USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Winthrop > The history of Winthrop, Massachusetts ; 1630-1952 > Part 29
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At this period many practices since familiar are first re- corded. Teachers were studying the project method; student teachers from Boston campuses came to learn and to help; Mothercraft was established, and public library branches were set up at the Highands and at Shirley Street. Annual examina- tions for seriously retarded children were instituted. Senior glee choruses and operettas became a custom, the orchestra conducted by Mr. Willis found a rival in the band which played on Fort Banks field at the Thanksgiving Day game, instrumental music classes were started. Safety campaigns of 1928 warned not only of automobiles but of the newly electrified trains on the Narrow Gauge road.
In 1927, Mr. Douglas, whose thirty-five years of service, thirty-one of them as superintendent, had spanned the develop- ment of the whole school system and included the erection of every school building remaining in use, retired and turned over his duties to Mr. Clarke. Frederic C. Loomis became principal of the high school, which could point to a strong record of seniors passing college entrance examinations. Three Winthrop men among four finishing at Harvard that year graduated cum laude. And in the competition for business positions as they became more scarce, Winthrop graduates were being chosen by em- ployers.
In the junior high school there was a supervised-study time added to each period, lengthening the day with the double aim of lessening home study and reducing failures. Growth of the student body required construction of a six-room extension, which was opened in December, 1929. In the use of the gym- nasium for assembly purposes, lack of auditorium facilities had already been felt; but forestalled by the depression, this need still exists. To provide for increased school population, how- ever, a six-room addition was made to the Highland School.
Even during depression days local teachers and administra- tors grew professionally through co-operation with schools of education, attendance upon national conventions, election to state and national offices. During the Massachusetts Tercen- tenary observance of 1930 the holidays for the parade on Con- stitution Day and that of the American Legion on October 7
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must have delighted the pupils. In the tradition of making school facilities of widest use for desirable community activities, Boy and Girl Scouts used the buildings after class hours for meet- ings. Community organizations and individuals established graduation prizes for citizenship and specific excellences in junior and senior high schools.
In 1931 the fall enrollment exceeded 3,400, the largest grade being the eighth; the staff was reduced by five teachers, how- ever, and retrenchment brought a salary cut of five per cent to all, plus the ruling that marriage of women teaching here would be understood as a resignation of their position. The high school eliminated post-graduate students, except those needing college preparatory work. The evening school, previously attracting many unemployed, was discontinued for lack of funds. The Winthrop Teachers Association produced a play that earned $333.00 for unemployment relief.
In the national celebration of the Bicentennial of George Washington, Superintendent Clarke served as statewide chair- man for schools, and Winthrop made Washington's career the basis for many of the year's studies and assemblies.
In 1933, when the state began a program (the Chadwick Clinic) for early detection of tuberculosis, no town or city was found with a lower tendency than Winthrop to this disease. Since 1929 it had been the policy to give all entering children health examinations and to refer to the family physician any defects that were discovered. The immunization against diphtheria, given each November, had protected over 1,400 chil- dren since 1923, only two of whom had contracted even a mild case. And in 1935 audiometer testing became a regular practice for discovering defective hearing; at first the school nurse, and later speech teacher, gave instruction in lip reading to those found to need it.
Retirement in 1934 closed the public school careers of two prominent members of the Teachers Association : Miss Martha L. Eveleth, forty years a teacher in the high school, and Miss Lillian S. Wilkins whose remarkable record of forty-five years included service first at the Great Head (where she had as many as six grades in the one room over the hose house), later at the Almont Street, Center, and Edward B. Newton buildings.
For four years the cut in teachers' salaries remained in effect, though not so drastic as the cuts in some other com- munities. This and other economies kept local expenditures per pupil more than fourteen dollars below the state average (1935). W.P.A. projects meanwhile provided some renovation and re- decoration of buildings. To meet the surge of juvenile popula- tion the Shirley Street School was rebuilt and enlarged (1936),
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utilizing the two brick wings already in place, and providing an auditorium. A modern feature was the installation of a public address system with radio receiver in each room.
While the senior high school retained many pupils who in normal times might have found work, various problems arose. To serve the enlarged student body, a three-shift lunch period was arranged. Supervised study became an afternoon routine for any with failures or absences to offset. Numerical markings gave way to a simpler system of letter marks. Course-of-study pamphlets were issued to aid pupils and parents in deciding on selections, while daytime and evening exhibitions of physical training, arts and crafts stimulated parental interest and co- operation.
When Suburban Spelling Bees were inaugurated, Winthrop soon became prominent. Local representatives won the 1935 championships for ninth and tenth grades, and the next year for tenth and eleventh grades and the grand championship as well. Winthrop received still wider recognition in The Nation's Schools, which published a full article on the official opening of the Shirley Street School, which was in January, 1937, the month when salaries were restored to the pre-depression basis. June of that year was the effective date for a law providing pensions for school employees other than teachers (whose state retirement plan dates back to 1914).
Elementary teachers co-operated on detailed revision of courses in geography and English, and a reading class was estab- lished for handicapped readers revealed by achievement tests. The long-promised shower baths for boys were installed at Senior High, and later the showers and dressing rooms for girls. After the erection of steel bleachers for 1,800 spectators at Miller Athletic Field, Winthrop High football achieved the greatest financial success in its history to date. More than 90 per cent of its student body belonged to the Athletic Associa- tion, and the Winthrop Theatre echoed with the cheers of the rally preceding the Thanksgiving Day game with Revere.
On October 15, 1938, the town was shocked and saddened by the sudden death of Superintendent Edward R. Clarke. His successor as superintendent was the high school principal, Arthur E. Boudreau, who had headed the Science Department for five years before becoming principal after the death of Frederic C. Loomis on June 1, 1935. Eber I. Wells had also passed away in 1938, after serving the town as head of the manual training program since 1910. The head janitor, Arthur S. Tewksbury, had retired with a record of forty-eight years of service.
The new superintendent vigorously pressed the revision of the curriculum to provide for both the college preparatory and
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the general student. He set up a Department of Guidance, formally systematizing and extending the efforts previously inaugulated to aid pupils in making adjustment to school, learn- ing up to their capacity, and establishing personal goals for school and career. A permanent record for each pupil was begun, showing his abilities, achievements, health, handicaps, and personal interests. The guidance program has been a school- wide effort enlisting every counselor, nurse, and subject teacher to personalize the services of the schools for the individual boy and girl. Specific attention has thereby been directed to the difficulties of slow and handicapped learners; and the positive recognition of the more able students has permitted offering to them wider opportunities to realize their educational possibili- ties, often through winning of scholarship privileges.
Frequently, pupils with special aptitudes requiring trade training beyond that available locally have been assisted to secure entrance into trade and vocational schools elsewhere in the metropolitan area. In 1942 there were thirty such persons, and in the mid-forties the number exceeded fifty. Meanwhile, local attendance figures consistently stand above 90 per cent of membership, and an average of 96 per cent was reached in 1945.
Even in the early war years while air raid drills, patriotic programs, and war savings campaigns had first claim on every- one's time and energy, curriculum-building continued to progress. For all grades uniform outlines were developed in spelling, Eng- lish, reading and literature, and arithmetic. Since then, desir- able modifications in the light of experience have helped hold for Winthrop an enviable record of sound preparation in the basic subjects. Typical of the undertakings in these fields is the operation of the reading program, where all teachers were given a special methods course, textbooks at varying levels of difficulty were secured for each grade, and a highly effective teaching pro- gram adopted, with an expanded time schedule in the early junior high grades where the reading interests and abilities of early adolescents need full development.
The war stimulated the teaching of social studies like world history and geography, of map reading and basic aeronautics and Spanish. At the same time, pupil interests were met with expanded opportunities in music and dramatics courses. A course in vocations became part of the ninth grade work for non- college pupils, and has since been made available to all. In the junior high school carefully chosen teachers undertook the task of helping small groups of pupils having marked difficulty in basic subjects.
Specific wartime activities were both curricular and extra-
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curricular. A unit of the Victory Corps was set up in the High School. Basic higher mathematics, physics, aeronautics, first aid, and chemistry were emphasized for their war service values; drafting for its importance in industry ; home economics for nu- trition, music for morale. A townwide pageant with music, pre- sented at Miller Field, gave a thousand children personal op- portunity for patriotic expression. School employees and pupils bought war bonds and stamps in amounts increasing from $50,- 000.00 in 1942 to nearly $106,000.00 in each of the two following years. While transportation shortages were acute, intramural athletics largely replaced interscholastic contests, and even the hours of the Junior High School were changed because of the emergency.
Not only did local teachers serve as special instructors and wardens in the Air Raid Precautions work, but teaching and maintenance staff, administration and school committee all furnished members to the armed services. While Superintendent Boudreau was on military duty, Miss Addie I. Willard, as Acting Superintendent, effectively headed the united effort of Winthrop school personnel to encourage attendance and maintain a high achievement standard despite the pressure of outside activities and the temptation to leave school for work during the labor shortage.
Throughout the emergency, as noted before, attendance was high, though the unrest of the times made classroom work more difficult. The older pupils exhibited a seriousness of purpose, few leaving except to enter the armed forces. The Victory Corps operated as many as nineteen different projects. Specific train- ing aided boys to qualify for all programs offered by Army, Navy, and Air Corps. The school also sponsored the written examination for CAA private pilot license.
All schools had surprise fire drills and air raid alerts. Library facilities for children in all the elementary schools were expanded, and the reading of music and part singing in the grades were taught with full vigor, while music in the high school continued under difficulties as the supervisor and suc- cessive band leaders were called for military service.
A renewal of basketball enthusiasm gripped the town. as Winthrop won the Northeastern Conference Championship in two successive years and reached the semi-finals in the Tech Tournament.
The strain of the war years was acute upon teachers per- forming extra duties at home as well as those away in military service. During 1946 Miss Mary Byrne of the Newton School, and Frank E. Reed of the Senior High School passed away. In 1945 death had taken Mrs. Mabel Howatt Hurley, thirty-one
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years head of the Senior High School Typewriting Department and Placement Bureau. There were also numerous resignations and retirements.
Miss Willard became the superintendent in July of 1945, following the resignation of Lieutenant Colonel Boudreau to con- tinue his educational work in aviation. After a year as superin- tendent she herself retired, having completed thirty years of service here, as teacher, elementary principal and superintendent.
Orrin C. Davis, her successor as superintendent, brought to the post a long experience of local school problems. Coming to the High School as a teacher in 1923, he later was sub-master of the Junior High School and principal of the Highland School and then of the Senior High School, as well as serving as a per- sonnel officer in the Navy. His leadership has continued the complex work of harmonizing the business and educational aspects of the schools.
It had become difficult to secure experienced teachers or to retain those already in the system. As living costs advanced, minor temporary increases in pay failed to meet teachers' needs. In 1945 major action on the salary schedule was imperative. The first such change by the school committee since 1921 was a revision adopting standard starting salaries, step increases, and maxima based on various degrees of preparation. Next, elementary and secondary school teachers were placed on the same basis. And early in 1947 the town voted to pay women on the same basis as men teachers. This move made the local system more attractive to women candidates, and further ad- vances urged by the Teachers Association as necessary in face of higher costs of living were adopted in large measure, together with businesslike sick-leave provisions for school personnel.
Among recent developments in the operation of the schools are specific plans to assure every child entering school the most favorable chances of success right from the start. In line with practice elsewhere, the entering age has been set at five years and eight months. Winthrop has successfully pioneered in hold- ing a pre-primary summer school to accustom children to the idea of school. Specialists in remedial reading instruction are employed in the elementary schools. A special handwriting system in the primary grades is proving its effectiveness.
Throughout the town, guidance activities, co-operation with the four Parent-Teachers Associations, weekly parents' after- noons and scheduled open-house evenings co-ordinate home and school influences for the good of individual pupils.
Revisions of the curriculum have become a routine. The three "R's" are strongly emphasized and around the basic core is a varied program. Phonics have assumed renewed importance
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in spelling and reading classes. Reasoned experiments are made with expanded services and modified methods. In the senior high school years the curriculum tends to present more flexible opportunities for more students for personal growth through subjects which supplement the books, such as shop work, art, music, and dramatics. In the basic subjects at all levels, audio- visual aids are employed-motion pictures, film strips, records and recorders if available. Library space in existing buildings is being better utilized.
As for activities more often noticed by the public, auto driv- ing is taught as a valuable part of the senior high safety program. A fifty-piece band, uniformed by citizens' subscriptions, has represented Winthrop in the music festivals of New England. Major and minor sports are scheduled at their regular seasons, for both interscholastic competition and intramural on the ath- letics-for-all plan. The 1951 football season was Winthrop's best. The Business Department of the Senior High School ef- fectively places its graduates in positions, and an unusually large proportion of graduates go on to higher schools and col- leges.
The benefits of evening school have been offered to local adults for many years, long under the supervision of Walter H. Donahue. Expansion to include arts and crafts and English besides the usual business subjects took place in the 30's. Ameri- canization classes were transferred to the Shirley Street School, in charge of its principal, Preston L. Chase, until the need di- minished with the advent of federal government classes for aliens in 1942.
The evening school enrollment in 1940 reached 260, in- cluding 60 from Fort Heath for pre-officer training in advanced mathematics. First aid classes and sheet metal work were of- fered in 1941; but in 1944 the attendance was sharply reduced because of urgent employment and military service.
A very flexible evening school for veterans was opened in January of 1946, enrolling as many as 70 in a dozen subject courses. Twenty-eight veterans completed work for the high school diploma, twenty-seven in all used their credits to gain college entrance.
The regular evening school reopened in 1947 and in 1948 was greatly expanded as the Winthrop Center for Adult Educa- tion. Headed by Arthur W. Dalrymple, the Center has followed a policy of growth and flexibility. To meet the trend to recrea- tional education, it has offered at least two dozen courses to an enrollment in excess of 300.
What about school property and equipment ? Careful budgeting of purchases is a regular practice. Essential labora-
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tory and shop equipment and office appliances have been bought to modernize the tools of education. Cost of textbooks has forced purchases to a minimum, sharply curtailed to permit imperative repairs to aging buildings. Principles of decorative art and color values have guided the renovation of classrooms. Current short- ages in critical materials and skyrocketing prices have prevented such planned expenditures as for new lighting and furniture. New construction seems a certain requirement for the future, as the upward trend in enrollment is felt in the elementary grades. Facilities the secondary schools need-especially gymnasium, home economics, and auditorium facilities-would benefit the whole town. Now operated at an annual cost of over half a million dollars, Winthrop schools represent a big business en- terprise.
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WINTHROP COMMUNITY HOSPITAL By EUGENE P. WHITTIER
ANY history of the Winthrop Community Hospital would be incomplete without a reference to the beloved physician who erected and conducted the first hospital in Winthrop, Dr. Ben Hicks Metcalf. Graduating from the Harvard Medical School in 1894, serving an internship at the Boston City Hospital and acting as assistant port physician for Boston Harbor, Dr. Metcalf became a resident of Winthrop in 1897 and began his long and successful practice.
The good doctor, when answering calls, found no facilities for proper care of the sick. The small 15 bed hospital erected by him at the turn of the century was Dr. Metcalf's response to practical community needs.
For the next fifteen years the Metcalf Hospital met this need, and served the growing Town of Winthrop without be- coming too great a financial burden upon the good doctor. Here was established the first training school for nurses. Here, also, many of the young physicians taking up practice in a rapidly growing community found an open door and a cooperative work- shop.
Throughout the intervening years, great and revolutionary changes were being effected, the consequences of which, even those then living and participating, were unaware.
The Metcalf Hospital was affected by World War I. Ob- serve the change-tragic, indeed-wrought within the lives of those responsible for the Hospital. Dr. Metcalf had an only son, Richard F., then a student at the Harvard Medical School. No doubt, the father looked forward to the time when Dick would take his place as the community physician, carrying on his work and his hospital. Dick laid aside his books and went to war. In 1918 he gave up his life on the battlefield.
The father, too went forth to war, as did his fine associate, Dr. Raymond B. Parker, both serving for eighteen months over- seas. Dr. Metcalf was gassed twice and on his return home was so ill that, in order to live, he was forced to reside in a higher and drier climate than Winthrop's.
While Doctors Metcalf and Parker were in war service,
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the hospital carried on as best it could under the direction of Miss Sally Laidlaw, superintendent and Miss Virginia Wry, secretary.
Few, if any, in the community realized how serious was the condition of Dr. Metcalf's health, and so many of his patients and friends expected him to resume practice and carry on the hospi- tal. At the time even the good doctor himself assumed he could go on, and handicapped as he was, made the attempt. It was without avail, for slowly he came to the realization that he could not go on, and in the early fall of 1921 announced the necessity of closing the hospital on the 31st of December.
The community was shocked by this announcement. The first reaction, particularly among the many patients of Dr. Metcalf, was "What will we do without Dr. Metcalf ?" Soon a few representative citizens were beginning to realize the im- portance of the hospital to the town, the nearest other hospital being in Chelsea, five miles away. Moreover, increasing auto- mobile travel and increasing population spelled an increasing number of accidents. There was also an increasing tendency to utilize hospitals for childbirth. With this in mind, thinking citizens who hitherto had evinced little or no interest in hospitals in general and in the Metcalf Hospital in particular began to ask themselves the question, "What are we going to do?" The situation was made more difficult by an articulate and influential group in the community who countered in rebuttal, "You are being governed by your fears. Winthrop is a healthy community. Boston is well equipped with hospitals. Winthrop does not need a hospital. Hospitals cost a lot of money. Why add another financial burden upon a none-too-rich community? The Metcalf Hospital is a wooden fire trap. It is located on a busy and noisy thoroughfare. If we are to have a hospital, let us have a new one on a suitable site in a less congested area."
A number of citizens under the chairmanship of one of Winthrop's first citizens, Elmer E. Dawson, began to hold meet- ings, and a sincere effort was made to bring about a reasonable degree of unanimity as to the decision to be made. Finally, opinion crystallized sufficiently to warrant the calling of a public meeting at the Winthrop Theatre on Sunday afternoon, January 8. This was attended by 200 citizens. Harry Sperber, resident of the Beach section, pledged $1,000. Thereupon, Matthew C. Walsh, Allen E. Newton, and Harry E. Sperber, were elected as a committee to solicit cash and pledges for the project. At the next meeting on January 22, this committee reported that it had held eight meetings, had consulted with physicians, with archi- tects as well as with many citizens, and that because there was
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a division of opinion as to the course to be followed, it was sub- mitting two plans:
A-to remodel the Metcalf Hospital for 30 beds at a cost of $52,400 (including cost of real estate at $35,000, cost of altera- tions and improvements at $19,900, and working capital of $7,500.)
B-a new fireproof hospital for 30 beds at a cost of $110,000 (including cost of new site at $7,500, building at $99,000, furnish- ings at $5,000 and a working capital at $7,000).
As a result of this meeting the committee sent out 3,900 letters with a report of studies, plan, estimates of cost and a reply postal card requesting an expression of preference and also an expression of willingness to contribute. The committee also requested attendance at a public meeting to be held at the Win- throp Theatre on February 12. On that day 300 citizens as- sembled. The report from the questionnaire was as follows:
673 persons replied.
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