USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Newton > Tercentenary history of Newton, 1630-1930 > Part 38
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It was in the 'nineties of the last century that the New- ton Centre parish was set off, including many of the resi- dents of Newton Highlands and the section of Chestnut Hill. Reverend Dennis J. Wholey built wisely, and Father Reardon who succeeded him left a new rectory as evidence of his industry. In 1917 Reverend Timothy A. Curtin, a graduate of Boston College and St. John's Seminary in Brighton, came from Middleboro. He accepted as his special task the creation of a school for the parish of twenty-
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eight hundred people. A two-story brick and stone struc- ture was erected in 1922 in the rear of the church, and beside it on Crescent Avenue a building of similar construc- tion was provided for the twelve sisters of St. Joseph who cared for the four hundred pupils. The growing parish of the Sacred Heart requires two assistant priests, and occasional missions are held with preaching by Passionist and Redemptorist fathers. Like the other large Catholic churches, there are various societies and sodalities con- nected with the church, and large audiences gather for the several masses on Sunday. In 1927 the Church of St. Ignatius was organized as a separate parish at Chestnut Hill, where a considerable Catholic population had come into the neighborhood of Boston College.
The Catholic church at Nonantum was organized as the parish of St. John the Evangelist in 1911. It has had only one spiritual director, Reverend Joseph E. Robi- chaud, who came from Marlboro to his new charge. A native of Canada, he was well prepared to minister to the Nonantum folk. Under his leadership he brought the people from the wooden building on Dalby Street where they worshipped at first into a church building which should serve their needs until the parish should be able to afford a more complete structure. A rectory of ample size was constructed on Watertown Street, and an eight-room school building soon arose on the same landed property. With a highly esteemed pastor and a growing body of laity the parish looks forward to a steady gain in numbers and equipment.
The last decade of Catholic history has brought two other Catholic churches into existence in villages which had been parts of older parishes. Auburndale seemed to require its own church as a flourishing village, and Rev- erend Thomas P. Macmanmon came from Dorchester to lay the foundations of the new parish of Corpus Christi
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Church. The organization was effected in 1922, and the next year the lower church was built of seam-faced granite, capable of holding eight hundred people. On the old Hildreth estate a rectory was built surrounded by ample grounds. Already twelve hundred persons are included in the parish. As lately as 1928 the Church of St. Philip Neri was consecrated near the junction of Beacon and Chestnut Streets in Waban, a brick building costing eighty thou- sand dollars.
Catholic interests were fostered by numerous organ- izations connected with the churches, and by certain clubs and other organizations in the city. The Knights of Columbus, which had a worthy record in war service, bought the old Mitchell estate on Walnut Street in New- tonville for a clubhouse, and was proud of a membership of six hundred. The Philomathea Club of Catholic women, which included others besides Newton residents, was organ- ized in 1915 with the special purpose of fostering higher education as an auxiliary to Boston College. It had as headquarters a Norwegian chalet on ground adjoining the campus, and it was especially active in assisting in the suc- cess of the annual class day of the college. The Club also serves as a committee on students' residences in associa- tion with the Boston College Law School. Besides its maintenance of college interests it has endeavored to cul- tivate the social and intellectual interests of its fourteen hundred members. The Club meets monthly from Octo- ber to May and enjoys a lecture and discussions of current events, which are followed by refreshments and a social hour.
The removal of Boston College from the heart of the city to Chestnut Hill added materially to the educational institutions of the city and to the prominence of Catholi- cism. The present site was due to the initiative of the Very Reverend Thomas I. Gasson, S.J., the first president of
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the relocated college, and his was the credit of planning the development of the greater college at University Heights. He instituted a competition for architectural plans, which was entered into by fifteen of the most prominent archi- tects of the East. The decision of the board of judges awarded the first prize for the best general plan of the buildings and the third prize for the best design of the pro- posed Recitation Hall, to be constructed as the first of these buildings, to Maginnis and Walsh, Architects, of Boston. The accepted plan calls for a development of twenty build- ings of stone construction strictly adhering to the archi- tectural requirements of English Collegiate Gothic design. The second president of the College in Newton was the Very Reverend Charles W. Lyons, S.J., who succeeded Father Gasson in 1914, and who fulfilled the duties of his appointment until the year 1919. In the course of Father Lyons' regime the administration building known as St. Mary's Hall was constructed and opened for occupation by the Jesuit members of the Boston College faculty. For three months in 1918 a unit of the Students Army Training Corps was in session at the College, under Col. John S. Parke, U. S. A., Commanding Officer. On the removal of Father Lyons to New York City the Reverend William Devlin, S.J., then Dean of the College, was appointed president.
During the administration of Father Devlin an organ- ized campaign for the raising of funds for the erection of new buildings was carried through successfully, and as a result the new Science Building was erected and work begun on the Library Building. During these years the student enrollment increased from seven hundred and three to ten hundred and forty. At the conclusion of Father Devlin's six years of office he was succeeded by the Reverend Father James H. Dolan, S.J., in 1925. Under Father Dolan the Library Building, the largest of the
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group, was completed and dedicated in 1928, and extensive improvements have been made on the college grounds. An important event in the wider activities of the College was marked by the opening of the new Boston College Law School in the Lawyers Building, II Beacon Street, Bos- ton, in 1929. The roster for the first year of this school numbers one hundred and fifty-four students. The pres- ent enrollment at Boston College in the Undergraduate Department is thirteen hundred.
The convent of the Sacred Heart moved from its former location on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston to the Towle estate in Newton. The mansion and seventeen acres of land were bought by the Religious of the Sacred Heart, a society of Catholic women who maintain many academies in the United States. Religious instruction and moral training hold first rank in a course of studies begun in the elementary grade and carried through the academic classes, preparatory to college courses. The order of day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. permits supervised study and out- door sports.
On Institution Hill a smaller school had been pur- suing its task of training Baptist ministers for a hundred years. The Newton Theological Institution in that time had sent nineteen hundred men into the ministry. The large majority of them served as pastors of churches, but more than two hundred found wider opportunity as mis- sionaries in various lands. At some stations, as in Burma, Newton men made an unusual record of achievement. A remarkable number of men from Newton hill went to responsible positions as presidents and professors of col- leges, including Barnas Sears, Ezekiel G. Robinson, E. Benjamin Andrews and W. H. P. Faunce, presidents of Brown University, five presidents of Colby College, and ten heads of other Baptist colleges, and the chief execu- tives of nine theological seminaries. In 1925 the Institu-
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tion celebrated its one hundredth anniversary. The cen- tennial history chronicled changes in the curriculum which have kept the school abreast of modern thought and pres- ent methods; the introduction of new courses and depart- ments of instruction, including a school of religious educa- tion for the training of women for positions of leadership in that field; improvement in equipment; affiliation with Harvard University for graduate study; and the organiza- tion of summer schools and conferences.
Only four men had held the office of president of the Institution - Sears, Hovey, Wood, Horr - names short but meaningful, of men worthy and abiding in influence. The last of the four, Dr. George E. Horr, closed his seven- teenth year of service on the occasion of the Centennial, when he reached the age of seventy. He came to Newton from the editorial chair of the Watchman in 1904 to be professor of Modern Christianity, and four years later was elected to succeed Dr. Wood in the presidency. He guided the Seminary with wisdom and economy through the years of the war when many of its members went into war serv- ice, carried with him the confidence of those who knew him as an educator, and laid down the burden of office with the satisfaction of having maintained the high stand- ards of the school through a time of theological readjust- ments in a period of rapidly changing thought and practice.
In 1926 Reverend Everett C. Herrick, D.D., of Fall River, succeeded to the presidency of the Institution. As an alumnus he sensed the needs of the school, and promptly undertook a campaign to increase the permanent funds of the Institution. This he was able to accomplish and so to assure the future of a school which had a history to pre- serve and an unfinished task to carry on as the training school of students who for scores of years had been coming from all parts of the United States and many foreign coun- tries to imbibe the spirit and culture of Boston and its sub-
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urbs. The passing of Dr. Horr and of Prof. John M. Eng- lish, the aged and beloved professor of Homiletics, marked the year 1927.
The decade added new private schools. Representa- tive of these was the DeWitt Clinton School, which for a time was located in West Newton and then on Cotton Street, Newton, where country conditions had lingered as an eddy in the stream of the city's progress. It offered itself as a day and boarding school for boys. It had the advantage of small classes and a thirteen-acre athletic field, and it prepared students for the colleges and tech- nical schools. An older school for boys and girls both was reorganized during this period. The Chestnut Hill School was founded as a private enterprise as far back as 1860 and remained a private school for small boys and girls up to the age of fifteen until 1919. In that year it was incor- porated under a board of trustees and continued as a pro- gressive country day school in harmony with the tendency of the time. Among the new schools was Damon Hall, a school of junior college grade. It was located on the old Wellington estate on Church Street in Newton. Its pro- prietor was Frank H. Damon, an educator for thirty years. Characteristic of the school are its small classes with indi- vidual instruction, and its close connection with the edu- cational and cultural centres of Greater Boston. The courses in college subjects, journalism, social service and business administration, arts and crafts, travel, and the drama are varied enough to meet the wishes of a wide clientele. A standard high school course is offered to less advanced pupils.
Lasell Seminary at Auburndale had expanded in eighty years until it occupied thirty acres, with eight houses of residence besides Woodland Park where the junior school was housed. The senior school offered a jun- ior college course of four years besides specializing in liter-
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ature, music and home economics. Dr. Guy M. Winslow completed thirty years as principal in 1928 with the full confidence of trustees and students in his leadership. Lasell clubs in all parts of the country testified to the affection of graduates for their alma mater.
Although private schools and parochial schools took care of hundreds of Newton children, the school popula- tion had to be provided for mainly by the city. The rapid increase of that population presented a real problem to the city. Municipal expenses were high in all departments and the school committee could not expect more than its share. There was a limit to taxation and to bonded indebt- edness. Yet the children must have schools. The com- mittee did what could be expected, built a new school where need seemed greatest, and postponed desirable im- provements until more money was forthcoming. The Underwood School was rebuilt. A new school was required at Waban on account of rapid development there, and was named the Albert Edgar Angier School from one of the war heroes of the village. The opening to settlement of the section off Ward Street in the eastern part of the city toward Chestnut Hill intensified the inconvenience of school attendance at Newton Centre, and led to the erec- tion of the John Ward School, an attractive brick build- ing named for one of the old settlers. The Hamilton School was built at Lower Falls on one of the playgrounds of the city. The bungalow style of architecture with an open space inside of three walls was a new experiment, but it had the advantage of being all on one floor, and fire pro- tection was greater. A new school was needed in Newton- ville for the section about Cabot Street and in 1928 the Aldermen voted to proceed with construction there. At Oak Hill most of the children of school age were conveyed to Newton Centre daily, but it seemed reasonable that the youngest of primary grade should continue to receive
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instruction nearer home. To avoid immediate building the old structure at Oak Hill was repaired and modern- ized so as to tide over the difficulty.
A practical problem in all the schools was the back- ward child. The handicap was variable, but in the aggre- gate a considerable number of children needed special attention. The Barnard School at West Newton made special provision for three classes, and two other schools for one class each. This plan was much to the advantage of normal classes as well as to the handicapped.
A tardy recognition was given to teachers in the grade schools when their salaries were raised to help meet the increased cost of living. The position of a teacher was an exacting one at best. The increase in salary was a cause of satisfaction, but still more was a growing interest in the schools on the part of parents. An educational week was observed in 1924 that parents might be encouraged to become better acquainted with the schools. Three years earlier the Newton Centre School Association was organ- ized by women in the Woman's Club who felt that the schools needed the intelligent interest of the parents. In the nine years of its existence it has enlisted nine hundred women in the Association and has won the hearty approval of school principals and teachers. One of its useful con- tributions was to bring lecturers on education to speak to popular audiences. School health work received a spur from the health survey of the city presented at a welfare conference. In seven schools special classes were held, and in the Peirce School at West Newton four classes met in the open air. These arrangements were encouraged by the Newton Welfare Bureau, and funds were obtained through the sale of Christmas seals.
The city was embarrassed by the number of young people applying for admission to the high schools as well as the grades. Several options were presented to the school
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committee. The pressure upon the single high school in previous years had been relieved by the building of a tech- nical high school. Similarly a new building might be added to the educational plant at Newtonville, which would relieve both schools. Or the south side of the city might be given its own high school, which would not only lighten the pressure at Newtonville, but would be far more con- venient for pupils from that section of the city. A third alternative was to adopt the new and popular method of organizing junior high schools in several of the villages. These would take care of the higher grade grammar pupils and carry them through the first two years of the high school course. After considerable discussion the pol- icy of junior high schools was adopted. The congestion in the schools seemed to call for such schools on the north side first, and the Frank A. Day Junior High School was erected at Newtonville. The Levi F. Warren School followed a few years later, the building alone costing over a half mil- lion dollars. New schools have been built within the last decade at a total cost of more than three million, five hun- dred thousand dollars.
Opinion was divided over the advisability of a south side high school and concentration at Newtonville. In spite of much criticism the decision was made and kept that it was better to build a new high school in front of the Technical High. Its cost was nearly a million dollars, but it made possible a much more satisfactory arrangement of classes and courses. The building was opened in the fall of 1926. With a magnificent school plant such as was now provided better arrangements were needed for school athletics. Claflin Field required grading and new seating arrangements. It was hoped that a memorial to "Allie" Dickinson might take the form of a stadium, but the enor- mous cost of the school improvements that had been made deferred the proposed structure. The Newton High School
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won the baseball championship of the Suburban League in 1928, a reminder of the success attained during the Dick- inson regime. Much interest in music made installation of a pipe organ most acceptable. Five choruses and two glee clubs met regularly every week and one thousand pupils were enrolled in singing classes. Four class orchestras, an all-school orchestra and a band of twenty-five pieces pro- vided instrumental enthusiasm for one hundred and fifty pupils who were taking lessons on instruments. The Levi F. Warren Junior High School had a band which won the state championship of schools in its class.
Changes in the personnel of the teaching force seemed inevitable. After forty-four years of service as teacher of Latin and Greek, S. Warren Davis retired from his position with the affection of the numerous classes which he had taught. A single year brought the death of Enoch C. Adams after fourteen years as principal, of Charles H. Meserve, a long-time teacher, and of Edward H. Cutler, former principal. The number of pupils entering college was steadily increasing, and it was noted as worthy of comment that twenty-five students from Newton gradu- ated from the various departments of Harvard University in a single year and ten from Smith College in another year.
For many people the public library is a continuation school. If a man keeps up with the new books that are being added to the shelves he may follow the discoveries of the newest science or the stories of recent history; if he is inclined to literature he will find there the ancient clas- sics and the newer books of modern literature. The reading room of the library supplies him with the best of current magazines and newspapers. No part of America has so generally provided free libraries as the state of Massachu- setts. After fifty years of existence the Newton Library was filled with old and new books so that the stack space
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was overcrowded in the central library, and the branches were thronged with more visitors and readers than they could well take care of. The number of villages, each with its depository, created on a smaller scale the same per- plexity as in the case of the schools. To improve the cen- tral library was imperative, but it seemed to be impossible to provide adequately for the branches.
Meantime the trustees of the Library were improving service as best they could. At Lower Falls the old fire sta- tion, which had been made superfluous by the building of a new station between the Falls and Waban, was trans- formed into a branch library and dedicated in 1923. Then came the proposal at West Newton that the citizens of the village build a library of their own without expense to the city. Several local organizations entered heartily into the campaign, sixty thousand dollars were raised by subscrip- tion and entertainment, land was purchased on Chestnut Street and old buildings were pulled down, and presently the new library was a reality. It was constructed of brick and stone with half-timbered gables. The main floor pro- vided for a permanent book reserve and a reading room. The basement of the building was available for community needs with space for moving pictures and a kitchen. Two bronze tablets were placed in the reading room, one of which contained the names of fifteen young men of the village who sacrificed their lives in the war.
Ground was broken in the same year for a library in Auburndale. Generous gifts made it possible to obtain land and to proceed with plans, and the name of Plummer Memorial perpetuated the memory of a generous donor. A library week was staged, resulting in pledges of eighteen thousand dollars, and the building was assured. About the same time a similar enterprise was started at Newton Cen- tre. The campaign began with a mass meeting in the Woman's Club and the appointment of a campaign com-
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mittee. An intensive drive netted about two-thirds of the sum necessary, but subsequently the expense was provided for a brick and stucco building costing about sixty thou- sand dollars. Located on a lot adjoining the Woman's Club the new library building was a distinct addition to a village centre which needed only the new Stuart Building to complete its symmetry.
These new buildings were an inspiration to the city to expand the facilities of the central library. Julian Lucht of Wichita, Kansas, came in 1925 to succeed Harold B. Dougherty, who had resigned to go into business. An executive office of ample proportions was needed as well as stack room, and presently workmen were busy extending the stack to a third floor, and finding space at the side of the main floor for an office. The changes necessitated a shifting of books and periodical files to correspond with the expansion, but the final result was the enhanced con- venience of library and public.
The organizations which were trying to perform pub- lic service were numerous. Newton people had the disposi- tion and the means to be generous with those who were in need, but too many similar organizations were liable to be wasteful of time and money. Besides there were depart- ments of the city government, like the board of health, which were concerned with the welfare of the people. An advisory council was formed in 1927, composed of repre- sentatives of the school department and of seven impor- tant organizations of the city. During the decade the New- ton District Nursing Association expanded steadily, and in its twenty-fifth year it moved its headquarters from the Newton Hospital to the Community Welfare House in Newtonville where the other welfare organizations centred. The last few years have brought increasing responsibility, until in 1929 the Association provided a superintendent, three staff nurses, and four senior nurses in training at the
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Hospital who made eighteen thousand, three hundred and ninety-six visits during the year.
Cooperation was prerequisite to the best service and a clearing house of opinion and method became imperative. Such was the Newton Central Council, which by this time was composed of more than thirty welfare and civic organ- izations. It included such private agencies as the Welfare Bureau, the District Nursing Association, and the Young Men's Christian Association, clubs and societies like the Federation of Women's Clubs and the village improvement societies, and public agencies like the playground and health departments of the city government. The Council made a community study in 1923, and started a bulletin called the Newton Community News. The next year an All-Newton Welfare Conference was held, at which sur- veys of family and child welfare, of public health, recrea- tion, and delinquency were reported. The advisability of a community chest in which the resources of all the organ- izations could be pooled and a single annual campaign undertaken was discussed thoroughly in the following months.
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