USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Newton > Tercentenary history of Newton, 1630-1930 > Part 26
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The school had the first chance to make worthy citi- zens. It took the children when they were diamonds in the rough, kept at the polishing process five days in the week, and turned them over to the Sunday school to point them heavenward. The process was beginning at an earlier age than formerly. In the fall of 1891 the first kindergarten building in Massachusetts outside of Boston was dedicated at West Newton. The expense of $7,500 was paid by West Newton citizens. Thirty pupils were enrolled at the begin- ning in charge of Mrs. M. C. Sweetser, a trained kinder- garten teacher. If the experiment was adopted generally throughout the city, it would add to the expense of the school system, which already was the most expensive in the state, averaging $37.19 for each pupil. New courses were being tried, including the Swedish sloyd, a form of manual training, which was criticised by the mayor and others as an expensive and unwise experiment.
At one point the school authorities thought that they could consolidate rather than expand. This was at Oak Hill, where the attendance was relatively small. It was proposed to provide a conveyance for the children to go to school at Newton Centre, but a vigorous protest arose against exposing the children "to the deadly electric cars, in the stores, in the railroad station, and nobody knows
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where." But the wheels of progress run over all opposi- tion, and it was not long before the plan was in force. New school buildings were needed in different parts of the city. The rapid growth of Newton Highlands necessitated the building of a brick structure there ninety-six by sixty- eight feet, with two floors, each containing three class- rooms besides coat rooms. The building was dedicated early in 1894 and named the Hyde School after the most prominent resident of Ward Five. At Newtonville the Adams School had burned, and it became necessary to rebuild in 1894. It was decided to construct a brick build- ing which would accommodate five hundred pupils. It would provide eight classrooms and a hall at an estimated expense of fifty thousand dollars. The Catholics already had built their brick parochial school at the corner of Washing- ton and Adams Streets for the parish of Our Lady Help of Christians, providing twelve rooms and a large hall for a thousand pupils, also a library hall. The school opened in 1893 with four hundred pupils.
The old school buildings were not only out of date, but they were becoming outgrown. A new building was needed for the Mason School at Newton Centre, and it was imperative that the Bigelow School should have better quarters at Newton. The high school was overcrowded. The spring of 1895 saw the beginning of a new building for the Peirce School at West Newton at the corner of Chest- nut Street and Hillside Avenue. It was to be the largest and best thus far constructed, and was to contain twelve rooms for five hundred pupils, but the principal, Levi F. Warren, lived to enjoy it only until 1897. A year later the Warren Memorial Hall was dedicated at the Peirce School in memory of the long service of the principal. West New- ton lost one of its citizens in the same profession, when the death occurred of Granville B. Putnam, master of the Franklin School in Boston for thirty-five years.
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In 1896 a new high school building was ordered, with the expectation that it would cost one hundred and seventy- five thousand dollars and accommodate seven hundred pupils. When it was completed in 1897 it was found to have cost two hundred and thirty-three thousand dollars. The building was nearly two hundred feet square, con- structed of yellow brick with gray sandstone trimmings. In the basement were recreation and lunch rooms. On the ground floor ten classrooms were provided, besides smaller recitation and retiring rooms. On the second floor were as many more classrooms, with two recitation rooms and a library. Above these main floors was a third, which con- tained two classrooms, laboratories and a lecture room, and a large assembly hall, which would seat nine hundred persons. The building was a most desirable addition to the school capacity and school architecture of the city, and was commended by all who inspected it. It was dedicated by Mayor Henry E. Cobb on the twenty-second of Febru- ary, 1898.
Long before the building of the new high school the villages on the south side were dissatisfied that their chil- dren must go so far for instruction. A period of agitation began for a high school of their own, which never has come to an end, but the necessity of building so many primary and grammar schools and the demand for a technical high school continually delayed the gratification of the wish of the south side people. Meanwhile the high school courses were enriched, more teachers were employed, and the num- ber of pupils increased until midway of the decade there were twenty teachers and more than six hundred pupils. At the same time there was keen opposition on the part of many parents to the addition of a half hour to the earlier four and a half hours of a school day.
Meantime friction developed between the school com- mittee and the high school staff. The teachers complained
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that the committee interfered too much. The result in 1897 was the resignation of E. J. Goodwin, who had been headmaster for ten years, followed by the withdrawal of four of the teachers, who went to New York. They were attracted by larger salaries, but their dissatisfaction with interference in the Newton schools would have unsettled them in any case.
Public and private schools both planned their courses of study beyond the grades with the purpose of preparing pupils for college. A far larger proportion of Newton high school pupils went on to the university or to the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology than in most town and city schools, because wealth and the appreciation of cul- ture and social standing made parents desire it and find it possible for their children. University education made its influence felt in the community through an educated min- istry in the churches, and through college teachers who liked to live in Newton. Business as well as professional men accumulated libraries, and the Atlantic Monthly, the North American Review, and the Outlook were conspicuous on their centre tables. Modern scientific knowledge was permeating thought, and compelling readjustments in philosophy and religion as well as affecting modes of social life. The modern idea of progress as a law of society was reinforced by the prevalent teaching of the evolutionary process in all life. Social as well as physical science was a subject of study, and the interest in social betterment was keen among those who studied it.
Two incidents connected with the schools were the death in 1894 of Francis A. Waterhouse who was head- master of the English High School in Boston but lived in Newton and had been principal of the Newton high school for twelve years before 1880; and the celebration of twenty- five years of service as head of the Bigelow School of H. C. Sawin. His friends, including the mayor of the city, came
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together at the closing exercises of the school and pre- sented him with a purse of four hundred dollars.
The presence of the high school gave a certain dignity to Newtonville. It helped to make up for the city hall at West Newton and the public library at Newton. The Masonic Temple also helped to give distinction to the vil- lage. The Masons had commenced their history in Newton in 1860, when twenty-six charter members held their meet- ings in a carpenter shop on Bowers Street, later destroyed by fire. Afterward they met on the corner of Washington and Centre Streets, until they moved into Claflin Block, where they remained twenty years. Early in the year 1896 Dalhousie Lodge, Gethsemane Commandery, and Newton Royal Arch Chapter agreed together to erect a Masonic building. It was planned for the lot on the corner of Walnut Street and Newtonville Avenue to stand four stories. The materials were brick and stone. The Masons expected to occupy the second and third floors, and rent the ground floor for stores. It was anticipated that the building would cost one hundred thousand dollars, but there were seven hundred and fifty members of the three organizations, and it was expected that they would be generous. The corner stone was laid with imposing cere- monies, and on the sixth of October, 1907, the grand master in Massachusetts dedicated the structure. A week later a brilliant reception was held in which a thousand persons participated. The final arrangements for the building reserved the whole of the third floor for the Masons, and allowed space for the Grand Army headquarters on the second floor, and for Temple Hall, which was intended for Masonic banquets and for the use of the public as an assembly hall, accommodating six hundred people. The Gethsemane Commandery had an armory for its use. With these new opportunities social functions multiplied. The Masons held a grand fair in 1898, which lasted a week.
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The Newton Club was bustling with various activ- ities, dramatics, musicales, concerts and receptions fol- lowing one another, and interspersed with whist nights, smokers, and other occasions enjoyable to the members. At the beginning of the year 1897 the Club voted to absorb the Newton Athletic Association, authorizing the execu- tive committee to admit forty members of that organiza- tion without the payment of an initiation fee. It was agreed that the Club should buy three hundred thousand square feet of land, for which the Newton Athletic Association had paid sixty-five hundred dollars, and keep open the athletic grounds at Newton Centre for five years. A large number of junior members were admitted to the privilege of the grounds but not of the club house.
The Newtonville Women's Guild was in full vigor. Its program for a single year included a president's reception, a paper on Oberammergau by Dr. Shinn, a talk on Clara Barton and the Red Cross by Kate Gannett Wells, a bi- ography of Hannah Adams, a paper on Columbus, talks on women's work, on social science, and on vocal culture, with recitations, musicales, and a talk on kindergarten songs, essays on the poets, a lecture on new methods of teaching geography and travel sketches, an Easter fair, and an annual reception at the last meeting of the year.
It is doubtful if the wayfarer would have been com- fortable among the leaders of society at one of its brilliant receptions at the Newton Club or would have looked with favor upon Masonic festivities, for in his day there was considerable opposition to secret fraternities, but if he was a true Puritan he would have been interested in the churches on the north side of the city. The Congregation- alists in Newtonville, after twenty-five years of organized existence as the Central Church, rejoiced in their new edifice dedicated in 1895. With the land it had cost more than one hundred thousand dollars. Within a few years
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the church was incorporated, paid off its debt, and wel- comed to its pastorate Reverend Ozora S. Davis of Ver- mont. The death of Judge Slocum, who was killed by the train at Newtonville, was felt keenly by the church, as he had been clerk and deacon for more than twenty-five years. Another active Congregationalist living in Newtonville was J. J. Walworth, who bought one hundred acres of land at Auburndale soon after the railroad was built, but later made his home in Newtonville.
The Methodists had built their first church edifice before 1870, but during the pastorate of Reverend Dillon Bronson the old building was demolished and a new struc- ture erected in 1897. The Swedenborgian church had but recently completed its stone edifice. It suffered serious loss in the death of Reverend John Worcester, the pastor emer- itus, who had been with the church since 1869, and that of T. H. Carter, in whose house some of the early Sweden- borgian meetings were held. The Episcopalians in New- tonville began to meet for worship in Temple Hall in the autumn of 1897, and the parish was organized a few years later. Land was bought and paid for in 1901. Charles W. Leonard made a gift of Vermont stone for a building, which was opened in 1903.
If the wayfarer turned aside to visit Nonantum vil- lage he would have found there the stone building of the North Congregational Church and its faithful pastor. He would have heard about the Nonantum Improvement League, forerunner for a year of the Nonantum Improve- ment Association which was organized in 1905. The League was active in helping to get the Waltham Street Railway through Nonantum, and suggested improvements to the municipal government, but it was short-lived. He would have found evidences of the usefulness of the Nonantum Boys' Club. Organized in 1899 with the backing of the Good Citizenship Association of Newton, the Club was
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soon the owner of the Athenaeum Building on Dalby Street, which became a hive of activity. The building lent its lower floor to the needs of the juniors from six to eight- een years old, who soon numbered three hundred, while the upper floor was for the fifty seniors from eighteen to twenty-five years of age. They constituted the Nonantum Athletic Association. The club house was kept open every week day from October to June for the use of Nonantum boys, whether members or not. Books, games, and gym- nastic apparatus were at hand for their enjoyment, and classes in various trades were maintained for several years until lack of space compelled their abandonment. Fre- quent entertainments were enjoyed, in which the young people of the Swedenborgian church had a directing part. The Club with its aim to make better citizens has been a valuable means of developing character and a sense of civic responsibility among the young men of the village.
The village of Newton, too, had its provision for young men in the Young Men's Christian Association. It had its new gymnasium, and a boys' camp was provided at Silver Lake in the Old Colony district. The Newton Bicycle Club celebrated seventeen years of unbroken history with a banquet. It had several members of prominence, Sterl- ing Elliott, who was the chief executive of the Massachu- setts division of the League of American Wheelmen, Abbot Bassett, secretary of the national organization, and Henry C. Nickerson, chairman of the national transportation committee. The reorganized Entertainment Club pre- sented "Sunset" in the Channing Church parlors with the assistance of The Players. The Pi Eta theatricals of the Harvard boys, a number of whom belonged in the city, were given in the city during several seasons. The Letter Carriers Benefit Association was organized in 1894, and prided itself on its annual ball.
The Hunnewell Club was the consequence of a desire
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for a convenient club in the village of Newton. It was the outgrowth of a neighborhood club organized in 1895 as the Hunnewell Hill Club, with a membership limited to the residents of that locality. Its first club house was the Bart- lett mansion located on Braemore Road. The new club was incorporated in 1897 and took over the assets of the Hun- newell Hill Club. Soon afterward Francis E. and Freelan O. Stanley erected the present club house at the corner of Church and Eldredge Streets, which was formally opened in April, 1898. The new building was adapted admirably for the needs of a social club. It was a three-story colonial structure with the usual accommodations. The main hall was in two parts divided by Ionic columns. A library and a smoking room were on either side of the entrance. In the basement were a kitchen and four bowling alleys, and billiard and pool tables were added. The upper floors pro- vided parlor and reception room for ladies, card and ban- quet rooms, and a hall capable of seating four hundred. Tennis courts were provided presently on the grounds. The two hundred members representing all parts of the city pay forty dollars as annual dues. The Club immedi- ately found a place of influence for itself in the community.
Within a single year several local chapters were organ- ized in affiliation with national patriotic organizations which existed to perpetuate the patriotism of Revolution- ary days. The first of these was the Sarah Hull Chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution. That society had been organized as a national society in 1891, and it was five years later that about twenty-five women met at the Newton Club, were recognized by the state regent who appointed local officers, and took the name of the wife of General Hull. They increased rapidly in numbers until by the end of the first year ninety-one members were enrolled, and ten years later it was the largest chapter in the national organization. Almost as soon as the society was fully fledged the country
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was drawn into the war with Spain, and the Daughters had an opportunity to show their patriotism by practical aid for the American soldiers. Over fifteen hundred arti- cles were supplied to the soldiers in the Philippines. Then it aided students in the South by providing scholarships and books for mountain whites and negroes. Not forget- ful of its primary interest, it supplied a travelling library of books on Revolutionary history for the Newton schools. It was proudest of the fact that it made the largest contribu- tion to the erection of a monument at Valley Forge, which was dedicated on Yorktown Day, October 19, 1901. A local branch of the Junior Sons and Daughters of the Revolu- tion was organized and named the Caleb Stark Chapter.
Near the end of the year 1896 the Daughters of the American Revolution were organized as a local chapter at the home of the Allens at West Newton. They too received the sanction of their state organization, and were inducted properly into the orderly procedure of the society. Meet- ings were held monthly at the homes of the members, where they read papers on Revolutionary themes or lis- tened to addresses from outside. Distinguished speakers gave courses of lectures under their auspices. They have indulged in musicales, colonial teas, and outings to his- toric spots. The local society bore the name of the Lucy Jackson Chapter, a name which was a reminder of the forty-six Jacksons who went from Newton into the Revo- lutionary War. The local chapter has helped to preserve historic places connected with that period, and during the Spanish War contributed five hundred dollars towards the hospital ship given by the state of Massachusetts.
The Sons of the American Revolution were organized on the twenty-first of May, 1897.
Women's clubs were becoming aware of the bonds that bound them together in a common purpose, and fed- erations were being formed. The impulse to city federa-
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tion in Newton came from a paper read by Mrs. George C. Phipps, the president of the Newton Highlands Monday Club, before the Social Science Club. Eleven clubs in the city joined in the Newton Federation of Women's Clubs, and others were soon added to the number. The organiza- tion was perfected in the year 1895. At first Mrs. Phipps was made president, but she was succeeded shortly by Mrs. E. N. L. Walton of West Newton. Committees were appointed on education, municipal affairs, city beautiful, programs and household economics. But frequent changes were made in the constitution to suit changing needs and the number and names of the committees were elastic. Already the Women's Guild of Newtonville had enter- tained the state Federation at its first convention.
The Newton Federation undertook several reforms in the city, part of which were successful. They were inter- ested deeply in domestic problems and in the schools. They presented gifts of books and statues and a bubble fountain to the high school, and tried to have a curfew bell rung at night, though without success. They secured a police matron to be called at need to City Hall, and they were the means of getting patrol boats on the river near Riverside. As the years passed the women's organizations of the city generally joined the Newton Federation and adjusted their organizations to fit the new relation.
Out of the committee came the formation of the New- ton Education Association in 1898. It included in its mem- bership both men and women from all parts of the city who were interested in educational methods and theories, and in a closer relation between the church and the home.
Strangely enough interest in the physical health of the community lagged behind the interest in education. People seemed to expect their children to run the gamut of chil- dren's diseases, and to have coughs, colds and chilblains as customary by-products of the winter season. They
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expected certain adults to enjoy talking about their rheu- matism and hay fever. For the rest they were in the hands of Providence and the doctor. But with the advent of hospitals and trained nurses came a new appreciation of the importance of health and of the necessity of trained nurses in times of illness. It was better understood that much sickness was due to needless infection, and antisep- tics and fumigation were put into use. Tonsils and ade- noids and appendixes were no longer a matter of indif- ference. The Hygiene and Emergency Society found a place in Newton as a branch of the Red Cross, with the aim of building up the health of the community, and giving popular instruction in the treatment of illness and accident.
In the year 1898 the Newton District Nursing Asso- ciation came into existence after several previous attempts. It seemed to some that it was not needed in a community as healthful as the city of Newton. But the two nurses employed the first year made more than five thousand calls on three hundred and seventy patients, and before long more were needed, and presently the Newton Hospi- tal was cooperating by lending several nurses in training. The Association maintained a supply closet in each village to help the poor with their babies and the sick. Fees sup- plemented by gifts provided the means, and families able to do so paid at least a nominal fee to the nurse. In 1906 the management of the nurses was transferred to the Hos- pital, but the Association maintained its identity and the work that had been undertaken continued to grow. By 1909 nurses began to carry on medical inspection in the schools, until in 1920 four nurses had charge of fifteen hun- dred pupils each, visiting every school weekly, and another was on duty at the high school.
Clubs and fraternal orders in great variety were formed during the decade in various parts of the city, many of them finding it difficult to grow to maturity.
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Among the clubs were the Newton Centre Toboggan Club, the Newton Outing Club, the Prospect Tennis Club, the Unitarian Club, the Phillips Literary Association, the Roundabouts, the American Cooperative Union, the Cir- cuit Cycle Club, the Jefferson Club, the Newton Froebel Union, and the Waverley Improvement Association of Newton. Representative of fraternal orders in the order of their establishment were the Improved Order of Red Men, the Royal Society of Good Fellows, the Independent Or- der of Good Templars, the Order of the Fraternal Circle, the Order of the Royal Ark, the United Order of the Golden Lion, and the United Order of Independent Odd Ladies.
As the period drew toward its close a conviction spread among citizens that a revision of the city charter was needed at certain points. The result was a popular peti- tion to the city council and the appointment of a commit- tee of twenty-two, part of them members of the city council and part selected citizens, to recommend changes. The task was planned with thoroughness. Six subcommittees made a preliminary study, then the whole committee con- sidered changes through eleven meetings, and finally adopted the proposals unanimously. The most important changes were first the separation of the executive and legislative departments of the city government. Instead of the committees of the Council wasting time and money through their inexperience in administration and frequent changes of policy would be departments with permanent officials under the general superintendence of the mayor. The aldermen would legislate, and then the departments were responsible for carrying out the measure. A second change was the consolidation of the board of aldermen and the common council. Henceforth a single board would consider proposed legislation and take action, but hasty action was guarded against by making a single vote in opposition enough to delay action until the public had
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