USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Newton > Tercentenary history of Newton, 1630-1930 > Part 27
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time to protest. Two-thirds of the aldermen must vote in order to increase appropriations or to make new ones.
The proposed revision of the charter provided for twenty-one aldermen, some of whom should be chosen by wards and some at large, for a school committee which should administer the schools through the superintendent whom they should appoint, and for certain departments which should have charge of the various interests of the city. These included an assessing department in charge of a board of assessors, a charity department in charge of overseers of the poor, a fire department under a chief, who for many years was Clarence W. Randlett, a department of health in charge of a board of health, a law department with a city solicitor, a police department with a chief, an engineering department with a city engineer, a water de- partment with a water commissioner in charge, and a street department which came to include sidewalks, parks and playgrounds, drains and sewers, and street lighting, under a street commissioner. Besides these were the audit- ing, treasury, collecting, and city departments. The mayor no longer had a part in the activities of the legislative body further than to make recommendations, but he was the head of the whole force of administration, and all the executive boards were responsible to him. When the Legis- lature had empowered the city to act on the proposed re- vision of the charter, the matter came before the citizens at the November election in 1897, and the revised charter was approved by a vote of 1,866 to 922. Henry E. Cobb was chosen under the new charter for a third term as mayor, and was succeeded for two terms by Edward B. Wilson. Criticism of municipal administration was easily in- duced. The weekly newspaper faithfully reported the meetings of the city council, often with critical comments in the editorial columns. Committees were frequently on the defensive from the public. The school committee was
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more than once in discord with a school principal or super- intendent because of criticism, as when George I. Aldrich, the superintendent of schools, was charged with being autocratic and was removed, although one hundred and thirty-five of the teachers indorsed him, and the public protested. The result was a deal of argument on both sides of the question. Mayor Henry E. Cobb in his inau- gural for 1898 said to the city council: "Press, pen and speech will criticise, misrepresent and misjudge you. Your good deeds will be passed over in silence, and your mis- takes or failures to please will be magnified into mis- demeanors."
Newton people extended their criticism at times to the conduct of national affairs and even international rela- tions. They were interested in the attempts of Spain to control Cuba. They were duly incensed over the blowing up of the Maine in the harbor of Havana. The Claflin Guards thrilled with military fervor. Since their patrolling at the Boston fire in 1872 they had not had much excite- ment except prize drills. One occasion had been memor- able. In the fall of 1895 the Fifth Regiment of the Massa- chusetts Militia to which the Guards belonged enjoyed a field day at Pine Grove near the river, and military evolu- tions were carried out. The First Battalion of companies from Newton, Waltham, Cambridge and Attleboro made up a defending force in the woods, supported by artillery with a gatling gun, while the Second Battalion of companies from Boston, Charlestown, Braintree and Plymouth, and the Third Battalion of companies from Malden, Medford, Woburn and Hudson combined to attack. The offensive was successful in driving the First Battalion from its posi- tion. Then the enemies fraternized in a luncheon, a parade, and a review at City Hall by the Mayor. In the evening a banquet was held with Governor Greenhalge as a guest.
The approach of the war with Spain brought the
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Guards something to anticipate. Late in April, 1898, the war began. Admiral Dewey ushered in the month of May by sailing into the harbor of Manila and capturing the Philippine Islands. As Company C of the Fifth Massa- chusetts Militia the Claflin Guards could expect service, and they made preparation accordingly. Recruits were added to the Armory and at Nonantum, where a flag was raised. In July one hundred and six enlisted men under Captain Ernest R. Springer went into camp at Framing- ham, and later went south to Camp Meade in Pennsyl- vania and then to Camp Wetherill in South Carolina.
Citizens organized aid for their soldiers, as they had in the Civil War. At the chapel of Channing Church women met daily to prepare comfort bags, clothing and surgical dressings. The Daughters of the Revolution and the New- ton Branch of the Massachusetts Volunteer Aid Asso- ciation raised money for a hospital ship. Hundreds of flags were flung to the breeze all over the city.
But it was not to be the fortune of Newton men to engage in active hostilities. A few went to the Philippines, but those who were in camp in the South suffered from nothing worse than disease. Some who returned in the fall of 1898 were welcomed back at the Newton Club. When Company C returned as a body in the spring of 1899, the men were received by citizens from all over the city at Nonantum Square as they left the special car which brought them, and they marched, escorted by the police, to Armory Hall, where they were given a public reception. Accompanied by the police, the Grand Army Post, the Claflin Guard Veteran Association, the city officials, fifty citizens, and the Watch Company Band, they paraded from Newton to Newtonville, where they enjoyed a ban- quet in Temple Hall, with speech making and singing of the national hymn. Then the erstwhile soldiers laid away their uniforms and resumed their places as civilians.
XI MOVING INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
THE Spanish War marked the emancipation of the United States from absorption in America to participation in world affairs. When the nation went into the war there were few farsighted enough to see that it would emerge from the brief conflict an imperial power with West Indian dependencies and far-flung island possessions in distant seas. Few realized that the rapid increase of agricultural and manufactured products warranted entrance on a large scale into foreign markets. But as one looks back after thirty years one sees plainly that the people of America were entering into a new epoch.
The changing situation was sensed most quickly by men of large affairs whose activities centred in the large cities. Among these were certain residents of Newton. Their business offices were in Boston. From those offices radiated lines of communication which reached out to every quarter of the globe. They were familiar with the policies and methods of Englishmen and Germans. They knew the requirements of customers in Asia as well as in Europe. A few men, like John S. Farlow, had been engaged in the China and India trade in years past. It required no great stretch of imagination to see Americans competitors in every foreign port, and the banking of the world trans- ferring its centre from London to New York.
It was less than a century since Newton families were almost isolated from one another, except as they met on Sundays, but rural Newton had passed, as the nation was making the transition from the rural to the urban outlook.
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It was only a few decades since daily commuters had begun to greet one another on the station platforms as they waited for the local into town, and chatted together on the ride to the city. Now they were involved in deals which dwarfed the earlier conduct of business. They were shar- ing in the organization of large corporations, venturing their capital in industrial and commercial ventures, invest- ing in foreign loans and in enterprises overseas such as European peoples were accustomed to.
Business leaped forward with the same energy which the United States government was showing in educating the Filipino, asserting the principle of the open door in China, and arranging Isthmian affairs with England so as to make possible the American construction of the Panama Canal; with the same energy that made American athletes overwhelming victors in the Olympic games in Europe, as they devoted themselves to baseball and football at home. America was on the eve of a rapid development of improved facilities for production and exchange. Machinery was being improved constantly. The turbine engine in the factory, the internal combustion engine on the road, were creating and distributing vastly more units of power. Elec- tricity was proving its usefulness in light and communica- tion and power, and suggesting improvements in kitchen and boudoir. The trolley had followed the railroad; the automobile and the tractor were just around the corner. Fast trains and fast steamers and new undersea cables facilitated transportation and communication.
It would not have been surprising if the speeding up of business had taken such toll of energy that Newton business men would have had little left when they returned at night to their "bedroom" suburb. It was easier to drop down in one's den in smoking jacket and slippers than to get into a dress suit and go out to dinner and the theatre or make an evening call; but in general the business man liked
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HISTORY OF NEWTON
society, he belonged to clubs in Boston and was ready to make the City Club a success when it was organized, and if he was college trained he retained his connection with Monday or Tuesday or Saturday Club in his own baili- wick. He took an interest in Newton affairs and was proud of the city, which, though it had the largest per capita debt of any city of its size in the country, had also the largest valuation. He applauded the organization of the Newton Civic Club in 1903, which was composed of men who had held public office in Newton, and which provided an arena for discussing such questions as the relation of the city to the Metropolitan projects.
Mayor Weed in one of his inaugural addresses com- mented upon that relation. He rehearsed the story of the organization of the Metropolitan Sewerage Works, which was authorized in 1889. Newton had become a part of it, glad to avail itself of an exit for its wastage to the south side harbor, but it had involved the city in debt to the extent of $1,159,615. It was apparent that it would cost more as the system was extended farther beyond Newton. This would necessitate the construction of larger mains through the city, but it was a better arrangement than to attempt an independent system. Newton had entered heartily into the Metropolitan Park projects, incurring an incumbrance of more than half a million dollars, and more than one hundred acres of land had been taken from the city for Metropolitan Park purposes. Little of the expend- iture had benefited the people directly, and the Charles River Basin cost was not yet allocated, but it was no more than right that Newton should share with poorer com- munities the expense of public parks in Greater Boston. Newton became responsible for nearly $200,000 of the expense of the Metropolitan Water System, though the city needed it only as a safeguard, but it was wise to pro- vide for an emergency supply. These were all luxuries
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which the fathers had not enjoyed, but they seemed essen- tial to city life in the new age.
The city was adding its own parks. Allison Park was laid out along the river in Nonantum in connection with the Metropolitan Park improvements, providing baseball and football grounds at an expense of thirteen hundred dollars. Wolcott Burr Park at Auburndale was a present to the city. The parks were a provision against future congestion in a city which expected to grow steadily, and which had increased in the decade 1890-1900 more than thirty-seven per cent in population. But the state census in 1905 would show an average gain of only six hundred per year, making a total of 36,694. In 1903 Mayor Weeks made some comparisons with the year when Newton be- came a city thirty years earlier. It had more paved streets than any city of its size, twice the sewer mileage of any similar city, and one hundred and twenty-six miles of water mains, when none of these existed at the earlier date.
Newton men and women were proud of their city and prouder still of their families. Newton was a city of homes. Young married people liked to settle in Newton not merely because of the social advantages, but because it was a good place in which to bring up children. Shaded streets and parks at the triangles, playgrounds for all and ample pri- vate estates for some, improving schools and good moral and religious influences were all reckoned as assets for chil- dren and in the minds of Garden City parents. The best teachers were sought for the schools. Children hobnobbed and quarreled and learned by degrees to act in civilized fashion in one another's backyards, in vacant lots, and on the playgrounds when they were out of school. If mothers were worried because sometimes the twig that was cor- rectly bent seemed to grow into a limb of Satan, there was the Mothers' Club to which they might go for advice.
It was early in 1924 that twelve or more women met
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HISTORY OF NEWTON
at Newtonville to listen to the president of the National Congress of Mothers. With this stimulus the Mothers' Club was formed to include twenty-five mothers. The worthy purpose of the organization was indicated by the constitution of the Club, which defined the objects of the society to be "to promote the education of women in the wise care of children, to stimulate active interest in all that pertains to the best development of the physical, mental and spiritual nature of the child; to inculcate a higher con- ception of parenthood and secure a more intelligent coöp- eration between fathers and mothers in the training and management of their children; and to uplift and improve the condition of motherhood in all ranks of life." For a quarter of a century the Club has continued to pursue these objects, listening at the monthly meetings to special- ists in child nurture, and once a year a special contribu- tion has been made to an approved charity, like the Float- ing Hospital, the Mothers' Rest Association, the District Nursing Association, and the Newton Welfare Bureau. The limit of membership was raised to sixty-five. In due time the local club joined the Newton Federation of Women's Clubs and the National Congress of Mothers.
Through the initiative of Reverend Everett D. Burr, D.D., minister of the Baptist church in Newton Centre, fifteen women of that church became interested in the tenement house poor of Boston and made it possible for mothers and their children to have two weeks in the coun- try, with respite from the heat and toil of the city. At first the old poorhouse at Waban was used, attic rummaging provided old furniture, workmen gave their services to prepare the place, and one hundred and ninety-three guests were cared for during the first summer of 1900. Presently the old house was demolished, and it was necessary to secure new quarters on Winchester Street for the next five years. In 1903 the women of Newton Centre assumed
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INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
the responsibility of the charity and organized the Moth- ers' Rest Association, which in time came to include twelve hundred women from all over the city. Individual mem- bers paid a fee of two dollars a year and substantial gifts made it possible to start a building fund. In 1906 the Asso- ciation bought a nine-acre estate at Needham Heights, and reconstructed the buildings which were there. In the main building were eleven sleeping rooms and a diet kitchen; a dormitory building supplied five more with dining room and kitchen; a small cottage provided quarters for the matron and her helpers; and a barn with a fireplace gave opportunity for recreation. No one could estimate the intangible benefits that accrued to those who thus had a glimpse of the great outdoors and a chance to breathe the clean air of the country. And by an eternal law the bene- factors received their recompense in inner satisfaction. Later years were to see the Mothers' Rest move once more to a home within the bounds of the city.
It was because of a growing realization of the needs of mothers and children who were handicapped by the neces- sities of bread winning that attempts were made to main- tain day nurseries for the children of working mothers. The first of these attempts was made at Newton Centre in 1903. One hundred and forty women made annual subscriptions at two dollars each, and these were supplemented by gifts and by a fair to meet the expense of one thousand dollars a year. The first year the total attendance was 2,307, so many children being taken care of instead of being left to their own devices or to the incompetent oversight of older children. The number increased as time passed. Physi- cians approved the enterprise. There could be no question as to its value. But decline set in in the year 1906, and the arrangement came to an end the next year. Before its de- mise a similar nursery was opened at Nonantum with a daily attendance of fifteen. The mothers of the children
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paid part of the small expense, but the Nonantum Day Nursery was organized to make sure that the enterprise would be sustained. Within a few months the interest had spread to West Newton. The West Newton Day Nursery Association was ambitious enough to secure a building which was equipped properly and provided with a matron. An efficient organization was planned with visiting, inves- tigating, and finance committees; an auxiliary committee of young women aided in sewing, visiting at the Neighbor- hood House, and helping to raise money. The attendance during the first year reached four hundred and eighty-eight children. Three years later the first milk station was opened and playground activities were planned.
In 1913 certain of the earlier enterprises found a home at the Stearns School in the Stearns School Centre, one of the first of its kind in the country. The cooperation of the school committee was secured. Health clinics have been kept up, and when necessary dental aid is called in or cases are referred to the hospital. As the years passed the recrea- tional provisions of the Centre became prominent under skilled direction, a mothers' club of nearly one hundred women was formed, and severa girls' clubs, one for privi- leged girls who thus learned service, another for Italian girls, and others for domestic science and for backward girls. For small children "Brownie" groups and story tell- ing hours were planned. A dramatic contest recently has interested several of the groups in the presentation of short plays with a silver cup as the goal of endeavor. The pur- pose of those who have given earnest effort to the School Centre is to cheer and help as many as possible, especially in health and recreation, to keep boys and girls off the streets and interest them in clean amusements, and to cul- tivate a group and community spirit. On a budget of three thousand dollars the Centre has been able to maintain all these enterprises and keep a trained social worker as direc- tor of activities.
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In the village of West Newton has grown up another institution which has been of great benefit to the less fortu- nate of Newton's children. It was in 1911 that the All Newton Music School was arranged to give good training in music to children who could afford to pay only a small sum for lessons. Its service proved so valuable, especially the opportunity for group training in orchestra, in classes on theory, and in frequent recitals, that more well-to-do people were glad to have the advantages for their children and were willing to help pay the expenses of the school. School orchestras profited from the training given, pupils who showed unusual talent were helped to go farther, and in time branches were organized until more than two hun- dred pupils were in attendance, and a budget of thirteen thousand dollars was necessary annually.
Meantime the Salvation Army bought and renovated an old estate at West Newton, and used it to give a ten days' vacation from the South End of Boston to those who were in special need of the fresh air of the country. In 1907 a novel method of raising money was tried by putting a circus on public exhibition on the Cedar Street athletic grounds in Newton Centre. Men and women and young people vied with one another in costumes and stunts to entertain the crowd and a large sum of money was realized for charity.
No voluntary organizations for children could do the work of the public schools, and the citizens of Newton had learned to be generous in their provision for instruction. It had become apparent that the old wooden structures which had served in the nineteenth century must give way to modern brick buildings, and the number of children was growing continually so that more schools must be provided. But the city did not shirk its obligations. Within seven years school property was added to the value of eight hun- dred thousand dollars, and it was necessary for the main-
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tenance of the school system to appropriate one-fourth of that amount every year. Six thousand pupils were enrolled in the grades. Six rooms were enough for Thompsonville, but the Burr School in Auburndale, the Emerson at Upper Falls, the new Hyde at Newton Highlands, and the new Eliot School at Nonantum needed twelve rooms each, and the Mason School at Newton Centre required sixteen. Such buildings cost at least one hundred thousand dollars apiece, but they were all called for between 1902 and 1907. In 1906 a joint commission of three members of the school committee and three selectmen was created to take the responsibility of deciding when new schoolhouses were necessary. It is easy to see that it was difficult to keep city taxes down. Changes in personnel brought Frank W. Chase to the principalship of the Bigelow School at New- ton after the death of H. C. Sawin, and Samuel B. Paul to the Mason School at Newton Centre, each to serve long terms in strategic centres. In 1903 Fred W. Atkinson, who had been superintendent of schools in the Philippines, was elected superintendent of the Newton schools, and was succeeded on his resignation by Frank E. Spaulding, who remained for ten years.
Vacation schools were so popular that the city could not avoid the experiment, and several of the villages had them. At Nonantum, where the Social Science Club had sustained the school for a number of years, the enrollment was approaching the four hundred mark in attendance and the school committee assumed responsibility. Through the generosity of Frank A. Day an industrial school for boys was opened at Nonantum in 1909. It taught the trades and became so popular that it was decided to inte- grate it with the public school system, and after a time it was incorporated into the Vocational High School at Newtonville.
The scope of instruction in the schools had broadened
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with the years. The colonial schools had contented them- selves with the rudiments of instruction in reading and writing. When the Federal government was inaugurated in 1789, arithmetic, language study, and "decent behavior" were made a specified part of the curriculum, as if the community had a new sense of what was due to its self- respect as an American town. Geography was added to the course of study in 1826. One might almost think that the school committee sensed the approach of the railroad and the advantages of travel. The educational authorities wished for no frills, but after the half century was reached certain studies became optional. A growing understanding of the way to health may have accounted for the added instruction in physiology and hygiene. With the approach of civil conflict over slavery United States history seemed a desirable acquisition, so that subject was adopted. Alge- bra was a new high school discipline needed for college. Soon vocal music and drawing found recognition as op- tional studies, and ten years later drawing was prescribed. Special classes were formed to take care of children who could not be taught successfully in the regular classes. Evening classes were provided for those whose schooling had been interrupted early in life. In 1906 the attendants included more than one hundred Italians, half as many Irish, and Germans, Poles, French, Russians, and others, including one Japanese.
It was a long time before people could be brought to believe that the schools should educate the hand as well as the brain, or that they should deal with vocational as well as academic subjects. In the Centennial year the door to a more practical training was set ajar when sewing was introduced into the grades, and the next innovation was calisthenics and military drill. The use of tools for boys and the art of cooking for girls were introduced before the end of the century, and in 1898 the curriculum was ex-
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