USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Brookline > History of the town of Brookline, Massachusetts > Part 28
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That the Selectmen be instructed to use all their efforts to induce the N.Y. and N.E.R.R. to carry out all the agree- ments in reference to the grade crossing at Cypress Street, - as to double gates, a station, and stopping the trains, - which the Charles River Railroad deliberately made with the County Commissioners, and to prevent all encroach- ments on Tappan Street.
That the town ought to have the same advantages as to postal delivery and cheap postage which the other suburbs of Boston now enjoy, and that the Selectmen be requested to communicate this resolve of the town to the Represen- tative of this District in Congress.
In a more distinctly local field of transportation was the Metropolitan Railroad Company mentioned above. The officers of this organization were treated to some pretty direct language in the spring of 1872, when the town directed that a committee confer with them, 'and ask that the company shall reduce the fare between this town and Roxbury upon said road, and to otherwise give the citizens such accommo- dations as are due them; and if such accommodations cannot be had as are due to our citizens, the Selectmen be requested to remove the track from the streets of said town, agreeably to a petition now before the Board of Selectmen.'
Of course there was a zone, somewhere, in which the exped- ient must come into conflict with the æsthetic. Horse cars or, later, electric trams, represented a necessary concession to public convenience. They came about gradually, as a more or less logical evolution of local stage coaches, and there was no great shock of transition. But the threat of an elevated railroad 'in Boston and neighboring towns' in 1879, was a dreadful thing, to be opposed with all vigor. New York's elevated steam railways were certainly not a reassuring example.
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TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH
With the beginning of 1880, Alexander Graham Bell's unex- pectedly useful toy occasioned a request to the selectmen. They told William R. Cabot, representing the Bell Telephone Com- pany, that poles might be set in certain specified streets, if they were at least one hundred and fifty feet apart and painted dark brown, if all wires were at least twenty feet above the ground, and no trees were cut or injured without special per- mission. The traditional solicitude of the town for its shade trees resulted in the naming of a committee to look after them, in 1883. A local telephone exchange followed immediately upon the introduction of the lines.
Telegraph lines which had, in the beginning, been adjuncts of the railroads, became consolidated over a long period of years, and blossomed as independent public service corpora- tions. Under very exact regulations as to poles and wires, the American Rapid Telegraph Company was permitted, in 1882, to run its lines through the town.
These wires in a measure, and those of the street-car lines in particular, were soon seen to present a serious threat to the beautiful trees in which the town took such pride. Young trees planted along the central reservation of the widened Beacon Street soon reached the wires above, and there was vigorous agitation for the relocation of the trolley lines, and for the putting of all service wires in conduits. Progress was slow but perceptible.
THE SCHOOL SYSTEM
During the decades from 1870 to 1900 Brookline's schools were relegated to minor importance only in a comparative sense. The standards which had been set under the inspiration of Horace Mann were well maintained; but the need for ex- tensive construction had been largely met and was no longer pressing, while the administrative organization had been brought to a point of smooth functioning, and required no elaborate adjustments. Good work was being done, but it lacked the excitement of novelty which had attended the years before the war.
Attendance at school, which had at first been notably hap-
THE PARKWAY WITH SEARS CHAPEL AND LONGWOOD STATION
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hazard, and subject to the priority of farm work, was in time recognized as a matter of public concern. Parents were some- times dominated by other considerations than a desire for the education of their children, and in this new, larger Brookline, individual responsibility could no longer be trusted. Conse- quently the town adopted, in 1872, a comprehensive group of by-laws relating to truants and absentees. Children between seven and sixteen were required to attend school at least six weeks of the summer term and six weeks of the winter term each year.
Administration of the educational system had come to de- mand so much attention that, in the same year, employment of a superintendent of schools was authorized. The school com- mittee do not seem to have acted on this, for when the matter was next brought up, it was indefinitely postponed, and nothing more was done about it until 1890.
In 1873 the Harvard Street School was crowded, and the building there as well as the Longwood School, was in need of repairs. It was decided to purchase property at Kent and Fran- cis Streets for a new building, and to remove the old Longwood school house. At the same time the town resolved that 'it would be wise for the School Committee to consider the expediency of securing land for school purposes in the south and west parts of the town without further delay, or in such other places, whether north or east, as they find the need of new schools may soon come.'
A little later there was an appropriation of $10,000 to erect a building on the Francis Street lot, and the amount was sub- sequently increased, on the recommendation of the school committee, to $13,000. This is the site of the present Lawrence School. The subject of playground improvements also came up, but was not immediately pursued to actual results.
In the spring of 1875 the pressure for new school accommoda- tions in the vicinity of Cypress and Sewall Streets led to a re- port that the town stable could be converted into a school house for $10,000. No action was taken, however, until four years later, when the town voted $5000 for a building on Cy- press Street next east of the stable, the site of the Sewall School today. This was followed in 1883 by an appropriation of $22,-
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000 to add two rooms to the Boylston Street School, and erect a two-room school house on Walter Avenue.
These projects were indicative of a demand that grew stead- ily, if not spectacularly, and came to its climax in 1895 with the building of a new high school at the corner of Tappan and Greenough Streets, at a cost of $225,000. Manual train- ing had been introduced about 1887, in pursuance of the Brookline way of neglecting no worthy innovation simply be- cause it was new; and by 1893 a $30,000 manual training school was under way. There were courses in carpentry, wood-turn- ing, pattern-making, and molding; girls might study sewing and domestic science. Apart both from these and the essentially academic subjects were physical instruction, which came to include Swedish gymnastics, military drill, and swimming. An appropriation of $100,000 was made for playgrounds, though their establishment was slow. Thus the ramifications of education.
Public schools at the close of the century were costing more than $100,000 a year, and represented the very best in equip- ment and instruction that the times afforded. But there was one aspect of 'advanced' thought that Brookline voters could not grasp. They had been ready, in 1877, to elect two women among the seven overseers of the poor, but in 1879 they re- solutely voted 'That the town do not choose three women to serve on the School Committee.' Why not? It is hard to say, precisely. But the reasoning of that time would have distin- guished these two boards, probably along the general line that those who looked after the poor should have the sympathetic understanding and the knowledge of domestic economy that were supposed to be peculiarly feminine qualities, while the administration of schools, and in particular their extensive construction projects, called for the hard-headed business sense which everyone knew women had not. In the centennial year, the town budget allowed $38,000 for the support of schools, and $4000 for the support of the poor; and the con- trast remains sufficient even when an emergency addition of $5000 to the poor fund is considered, for school building pro- jects were always the subject of special appropriations. True, the town voted $10,000 in 1882 for an almshouse, but this instance was without precedent in Brookline.
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VOTES FOR WOMEN
The town's receptivity to new ideas meant that a number of progressive programs were commonplaces to Brookline at a time when most of the rest of the country regarded them as dangerously radical proposals. Far-seeing William I. Bowditch moved the annual meeting in 1881 'That the town ask the Leg- islature to extend to women who are citizens the right to hold office and to vote in town affairs on the same terms as male citizens.' The meeting was not sympathetic.
This proposition found expression also in Benjamin F. But- ler's campaign for the governorship in 1882. Among other things, he had advocated a constitutional amendment which would permit women to vote. Butler, of course, was not by any means the Massachusetts pioneer in this field. William Lloyd Garrison had brought it up first, in 1849; Governor Andrew had discussed it in 1865; and it had been recommended by Gov- ernor William Claflin in 1871.
But Brookline women gained at least an entering wedge. The records of the annual meeting of 1882 state that, in the voting, 'the check list was used, and a separate list for the women who were entitled to vote for School Committee ... ' This was under authority of a law passed in 1878, which conferred the restricted privilege, and provided for the registration of women for this particular purpose under the same terms which applied to men. The town, at this same meeting, voted to postpone indefinitely the question of deciding whether to ask the legis- lature 'to extend to women who are citizens the right to hold town offices and to vote in town affairs on the same terms as male citizens.' The men were not ready to make the desired concession, but, as in other cases where an outspoken refusal might give offense or require embarrassing explanation, they simply sidestepped the entire question. A year later, the same harmless ritual was gone through again.
EXPEDITING TOWN AFFAIRS
Town government remained, for the time being at least, in the hands of men. It was an expensive but altogether well- managed government, despite the fact that it drew some vigor- ous minority criticism at times. There were those who said
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that the $180,000 spent for the new Town Hall which Robert C. Winthrop so eloquently dedicated on Washington's Birthday in 1873, should have purchased a more useful structure. For one thing, it was thought to be far from perfect acoustically; and for another, the accommodations for town business offices were called inadequate.
However, the town's affairs seem to have got along pretty satisfactorily. New devices were adopted for expediting things. An elaborate by-law covering official reports was adopted at the annual meeting in 1874. As, at an earlier period, the clumsy operation of the town meeting as a committee of the whole had been replaced by the appointment of special committees on almost every subject requiring special information for intelli- gent voting, so now the long reports which had at first been read to the assembled meeting, were, in increasing numbers, printed and distributed among the inhabitants with the copies of the warrant calling the meeting where those reports were to be passed upon. This afforded ample opportunity for everyone to familiarize himself with the business in hand, and a vote could usually be had without long explanation and debate.
Salaries of town officials were extremely moderate. Subject to occasional slight changes, they amounted to $750 for select- men, $750 to $1000 for assessors, $1000 for the town clerk, $1200 for the librarian, and $2500 for the town treasurer and tax collector, who had an exacting, responsible, full-time task. Benjamin F. Baker had received, at March meeting in 1852, the bare 45 votes out of a total of 88 necessary to his election as town clerk. He held that office, year after year, by increasing majorities which his modesty seems to have forbade him to re- cord, and at length became the perennial, unanimous choice of the town, until his death in 1898. This long service bade fair to establish a dynasty, and he was succeeded by his son, Edward Wild Baker, who gave three decades of devotion to the town in that office.
Attendance at town meetings varied, of course, with the measure of interest commanded by the subjects under discus- sion. Thus, at the annual meeting in 1875, there were 503 votes cast for moderator, and Charles H. Drew was chosen by the not over-large majority of 273. At the annual meeting five
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years later, William I. Bowditch had fifteen of the sixteen votes cast for moderator.
VEXED PROBLEMS
Occasionally there arose some subject of general interest which could not be dealt with satisfactorily. The problem of a Civil War memorial was very puzzling. In the spring of 1874 a committee was appointed to investigate the cost of a suitable memorial. They reported that neighboring towns had not made out very well with statues and mounted cannon and the like, and they therefore advocated 'an architectural structure, which they believed would be in better keeping with the sub- ject, because free from party or military basis, and calculated to commend itself to the general observer, as well as those of more cultivated taste.' Something adequate of granite could be built, it was thought, for about $18,000.
The committee was told to think some more, and report what might be done in the way of tablets in the Town Hall. A few weeks later they said they had no money for expenses in that direction, that they did not like the tablet idea anyway, and that surviving soldiers and sailors regarded it with 'unanimous disfavor.' The report was accepted and tabled. Then a new committee was named, with four of the same members, to start all over again.
In a fortnight they were back with majority and minority reports, both of which were accepted. A motion to adopt the minority recommendations was passed, after it had been amended to refer to the majority recommendations instead. At the next meeting, it was voted to erect the monument on the playground lot on Cypress Street, and a fresh committee were told to report on plans and costs.
Three months later, when the question of appropriating $25,000 came up, the situation was confused anew by a vote 'That the Soldiers' Monument Committee be instructed to procure plans and estimates for a memorial front for a high school house to be erected by the town, and submit them to the town at a future meeting; and that they also be instructed to procure plans for a statue in marble or bronze, and report the same with estimates of cost to the town.' Three months still
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later, the committee was enlarged, and allowed five hundred dollars for expenses. Again majority and minority reports were evolved, both were accepted, and the committee was dis- charged in January, 1876. There had been plenty of ado, but nothing accomplished - and nothing substantial was accom- plished until the present monument was erected shortly before the World War.
Another project which was come at somewhat haltingly was the public bath. A state law of 1874 permitted towns to indulge this luxury, but Brookline declined, in 1880, to accept the statute. The town would, however, ask the selectmen to give the matter a public hearing. Evidently some interest was shown, for three years later the statute was unanimously accepted, and an ap- propriation of $3000 made for 'one or more public bath- houses.' These first public baths were mere open places in the brook behind the old Boylston School. Thirteen years later the town decided to go in for $40,000 worth of public bath-house, not counting the cost of the land on Tappan Street, for which they got two tanks, some fifty dressing-rooms, a running-track, tubs, 'rain baths,' and a small laundry, along with plenty of classical references on the walls. This was the result, in the main, of the efforts of Dr. H. Lincoln Chase, then agent of the Board of Health.
If debate was occasionally acrimonious, it was almost always pertinent and instructive. Everyone realized the importance of a clear understanding of any given problem before it could be intelligently solved. But even very capable men did not al- ways agree on what was wise.
Dr. Carleton S. Francis has said that the town meetings during the last third of the nineteenth century were always interesting.
Mr. William Aspinwall and Mr. William I. Bowditch never failed to take a prominent part in the discussion and always took the opposite sides of each question. When they really got going in good form the fur would fly. Mr. Bowditch explained the difference between their individual char- acters in this way, 'I am firm but Mr. Aspinwall is damned pig-headed.' Mr. Alfred Chandler, Mr. Desmond Fitz- Gerald, and other townspeople usually took part in these heated debates.
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SOME LEADING CITIZENS
Mr. Chandler carried on the family tradition in the law, with a special interest in the administrative and economic problems of government. He was, perhaps more than any other indi- vidual, responsible for Brookline's espousal of the public im- provements which marked the last three decades of the cen- tury. Service as chairman of four town boards is only a partial measure of his personal contribution to the community. Outstanding among his achievements was the development of the plan for a limited town meeting.
Inheritor of a farm where he first managed a nursery business, but which he later made the basis of a real estate enterprise, Charles H. Stearns eventually engaged in banking. In 1892 he was elected an assessor, an office which he filled continuously for nearly forty years.
Other citizens who played exceptional parts in putting for- ward the town's affairs included: John C. Abbott, who served on numerous committees and was a commissioner of the sink- ing fund; Robert Amory, active as a member of the school committee and board of health, and as a library trustee; William Aspinwall, as selectman, moderator, and committee- man; Austin W. Benton, for many years a selectman; William I. Bowditch, who concerned himself with nearly everything that concerned the town; Rufus G. F. Candage, a selectman, moderator, and representative to the General Court; John W. Candler, who not only went to the General Court but to Con- gress; Charles H. Drew, a perennial moderator and selectman, and long chairman of the library trustees; James W. Edgerly, repeatedly a selectman; Charles D. Head, another perennial selectman, and treasurer of the library board; Horace James, many years a selectman; and Francis W. Lawrence, in the same category; William H. Lincoln, for many years an assessor, and later chairman of the school committee, in whose honor the Lincoln School was named; Colonel Theodore Lyman, a re- presentative to the General Court and to Congress, known for his efforts toward the improvement of the civil service; Thomas Parsons, many times a selectman, first chairman of the library board, and active on numerous committees; Oliver Whyte, still another perpetual selectman; and Eben W. Reed, who for
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many years served in the triple capacities of constable, field driver, and pound keeper.
These are only the men whose tenure of public office seems remarkable. Their public service was such that the town called on them again and again, drawing freely on their large abilities, and compensating them mainly in the esteem of their fellow citizens and the satisfaction of community service well per- formed. Other individuals, no less able, avoided political life, but lent wise counsel, professional guidance, and personal dis- tinction to the town, and exerted powerful influence in favor of progressive movements.
There was Augustus Lowell, who graduated from Harvard in 1850, traveled in Europe, and embarked on a commercial career concerned primarily with cotton manufacture and the East India trade. In the late 'sixties he established a home in Brookline, and for more than thirty years devoted himself to a wide variety of industries, philanthropies, and public services. His influence was felt in town affairs, for on the rare occasions when he was induced to interest himself in some public matter, there was immediate action. Among his seven children were Abbott Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard University, Amy Lowell, known for her poetry, Percival Lowell, the as- tronomer, and Guy Lowell, a distinguished architect.
Theodore Lyman was the son of the Theodore Lyman who had been mayor of Boston at the time of the Garrison mob, in 1835, and had been charged with libel by Daniel Webster in the course of a political controversy. His son came markedly under the influence of Louis Agassiz during his undergraduate years at Harvard, and exhibited a lifelong interest in scientific matters - particularly as they concerned fish. As a young man, he had taken part in an expedition to Florida in which Agassiz was interested, and met Captain George S. Meade of the topographical engineers, who was then superintending the erection of lighthouses on the Florida reefs. When Meade later became Major General commanding the Army of the Potomac, in 1863, Lyman was made a lieutenant-colonel on Governor Andrew's staff, and then assigned to special duty at Meade's headquarters, where he acted as a personal aide, though he was never in the United States service. Mr. Lyman gave
ESTATE OF THEODORE LYMAN, HEATH STREET The house was built in 1844
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much attention to charitable, penal, and educational institu- tions; in recognition of his work, the reform school at West- borough was renamed the Lyman School for Boys. He became an overseer of Harvard, and played a part in the choice of his cousin and intimate personal friend, Charles W. Eliot, as presi- dent. A vigorous opponent of Wendell Phillips and of General Benjamin F. Butler, he served one term in Congress as a Demo- crat, but was defeated for re-election.
William Leverett Chase afforded another example of com- mercial leadership and varied personal talents. He graduated from Harvard in 1876 and went immediately into business. He was alike merchant, manufacturer and banker, and in each position was thoughtful, clear-headed, far-seeing and sagacious, and in all warm-hearted and sympathetic, according to his memorialist, ever willing to lend his helping hand and kindly voice to assist his fellow-worker, whether a brother merchant or a factory operative. He entered the factory or bank with a sagacity as keen as his heart was kind; and he could leave them with equal grace and power for the art gallery, music room, or the muster field. Henry M. Rogers said of him that he was the youngest ex-president of the renowned Papyrus Club, and the best beloved. His title of colonel was derived from appoint- ment on the governor's staff, and he went frequently to England to witness military maneuvers, where his expert knowledge on many points appeared to be appreciated.
Amateurs of art and science were many among the eminent of Brookline, but there were others who won high professional standing. Henry Hobson Richardson was the great architect of the brownstone period, an exponent of the Romanesque style so widely used in the libraries and other public buildings of New England. The Brattle Street Church and Trinity Church in Boston were designed by him, along with numerous public buildings throughout the east and many of the Boston & Albany railroad stations.
Samuel Colman, Brookline landscape artist, was the founder and first president of the American Society of Painters in Water Color. George Makepeace Towle, long a trustee of the Brook- line Library, had served as United States consul at Nantes and at Bradford before he settled down to political and historical
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studies and writing. Eliakim Littell, founder of Littell's Living Age, was perhaps the first editor to discover that a magazine could be entirely produced with no other tools than scissors and paste.
In the field of science there are at least two pre-eminent names, Sargent and Channing. Charles Sprague Sargent, son of a banker and railroad director, graduated from Harvard in 1862 and went into military service. After the war he returned to studies in the natural sciences which had fascinated him, and rose to great distinction in the fields of botany and dendrology. He became director of the Botanic Garden of Harvard Uni- versity, director of the Arnold Arboretum, and professor of arboriculture - a man veritably at the head of a profession which he honored for half a century.
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