in the shop or factory, or at the wash tub and cooking stove than in wasting their time in studies they care not to pursue vigorously. The Kelley school, however, is a graded school from the lowest primary scholars to the first-class gram- mar scholars ready to enter the High school. The board, in the latter part of the year, required a report from each teacher of the public schools, of truancy ab- senteeism and the doings of the truant officers. The officers had done very little; not at all what they had
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been directed to do by the instructions issued by the board. The reports issued by the teachers show, up- on the average, about the same results as that from the Kelley school. By that report there seems to have been many absences and very little truancy. The blame is not with the children, as a general thing, but largely with parents, with allowances for sickness and unavoidable causes. The report of the Kelley school, taken as a sample of the grammar and prima- ry schools, shows 2146 half days absence, divided not very unequally in the rooms. With this large num- ber of irregular attendants there were but eighteen truants, and these were generally brought to amend by notifying the parents. Of the absentees, some are at work where the employers have no legal right to keep them from school, as we have probable evidence, although not enough for prosecution, and some, per- haps many, escape the observation of committee, teachers, and truant officers.
PRIMARY SCHOOLS.
The importance of these schools is underrated by most. At the examinations, and graduating exer- cises more especially, of the High school there is an overflowing attendance of parents, friends, and in- terested spectators. At the grammar school exami- nations there is always a very good attendance, but it is generally sparse and thin at the primary school ex- aminations,-a few of the school committee and a very few parents and friends of the pupils. Yet the pri-
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mary schools are the main part of our school system. In them the greater part of the children of our city get all the school education they ever have. . These schools are of primary importance as well as primary in name. In them the first steps are taken, and in- struction is given which enables its possessor to gain by his own efforts all the knowledge which has been stored up by mankind. The child who can read, and has the first principles of numbers, and has capacity, needs no teacher except as an assistant to himself, and the primary school opens the golden gates of knowl- edge, and they who enter in can find their way, by a little ingenuity, unaided, to the acropolis of science. The primary school is the safeguard of republican lib- erty; the higher schools merely aid in finishing what these have builded.
The primary schools of this city have a good corps of teachers, and have been well and successfully con- ducted, to the satisfaction of the parents and of the committee, as is evinced by the fact that there have been few or no complaints, and no changes in teach- ers. This is a matter upon which we can congratu- late ourselves and the people, inasmuch as it is desir- able to retain experienced teachers, and change in this respect is always loss. At the same time, it is in the primary schools that we perceive most sensibly the evils of absenteeism, and a large part of the truancy. Many find it hard to support their families, and so, to gain the most from the schools with the least loss of labor of the children, they send them before the age when the law admits them and take them out while yet they are too young to leave school. This is the worst evil with which we have to contend.
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THE PLAINS SCHOOL
is conducted on the same plan as the country district schools, boys and girls attending in the same room, and the pupils being of all grades, from those in the alphabet to those who are fitted or fitting for admis- sion to the High school. The school has suffered se- riously from absenteeism, according to the report of the teacher. There are some difficulties in teaching such a school, mixed in sex and of various grades, which have interfered with the prosperity of this school in past years as well as in this.
GRAMMAR SCHOOLS.
There have been but two changes in the teachers of the grammar schools of Newburyport during the past year. Miss Fannie E. Pettingill resigned as assistant in the Bromfield Male Grammar School at the close of the school year, and Miss Frances J. Pearson was elected to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resigna- tion. Miss Pearson has given satisfaction in the per- formance of her duties, and promises to be a useful and efficient teacher. Miss E. E. McConnell has been temporarily put in as assistant in the Forrester Street Girls' Grammar School. The other teachers are long known in their profession here, and there is no occa- sion to comment upon the work of the year farther than to say that the schools have fulfilled the expecta- tions which we had a right to indulge from their pre- vious character.
In the examination of candidates for admission to the High schools, a standard of sixty-five per centum was fixed upon, without reference to the standing of
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the pupils in the schools from which they came. Some of the grammar school teachers represented that injustice was done to some pupils who applied by this rule, and a second examination was given, by which several were admitted. At the first examina- tion none were admitted from the Bromfield Boys' Grammar School, and from several other schools it was represented that boys had been rejected who eith- er were slow or diffident so as not to have done them- selves justice in the first examination.
Our grammar schools furnish an education which, so far as school learning goes, is ample for all the or- inary business of life; and the boy or girl who has passed the grammar school course, if possessed of am- bition and capacity, can aspire to any distinction in learning or in social influence. The pupils are taught thoroughly and well how to read, how to reckon, how to speak and write correctly, and the general features of the science of geography; and they know some- thing of the history and the political standing of their country.
The relative standing of the grammar schools is not indicated by the following table of admissions to the High schools, except by comparing the tables with the numbers attending, the kind of school, and the de- sire there is among the pupils for the High school course. We give the number admitted from each of the grammar schools at both examinations :
GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL.
From Hancock street 7
Purchase street. 8
Forrester street. 9
Kelley school 11
other schools
2
37
14
BROWN HIGH SCHOOL.
From Bromfield street 4
Forrester street. 5
Jackman school. 10
Kelley school. 15
-
Total.
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PUTNAM FREE SCHOOL.
From Kelley school (girls) 12
Kelley school (boys). 1
Plains school (girls) . 2
Jackman school (boys) 1
Bromfield school (boys)
1
-
Total 17
Aggregate. 88
The questions, as last year, were not prepared from the text books which are used in the grammar schools, nor were they made so difficult that if the pupils had been thoroughly taught they could not answer them. They are not puzzling questions, and yet they are suf- ficient to test the knowledge of the pupil. The ques- tions were as follows:
For each correct answer in Arithmetic two credits were given. One credit given for each correct answer in Geography and Grammar. In spell- ing and defining, each one-half credit. Reading and writing were marked on a scale of ten each.
In arithmetic, if the answer was incorrect, but if it was apparent that the process was understood, one credit was given.
ARITHMETIC.
1. Reduce to the lowest terms and add 87-116, 37-148, 235-329 and 26-91.
2. What would 10 acres, 100 rods, 12 square feet of land come to at $100 an acre ?
3. I buy $3000 worth of goods, and hire the cash to pay for them at the bank for three months, with grace at 6 per cent. per annum. I sell the goods within the time at 15 per cent. advance, and my expenses are $150. Do I make or lose, and how much ?
4. I send a man to cut and pile 78 cords of wood; he cuts it a foot longer than cord wood length and piles it 4 feet high and long enough for the 78 cords if the sticks had been cut of the proper length. How much more wood in the pile than I ordered ?
5. My neighbor builds a new fence for a quarter of a mile, setting it 18 inches in upon my land ; how much land do I lose ?
6. Interest on $97 for 4 months, 13 days, at 7 per cent.
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7. The Government allows 160 acres to a settler for 5 years. The land is in square lots. How many rods to one side ? What part of a mile is one side ? What part of a square mile in a lot ?
8. Gold is quoted at 113 per cent. greenbacks being considered 100 per cent. Take gold as 100 per cent. and what per cent. is a greenback dollar ?
9. At 50 cents a, cubic yard, what would it cost to dig a cellar 60 feet long, 48 feet wide and 9 feet deep ?
10. What is the square root of 150.0625 ?'
GEOGRAPHY.
1. What is Latitude ? and what is Longitude ?
2. From what point and line do we reckon Longitude and Latitude ?
3. Are the degrees of Longitude of the same length in all parts of the globe ? Are they longer or shorter near the poles ?
4. What are the great circles of the earth called ? and what boundaries do they mark ?
5. Where is Greenwich ?
6. Describe the seasons in the different zones.
7. Which is the largest of the West Indies ? and to what country does it belong ?
8. Give the difference of the days and nights in the different zones.
9. Draw a map of Pennsylvania, and name the states adjoining on each side.
10. Name the divisions of Oceanica in the order of their size.
11. How is the commerce between different countries carried on ?
12. How is England separated from France ?
13. How does the climate of western Europe contrast with that of the op- posite shores of the Atlantic ?
14. Into what systems are the principal rivers of Asia divided ?
15. What is a peninsular ? and name the largest in the world.
16. Name the largest of the African islands, and tell what water separates it from the mainland.
17. What do you understand by a mountain-system ? and name those in the United States.
18. What is a hemisphere? How many may the globe be divided into ? Name them.
19. What waters surround Europe on three sides ?
20. What large inland sea in Asia, not connected with the ocean ? and what rivers flow into it ?
SPELLING AND DEFINING.
DEVELOP,-to unfold.
MALTREATING,-treating badly.
IGNORANT,-wanting knowledge.
ALLEYS,-narrow walks.
INHALE,-to inspire. BEDRIDDEN,-confined to the bed.
HORIZON,-the line which bounds the view. KOUTE,-the course or way traveled.
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PIER,-a projecting wharf.
THREATEN,-to denounce evil upon. INDIGENT,-destitute.
CATERPILLAR,-an insect.
PATRIOTIC,-inspired by love of one's country.
ROGUISH,-mischievous ; waggish.
STEELYARD,-an instrument for weighing bodies.
EASEL,-frame on which painters place their canvass.
PROPHETIC,-foreseeing.
NEIGHBOR,-one who lives near.
FLEIXBLE,-pliable; yielding.
DECOYED,-lured into a snare.
GRAMMAR.
1. What is a sentence ? ·
2. Name the parts of speech.
3. Define a verb.
4. What is declension ?
5. Decline I, she, it.
6. Give the possessive singular and possessive plural of man, boy, hero.
7. Give the rule for forming the possessive singular and the possessive plu- ral of nouns.
8. What is voice ?
9. When is a verb said to be regular ?
10. Name the four classes into which pronouns are divided.
11. Analyze the following: The brooks and rivers praise God when they murmur with melody amongst the smooth pebbles.
12 13 14 15 17 19 20
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Parse brooks, praise, God, when, they, murmur, melody, amongst, pebbles.
KELLEY SCHOOL.
Last year we reported this school as an experiment which has been tried in other places with a prospect of success. It was an experiment of a graded school of every grade, in the several rooms, from the alphabet to those fitted for the High school, and where boys and girls are taught together. This year we can re- port it as a school which is growing in popularity. The children like to go to it from out of the district for which it was designed, and with their parents it is a favorite. That the plan is the best, we are not pre-
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pared to say; but it is certain that the school is pop- ular with parents and pupils, either from the fact that so many are brought together, of various ages and de- grees of proficiency, or that the grades from room to room make the children feel that they are advancing more rapidly as they are promoted from one room to the next higher. The school is certainly prosperous and well managed, suffering, like others, chiefly from absenteeism.
HIGH SCHOOLS.
There have been no changes of teachers in the con- solidated High schools, and we have in these an ex- cellent corps, thoroughly trained and fitted for their work. That the school is popular, no further proof is needed than the record of attendance; that it is effi- cient, those know best who have watched the school most closely. In the classical department the instruc- tion is thorough, and exact, although we believe, as we stated in the last year's report, that more ground might be gone over in French, Latin, and Greek, by those beginning those · studies, advantageously to the pupils, especially to those who do not pursue these studies in after years. Knowledge is important, as well as mental discipline, and children learn the use and an indefinite knowledge of the meaning of words before they learn grammar. A language is learned by its use, and by going over a good deal of ground, and afterwards accuracy is acquired. This insistance upon accuracy from the beginning is good as a mat- ter of discipline, but whether it has not been carried too far, at the expense of facility in reading and speak- ing languages, especially for those who do not go be- yond what they learn at the school, is a matter which
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has been discussed by those who have observed the method of teaching there pursued. That the lan- guages are thoroughly taught, so far as they are taught in a school of this grade, there can be no question by any who have watched the methods pursued and the progress of the pupils. In the other branches there is like thoroughness, and the boy or girl who does not get, in the course there offered them, a good train- ing,-one which fits them for the higher institutions, the colleges, universities, and scientific institutes,- can only attribute the failure to indolence or stupidity in the student, not to neglect or inefficiency of the teachers. Those who know our High school best, those who have watched it most closely, are its best friends and admirers. The preparatory class is not farther advanced than the higher classes of grammar schools in some cities, and from this fact some persons jump at the conclusion that our High school is no more than a grammar school; but the record of some of the recent graduates, since the school has been un- der its present management, shows conclusively that a boy or girl who has industry and capacity can get as good a training in our High school as in any in the Commonwealth. It was complimentary to the classical teachers of this school as well as to Miss M. A. Philbrook, a graduate of last year, that a dramati- zation of a part of the fourth book of the Æneid, by her in English, was ordered to be copied by the French Commissioner at the Centennial Exposition for its excellence.
The graduates of the school at the close of the school year, last summer, were as follows:
FEMALE HIGH SCHOOL. Imogene W. Babson, Carrie M. Bayley, Anne R. Choate, Carrie M. Clement, Gertrude L. Cook, Mary E. Davis, Belle B. Em- erton, Effie C. Hodge, Alice M. Leach, Dora R. Lewis, Hattie P. Libbey,
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Linda A. Lovering, Mary A. Ordway, Mary E. Orne, Lizzie A. Pettigrew, M. Nellie Stevens, Grace E. Tilton, Lizzie G. Tilton, Annie Searles Wheeler, Emily L. Whitmore, Alice B. Woods.
PUTNAM FREE SCHOOL. Abbie R. Allen, Waldoboro, Me .; Susan I. Ad- ams, Newbury; Hannah B. Coffin, Salisbury; Nellie G. Currier, Salisbury ; Anna H. Little, Newburyport; Mary E. Morrill, Massalena A. Philbrook, Minnie I. Pettingell, Mary L. Poole, Florence H. Pettingell, Salisbury ; Gard- ner P. Balch, Groveland.
BROWN HIGH SCHOOL. R. G. Adams, W. S. Boardman, J. C. Ballou, C. F. Denny, W. A. S. Merrill, J. E. McCusker, C. A. Stockman.
EVENING SCHOOLS.
A partial remedy for the evils of absenteeism is found in the evening schools. These were first es- tablished in this city by private charity, but were soon after established by law, and have since been support- ed by the public funds, under the supervision of the school committee. They have been advantageous to those who are over the age required to attend the pub- lic day schools by law, but they suffer, although in a different manner, from the same evil. The young who absent themselves from the day schools in order to work and earn money, are not all insensible to the advantages of education, and they press into the eve- ning schools at an age under that of fifteen when they should be in the day schools. The presence of these young people deters some who would gladly avail themselves of the opportunity afforded by the evening schools, as they are ashamed to be seen studying with children. There is compassion as well as censure called for in these facts, inasmuch as poverty presses upon a large class of a manufacturing community, and the evils under which we suffer in this respect are now more generally felt in various parts of the Commonwealth than among ourselves.
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