USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Melrose > City of Melrose annual report 1906 > Part 4
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At the graduation in June 72 pupils were awarded diplo-
*Per Cent
Salaries (teachers, janitor, engineer),
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mas. Of this number 27 are continuing their studies in college and other higher institutions, 36 are at work in good business positions, 3 have returned for post-graduate courses, and 6 are at home.
The work of the past year has been, on the whole, very successful. Better standards of scholarship have been maintained, and the reports which have come to us of those who entered higher institutions in September have been very encouraging. Many of these have already taken a high rank in scholarship, while all are doing credit to them- selves and to the school from which they were graduated.
In this connection, I cannot refrain from speaking of the high estimation in which our pupils are held by Boston business men. There is a constantly increasing demand for our graduates to enter business life, a demand which far exceeds the supply. During the past month six requests have come to us for competent boys and girls, and we have had no one to recommend, as every one had a satisfactory position.
This demand for the graduates of our business depart- ment, not only speaks well for the character of the pupils who enter it, and the efficiency of those in charge, but also for the wisdom of those who, in the beginning, established a four-years' course instead of the less satisfactory plan of graduating pupils at the end of two years without a well- rounded education.
There have been several changes in the corps of teachers during the past year. Mr. Henry D. Sanborn was em- ployed from January to June as a substitute in place of Mr. Kenneth Beal, the efficient head of our English department, who had resigned in December, 1905, to accept a similar position in the Salem High School. In June, Mr. Orren H. Smith, a graduate of Tuft's College, and a teacher of ex- perience, was elected. to the position and everything seems to indicate that the past efficiency of the department will be maintained.
Miss Jennette Moulton, who has successfully taught Greek and English in our school for the past seven years,
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went to the Newton High School, and Miss Elizabeth F. Abbe, a graduate of Wellesley College, was elected to this position. Miss Abbe came to us from a successful experi- ence in the Milford High School and Mount Holyoke Col- lege.
Mr. J. Thacher Sears, teacher of English and Science, resigned to accept a position in Plainfield, N. J., and Mr. Frederick R. Willard, a graduate of Boston University, in the class of 1906, was elected to the vacancy.
Miss Sarah Fisher, our efficient teacher of stenography and typewriting for the past four years, accepted a position in the Winthrop High School. Mrs. A. V. de Mers, who comes from the Lynn English High School, has been ap- pointed a substitute for the rest of the year.
Owing to the large registration in September, it was necessary to increase our teaching force, and Miss Eliza- beth Biddlecome was elected to teach English and Commer- cial Arithmetic. She is a graduate of Smith College, and has taught successfully in Webster, Mass.
The loss of efficient and experienced teachers is always to be deplored, especially so when the change comes during the school year. No matter how efficient their successors may be, there is always a distinct educational loss to the school and pupils. I cannot too strongly express my con- viction that, if the present standard of the school is to be maintained, there must be a readjustment of salaries which will enable us to retain the services of those teachers who have proven their worth and who wish to remain in Mel- rose.
The growth of our school has, as it seems to me, been along right lines. It has been due not so much to the largely increased numbers in the entering classes as to the fact that more of those who enter remain to finish the course. In 1901, 40 pupils were graduated ; in 1907, more than 80 will probably be awarded diplomas. The numbers who entered these classes at the beginning of the course were respectively 119 and 149.
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Thus we see that there has been a constantly increasing appreciation of the value of a High School education.
At present everything seems to indicate that there will be as great an increase next year as there has been during the past. If so, the present building will be taxed to its fullest capacity.
During a public hearing two years ago on the proposed addition to the High School which was then recommended by our School Committee in order to accommodate the ninth grade pupils and so relieve the congested condition in our Grammar buildings, it was stated that this was the most economical plan for the city, as the present building would have to be enlarged within five years to accommo- date the High School pupils alone. Subsequent history seems to have proven the truth of this statement. We are now using the drawing room and the assembly hall for class work, and it is also necessary to use one of the com- mercial rooms for recitations other than those in that course, thereby in a measure interfering with the work of that department.
Next year it will be necessary to take the drawing room for a session room and to equip either the room in the base- ment, now used for manual training, or the stock room for the drawing department. Beyond this we have no room and we could not accommodate larger numbers without seri- ously impairing the efficiency of the school.
I wish to express my acknowledgment of the loyalty and faithfulness of my associates. Throughout the year there has been a spirit of co-operation between teachers and pupils, a spirit which begets mutual confidence and develops better and higher ideals of life.
In conclusion, permit me, both for the teachers and my- self, to express our hearty appreciation of the cordial sup- port which has been accorded to us at all times by both Superintendent and School Committee.
Respectfully submitted,
WILLIAM C. WHITING,
Principal.
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MATTERS IN GENERAL.
I. Diplomas for Ninth Grade Pupils. In 1901 the Com- mittee voted to abolish graduation exercises and the grant- ing of diplomas at the completion of the ninth grade. This action was taken chiefly because it was believed that this practice tended to perpetuate in popular thought the idea that the ninth grade was the natural stopping place for pupils who had no special end in view in their education which required the training of the high school, and that, as a result, more or less pupils had been led to leave school at this point who would have continued for a longer or shorter period if the transition from Grade IX to Grade X (the first year in the high school) were made as natural as the passage from grade to grade at other points in the school system. In other words, the primary thought in the minds of the members of the Committee in taking this action was to administer the schools in such a way that pupils might be led to continue their school training as long as their home conditions would permit.
The following facts are interesting as bearing upon the effect of the above-mentioned legislation in prolonging the average school life of pupils. The statistics given cover the period of my service for the city, which began in 1898 with the opening of the present high school building.
During 1898, 1899, and 1900, when diplomas were given at the end of the grammar school period, and when the new building might be expected fairly to hold out unusual attrac- tion to young people, an average of 75 per cent. of those who received grammar school diplomas entered the high school. During the five following years, when grammar school graduations were not held and diplomas were not granted, an average of 85 per cent. of those who received promotion from Grade IX entered the high school. In other words the percentage of those who went on from the ninth grade to the high school increased 10 per cent. after gram- mar school graduations and diplomas were abolished.
Of course it is not absolutely demonstrable that this in-
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crease in the percentage of those who entered the high school during the period in which diplomas were not given was due wholly to their withdrawal, but it is fairly certain that that fact contributed considerable to bring about the result indicated.
However, in spite of the apparent advantage to the educa- tional welfare of pupils as a whole from the step that had been taken in this matter by the Committee, there gradually grew up a sentiment among a portion of the people that children should be given diplomas at the end of the gram- mar school period. After hearings upon the subject in different sections of the city, it was voted in deference to the wishes of the majority of parents who expressed them- selves regarding the matter to restore the practice of grant- ing diplomas to those who satisfactorily complete the work of the ninth grade, but that there should be no elaborate exercises in connection therewith.
From an administrative point of view it was probably wise to recognize public sentiment thus; but I still consider that educationally it is a mistake to grant diplomas at the end of Grade IX, and I trust that in time the public in general may come to view the practice in that light.
II. Additional School Accommodations. The need for increased school rooms is so well understood that it is hardly necessary to go over the ground again at this time. However, it is proper to say that, as time passes, the need grows more pressing .. For two years the Committee has striven earnestly to secure an enlargement of present accommodations but without success. Two different prop- ositions have been advanced and the necessary bond issue for carrying them out has been voted by the Board of Aldermen. Both plans, however, have been defeated in a referendum vote of the citizens. Such a result is no indi- cation, in my judgment, that the citizens of Melrose desire in any way to cripple the educational interests in order to save on city expenditure, but rather that many who voted against these propositions failed to understand the situation fairly.
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It is not possible to secure the best results in the schools under present conditions, therefore those who have been active in delaying the enlargement of our school accommo- dations, however worthy their motives, must bear the bur- den of causing more or less waste in the expenditure that the City necessarily makes for its schools.
It is gratifying to note that the majority of our present City Government are alive to the need of the schools in this direction and that a special committee made up of His Honor the Mayor, two members of the Board of Aldermen, two members of the School Committee and six citizens at large, has been appointed to investigate and recommend to the Board of Aldermen some plan for increasing present school accommodations.
III. Physical Conditions in the Schools. That the phys- ical conditions under which pupils work are not overlooked in the administration of our schools is attested by the fol- lowing facts :
I. The majority of the school rooms are equipped with furniture capable of adjustment to fit the pupils.
2. Practically every room is ventilated to meet the re- quirements of a high standard fixed by the State, so that conditions with respect to pure air in our school rooms are vastly better than those that prevail in the majority of homes.
3. By the co-operation of the Board of Health three physicians are subject to the call of teachers for the pur- pose of examining any child who may show signs of physical unfitness to be in school. In case that the examination of a child reveals the need of treatment in order that others may not be endangered, the parent is at once notified and the child is excluded from school until re-admitted by certificate from the Board of Health.
4. Rooms from which pupils are excluded on account of any dangerous disease are at once thoroughly disinfected, and such books destroyed as might otherwise be a possible source of contagion.
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5. During the past year a State law has been passed re- quiring an annual examination of pupils in public schools for defects of sight and hearing that may interfere with successful school work. Prior to the passage of this law action in this direction had been begun in our schools. The examinations are made by the principals of the schools, who have been given instructions how to proceed by a specialist. So far only tests of the vision have been undertaken. If it is found that a child has a defect of vision sufficient to interfere with successful school work, the parent is so noti- fied and it is suggested that an oculist be consulted regard- ing the matter. About 15 per cent. of the children examined are found to have defects of vision serious enough to war- rant special attention.
6. Another step in the interest of better sanitary con'di- tions in the schools is the recent action of the Committee in requesting the Board of Aldermen to make an appropria- tion to begin the work of placing drinking fountains in the schools in order that the danger of contagion through the medium of common drinking cups may be obviated.
In view of the foregoing facts, parents may be satisfied, I think, that the physical well-being of their children is not being neglected in the endeavor to promote their intellectual development.
IV. Progress in Studies. No marked changes in courses or methods of work have been made during the year. The principal effort has been to secure improved results along the line of plans previously adopted. Greater emphasis than usual has been put upon the work in arithmetic, gram- mar, and history in the upper grammar grades, and, although the results in these lines are not yet satisfactory to me, I feel that the pupils who may go on from the grammar to the high school at the close of the present school year will do so with a better equipment in these studies than previous classes have had on the whole.
Since January, 1906, Mr. Appler, the head of the com- mercial department in the high school, has had general
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direction of the work in penmanship in the schools. Owing to his duties in the high school he is able to give to this work only two afternoons per week. This, of course, is insuf- ficient time to warrant any remarkable results, but through the instruction that he has given the teachers in his occa- sional visits to their rooms and in general meetings that he has held with them and through the class teaching that he has found opportunity to give in the highest grammar grades, he has put this line of work on a better basis for the development of an easy and legible handwriting than it has had for several years past. Your attention is invited to Mr. Appler's report which follows:
Mr. F. H. Nickerson, Superintendent Public Schools, Melrose, Mass .:
Dear Mr. Nickerson :- Pursuant with your request for a report of my work as supervisor of writing in the public schools of Melrose, Mass., I beg to submit the following :
January last I began supervising the writing in the eighth and ninth grades by working with the teachers to develop muscular movement. Ovals and vertical lines were drilled upon to develop the muscles and then applied to the letter-forms. Teachers and pupils alike worked enthusias- tically and a marked degree of proficiency has been attained. In May, supervision was extended to the sixth and seventh grades and a fair start was made by the close of the term.
With the re-opening of schools in September supervision was extended to include every school in Melrose. Two teachers' meetings were called, one for first to fifth grade teachers and the other for sixth to ninth grade teachers ; in these meetings plans for the work were outlined and dis- cussed with the teachers. Since then conferences with the teachers have followed my visits to the schools, usually after the pupils were dismissed. All the rooms have been visited once each month.
Believing an erect posture of the body is the very founda- tion of good writing as well as an essential in securing a symmetrical physique, and that a penholding which will
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permit the free use of the muscles must be acquired in order to secure rapidity and skill in writing, I have given con- stant attention to the details of sitting and penholding. In the lower grades I found conditions bad; in some rooms pupils were lounging in their seats and poor penholding was quite general, in some instances so pernicious as to absolutely prevent the acquiring of skill. As was to be expected, a radical change from a lounging to an erect pos- ture and from a cramped, doubled-up hand to a natural, easy penholding was detrimental to legibility. Most of the bad penholding was undoubtedly acquired with the vertical writing, which had been in use for several years.
In brief outline, my plan is to secure a good posture of the body with proper penholding and a good finger move- ment up to the sixth grade, when the muscular movement is begun to be developed along with the finger movement, and when the eighth grade is reached the combination mus- cular-finger movement is used in all writing.
The writing at present is poor in so far as legibility is concerned; but a marked change for the better has been accomplished in posture of the body and penholding. With these fundamentals becoming habitual, great gain in legibil- ity will result.
The teachers in general have worked faithfully and in most of the rooms the pupils are very much in earnest and strive to improve. Our system of writing books is a good one, and my visits to nearby cities where writing is being pushed hard convince me that our methods are right, and, with a few years of painstaking work, the writing from an artistic point of view will be raised to a high degree of excellence.
Respectfully submitted, C. ROSS APPLER.
When my report for 1905 was prepared, our present Supervisor of Music had been with us only a few months, so that the most that could be said of him at that time was that his "work thus far indicates that the enviable stand-
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ing of our schools in this line will be maintained under his direction." The prediction then made has been fully justi- fied by subsequent results. I feel certain that in Mr. Griffin we have the right man in the right place. The following report gives the general purpose and plan of his work:
Mr. Fred H. Nickerson, Superintendent of Schools :
Dear Sir :- In accordance with your request, I submit the following report :
The aim of music in our public schools is, first of all, to arouse a genuine love for music in the child, which, devel- oped, will create a desire for continued study through life.
Music properly taught will incite a desire for the good and beautiful in all things, finding expression in the in- fluence felt in the homes, both by the melody and words.
It should help to mould the child's life by refining and elevating his character.
The music in the schools of Melrose is well graded ac- cording to the Natural Music Course.
A brief outline of the work attempted in each grade may be of interest.
In the first grade special attention is given to the presen- tation and representation of the scale, tone matching, inter- val drill and rote songs.
The second grade work is a continuation of the first year's work and in this grade music readers are first introduced.
In grade three two-part exercises and songs are first sung and the problems of divided beat and chromatics are first met.
During the fourth year minor scales and exercises are introduced and more difficult exercises in oral and metric dictation.
This course aims to arouse the aesthetic nature of the child and to establish the power to express individual thought and feeling in musical language.
In the work of the fifth grade three-part exercises and songs are introduced which always give great pleasure to all classes.
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The book used during the sixth year reviews previous steps and presents new combinations.
Each book contains graded dictation exercises which serve as a test of previous accomplishment and there is a rich supply of song material illustrating the simplest as well as the more advanced tonal and rhythmic elements.
In the upper grammar grades come the study of advanced chromatics, the bass clef, and the presentation of exercises in different modes (major and minor) and the study of movement as expressed in more varied rhythmic form.
The supervisor visits each grade once in two weeks and plans the work for the grade teacher, giving the suggestions and help that he is able to give.
Considering the time allowed each week for music, the general results obtained in all grades are very gratifying and much praise should be accorded the grade teacher for the gain made in music. Much more could be done in writ- ten work and individual drill if the time allowed.
Since music in the high school is elective, it is very grati- fying to note that the present class numbers about two hundred and fifty. Special attention is given to the selec- tion of the music, which includes works from the best com- posers.
Boys' and girls' glee clubs are continued and a school orchestra has been organized this year. In all cases, the in- terest aroused is such that the weekly rehearsals take place outside of school hours.
It is to be hoped that the interest begun in the grades will increase more and more, to be further sustained and carried out in the high school where greater numbers will be real- ized in the classes and the influence of music felt through- out our city.
Respectfully submitted, EDWARD NEWELL GRIFFIN, Supervisor of Music.
The work in drawing during the year has proceeded along the lines of previous years, in the main.
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The work done in schools under this heading is broader than the term indicates. It comprehends mechanical draw- ing, free-hand sketching, designing, painting, the study of works of art, and all that is done in the line of what, for want of a better name, may be called graphic art. In all this work the purpose is not primarily to produce artists any more than it is the purpose in teaching reading to pro- duce elocutionists. Of course, pupils are encouraged to ex- press themselves as well as possible in this direction, but such expression is a means to a larger end rather than an end in itself; and that larger purpose is to develop an appreciation of beauty as manifested in outline, proportion, and color, so that pupils may come to condemn ugliness in any form as it comes to the eye.
It requires but little imagination to sense the value to a community of the prevalence of such an atmosphere, not only from an esthetic point of view, but also as affecting property valuations.
The question naturally arises at this point,-will public school training in drawing lead to such a community atmos- phere? Much depends, of course, upon the intelligence and enthusiasm with which the work is carried on; but, as the result of some years of observation and thought in this line, I doubt not that, under intelligent and enthusiastic leadership, the teachers in any community can develop re- sults in this line of work that will contribute vastly more to the betterment of our citizenship than much that is done under the head of the "three R's." It is not to be inferred from the above statement that I would slight the "three R's" in school work. On the contrary, I believe that the essentials of the "three R's" should be taught with a degree of thoroughness that is not commonly secured today, but I believe, also, that there has been, and still is, considerable waste in our educational practice as the result of an over- valuation of the worth of these so-called "practical" sub- jects as instruments of education.
In my judgment the feeling is too common that drawing is not a practical subject of study for most children, that
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only pupils who have particular talent in that line are ben- efited by having it taught in the schools.
I have heard many parents express a desire to have their children excused from drawing on the ground that the pupils had no talent in that direction, and, therefore, that it would be better for them to study something "practical"; and, whenever such parents have been asked what "practical" subject they would suggest in place of drawing, the answer has been almost invariably "arithmetic."
It is well for one who is inclined to think thus to consider how little of arithmetic the average individual has occasion to use in his relations as a social unit, and, also, that the kind of reasoning power developed by the study of arith- metic has small value in dealing with the problems of social existence.
From the point of view of the highest good of the great mass of children with whom the schools have to deal, I am convinced that arithmetic beyond its elementary phases is one of the most unpractical subjects in the school curricu- lum.
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