USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Our county and its people : A history of Hampden County, Massachusetts. Volume 1 > Part 21
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When the district system was abolished, the very persons often, who had striven to prevent the substitution of a good building for a dilapidated one, were eager to have a new building erected at the expense of the town. As soon as in any section of the town an old school building was displaced by a modern one, other sec- tions claimed a like improvement as their right.
The high school buildings recently erected in the county are fitting expressions of the value the people of the county now attach to the work of the highest grades in our public schools. They show a worthy public spirit, and tend to impress us with the dignity and importance of the ends for which they were erected. The chaste elegance and substantial character of the Springfield High school places it in the first rank of public buildings in the state. But more important than solid and tasteful architecture are the arrangements for the seating of pupils, for ample light, for heating, for ventilation and for securing other conditions of physical well being. The high schools are not yet perfect in these matters ; but we have so far progressed in their construction and equipment that the intellectual and moral results sought in a course of secondary instruction, are far more easily attainable than in the school buildings of a former generation.
If we compare the studies and the methods of the earlier schools with those of to-day, we find that, as the simple and uni- form mode of life of the early settlers has given place to the more complex conditions of our present social life, the curricu- lum of the schools has of necessity become more varied and com- prehensive.
We have already noticed the text-books of the colonial dame schools-the horn-book and the New England primer-and that reading, writing, and ciphering, with a little geography, made up the work of the common school. The time of keeping school in the country schools was much less than now. It was not uncom- mon in sparsely populated sections, to omit the school during the winter, and farm work tended to shorten the summer term. Some branches that now receive large attention had no place in the schools for two centuries. Drawing was not legally allowed in the public schools by act of the legislature until 1858, and not
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until 1870 was it made a regular study. Manual training, in the earlier schools, was unthought of save what was provided for by copy books and in pen-making from quills; but girls in their homes were proud to become proficient in spinning, weaving and needlework, and in solving by experience the problems of the culi- nary art. Boys learned to board and shingle buildings, score and hew timber, fell trees, make fences, mend harnesses, and fashion many farm implements. They also had training in the cultivation of crops and in the care of domestic animals.
Nature study, as a department of school work, no pupil pur- sued, yet the objects of nature in the open country impressed the minds of the children as they do not to-day in our more populous districts abounding with works of men. In open spaces, un- walled by buildings, children beheld the changing forms, the colors, the lights and shades that give such charms to the scenery of earth and sky. They beheld the whole western horizon kind- ling with purple and gold at time of setting sun. The wonder of the night, stars studding the sky, the changing moon, and the "wandering fires"-all impressed them as the phenomena of the heavens cannot now impress children reared in the artificial ap- pliances of cities and thickly populated districts. Though the systematic study of plants found no place in those earlier schools, yet the children knew the homes of the wild flowers and most of their common names. One of their pastimes in their woodland walks was to test each other's knowledge of the kinds of trees and shrubs they passed. They learned the habits and haunts of birds and of other denizens of the forest. So much as they learned of nature, they learned in the fields where objects were seen in their entirety and in their natural environment. What they learned of nature they learned by their own observation, and not by reading about what some one else had observed. What is learned by one's own observation and experience is not easily forgotten.
The transfer of home industries to factories, the making of things by machinery instead of by hand, has left the home with- out those opportunities for manual training and those incentives to it that the country homes of our county once furnished.
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Manual training and gymnastic exercises are now needful to a large proportion of pupils in our public schools. These are need- ed in our cities and towns for training of eye and hand, for a better appreciation of the material agencies ministering to mod- ern life, and for the opportunity to more wisely answer the ques- tion, "To what work in life am I best adapted ?"
In cities where the physical environment of the child is in large degree artificial, the objects of nature cannot stimulate his curiosity and waken his interest as in a country home. That he may gain clear and distinct perceptions of natural objects, so fundamental to all subsequent knowledge gained by books pre- senting that which is beyond the range of observation, the natural objects, as far as may be, must be brought to him, or he must be brought to the objects and led to study them in their native con- ditions and surroundings.
The applications of chemistry, of physics, and of other de- partments of natural science in different employments, now including practical farming, even, have furnished good reasons for introducing the study of elementary science into the public schools. The study of the objects that belong to the pupil's physical environment, as a means of developing his power of observation and of cultivating his aesthetic nature, has been found to have high educational value. Drawing, so long exclud- ed from the public schools, is now obligatory in all. It is now rendering an admirable service, though the patrons of the schools do not yet fully appreciate its large practical and educational value.
Thus new studies from time to time have been added, while the names of the old have taken on a new significance. Arith- metic no longer includes curious and time-exhausting puzzles, but trends closely to the requirements of the counting room and the demands of industrial affairs. Geography is no longer a catalogue of continents, seas, capes, bays, rivers, mountains, states and capitals. The earth is now studied as the home of man, and in its relations to the varied forms of human activities. Grammar no longer employs pupils in memorizing useless forms and in attempting unnecessary classifications ; but yields the field
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to practical lessons in language by which accuracy, facility, and grace in oral and written composition are gained. Scientific study of language, grammar proper, is reserved for the highest grade of the grammar school, or more properly deferred until the pupil reaches the secondary school.
There has been progress in the inner life of the schools, in their aims, and in their methods, no less than in the studies pur- sued. The purpose of the colonial schools was to impart know !- edge of reading, writing and the simple elements of arithmetic. The embryo high schools gave opportunity for the scanty prep- aration required to enter Harvard college. Grammar, geography and history came into the common school later. To these, in the academies, were added the elements of some of the natural sciences, learned mostly by memorizing text-books with occasional visible illustrations and experiments prepared and presented by the teacher. The object here as in the common schools was knowledge-in large degree verbal knowledge. The laboratory method now adopted in our schools is far in advance of former methods. Instead of the teacher performing experi- ments in chemistry and physics in the presence of the pupils and telling them what they see, they themselves perform the experi- ments, observe, infer, and tell the teacher the mode of procedure and the results. So in studying plants and minerals, the objects of study are in the hands of the pupils, or within the range of their observation so that they may analyze them, discover truth for themselves and frame statements of their own ideas. Books are no longer regarded as the primary source of ideas, nor the pupils as passive recipients of verbal statements, made by the teacher or furnished in printed pages.
The schools in earlier times, however, were not without good results. Committing to memory words and sentences helped pupils to learn spelling and the construction of sentences. The weekly declamations and recitations in the academies and the occasional exercises of a similar sort in the common school, were means of literary culture. Modern schools have found no better means than memorizing and suitably expressing appropriate selections of real excellence.
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The reading books, though often not adapted to interest the children in the lower grades, rendered valuable literary service to older pupils. The reading lessons might be fragmentary ; but they were often the finest selections from the most approved authors. They were read over and over, and from them were largely taken the prose or the poetry to be recited during the hours given to rhetorical exercises. The prolonged attention that the literature of the reading books secured, making it a life-long possession, together with the constant influence of daily readings of the Bible, both in the home and in the school, give us reasons for the vigorous and clear style of the letters and the current literature of the eighteenth century. The supply of reading was often scanty, but what there was, was for the most part good. Omniverous and thoughtless reading, nourished by sen- sational sheets and by books of fiction, feeble and faulty in style, and unnatural and startling in the presentation of trivial events, filling the imagination with silly pictures, leaving little room and less inclination for sober thought-such reading was not the reading of our forefathers, neither in childhood nor in later years ; it pertains to the intellectual idlers, the weaklings in pur- pose, of later times.
There may have been little genuine teaching, yet there were excellences in the schools which we may not pass unnoticed. There was no pampering of the intellect. That which was to be studied was not so diluted as to render hard study unnecessary and enfeeble thought. If little was done to smooth the rugged pathway of knowledge, it challenged effort, evoked self-reliance, strength and courage. If the school weeks were comparatively few and the list of studies meagre, the pupils generally came to school with an earnest purpose to accomplish something worthy, and to make the most of their opportunities. The modern strife of society and the school for the time and strength of the pupil during the hours of evening did not then exist. The evenings at home were seldom interrupted. They supplemented the ses- sions of school. And when the school terms for the year were ended, the quiet homes and secluded employments of the country, gave abundant opportunity to think over again what had been learned and to revive its impressions.
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One of the defects of the teaching, from which we are not wholly freed, was that descriptions of things were studied, rather than things themselves ; and yet this was less injurious to the boys and girls of the colonial schools, because, in their daily life they had more to do with the objects of nature than we. Another defect was that the objects of study, whether presented in books or otherwise, their arrangement, and the language employed, were generally adapted to the mind of the adult rather than to the mind of the child. The deductive order, by which the mind proceeds from general propositions and truths to specific applica- tions and illustrations, was employed rather than the inductive, by which the child begins with a knowledge of individual objects, and by his own inference, comes to the general truth.
The interests of the child were not consulted. It was not then the theory of most teachers that children should be attracted to their school-work. On the contrary, it was believed they would fail to gain one of the chief objects of school discipline, unless they were daily held and habituated to the performance of unwelcome tasks. The discipline that comes by unreserved devo- tion to work which one enjoys was not appreciated. The spirit of the kindergarten which now permeates the lower grades of our schools was wanting.
To-day, the progressive teacherstudies the nature of the child, traces his instincts, his interests and his aversions, the ways in which he thinks, and the steps by which he approaches knowl- edge. The result of such study is intelligent teaching in accord with the unfolding faculties of the child. Does a child first gain a knowledge of objects by his own observation and experience ? Then the teacher of to-day begins the teaching of every subject by leading the child to observe that which is to be studied, rather than words describing it. Such teaching is in strong contrast with the book-learning of earlier times. Does a child naturally attend to things changing and moving sooner than to things at rest and inactive? Then the study of animals and plants in the kindergarten and primary school precedes the study of minerals. To-day the instincts of the child are consulted in planning his work and in providing for his recreations. Is he fond of making
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things? He is trained in drawing, moulding, and woodwork, and by these exercises secures not only manual training but mental culture. Mythic legends and fairy tales are furnished for reading at the age when the imagination revels in its freedom not yet restrained by the tests of truth. The self-activity of the child is so directed as to lead to a natural development.
Unnatural quiet and stillness, produced by rigid restraint, are no longer regarded the acme of school order ; it is now secured by furnishing ample and agreeable employment in suitable school work. The applications of the rod and the ferule were once the approved means of limiting, if not of eliminating, the hereditary perversity of the will termed by the theologians "orig- inal sin." While it is still admitted that force and physical penalty are ultimately to be employed if school order cannot be otherwise maintained, there is now found comparatively little use for them in schools. In moral training, the effort now is not to eradicate tendencies to evil by severity, but to dwarf and wither them by the overgrowth of noble aspirations and worthy deeds. The modern teacher, instead of compelling by penalties and coercing by fear, allures and leads along the paths of knowl- edge, selecting the way so wisely and so in accord with the tastes and the pace of children that it is far pleasanter for them to keep company with the teacher than to stray in forbidden paths. Once, knowledge seemed to be the ultimate aim of all school work. To-day, power rather than knowledge is the aim. The test of a pupil's school work is not what he can repeat, but what he can think and do.
The report of the board of education for 1899-1900 fur- nishes some interesting statistics relative to the present condi- tion of the public schools of the county ; 30,457 persons are re- ported between the ages of 5 and 15 years of age, 30,011 different persons of all ages in the public schools during the school year, and 22,264 the average attendance ; $5,354.01 was expended for the conveyance of pupils. The amount thus expended .will doubtless be increased as the people become more fully apprised that money is saved, better educational appliances can be pro- vided, and better teachers permanently employed by closing the
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small schools and transporting the pupils to larger schools. In aiding this better grouping of pupils, trolley cars are becoming factors in educational progress.
The amount paid for teachers' wages during the year 1900 was $505,962.91. The total expenditure for the support of public schools was $708,450.81. Of this sum, $99,489.72 was expended for new school houses, a sum considerably less than the expenditure for this purpose during some preceding years. If to the amount expended as reported, we could add the annual interest of the capital invested in school buildings and in other school appliances, the amount expended in providing public instruction and the amount annually expended in other ways for education in the county, the sum might be found to approach nearer two millions than one.
Ten high schools are reported, including the Hitchcock Free academy and the Monson academy. The whole number of pupils in high schools was 2,014. The attendance at high schools during the last five years shows a ratio of increase much beyond the ratio of increase of population. The causes for the recent rapid growth of high schools, are, "the feeling that a higher education is needed to cope with the present conditions of life, both social and industrial; the increasing disposition to recognize the high school as a natural part and continuation of public education; an improvement in circumstances that enables parents to give their children better advantages for a start in life; in some places, a decrease in the demand for boys' labor in factories and mills, and in other employments of a distinctly manual character; and lastly, the broadening of high school courses of studies, so that now, whatever their destination in life, young people find some- thing in the high school that seems to meet their wants or tastes." We may expect that the attendance in these schools of higher grade will increase still more rapidly as the courses in the high schools become more elective, and more closely adapted to the demands of active life.
The mode of providing high school instruction for pupils in the smaller towns, who are qualified for admission to a high school and desire to enter, is not uniform. Towns whose valua-
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tion is less than $500,000, generally avail themselves of the pro- visions of the recent law of the state, exempting such towns from the payment of the tuition of their pupils in attendance in high schools of other towns and making it a charge upon the state. In small towns, whose valuation exceeds $500,000, local pride and sometimes economical considerations, favor the maintenance of a school of higher grade that shall wholly, or in part, provide high school instruction. There are many reasons why a town should strenuously endeavor to maintain one school of higher grade, even if unable to provide a complete high school course.
During the century that has just closed, the instruction of the pupils in our public schools has been in large degree transferred from men to women. In early colonial times women were not employed as teachers, save in schools for little children, in which the range of studies did not go beyond the Horn book and the New England primer. The contents of the primer we have al- ready outlined. The Horn book is described as "a single leaf on which was printed at the beginning of the first line the form of a cross, to show that the end of training is piety. After the cross there followed the letters of the alphabet, the small letters and the capitals, the vowels, syllables of two letters, and the words, 'In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.' Closing with the Lord's Prayer." The sheet was originally in England covered with a transparent sheet of horn, hence its name.
The famous law of 1647 did not recognize women as teachers. Every township of fifty householders was ordered to appoint one in their town to teach all such children as should resort to him. When a town had set up a grammar school, a "master" was to be employed to teach it. The "Dame schools," usually kept in rooms of dwelling houses, were deemed within the province of women who were to be "keepers at home."
The opinion was then general that to teach girls in school anything beyond reading and writing and the simplest rudi- ments of other common branches, was to waste time, for these were all they would have occasion to use. They had no oppor- tunity in the public schools to gain the knowledge required to
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teach grades above the primary. The grammar schools were for boys only. Boston, supposed then as now to furnish literary models for other communities, admitted girls to the grammar school for the first time in 1789, and for nearly half a century thereafter they were permitted to attend only one-half of the year-from April to October. The public sentiment seemed quite in accord with the saying of a German philosopher, "The home of man is the world, the world of woman her home." A historian tells us that "the rural schools admitted the boys and girls alike, but the instruction for the girls was limited to lessons in writing, spelling and reading."
The dedication of the building of the Westfield academy, then the only academy in Western Massachusetts, marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the education of the girls in Hampden county. The limitations of their instruction in the public schools did not obtain in academies. Whatever was there taught, girls could study as freely as boys. As there were no colleges for girls, they were not expected to elect prepar- atory studies. As high schools were established, boys and girls were admitted on equal footing. The same was true of State Normal schools. Now colleges are provided for women. The methods of governing pupils have become more human, requiring less strength of muscle-an advance for which we are indebted mainly to the increased number of female teachers in our schools.
Owing to these conditions, and others which might be no- ticed, the large majority of the teachers in our public schools to-day are women. There are now more than ten times as many women as men teaching in the public schools of the state. The number of different male teachers employed in the public schools of Hampden county, as officially reported for the school year end- ing in 1900, was only 78, while the number of female teachers was 901.
In 1881 the legislature granted to women the right to vote for school committee, thus increasing the power of women to control the management of the public schools.
In 1874 the legislature passed an act declaring that no per- son should be deemed ineligible to the office of school committee
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by reason of sex. From that date, and in some towns earlier, women have served on the school committee in the towns of our county. most acceptably. Several towns have found their need of school supervision best supplied by the employment of women as superintendents. The intelligent women of Hampden county have done more than men to upbuild the public schools. They, together with other women of the state, have been effective in securing the teaching of temperance in the schools. The high moral tone of the public schools of the county is largely the result of their influence.
Educational Institutions Not Included in the Public Schools. -Every city and town in Hampden county has a free public library : every one of these libraries aids the work of public schools. It is an essential part of a good secondary course of instruction to teach the student how to use a library in topical study. Under the direction of the librarian and the teacher, pupils in the grammar grades, even, learn how to make the library supplement the work of the school. Following the ex- ample of the public library of Brookline, Mass., where in 1890 a juvenile room was first provided and furnished with suitable books, most of the libraries in the county make special provisions for the needs and the tastes of children. Librarians and teachers co-operate in making the library serviceable to pupils in the schools and to youth who are continuing their studies beyond the schools. Every progressive teacher feels that to teach the art of reading and leave the pupil unaided in his selection to make his way among periodicals and books is like launching one upon an unknown sea without chart or rudder; hence the teachers more and more feel the necessity of introducing those under their care to good literature, and so cultivating their taste for it, that their intellectual and moral progress after leaving school will be assured.
In 1898, there were 191,419 volumes in the free public libraries in the county. Large accessions have since been made. Spring- field library alone is reported to contain upwards of 101,000 volumes. The aggregate circulation is about twice the number of volumes.
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