USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Somerville > Report of the city of Somerville 1906 > Part 11
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There have been 2,586 dismissals of pupils before the close of the school session. It is probable that by far the largest part of these might easily have been avoided had the parents realized the loss thus incurred. It should be impressed upon children that their school work is a business with which nothing but un- avoidable conditions should interfere. To surrender it for any form of pleasure or personal gratification or for slight causes is fixing a habit of conduct that will prove a source of weakness in the future. Parents frequently do not recognize that insistence by teachers on what appear to be comparatively unimportant matters is a well-designed attempt to ground the child in vital principles of conduct and life.
It is gratifying to note a slight decrease in the number of corporal punishments from 352 last year to 326 this year. One hundred and thirty-six teachers out of 252 in the grammar and primary classes have not used the rod during the year. When we realize the perversity of human nature and the weakness of parental government and training, we shall not be surprised to find that three children out of a hundred need chastisement at least once a year,-about the proportion that our school records show. It is the nearly unanimous sentiment of teachers that the discipline of the home is growing less influential, that more skill and power are required to control and manage boys, that it is more and more difficult to secure exemplary conduct and close attention to business. A deliberate, temperate, just use of physical force on occasion is salutary and may be the saving of a boy. Hasty or ill-considered punishment or a resort to forms of discipline by tongue or hand that are far more objectionable are injurious to the child and indicative of unfitness on the part of the teacher. It is no excuse for teachers, that even mothers, with all their tender sympathy and ardent love for their off-
150
ANNUAL REPORTS.
spring, often lose their patience and use methods of government that they themselves would most emphatically condemn in teachers.
On the fifteenth of December the number of pupils in the schools was as follows :-
1906.
1905.
Increase.
In the Latin School.
432
444
-12
In the English School
1,048
917
131
In the elementary schools
10,664
10,562
102
In the kindergartens.
204
195
9
A total of.
12,348
12,118
230
Adding to this number the 1,748 pupils in private schools, we have a total of 14,096 school children in the city, practically one-fifth of our population.
School Accommodations. The only addition to our school accommodations made this year is the enlargement of the Latin schoolhouse, designed to relieve the deplorable congestion of the last few years in the high schools. This enlargement of four floors, begun in the fall of 1905 and occupied September, 1906, contains nine classrooms and six recitation rooms, and furnishes opportunities for instruction by fifteen teachers.
There are limited toilet facilities for pupils in the basement. Heat is furnished from the old plant, but an additional fan aids in its distribution and in ventilation. The annex is connected with the English building by a covered, heated, well-lighted passageway.
In the old Latin building one classroom has been surren- dered for a library and two classrooms to secure an assembly hall which should prove of great value to both schools and to the school public in general.
In the annex the three classrooms on the fourth floor and one classroom and a recitation room on the third floor are in use by the Latin school. This nets that school a gain of twenty seats for pupils and two additional rooms for recitation purposes. There are now 477 seats for pupils and fifteen rooms for teaching in the Latin school.
The first and second floors and half the third floor of the annex, containing five classrooms and five recitation rooms, are in use by the English school, thus furnishing 287 seats for pupils and ten rooms for instruction. This releases the clothes closets and storerooms in the English building for their original and legitimate uses. All told, there are now available in the English school 1,087 seats for pupils and rooms in which thirty-seven teachers may give instruction at the same time.
It is interesting to notice how these 1,087 seats have been secured, for it helps to show how wholly inadequate the present
151
SCHOOL DEPARTMENT.
arrangement is for the suitable accommodation of the English school. There were 541 seats in the English building when it was first used. Since then one room has been taken for me- chanical drawing, leaving 500 seats; twenty-four seats have been crowded into the biological laboratory ; the lecture hall has been diverted from its original uses and furnished with 159 seats; 128 seats have been gained by dispensing with certain aisles and placing desks end to end; twenty-one seats have been put into a small recitation room; and the normal number of seats furnished by the annex is 245. An unwarrantable sacrifice has been made in securing seats by placing desks end to end, because (1) in a mixed high school, for obvious reasons, each pupil should have an independent, isolated seat, and (?) when sixty- odd pupils are seated in a room whose cubic air space of 250 feet and whose fresh air inlet of thirty feet per minute for each occupant are designed for only forty-eight pupils, hygienic prin- ciples are violated and health endangered.
The annex not only supplies the present needs of the Latin school, but will provide for its probable growth for some time to come. For the English school, however, the annex furnishes only temporary and partial relief. The inconvenience and loss of time resulting from the separation of the school are manifest, but these things are permanent, and we must accustom ourselves to them. Aside from the additional room that the natural growth of the school will demand,-namely, accommodations for 100 additional pupils in September, 1907,-there are some urgent needs which must be supplied before the school reaches its great- est efficiency and provides adequately such forms of education as a progressive community demands and which are furnished with generous wisdom by other municipalities. These have been mentioned in previous reports, but are repeated here that they may not be forgotten. They are :-
(1) Suitable quarters for manual training, with a view to its extension.
(2) Enlarged facilities for commercial work.
(3) A readjustment of seats and the release of the lecture hall for its original purposes.
(4) More room for the library.
(5) Thoroughly-equipped gymnasiums for both sexes.
(6) Additional room for the chemistry department.
(7) Facilities for the teaching of domestic science.
(8) A suitable lunch room accessible to both schools.
How these necessities are to be secured,-whether by the addition of wings to the present building, or by a separate struc- ture,-it is not for me to say. They should be kept in mind, however, by the proper authorities, and enter into any plans that may be made for meeting our educational wants.
Additional Accommodations for Elementary Schools. The ad- ditional accommodations needed for elementary schools are
152
ANNUAL REPORTS.
identically such as were fully outlined in last year's report, al- though now more obvious than then. They will be briefly re- siated.
Ward One. The enlargement of the Hanscom school by the addition of four rooms was recommended last year. There are now 150 children on half time in the Prescott and Hanscom schools. This number will of necessity be increased another year. The proposed addition will also relieve the crowded con- dition in the Edgerly and Davis schools. It is centrally lo- cated, can be economically provided, and will fully meet the needs.
Ward Two. We have been obliged again to open the ward room in the Knapp school for fifty first-grade children. This room is objectionable, and its use is to be deprecated. Another year the schools in this ward will overflow, and the enlargement of the Perry schoolhouse contemplated when land was bought and the present building planned will soon need to be made.
Ward Four. The transfer of children from the Forster to the Proctor has enabled us to send pupils from the Glines to the Forster, and in this way to dispense with half-time conditions and to abandon the use of the ward room in the Glines. This has afforded needed relief to the Edgerly.
Ward Six. The six school buildings of this ward are filled to their utmost capacity. Two rooms in the Brown school have had sixty pupils each since September. The recommendation of an enlargement of this school building to contain six or eight rooms and an assembly hall, made last year, is here urgently re- newed. The building is centrally situated in a locality almost filled with new houses and destined in a short time to be very populous. It would furnish a much-needed grammar school centre, and would somewhat relieve ward seven as well as ward six, on the borders of which wards it is located.
Ward Seven. The four school buildings in ward seven are filled to repletion, some rooms containing sixty pupils. Two rooms now in use in the Hodgkins will be abandoned as soon as more suitable ones are provided. The Clarendon-hill section will surely continue the rapid growth of the last two years, and immediate provision should be made for relief. If the capacity of the Lincoln school could be doubled, or if six rooms could be provided by raising the Hodgkins building, the urgent de- inands of the situation would be met. The recommendation of last year is again made.
To recapitulate the needs for additional accommodations for grammar and primary schools in the order of urgency,-
(1) Enlargement of Hanscom school, ward one.
(2) Enlargement of Brown school, ward six.
(3) Enlargement of Lincoln or Hodgkins school, ward seven.
153
SCHOOL DEPARTMENT.
Concerning Teachers. Exclusive of fifty-nine teachers em- ployed in the evening school, there are 326 teachers at the pres- ent in the service of the city, twenty-nine of whom are men. The year has been a notable one on account of the large number of changes in the teaching force. Thirty-two teachers have re- signed during the year, and one has died. Of this number, four- teen have resigned to be married, ten have left us to occupy more desirable positions as teachers elsewhere, and eight have relinquished teaching altogether. This last number includes four faithful and efficient teachers who have served the city for an average period of more than thirty years. They are Misses Sarah W. Fox, Adelaide A. Anderson, Amelia I. Sears, and M. Frances Guptill. Two others, Miss Jennie C. Frazier and Mrs. Carrie L. Bliss, had taught nearly twenty years. The financial indebtedness of the city to these teachers has been discharged. There is due them, however, a debt of appreciative gratitude from the public at large and from the hundreds whose lives have been affected by their influence and instruction.
The average term of service in Somerville of the teachers who have resigned, excluding those whose names have been mentioned, is four years and eight months, ten of them having taught two years or less.
To fill the vacancies caused by these resignations and to meet additional requirements, thirty-nine teachers have been elected during the year. The new teachers have been selected with great care. They have all had professional training and successful experience. It is growing increasingly difficult for us to secure the best teachers. Other municipalities have in- creased salaries, so that we can offer to fewer teachers financial attractions. Moreover, the supply of trained teachers is now everywhere less than the demand. All sorts of gainful occupa- tions besidles teaching are open to young women. These, de- mand a sl:orter period of preparation and offer a quicker attain- ment of an attractive salary, with less responsibility and nervous strain. Nevertheless, the only way to improve schools is by im- proving the teachers. It will not do to lower the standard that we have so long maintained, even for so laudable a purpose as providing Somerville residents with an opportunity for self- support.
It is to be regretted that the teaching profession, if it can be called such, does not present sufficient attractions to secure and to retain the services of women qualified by nature, educa- tion, and training to meet the needs of our schools. The salary paid the ordinary teacher is barely sufficient for her support, provided she meets the public expectation and demand in her style of living. When I came to Somerville in 1873, all grade teachers were paid $650, the same that they receive to-day. During these thirty-three years the salary of grammar masters has been raised $100. The increase in the cost of living since that day, to say nothing of the increased demand upon the time,
154
ANNUAL REPORTS.
strength, and attainment of teachers, has made no difference in the salary paid. In this year of unexampled prosperity in every line of business, when dividends are large and when wages are being generally increased, many municipalities in various sec- tions of the country are recognizing and meeting the claim that teachers should share in the general prosperity.
In many places where salaries are being increased a new departure is making in the method of applying the increase. Very generally as with us the increase of salary has been based entirely on length of service. Now the increase is made on the ground of merit. It is the progressive teacher who is constantly increasing her efficiency and value by study and self-improve- ment that receives the increase. All recognize the justice of this method. With us the poorest teacher in the city is paid as much as the best, an equality that is not found in other lines of busi- ness. If we retain our best teachers and are to attract others, the salaries for superior work must be larger. We can afford to pay $700, at least, for the best teachers, and while it is difficult to discriminate in favor of some and against others, I recommend a modification of the rules so that such an increase based on merit may be made in individual instances.
I introduce another recommendation by presenting the fol- lowing table, which shows how long our present teachers have been in service in Somerville :--
Less than 1 year. 38
12 years.
8 12
24 years 25
5
1 year
19
13
66
1
2 years.
20
14
6
26
66
2
3
66
24
15
66
8
27
60
2
4
18
16
6
6
28
60
. . .
.
.
.
.
.
.
. .
.
66
4
8
10
20
66
3
34
9
66
20
21
60
4
35
66
. .
. . .
1
10
66
18
22
3
38
. .
..
. . .
1
11
60
15
23
3
39
.
.
.
.
2
5
18
17
6
17
18
66
7
66
16
19
.
.
.
.
2
32
.
.
.
.
. . .
.
.
.
.
.
. .
.
.
.
2
.
. .
.
.
.
.
.
·
5 5
29
30
.
1 1
2
.
It will be seen that half our teachers have been employed six years or less, and that one-tenth of them have taught in the city twenty years or over. The most of these teachers who have taught with us for from twenty to thirty years have given con- tinuous service without rest or intermission save such as the ordinary vacations afford. Every one concedes that teaching is exhausting work. Teachers need not only physical, but intel- lectual renewing. There is a growing recognition of this need, and some cities are amending their rules so that teachers may take occasionally a year for study and travel and recuperation. Very few teachers can afford to do this, and their increased value to their employers is recognized by the payment of one-half of the regular salary during such period of absence. In several
. .
155
SCHOOL, DEPARTMENT.
cities teachers are allowed to take every seventh year for study and travel on half-pay, provided they agree to continue in the service of the city for at least three years. Besides this pro- vision, Boston has recently made another, that a teacher may be absent a year on half-pay after twenty years of continuous service simply for rest, without study or travel. It certainly seems that not only a reward for long and faithful service may well be given in this way to worthy teachers, but that the city besides would gain in increased freshness and vigor and enthusi- asm on the part of its best teachers. I ask the board to consider this matter and recommend the adoption of some such plan.
Another effect of inadequate salaries and one that leads teachers to accept almost any way of escape is the inability to provide for the future. Under existing conditions there is a limit to a teacher's efficiency. The dead line is being reached at a constantly decreasing age. With the utmost economy, no teacher on the ordinary salary can lay up enough to provide for respectable support after her teaching days are ended. Hence the very general movement in favor of pensions or annuities for teachers after long service. These are provided by almost every European government. Many cities in our own country have made a similar provision. There are organizations of teachers whose aim it is to provide annuities by assessment among their own number. A bill was introduced into the last Legislature providing for the payment of pensions to teachers by cities and towns. Although it failed to become a law last year, some similar enactment is sure to come in the not distant future. When a teacher feels that her tenure is secure, that a fair living salary is assured, and that provision is made for her old age, she will be much more likely to continue her work, and will certainly render a heartier and more contented service. These ideal con- ditions of permanency of tenure, satisfactory salary, and retire- ment on half-pay after thirty years of service already exist in the city of New York, with the result that the strongest teachers in the country are attracted thither and are making the schools of the metropolis the best in the land.
The attempt to secure a pension law in this state will be re- newed in the coming Legislature, and, on behalf of the teachers of Somerville, as well as in the interest of the schools, I ask the influence of the members of this board in favor of securing its enactment.
The Latin School. At the present time the membership of this school is 432. A year ago it was 444, showing a decrease of twelve. The classes number as follows :-
1905.
1906.
Change.
Senior
93
83
-10
Junior
92
101
+9
Sophomore
120
124
+4
Freshman
139
124
: - 15
156
1
ANNUAL REPORTS.
The average number of pupils for each of the fifteen teach- ers, inclusive of principal who teaches ten periods per week, is twenty-nine; exclusive of the principal it is thirty-one. Six, or forty per cent., of the teachers are men. It should be added that the principal teaches laboratory physics five hours, or one day a week, in addition to the five days required by the rules, a con- dition for which some remedy should be found.
The working conditions of the school have been greatly im- proved by the addition of rooms in which instruction may be given. While the number of pupils is less than last year, two more teachers are employed, and the class unit is more nearly what it should be.
There have been important changes in the teaching force during the year. After a service of thirty-five years, Miss Sarah W. Fox declined a re-election on the ground that "strength is no longer equal to the work." The feeling of the city toward Miss Fox is voiced by the following tribute taken from the records of the committee :---
The school committee of Somerville accepts with great regret the declination of Miss Sarah W. Fox, of the Latin school, to be a candi- date for re-election this year.
First elected in March, 1868, Miss Fox has served the city with sig- nal ability and fidelity for thirty-five years. During this time the num- ber of graduates has grown from seventeen in 1868 to 217 in 1906, and the membership of the high school has increased tenfold.
Through the whole of this remarkable period of service Miss Fox has been a forceful factor in the success of the school. Strong as an executive, painstaking and thorough as an instructor, invariably inspir- ing respect and confidence, and securing by her warm, personal interest and the nobility and strength of her character an exceptional power over every student, she has exerted an influence that has been felt not only by the school as a whole, but one that has entered into the life and character of every one fortunate enough to come in contact with her.
Her memory will be honored by all who have been associated with her as teachers, by the city so greatly indebted to her, and by the thou- sands she has led to better life and higher achievements.
We tender to Miss Fox the grateful thanks of the citizens of Som- erville for all that she has done through these years to promote the interests of our schools, and assure her that she carries with her in her retirement our highest esteem and most earnest wishes for future pros- perity and happiness. The satisfaction that springs from the retrospect of successful service unselfishly rendered will surely be hers.
The estimation in which Miss Fox was held by the gradu- ates of the school is shown in their gift of $750 to her.
The vacancy caused by her resignation was filled by the election of William D. Sprague, H. U., '94, at the time the prin- cipal of Dummer academy.
Frank H. Wilkins, R. U., '98, was chosen to fill the place left vacant by the resignation of Frederick C. Hosmer, now the principal of the high school in Shrewsbury.
Two additional teachers were employed, Isabel G. Higgins, B. U., who was a teacher in this school from 1892 to 1897, and F. Gertrude Perkins, Smith, '00, from the Braintree high school.
157
SCHOOL DEPARTMENT.
The addition to the teaching force secures the greater effi- ciency of the school, and gives to each student a due share of the attention of instructors. It still remains to secure some ar- rangement to render unnecessary the extension of the school week for certain pupils and two of the teachers to include Friday afternoon in order to accomplish college requirements in physics.
The numbers pursuing each study is shown in the following table :---
English
430
French
106
History
225
German
185
Mathematics
431
Greek
121
Physics
55
Drawing
15
Latin
428
Chemistry
11
The extent to which pupils drop out of the school during the course of four years is shown below. It will be seen that of those that enter the school, fully two-thirds remain to complete the course.
TABLE SHOWING LOSSES OP CLASSES IN LATIN HIGH SCHOOL EACH YEAR SINCE 1898.
MEMBERSHIP.
Class of 1901.
Class of 1902.
Class of 1903.
Class of 1904.
Class of 1905.
Class of 1906.
Class of 1907
Class of 1908.
Class of 1909.
Class of 1910.
December 15, 1st year
89
77
64
103
111 97
125 106
121 112
136 120
139
124
2nd
.
*Gain.
In June last the school graduated eighty-one, thirty-three boys and forty-eight girls. Of these, forty-five are now attend- ing college and three, normal schools of the state.
The English School. This school contains to-day 1,048 pupils, a gain of 131 over last year, and of 237 over the year before. They are divided among the classes as follows :--
1905.
1906. Change.
Post-graduate
14
7
-7
Senior
140
162
+22
Junior
189
194
+5
Sophomore
224
286
+62
Freshman
350
399
+49
..
4th
66
65
62
60
84
95 81 76
93 93 81
83
...
..
Graduates
56
56
46
73
. . .
Loss per cent. 1st year
2nd
10.1 20.0
5.2 12.3 3.1 9.7 27.3
26.5 4.3* 22.4* 23.3* 28.1
9.7 5.4 4.5 13.1 29.1
12.6 2.1 14.7 6.1 31.5
15.2 14.0 0.0 12.9 35.2
7.4 17.9
11.8 15 8
10.8
...
=
3rd
·
. ..
...
.. .
...
...
Total . .
37.0
...
. . .
...
...
·
80
73
47
93
3rd
64
64
49
88
92
101
124
. ..
9.8
4th
13.8
...
With principal and secretary, there are thirty-nine in the teaching corps, eleven of whom, or 28.2 per cent., are men.
158
ANNUAL REPORTS.
Four of these men are employed solely in the manual training department, leaving the academic department of the school with less than twenty per cent. of male teachers, less than one-half relatively of the number employed in the Latin school. When inore teachers are hired, some of them should be men.
The average number of pupils to an instructor is twenty- eight.
Unusual and important changes have taken place during the year in the teaching force of the school. At the end of the school year in June, Head Master Whitcomb, who organized and developed the school and placed it in the very front rank of New England high schools, tendered his resignation to accept a more lucrative position, and one that offered an unhampered field for professional advancement and the execution of long-cherished plans. His decision was accepted with great regret by both the school authorities and the general public. The appreciation in which he and his work were held is shown in the following memorial taken from the school records :-
Mr. Charles T. C. Whitcomb being about to relinquish the position which he has held for eleven years as head master of the English High school, the school board of Somerville desires to place on record its recognition of his services.
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