USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Somerville > Report of the city of Somerville 1895 > Part 12
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And thirdly, it has not been forgotten that this report is the only official and permanent record of events in our educational history, that it is to become a part of the archives of our city, and that years hence it may be consulted by the historian for facts and information not otherwise accessible. These considerations may justify its some- what miscellaneous character.
10
ANNUAL REPORTS.
The year 1895 has been a prosperous one in the school history of Somerville. There have been the usual discouragements and ob- structions of progress incident to lack of suitable accommodations, but freedom from the interruptions of sickness and storm, interest, enthusiasm, and fidelity on the part of teachers and pupils, the generous appropriations of the city government, and the practical wisdom and support of the School Board have combined in the accomplishment, to a satisfactory degree, of those objects for which the schools are maintained.
SUMMARY OF STATISTICS, 1895.
Population of Somerville, State Census
52,200
School population, May 1
8,510
Children attending school in December
9,609
Attending private schools “ .
1,418
Attending public schools 66
.
8,191
Attending High Schools
742
Attending Grammar and Primary schools in December
7,449
Entire enrollment for year
9,914
Average number attending
7,255
Per cent of daily attendance
95.24
Number of school buildings
24
Valuation of school property
$813,200.00
Number of classrooms
173
Number of teachers in December
209
Salaries of teachers for 1895
$139,712.87
Salaries of officers
$4,400.00
Cost of books and supplies
$15,063.16
Cost of water and light
$1,398.01 $11,581.00 $8,795.91 $180,950.95
Cost for each pupil in average membership
$23.76
Cost for each High School pupil .
$49.79
Cost for each Grammar and Primary pupil
$21.28
Amount paid for new school buildings .
$87,679.64
Cost of repairs for year
$15,650.97
Entire expenditures for all school purposes, 1895
$284,281.56
Expended by School Board .
$160,574.04
Expended by City Government
$123,707.52
Valuation of City .
. $46,406,300.00
Per cent of valuation spent to maintain schools .
0.390
Per cent of valuation spent for all school purposes
0.613
.
Average number belonging
7,617
Cost of janitors' services
Cost of fuel
Total cost of day and evening schools .
11
E -SCHOOL DEPARTMENT.
COST OF THE SCHOOLS.
The per capita cost of the schools for the year is $23.76 as com- pared with $22.90 for 1894. This increase of 86 cents is due to the increased cost of the High schools, which is $49.79 as against $31.34 for the last year. The cost of the Grammar and Primary schools has been $21.28 per capita for 1895. For 1894 it was $22.12. This shows a decrease of 84 cents in this direction.
This increase in the cost of the High schools is exceptional and to a large extent temporary. It is caused mainly by the expense of equipping the English school with books and apparatus, about $6,000 having been spent for that purpose. In view of the addition of seven practically new departments to our High School courses, and the adoption to a large extent of the elective system, we must expect that our High School expenses will be materially increased. More- over, it must be remembered that for several years, owing to the use of the two-session plan and the assignment of unduly large numbers of pupils to a teacher, the per capita expense of the High School has been kept at a very low rate.
There has been expended for the support of Kindergartens $1,122.50, an average of $12.61 for each of the 89 children belonging.
Unlike the expenditures of most departments of the city govern- ment, the sum required to maintain the schools for a year can be estimated with comparative exactness. It cannot be reduced without great loss to the schools. Teachers must be paid, books and supplies must be provided. At the opening of the year the School Board called for $140,450 for teachers' salaries; all but $738 of this sum was expended, although the amount appropriated by the City Council was exceeded by $5,712; $20,850 was the estimated cost of supplies and supervision, but the appropriation for the purpose was only $18,000. The expenditures were $11.17 more than the estimate. In view of these facts, is not the custom of cutting down the estimates of the Board and compelling an overdrawal of the appropriation one to be deprecated as creating a wrong impression regarding the ability of the Board to estimate the demands of the schools for the year ?
While the amount spent for the maintenance of our schools seems large, it will be noticed that there are 223 cities and towns in the State that spent more in proportion to their wealth than Somerville, and that among the thirty cities of the State we stood seventeenth in the percentage of taxable property paid for the support of public schools, in 1894.
12
ANNUAL REPORTS.
ADDITIONAL SCHOOL ACCOMMODATIONS.
It would be an exceptional school report that did not chronicle growth in the population of our city, and call for an increase in our school accommodations.
There are 542 more children in Somerville to-day than there were a year ago. This increase will fill 12 schoolrooms. Ward Four has furnished by far the larger proportion of this increase. The request of the Board, made at the beginning of the year, for a twelve- room building in Holland street was promptly granted by the City Council, and the work of construction was begun early in May. We may always expect the building of a large schoolhouse to occupy at least a year. In this case, however, delays have arisen for which the committee in charge are in no wise responsible, and the building will not probably be ready until next September. In the meantime the West Somerville schools continue to suffer from constantly increasing numbers. Before relief is afforded more than two hundred children will have had only half-time instruction for the year, while many more will have been crowded together under conditions prejudicial alike to comfort and progress. This illustrates the necessity of making earlier provision for the inevitable demands of the future. Similar failure in private enterprises would indicate lack of foresight and business sagacity. The same conditions exist in perspective to-day, in other parts of the city, and should be anticipated by the immediate construction of suitable school buildings.
When the Holland-street building is completed it will be imme- diately filled by a westerly movement of children from the Morse, Burns, and Highland schools. The long-suffering Lincoln School will be relieved, and one room in the Cedar-street schoolhouse be rendered available for kindergarten purposes.
So long as our present rate of increase continues we must expect to supply at least ten schoolrooms each year. The demand for the coming year seems to point in the direction of increased accommoda- tions in Wards One and Three. Last year, at this time, we urged the necessity and advisability of a new building on the lot adjoining the Prescott School. This was done mainly on the ground of economy of construction, in utilizing the heating and sanitary facilities of the Prescott School. Objections made to this location have sufficient weight to lead to the selection of another site. The urgency of the
13
E - SCHOOL DEPARTMENT.
demand is unchanged. Seventy children were on half-time during three months of the year, All rooms in the district are full, and several of the classes are unduly crowded.
1. The erection of a six-room building on the site of the soon-to- be-abandoned hose house on Webster street is recommended. This location is central with respect to north and south as well as east and west lines. A portion of the land is now owned by the city. Six rooms are recommended with a view to the establishment of a kindergarten, and of cooking and wood-working rooms for the pupils of the Prescott and Edgerly schools. The remaining rooms would be immediately occupied by primary pupils.
2. The claims of the Winter Hill district come next in point of urgency. The three buildings are all crowded, and relief should in some way be afforded during the coming year. After a careful consideration of the situation we recommend the enlargement of the Glines schoolhouse by the addition of two rooms at each end. Such addition is perfectly feasible from the architect's point of view. The lot is large enough, and the entire expense would be less than $15,000. This gives to the district what it must soon have, another full grade grammar school together with rooms for kindergartens, and cooking and wood-working schools. It would relieve the Forster and the Bingham schools. Later on a primary building in the west- erly part of the district will be needed, for which land should at once be secured, but the present necessities will best be met in the manner suggested.
3. The recommendation made last year for a four-room building on Hudson street, between Waldo and Lowell streets, is renewed. Primary children in this locality are obliged to go a long distance to the Forster School. A new building here would relieve both the Forster and the Morse. The land, at least, should be secured the present year, as next year a suitable site will probably not be available.
4. While the relief afforded by the completion of the Holland- street School will prevent our crowding the Beach-street School as at present, still a new building on this site is much needed. The build- ing was never designed for a schoolhouse. It is a relic of a by-gone age. It is dark, gloomy, and unsuitable, and parents who object to sending their children into such quarters display good judgment, demand only the rights that others enjoy, and are entitled to sym- pathy and consideration.
14
ANNUAL REPORTS.
5. When the Durell School was opened it was thought that the needs of that part of the city were met for some years. It was found necessary, however, at the end of the first year of its occupancy to transfer the fourth grade from that school to the Franklin. Decided objections were made by parents to their children crossing the rail- road, but no other plan was feasible.
Another four-room building on Washington street, near Calvin, is therefore greatly needed. It would accommodate children in the western part of the Prospect Hill district for whom we have been obliged to use the ward-room in the Knapp School. It would prevent little children crossing the railroad tracks at grade ; it would furnish room for a kindergarten, very much needed in that vicinity ; it would accommodate forty children that we are obliged to place on half-time each year, and it would secure that consummation so devoutly to be wished, the abandonment of the alleged schoolhouse that has so long borne the name of an honored university.
The call for five new school buildings may seem extravagant, if not presumptuous, but it requires but a brief survey of the situation to show that these buildings are essential to the promotion of the welfare of our schools. The time of their construction must be determined by financial considerations, but every year's delay is at the expense of interests vital to the welfare of our city.
DISTRICT LINES.
At the present time 30 per cent of the primary and grammar schools of the city are under the direction of the committee of Ward Four, 33 per cent are in charge of the Ward Two committee, while that of Ward Three has the care of only 19 per cent, and that of Ward One of 18 per cent.
It is difficult to tell on what basis existing district lines were established. They are not coincident with ward lines. Evidently they were not intended to separate schools and pupils into four practically equal divisions, for the present disparity of numbers existed when the lines were originally drawn, twenty years ago. It is probable that the work of the committee and the convenience of residents could best be promoted by the arrangement then made. Since that time, however, the population of the city and the number of its schools have increased two and one-half times. Localities formerly uninhabited are now thickly peopled, and school buildings
15
E- SCHOOL DEPARTMENT.
once centrally located do not now well accommodate large numbers of our population. Public convenience should determine the loca- tion of new school buildings regardless of existing district lines ; nor should these lines affect in any way the assignment of pupils to one school or another, as demanded by the interests of the schools or the convenience of their patrons. In illustration of what has been said, attention is called to the district bounded by Central street, Highland avenue, Lowell street, and the Lowell railroad. When this was made part of the Winter Hill district, it contained but two or three houses, located nearest the Forster School ; now, however, this section is built over, and sends about seventy-five pupils to that school. The distance is too great for primary-school children, - hence, the recommendation for a schoolhouse in this locality that shall accommodate its residents, together with the newly peopled northerly slope of Spring Hill.
Again, the Cummings School is located near the border of the Prospect Hill district. It now, very properly, receives pupils from the Spring Hill district, and would afford much better accommoda- tion than is now given to primary children living between Highland avenue and the Lowell railroad, as far west as Sycamore street.
The new schoolhouse which we hope soon to see erected on Washington street, should relieve the Spring Hill and the Prospect Hill districts in about equal degree. It is very evident, therefore, that, if we continue to look upon a new schoolhouse as a purely district affair, public interests will not be well conserved. This is an impor- tant matter which the adoption of a new city charter may regulate. In the interim, present district lines should be disregarded in the assignment of pupils and the location of new buildings.
ATTENDANCE.
The schools of Somerville have kept just thirty-seven weeks this year, the remaining three weeks of the forty during which schools are supposed to keep, having been lost in holidays or stormy sessions, of the latter of which there have been but three. In 1894, four weeks were lost in this way. Some loss of time is inevitable, but it should be reduced to a minimum, for every day's omission is an in- terruption to the regular work of the school. The financial loss to the city is easily calculated. We pay $180,000 for 200 days' school- ing for 8,000 children. For every day the schools are dismissed the
16
ANNUAL REPORTS.
city pays $900 and receives no return. For three weeks' loss the sum of $13,500 is paid out and no value received.
Ninety-five and one fourth per cent of the children belonging to the schools have been present every session, an unprecedented record for the city and probably unsurpassed by any city in the country. Yet this absence of five per cent is equivalent to an expenditure of $9,000 for which nothing is received. The matter is presented in this way to call attention to the importance of every hour of school time. In this connection it is gratifying to record that tardinesses have decreased nine per cent and dismissals twenty-eight per cent during the year. Children who are late but once in a thousand times, and who even less frequently leave their tasks until they are finished, are fixing habits of promptness and attention to business that will be of the greatest advantage in their future careers.
There was a slight increase in the evil of truancy during the year, the officer reporting ninety-eight cases and eight truants sent to the reformatory school. Leniency in the treatment of habitual truants is a mistaken kindness. They are too often criminals in embryo, and where reform under ordinary influences seems im- probable, the good of the offenders as well as of the community demands that they be promptly placed where their pernicious influ- ence will not be felt.
It is a pleasure to record the fact that appeals to force on the part of teachers are growing less frequent from year to year. The instances where this was thought necessary in 1895 were considerably fewer than in 1894 and one half of those in 1893. This indicates a steady growth of moral power on the part of teachers and presages the time in the not distant future when the teacher who confesses her weakness by the use of the rod will be rare and exceptional.
In April, 384 children were admitted to the first grade, 320, or 60 per cent, of whom were put on half-time till the end of the school year. It is still an open question whether the good of the large majority would not be conserved by declining to admit children in April until the capacity of our school buildings has overtaken our needs.
The occasional absence of teachers for personal illness or equally imperative causes is of course unavoidable. Nevertheless it is a serious interruption to business. The vote of the Board to employ permanent substitutes will doubtless minimize the evil. During the
17
E- SCHOOL DEPARTMENT.
year the attendance of teachers has been 97.8 per cent. There have been 1,231 half-days' absence of teachers from personal sickness, for which they have received the sum of $1,571.51. . From other causes teachers have been absent 320 half-days. The entire sum paid to substitute teachers for the year is $1,441.37.
TEACHERS.
There are now in the employ of the city 209 teachers, three of whom are assistants in training without pay. Nineteen teachers have resigned during the year,- two on account of ill health, two for larger salaries elsewhere, two for advanced courses of study, two have relinquished teaching, and ten have left us for the more congenial occupations of married life. Of these nineteen teachers, one had taught in Somerville thirteen years and another twelve years, while the average term of service in our city of the remaining seventeen was but three and a half years.
Forty-one teachers have been newly elected during the year, seventeen of whom were chosen for positions in the English School. With very few exceptions these teachers were found successfully em- ployed elsewhere, and are proving the wisdom of their selection by the efficient service they are now rendering.
It is growing more and more difficult to secure and retain good teachers. We cannot impose vows of celibacy. We are not able to compete with richer municipalities. Former poaching grounds are now closed to us by increased salaries. Health will fail and ambition or taste will lead into other pursuits. The standard of excellence is being constantly raised. The demand exceeds the supply. Increased exactions and enlarged courses call for a wider range of attainment. The colleges for women take many of those who otherwise would train in normal schools, and these college graduates aspire to high school work. Hence much of the time of the Superintendent, which he would prefer to devote to other duties, is spent in the search for good teachers.
But, after all, can he or any one else do more for the schools than to supply them with teachers, trained, educated, refined, sympathetic, tactful, just, enthusiastic, amiable, devoted to their work, willing to co-operate with their associates, influenced by high motives, fit exemplars for those whom they teach ?
18
ANNUAL REPORTS.
The long-talked-of training school for Somerville must soon be- come a reality. A school like the Bingham, for instance, might be placed under the charge of four expert teachers,-we have them among us,- and normal graduates - none others - received, paid a small salary, and given that training and experience that are the prerequisites of successful teaching. No additional expense would be incurred, for the extra compensation of the experts would be offset by the reduced rates paid to teachers in training. The matter is again respectfully recommended to the Board for consideration.
ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL.
The most important event, both of the year and in the educational history of Somerville, was the separation of the High School into two divisions, to be known as the English High School and the Latin High School. The long struggle against overwhelming numbers, the many discussions as to methods of relief, the grand record of the school and its teachers in the face of serious obstacles, - all are too well remembered to need recalling.
The High School outgrew its accommodations ten years ago. In 1891 the plan of establishing a separate English School was sug- gested by the Superintendent of Schools, Mr. C. E. Meleney, and ably and enthusiastically urged by him for two years. In January of 1893, the High School Committee presented a report reviewing the condition of the High School and its method of working under the modified two-session plan, and containing the following recommenda- tion, which was adopted as the recommendation of the Board : -
"We renew and emphasize the recommendations of former com- mittees, that the City Council be requested to take immediate measures for the erection of a building adapted for use as an English High School to be located in Central Park, west of the present High School building."
The Committee on Additional School Accommodations reported the following recommendations, which were unanimously adopted as the recommendations of the Board and referred to the City Govern- ment : -
1. The purchase of the first Unitarian Church property on Central Hill, and its use to accommodate the overflow of the High School.
2. The immediate erection of a completely equipped English High School building.
19
E-SCHOOL DEPARTMENT.
After the usual discussions and conferences, both of these recom- mendations were adopted by the City Council. The Unitarian Church property was purchased for the sum of $45,000, and an appropriation of $80,000 made for the construction of an English High schoolhouse. Several plans were submitted by architects, and those of Hartwell, Richardson & Driver were accepted. Ground was broken December 5, 1893, and the work progressed without serious interruption until the building was ready for occupancy, September 3, 1895. The work was begun under the direction of the Committee on Public Property, consisting of the following named gentlemen : Edric Eldredge, Chairman, John Andrews, Franklin E. Huntress, Frank W. Kaan, Wilfred B. Rich.
It was continued by the committee of 1894: John Andrews, Chairman, Edmund S. Sparrow, George H. Russ, Josiah N. Pratt, Frederick W. Parker, and completed under the direction of the Committee of 1895: Edmund S. Sparrow, Chairman, Leonard B. Chandler, Josiah N. Pratt, Frederick W. Parker, James M. Andrews.
The building is admirably planned and thoroughly constructed throughout, thanks to the efficiency of the several committees and the unflagging zeal, energy, and watchfulness of Chairmen Andrews and Sparrow, to whom the city is greatly indebted for their labors in this connection.
The cost of the building is as follows : -
COST OF THE ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL.
W. S. Sampson, mason and carpenter work :
General contract
$79,429.00
Changes and extras
9,754.31
$89,183.31
James Tucker & Sons :
Plumbing contract · . $3,137.00
Plumbing laboratories and extras
969.00
$4,106.00
A. A. Sanborn :
Heating apparatus for both the Latin and the English schoolhouses
$26,306.00
Chimney, conduits and extras 3,078.90
$29,384.90
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ANNUAL REPORTS.
J. F. Bubert :
Electric wiring .
$ 1,536.30
Blodgett Bros. :
Electric clocks . ·
429.00
John Y. Mainland :
Laboratory fittings
3,028.00
Hartwell, Richardson & Driver : Architects' services 6,485.85
Cost of furniture, gas fixtures, shades, etc. .
6,148.40
Manual Training department
3,414.65
Miscellaneous expenditures .
4,009.18
Entire cost of building and furnishing
147,725.59
The following description of the building has been kindly furnished by the architects. Floor plans will be found on subsequent page.
DESCRIPTION OF THE ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOLHOUSE.
(Furnished by the Architects, Hartwell, Richardson & Driver.)
The new English High School building is 152 feet long by 81 feet deep with three finished stories and a high basement. It con- tains 15 classrooms, 3 recitation rooms, and in the third story a large lecture room with physical laboratory and apparatus room on one side, and chemical laboratory and supply room on the other. In the rear, reaching partly into the roof and forming a fourth story, is the drawing room.
Upon the first floor, in the centre directly opposite the main entrance, are the rooms occupied by the School Committee and the Superintendent, with a book storage room and a room for receiving and unpacking books. The arrangement of these can be understood by reference to the accompanying plans.
The building is of brick with terra cotta trimmings, and is finished throughout in ash.
Fresh warmed air is forced throughout the building by means of a fan located in a central chamber at the rear of the basement, from which point it is taken by means of large galvanized iron ducts and distributed throughout the building. Steam is furnished from a battery of boilers in the basement of the old High School building, the main pipe being taken from one building to the other through a tunnel.
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