USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume III > Part 13
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Secondary Schools-In 1852, the City Normal School for the educa- tion of female teachers was opened, and in 1855 the plan was so modified as to make it a school for girls, under the name Girls' High and Normal School. In 1872, the institution was divided into the Girls' High and a Normal School. In 1868, elementary evening and day schools were established for newsboys and bootblacks, with an evening high school for these same classes founded the next year. In 1869, a school for deaf mutes; in 1870, evening industrial schools; and in the same year a kindergarten all mark the advances made in the school system of Boston. The Girls' Latin High, established in 1878, was the most important of the steps taken in education. In 1884, the first Manual Training School was started on a much discussed appropriation of $2,500. In 1893, the Mechanic Arts School was opened, and in a few years the Commercial School. Thus, through the centuries, the school system of the city has expanded, entering spheres of education beyond the wildest conception of its founders.
The Evolution of School Management-The progressive steps in the evolution of the system of management of the Boston schools were co- incident with the evolution of the school system, eventually bringing to the fore the school committee, the one department of municipal govern- ment that has remained as a direct choice of the voters. Originally, the people of Boston met in the town meeting to elect teachers, fix their salaries, vote supplies, and determine the location and building of school buildings. In 1709 a committee was appointed to consider the affairs of the Latin School, which made several recommendations, among which was one that led to the establishment of five school inspectors of the grammar school, all of whom were laymen.
These "Inspectors" seem to have had the control of many school matters until the town chose, in 1712, a special committee to report on
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the advisability of establishing a writing school at North End. Com- mittees of "Visitation" appointed in town meeting were the usual means of caring for educational matters until after the Revolution. The adop- tion by Boston of a "New System of Education," September 23, 1789, has already been noted ; on October 20 following, 12 men in addition to 9 selectmen were chosen to put the new system into operation, since which time Boston has had an elective school committee.
The "School Committee"-When, in 1818, the town provided for pri- mary schools for children between four and seven years old, a primary committee was established, consisting of thirty-six members, three from each ward, which remained in force until the turning over to the general school committee, in 1854, of all school affairs. From 1822 to 1834, school matters were managed by the mayor and the Board of Aldermen, together with the school committee, which consisted of one from each of the twelve wards. The aldermen were removed from this activity by a Legislative act of 1835, but the mayor was ex-officio president of the board, as the school committee was then called, until 1885.
The various annexations to Boston, and the constant making of new wards, so increased the numbers of the members on the school commit- tee as not only to make it cumbersome, but so divided interest and re- sponsibility as to make the efficient management of the schools impos- sible. By 1874, this committee consisted of 116 members, but in 1875 this number was reduced to twenty-four with the mayor as its ex-officio chairman. Under charter amendments of 1885, the mayor ceased to be on the committee, it being given the power to elect its own, but the mayor was privileged to partially veto votes calling for the spending of money. In the actual expenditure of funds, the school committee had complete control. There has always been more or less friction between the school department and the city council, growing out of the tendency of the committee to exceed in its expenditures the amounts voted them. In 1900, a law was passed requiring the school committee to make out each March what amounted to a budget, the total of which was to be less than certain fixed tax percentages. This limit was $2.08 in each $1,000 of the taxable property of the city at first, but was raised to $3.40 in 1901, and $4.07 in 1915, the tendency being always toward an increase as items were added to the school expenditures such as, to select one example, provision for medical inspection, which soon meant the sal- aries of nurses to help the inspectors. In recent years the "Pension Fund" has put an increased load on the city treasury. The law of 1908 gives a teacher reaching the age of 65, who has served in the public schools thirty-five years, and has taught in Boston twenty years, a pen- sion of not exceeding $180 a year.
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Naturally, the differences constantly coming up between the ideas of the school committee and the council over expenditures reacted badly upon the salaries paid teachers. And the constant increase in the num- ber of pupils, with the attendant need for more and larger school build- ings, only added to the difficulties of the situation. As late as 1845 the pay of primary teachers was only $250 yearly, it being raised to $325 the next year. Even in 1857 this rate had a maximum of $450, which was paid to but a few. In Civil War times, this amount was considered too much and reduced, only to be increased during the period of inflated money which followed the conflict. In 1867, the master of a high school received $4,000; of a grammar school $3,000; of a teacher in a primary school $650; the average increase in all departments being 45 per cent. There have been many fluctuations in salaries since in both up and down directions, although the tendency has been to advance. The teachers of Boston are among the best paid in the United States, but the failure of the rewards of teaching to keep pace with the cost of living is still a source of much friction. The establishment of a retiring fund (1900) and of pensions, while helpful, are considered by many to be evasions of fair payment for services rendered rather than benevolent practices.
The Difficulty of Providing School Buildings-In making provisions for school buildings, Boston has suffered not only from the difficulties brought about by a rapid increase in population, but even more by the removal of many of its residents from sections that have been taken over by business. There has been a shifting in the class and nationality of the population. Where once lived an almost wholly New England people, there came those of foreign birth, which required schools and buildings of a different character. Schools would be built on an elab- orate scale, and almost before their completion, the locality had changed, and the building would be too large or ill-fitted for the resident pupils. In 1876 Mayor Cobb said there were ten thousand vacant seats in the schoolhouses, and still there were parts of the then small city without adequate accommodations for its students. The annexation of Roxbury and Dorchester, together with the natural growth of the city, increased the outlay for schools from $643,774 in 1864 to $1,602,750 in 1869.
Modern School Buildings-The housing of pupils became such an almost unmanageable affair that since 1901 the construction and mainte- nance of school buildings has been in the hands of a separate committee, known first as the schoolhouse commissioners, three in number, who are appointed by the mayor. It is now called the schoolhouse depart- ment whose duty it is to select sites for school buildings, and to have general oversight of the sums and loans required in the construction of
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schools. In 1900, there were 207 permanent school buildings in Boston (lower, elementary and high schools). During the first twenty-three years of the schoolhouse department, it completed seventy-nine new school buildings and erected additions to thirty existing buildings. The Board in 1924 completed the erection of six more buildings, thereby adding seventy-eight class rooms and accommodations for 3,120 pupils ; fourteen others were under construction. During the year 1925, seven school buildings, including one high school, containing ninety-nine school rooms and accommodating 4,080 pupils were erected at a cost of $2,477,- 803. The Dorchester High School for Boys, just one item, cost $1,206,- 242 and accommodated 1,600 boys. The actual expenditure for 1926 was $4,655,749. For 1927 the program of the department called for buildings costing $2,889,587. Some of the major items were $1,286,000 for a thirty- room high school building in the Elihu Greenwood district of Hyde Park; $470,000 for the construction of a twenty-room building in Rox- bury; and additions, all of which will cost $200,000, or more, two in West Roxbury, and another in Charlestown. He who has read through these statistics, has an inkling of what the school program means to the municipality. It might be added that the total cost of the maintenance of the public schools for the financial year 1926 was $15,118,502, a sub- stantial but normal increase over the preceding year. In excess of half the above sum was spent for instructors ; the pupil registration shows a yearly increase reaching nearly 170,000.
Two Nationally Known Boston School Buildings-How well Boston houses her school children may be seen in a distinction achieved recently in educational circles when two of the city schools were chosen as mod- els for the entire country. The two were the Champlain Primary School at Dorchester, and the James A. Garfield Primary School of Brighton. Both were considered to be among the best that had been produced by experts in architecture, construction and up-to-date appointments. That Boston was able to keep pace with her school requirements during the post-war period, was due to a fore-sightedness in bonding which made available $14,500,000 during the period from 1920 to 1925. The present policy is to "pay as you go," the expenditures now being those met by current taxation. The Schoolhouse Department of three commissioners in 1925 consisted of John H. Mahoney, chairman; Clarence H. Blackall, secretary ; and J. George Herlihy, chief clerk.
Statistics of the School Committee-The following are the statistics of the Department of the School Committee, and the schools under its supervision as supplied by the school authorities :
School Committee-Francis C. Gray, chairman, term expires 1932; Mrs. Jennie L. Barron; Edward M. Sullivan, term expires 1930; Joseph J. Hurley, Joseph V. Lyons, terms expire 1932.
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Officials-Chairman, Jeremiah E. Burke; treasurer, Mrs. Jennie L. Barron; secre- tary, Ellen M. Cronin; superintendent, Jeremiah E. Burke; business manager, Alexander M. Sullivan; schoolhouse custodian, Mark B. Mulvey.
Board of Superintendents-Jeremiah E. Burke, chairman.
Assistant Superintendents-William B. Snow, John C. Brodhead, Mary C. Mellyn, Arthur L. Gould, Michael J. Downey.
The School Committee consists of five members. No person shall be eligible for election to the Committee who is not an inhabitant of the City and who has not been a resident thereof for at least three years continuously prior to the election. The members serve without compensation and their terms of office begin on the first Monday of Janu- ary following their election. At each biennial municipal election as many persons as may be necessary to fill the places of the member or members of the Committee whose term or terms are about to expire are elected for the term of four years. Vacancies are filled for the unexpired term at the next municipal election.
The School Committee meets regularly on the first and third Mondays of each month, except during July and August and the first week in September.
NORMAL, LATIN AND DAY HIGH SCHOOLS (16).
Teachers College (formerly Normal School).
Boys Latin (or Public Latin) and Girls' Latin.
East Boston High, Charlestown High, English High (boys), Mechanic Arts High (boys), South Boston High, Girls' High, High School of Practical Arts (girls), Brighton High, High School of Commerce (boys), Roxbury High (girls), Jamaica Plain High, Dorchester High and Hyde Park High Schools.
DAY INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL DISTRICTS (5).
Roxbury-Lewis, Theodore Roosevelt.
Dorchester-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Frank V. Thompson.
Roslindale-Washington Irving.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DISTRICTS (69).
East Boston-Chapman,t Emerson,* Blackinton-John Cheverus,t Samuel Adams,t Theodore Lyman,t Ulysses S. Grant .*
Charlestown-Harvard-Frothingham,t Prescott, Warren-Bunker Hill.t
North and West Ends-Bowdoin,t Eliot,* Hancock, Washington,# Wells,t Wendell Phillips.#
City Proper-Abraham Lincoln,* Horace Mann, Prince,t Quincy.
South End-Dwight, Everett,# Franklin,# Rice.t
South Boston-Bigelow,* Frederic W. Lincoln,# Gaston,* John A. Andrew,# Law- rence, Norcross,* Oliver Hazard Perry,t Shurtleff,* Thomas N. Hart.t
Roxbury-Dearborn,t Dillaway,t Dudley,# Hugh O'Brien,t Hyde,# Jefferson-Com- ins,¿ Julia Ward Howe, Martin, Sherwin,# William Lloyd Garrison.
Jamaica Plain-Agassiz,# Bowditch, Lowell,t Francis Parkman.
Roslindale-Charles Sumner, Longfellow.
Dorchester-Christopher Gibson,t Edmund P. Tileston,t Edward Everett,t Gilbert Stuart,t Henry L. Pierce,* John Marshall, John Winthrop,* Mary Hemenway,* Mather,t Minot,t Phillips Brooks,t Robert Treat Paine, Roger Wolcott, William E. Endicott, William E. Russell .¿
* Intermediate School. + Includes intermediate classes. # Departmental Organization. Met. Bos .- 54
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Brighton-Bennett,; Thomas Gardner,t Washington Allston .* Hyde Park-Elihu Greenwood,t Henry Grew.t
West Roxbury-Robert Gould Shaw .*
INDUSTRIAL AND SPECIAL SCHOOLS.
Industrial Schools-Boston Trade School (day) with evening classes also; Trade School for Girls (day), known as the "Evening Trade School" in the evening; Con- tinuation Schools (day) for employed boys and girls.
Clerical School-For special training in Stenography, Bookkeeping, Typewriting, English, Office Practice and Penmanship.
Disciplinary Day School-For truants and other school offenders.
School for the Deaf-Horace Mann School.
Day School for Immigrants-For instruction in English language.
SPECIAL DEPARTMENTS.
Educational Investigation and Measurement-Arthur W. Kallom.
Evening Schools-Joseph F. Gould, Director.
Examinations-Joel Hatheway, Chief Examiner.
Extended Use of Public Schools (i. e., School Centers)-James T. Mulroy, Director.
Household Science and Arts-Josephine Morris, Director.
Kindergartens-Caroline D. Aborn, Director.
Licensed Minors-Timothy F. Regan, Supervisor.
Medical Inspection-John A. Ceconi, M. D.
Modern Foreign Languages-Marie A. Solano, Director.
Music-John A. O'Shea, Director.
Penmanship-Bertha A. Connor, Director.
Physical Training-Nathaniel J. Young, Director.
Practice and Training of Teachers-Katherine L. King.
Salesmanship-Edmund J. Rouse.
Special Schools and Classes-Ada M. Fitts, Director.
Vocational Guidance-Susan J. Ginn, Director.
Medical Inspectors and Nurses-Regular medical inspection of the schools was maintained from 1894 to 1915, under the supervision of the Health Department. Beginning September 1, 1915, the School Commit- tee took charge of this service, appointing 41 physicians, since increased to 56, besides the director.
Chapter 357, Acts of 1907, provided for the appointment by the School Committee of one supervising female nurse and as many district female nurses as are deemed necessary. For the 74 elementary and inter- mediate school districts there are 52 nurses in the service besides the supervising nurse.
Physical Education-In 1907 the School Committee were authorized to provide for the physical education and recreation of pupils, including proper apparatus and facilities in the buildings, yards and playgrounds under their control.
* Intermediate School. + Includes intermediate classes. # Departmental Organization.
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The sum available for this branch of education is II cents on each $1,000 of the city's assessed valuation, the appropriation for 1924-25 being $188,280.
There are now a director and 29 instructors of physical training, six instructors in military drill, also 170 playground teachers, the latter having charge of games, gymnastics, etc., in the 41 schoolyard play- grounds and 52 park playgrounds in use.
Industrial Schools Partly Maintained by State-By Chapter 471, Acts of 1911, and Chapter 106, Acts of 1912, the State especially encourages the establishing of independent industrial schools, allowing financial aid for their maintenance proportionate to the amount raised by local taxa- tion and expended for all public schools. Under this arrangement the School Committee is reimbursed by the State to the extent of one-half the net maintenance cost of such industrial schools established in Boston thus far with the approval of the State Board of Education. By Chapter 805, Acts of 1913, continuation schools, for employed children between fourteen and sixteen years of age, were included under the same plan of State aid. The schools thus maintained are the Boston Trade School (for boys), day and evening classes, Trade School for Girls, day and ex- tension classes, Compulsory Continuation School, High School of Prac- tical Arts, also cooperative courses in the Charlestown, Dorchester and Hyde Park High and practical arts courses in the evening elementary schools.
Manual Training Rooms and Prevocational Shops-There are six manual training rooms located in high schools, one in each of the follow- ing-named districts: Brighton, Charlestown, Dorchester, East Boston, Hyde Park, and Jamaica Plain. In elementary and intermediate schools there are 122 prevocational shops where classes in electrical work, book- binding, woodworking, modeling, machine shop practice, sheet metal work, etc., are taught.
Household Science and Arts-There are six high schools offering courses in household science and arts, Brighton, Charlestown, Dorches- ter, Hyde Park, also Girls' High and High School of Practical Arts, and sixty-seven rooms in elementary and intermediate schools equipped for instruction in cookery, also fifty-six sewing rooms.
A director, two assistant directors, 81 teachers of cookery, and 155 teachers of sewing are assigned to the Department of Household Science and Arts.
Evening High, Elementary and Industrial Schools-There are nine evening high schools, Central, for men and boys only (English High
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Schoolhouse), Girls', Brighton, Charlestown, Dorchester, East Boston, Roxbury, South Boston, and Hyde Park. These schools, whose sessions are on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, from 7.30 to 9.30, are held in the several high schoolhouses of the districts named. All but the Central High are commercial schools.
There are twenty-four elementary evening schools, including eight branch schools of same in session on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings.
Evening industrial classes are conducted in the Boston Trade School and three branch schools held in the Brighton, East Boston and Hyde Park High schoolhouses.
Continuation School (Day)-Classes for Boys' Division, with 32 in- structors, are held in the Brimmer School on Common Street, and at 25 Warrenton Street; for Girls' Division, with 25 instructors, at 25 La Grange Street.
All children 14 to 16 years of age employed under an employment certificate are compelled by law to attend the school four hours per week.
Day Schools for Immigrants-There are thirty schools for immigrants where instruction in the English language is provided, classes being conducted daily (except Saturday) for two hours in the forenoon and the same in the afternoon.
Summer Review Schools-These supplementary schools, one high and ten elementary, for pupils who have been retarded in their studies, were started in 1914. The term is forty days, and the number of pupils in 1924 was 5,761. Of the elementary school pupils 81 per cent. won pro- motion in 1924.
Use of Schoolhouses for Social and Civic Purposes-In 1912 the School Committee were authorized by statute to allow the use of build- ings under their control by associations and individuals (other than school pupils) for social, recreative and civic purposes at times when the schools were not in session. Under this arrangement there are now eleven school centers, each having a manager and largely attended on three evenings a week. More than 50 school buildings are also used by non-school center groups.
The School Committee may annually appropriate for this purpose a sum equal to three cents on each $1,000 of the city's assessed valuation, which in 1924-25 amounted to $49,536, plus the income from rents of school halls, etc., or $10,377. Besides the renting of school halls for club meetings, entertainments, etc., the basements of 150 schoolhouses
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are used by the Election Department as polling places, lighting and janitor service being paid.
Horace Mann, Educator-If one man were to be singled out as hav- ing influenced the development of the present public school system of Boston more profoundly than any other, that man would be Horace Mann. In 1837, when secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Educa- tion, only just created, he began bringing about the changes in school laws that made possible many of the reforms that have since character- ized the progress of teaching and the care of youth. Horace Mann was one of the few early educational leaders of Boston who did not receive his collegiate training in Harvard, being a graduate of Brown. He began the practice of law, and in both branches of the Massachusetts General Court, did the work of a legislator. Against the persuasion of his friends, he accepted the post of Secretary of the State Board of Education, not only a thankless task, but one where, apparently, little could be accom- plished, one with practically no power attached. "When he came into office, two-thirds of the teachers in Massachusetts got their places with- out examination. The schools were in need of many reforms, modern- izing, enriching, and lifted to a democratic point of excellence which should make them good enough for rich and poor alike. These were reforms that could not be brought about without opposition. It came from the orthodox who dreaded the Unitarian influence of Mann, and feared that 'Godless schools' would result from the reading of the Bible without comment." It came from the Boston school-teachers who could not follow the leadership of one who himself had not taught. With these warring elements, Mann found himself in more than one acute controversy. The weapons of the fighter with words were com- pletely in Mann's control, and so violently did he use them at times that even his friends had cause to tremble. But the agitation of which he was center produced an awakening of interest in the public schools of Bos- ton which resulted entirely in good and has not yet subsided. "Through- out the state his work for primary and secondary education, for normal schools and the district library, which paved the way for the free public libraries, yielded fruit for his 'clients' in more than one generation to come."
He became the successor of John Quincy Adams in Congress, both in and out of whose halls he was one of the strongest of the anti-slavery advocates. In his later years, he swung back into education as the presi- dent of Antioch College in Ohio. B. A. Hinsdale, in his biography of Horace Mann writes of him as the opportune man who put the cause of popular education in America truly on its feet, and made Massachusetts
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"the leader in educational reform, holding the position among the states comparable with Mr. Mann's position among educational men." Cer- tainly the debt Boston owes to Horace Mann is far greater than that which has been paid by the erection of a statue to him and the naming of an institution or two in his honor.
Beginnings of Higher Education-The history of higher education in the United States begins with the foundation of Harvard College in 1636, and with it also must begin any story of higher education in Bos- ton, for "Newtowne" as Cambridge was then called was as much a part of Boston as it is now in many respects. Harvard was born as a voca- tional school, such as was the Latin School in Boston, the intent of the founders being that its students should become the ministers of the colony. But limited as were its purposes, and restricted in its teachings, Harvard's ways were the ways of truth and as such they became paths of freedom and progress. To Harvard's example and influence, Boston owes much of its preëminence in the educational world, its place in America as an educational centre. The limited area on which Boston has been built, with the crowded conditions of that area as the years brought people to the metropolis, has prevented the larger expansion of some of the institutions of higher education so that one of the largest is now located across the Charles, but meanwhile Harvard has just (1927) built and opened one of the most important of its schools on the Boston side of the river.
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