USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Swampscott > Town annual report of Swampscott 1905 > Part 4
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The committee then elected Rev. Robert M. Martin of Salem as Superintendent of Schools, and he entered upon the duties of that office September Ist.
Mr. Martin gives to our schools two days supervision in each week, Wednesday and Thursday. He has an office in the Towr
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TOWN DOCUMENTS.
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Hall, and from 3.45 to 4.45 P. M. on both the days mentioned, can be found there for consultation by parents, teachers, scholars, or any having business with the schools.
This new arrangement has worked quite satisfactorily thus far and is commending itself to the judgment of those interested in our school work.
Improvements.
The most extensive work of renewal in connection with the individual school buildings, has been the installation of a new sanitary system of closets in the basement of the Redington street school, connected with the sewer. It was a needed and appreciated improvement, especially as we consider the ages of the pupils attendant there.
Between one and two hundred loads of loam were deposited last spring upon the lawn of the Phillips school building, to renew the soil wasted away by the storms of previous years. The new deposit has been sown with grass seed and the lawn is now in fine condition.
At Essex street various experiments have been tried with the heating apparatus. It does not yield fully satisfactory results yet, and it may be necessary to remodel the heating plant during the coming summer.
One of our public-spirited citizens has made the offer of several hundred dollars towards the partial equipment of a manual training plant, or of a kindergarten school if it be more desirable, and the committee have the offer under advisement.
If others of our well-to-do townsmen should supplement this offer, we might fully equip one or the other of these schools.
In conclusion, the committee would suggest that in the event of an appropriation for a new school building, the Town appoint, if it thinks wise, a committee of five of our representative citizens to consider with the School Board possible sites and plans for the new building.
WALTER B. SHUMWAY, ELEANOR G. HOLDEN, SIDNEY E. BAILEY,
Committee.
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Report of the Superintendent.
To the School Committee of the Town of Swampscott :
In this, my first report as Superintendent, I bear pleasurable testimony to the quite gratifying condition of the schools of Swampscott. Our corps of teachers would probably bear favor- able comparison with the strong teaching forces of our Common- wealth. While not all of prime merit, our teachers, as a body, I am happy to state, are of exemplary character, ability and skill, and are pursuing their tasks in a spirit and with an energy which are worthy of their high calling. It follows as a natural conse- quence, since good teachers are the first qualification of good schools, that the majority of our pupils are giving themselves to their studies with a fair degree of earnestness, and are exemplify- ing a deportment which insures progress. (It must be regret- fully said in parenthesis that the qualified phrase, "majority of our pupils," is made necessary by some pupils who may not be commended either for attention to study, or for propriety of deportment). The people of the Town also show praiseworthy appreciation of the schools, a healthful solicitude for their wel- fare, and a manifest purpose that our educational privileges shall excel. To the co-operation of these factors,' able teachers, studious pupils, an interested public, the meritorious standing of our schools is due. For the advancement of our standard and for the improvement of our facilities, I pledge myself to labor in union with you.
Submitted with this are reports of the high school by the principal, Mr. Childs, and of music and drawing by the super- visor, Miss Bill, which make more particular mention of these departments unnecessary.
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The New School on Elmwood Road.
Gradual increase of pupils year by year is compelling increase of school-houses and of teachers. This report adds one school and one teacher to our roll. The new school bears the name of Elmwood Road on which it stands. The lower floor of Odd Fellows' Hall has been rented, and was opened in September for work of the sixth grade. It is not an ideal school-room, but serves very well for temporary use. The teacher here is Miss Alice L. Shaw, former teacher of the sixth grade in Phillips school. To the loss of our whole work and to the grief of the community, Miss Shaw has been laid aside for several weeks by serious illness. Happily she is now rapidly recovering, and expects to resume her loved employment in a few days. Mrs. Angie B. Markley has very acceptably supplied the place made vacant.
New Teachers.
The report of Principal Childs notes the resignations of Miss Alice G. Coombs and Miss Marion H. Nickerson of the High School and the election of Miss Elisabeth M. Dunning and Mrs. Mary J. Keese. Miss Elizabeth E. Thompson who had taught in Marblehead was engaged to teach a new eighth grade which was formed at the opening of the fall term. Miss Clara L. Miller was assigned to the sixth grade in the Phillips School to fill the place of Miss Mabel S. Knight who received a year's leave of absence to care for sick friends in her Danvers home. Miss Miller had been on our teaching force since April, 1904, assisting the overtasked teachers of the fourth and fifth grades at the Redington Street and the Essex Street Schools.
Improvements at the Redington Street School.
The new and most satisfactory sanitary accommodations which your wisdom has provided in the basement of the Redington Street School, and the consequent disuse of the unseemly out- building, have brought joy to teachers, scholars, and community. A helpful change has been made also by the rearrangement of
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the scholars' desks and chairs in the rooms of the fourth and fifth grades. This change promotes the comfort and convenience of the teachers, and brings the light more favorably to the scholars at their desks.
Emphasis on Reading.
Reading as fundamental in the acquisition of all branches of learning is of paramount importance. Ability to read aloud with fluency, distinctness, and intelligent expression is a desideratum of the times in most schools. Zealous that Swampscott shall take first rank in this essential accomplishment, I am giving attention to improvement in our reading, and, indeed, in all the oral utterance of the classroom. Beginning at the foundation, we are just now introducing into our first grades with your ready approval a new method of learning to read by the adoption of the books, phonic charts and cards of Mrs. Emma K. Gordon's "Comprehensive Method of Teaching Reading" published by Messrs. D. C. Heath & Co. Our teachers are giving enthusiastic reception to the new system, and together with the superintendent are hopeful that one year hence we shall report an interest and achivement heretofore unattained by us in beginners' reading.
Our elementary grades in general are wanting in the freshest and best readers both vocabulary and supplementary. New sets of books would furnish stimulus and aid to the improved reading which we seek. I have in mind, therefore, to lay before you, and to ask your sanction to adopt, some recently prepared reading books which seem to me of commanding merit.
Outlined Courses of Study.
There is needed amoung our teachers a more perfect under- standing about the exact extent of ground to be traversed in the studies of the various grades. Uniform results may be attained only when the work to be done is clearly defined and accurately outlined. It is my purpose to prepare, as expeditiously as is consistent with thoroughness, outlines of the respective courses, which will contribute to uniformity of accomplishment, relieve teachers of some embarrassment, and facilitate transfer of pupils to the same grade in a different school without loss of ground.
6
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Co-operation of the Public.
Parents of our scholars and the general public can render us help of great value by giving more consideration to our work and by taking more observant and sympathetic attitude toward it. Parents have supreme control in the important matter of the punctual and regular attendance of pupils. Most parents are true to their responsibility, and are exemplary in their care to have their children promptly and constantly at the place of duty. Some, however, are derelict, and are entailing irreparable loss upon the children they sincerely love, by failure to weigh the seriousness of even an occasional absence from the class-room. Unfortunately, alas ! they injure other people's children also by compelling teachers to spend time which belongs to the faithful on the unfaithful absentees; and withal they impose on the schools the discredit of a meagre average of attendance. In the cases of a few parents (I say it with pain) the offence is flagrant. One of our grades has a percentage of attendance which is shameful because of the gross negligence of the heads of four or five families. We cannot think that these persons are conscious law-breakers; but here is the statute from "The Revised Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," Chapter 44, Section 1 :
" Every person having under his control a child as described in this section shall cause him to attend school as herein required ; and if he fails for five day sessions or ten half day sessions within any period of six months while under such control to cause such a child, whose physical or mental condition is not such as to render his attendance at school harmful or impracticable, so to attend school, he shall, upon complaint by a truant officer and conviction thereof, be punished by a fine of not more than twenty dollars."
Grave evil is done by promiscuous faultfinding with the teachers on the part of some real friends of our schools. As servants of the people we welcome, we cordially invite the frankest criticism of ourselves and of our work. But the good name of our schools and the high reputation of our Town direct that the criticism shall be intelligent and measured, and brought to those who may put the criticism to benefit. Surely, too, the
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broadest scope of criticism has not place for unkind letters to teachers, in which parental bias utters its own complaints and sometimes the second-hand "say so's" of Dame Rumor. The most devoted teacher is usually the chief sufferer from the wrong.
It is our desire and aim to make the acquaintance and win the confidence of all the public. The Superintendent has made his office in Town Hall that he may be at the people's very heart and be easily accessible to all. He covets conversation with parents in the children's interest at any time, and, more particularly, at his office hours, 3.45 to 4.45 P. M. on Wednesdays and Thursdays. He desires to have occasional evening meetings for free intercourse between officers and teachers and parents for mutual gain. Untoward causes this year have delayed such a gathering long considered, but one is planned for the near future, which it is hoped a large company will attend.
L
The Needed New School-House.
My brief time of service makes me hesitate to mention a new building with the attendant large outlay of money. Yet duty to the Town, whose servant I count it high honor to be, commands me to speak; while your own advocacy of the building in your report and the quite general expectation of the people make my response to duty easier. Even with the added rented room on Elmwood road, the accommodations for our present number of scholars is inadequate. We have been obliged to put into one room at Redington street a second and a third grade making a school of forty-seven pupils and inequitably burdening the teacher, Miss Katharine Y. Prescott. The enrollment table which accompanies our school reports shows steadily growing numbers year by year ; and the column for the fall term of 1904 points, especially in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grades, to a crowding of pupils and a burdening of teachers, which seriously retard progress. Enlargement has become a necessity. What is the course of wisdom? Are we to think only for the present ? Or are we to forestall the future? Should not the structure raised to-day subserve also the future's need ? Moreover, is not the word of the hour concentration ? Shall
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we act mistakenly, if we rear one spacious house which shall receive the youth now unaccommodated and also take the place, perhaps, of the Beach, Pine Street, and Essex Street Schools? The Redington Street house, easy of access because of its central location, should probably be preserved for primary grades, as some of the people are suggesting. Fewer buildings mean much saving of money. One commodious structure can be maintained at much less expense than several small structures. Besides this pecuniary economy, other advantages of a large building are manifold. Sufficient to mention here, the readier unification of work, the promotion of intercourse and the securance of an esprit de corps among the teachers, the furtherance of good dis- cipline through one principal, the need of fewer textbooks, maps, and other appliances, because adjoining rooms may interchange. The last advantage would be no mean economy of money in the course of the years. A lesser benefit, yet not to be unesteemed, would be the fuller utilization of the services of superintendent and supervisor, who now spend precious hours paid for by public money in futile tramping between school-houses widely distant. These considerations are but suggestive of many more which should seem to make the subject of the new building worthy of the grave deliberation of our loyal, discerning, prudent, and enlightened townsmen.
Further, it should be asked, whether the new house, of what- ever size, should not have a suitable room for textbooks, station- ery, and other supplies. Phillips School, which is now the headquarters for supplies, makes very unsatisfactory provision for them, and is difficult of access.
Use of the Town's Money.
Perhaps you will indulge me in a word about my policy in recommending expenditure of the public money appropriated to education and stewarded by you. My aim shall be to aid you as your servant in a rigidly frugal use of this fund, seeking from all with whom we transact business honest return for honest money. This money must not be heedlessly used because it is the Town's money. A special trust obligates a keen conscience in the trustee.
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Yet in entire consistency with this policy you will justify me in proceeding on the assumption that the people of Swampscott, who are jealous for their reputation of generous dealing with their schools, purpose that their children shall have an education second to none, and that ample appropriations shall be made to insure the best teachers, the best apparatus, and the best general equipment, with which alone the best schools are possible.
Appreciative Mention.
In conclusion, I gladly express my gratitude to the people of Swampscott for the hospitable welcome they have given me ; to the Sewer Commissioners, Messrs. Bunting, Sprague, and Poor, for the free use of their convenient room in Town Hall for my office work; to Principal Childs for many kindnesses and for performing superintendent's duties which my partial time on the field makes impossible for me; to our teachers for constant courtesy and co-operation ; to our scholars also for an affectionate respect which is particulary pleasing to me.
For yourselves, the Committee, I reserve my warm word of gratitude for your cordial confidence, ceaseless help, and unre- luctant disposition to further every project for the success of our schools. You have made my association with you wholly delightful. You are rendering the community gratuituous service, at cost of valuable time, thought, and labor to yourselves, which only the initiated few who know the work can measure. Since the worth and ability of a committee of so varied and so special tasks as yours increase with accustomedness and experience, one may well wish that the voters of the Town shall hold such a committee in office all the years it is willing to serve.
Respectfully submitted,
ROBERT M. MARTIN,
Superintendent of Schools.
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Report of Principal of the High School.
,
Since the last report, the school graduated last June a class of thirteen pupils, the largest class that has ever graduated. Of these, one is in Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, two are in Salem Normal School, two in private school in Boston, two in business schools and several others at work in various occupations. At their graduation, the class gave to the school a statuette of Lorenzo de' Medici by Michael Angelo, a companion to the gift of the preceding class. These two gifts are perhaps the most noticeable the school has received. -
It may be of interest to some to know where a few of our recent graduates are, who are studying elsewhere. The follow- ing is a list of those now in college or high technical school :
Class of 1901.
Reginald L. Webb, Clark College, Worcester.
Roy E. Crane, Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard Uni- versity.
Mira M. Southworth, University of Minnesota.
Class of 1902.
Lyndon B. Jeffers, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy.
Everett P. Mudge and G. Warren Sleeper, Massachusetts Agricultural College.
Wiear L. Rowell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Jennie W. Carey, Salem Normal School.
Class of 1903.
Florence I. Bulfinch, State Normal Art School.
Gertrude M. Childs, Brown University.
Class of 1904.
Henry C. Chase, Massachusetts Agricultural College. Elsie Hussey and Dorothy Jasinsky, Salem Normal School.
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REPORT OF SCHOOL COMMITTEE.
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The present senior class numbers eighteen, four boys and fourteen girls. Eight are looking forward to furthur study in college or higher technical school.
It might be well to call attention to the rules governing the giving of diplomas : "Diplomas to be given to graduates of the high school shall be of three grades : Grade A, "with highest honor," to be given to those pupils whose average in both studies and deportment for the whole course is "A," "Excellent"; Grade B, "with honor," to be given to those pupils whose average of studies and deportment for the whole course is "B," "Good"; Grade C, to be given to those pupils whose average in both studies and deportment for the whole course is "C," " Passable."
Two changes in the teaching force were made in the summer. Miss Alice G. Coombs, who had taught the sciences and some other subjects for four years, resigned to take another position, and Mrs. Mary J. Keese was elected to the vacancy. Miss Marion H. Nickerson who had charge of the commercial work resigned to go to Berlin for special study of German. Her place was filled by Miss Elisabeth M. Dunning, a graduate of Mt. Holyoke College.
The work of the school, as at present arranged, is as follows : Miss Dunning, bookkeeping, shorthand, typewriting, Greek ; Mrs. Keese, algebra, geometry, botany, chemistry, German ; Miss Ingalls, English, French; Miss Rideout, Latin, French, ancient history ; Mr. Childs, modern history, political economy, English history, geometry, declamation, music; Miss Bill, drawing, music.
From the high school point of view, the beginning of Latin in the eighth grade has been a help, some pupils finding out, before harm is done, that they are not adapted to that study, and others making a good start, that helps them in their further study in the high school.
It is to be hoped that some definite action will be taken towards providing some form of physica or manual training in the high school and upper grammar grades. Though such training is more expensive, it is as important for many as that now given in the school.
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It is pleasant to note in conclusion, that the spirit pervading the school is of the best. Seldom have I met with a more responsive or better disposed class of pupils, cases of friction, other than trifling, being rare.
Respectfully submitted,
HAROLD C. CHILDS.
FEBRUARY, 1905.
Reports of Supervisor of Drawing and Music.
Drawing.
It is gratifying to be able to report progress in this department of school-work. There is growth in ability to handle the differ- ent mediums, in neatness, and in execution. There is also marked improvement in the pupils' power to draw with a greater degree of accuracy from the flat, from objects, and from nature. Our course of study seems to develop observation, and to give the pupils power to express what they have observed-also to cultivate a love for the beautiful as seen in art and nature, together with some knowledge of the works and lives of eminent artists. Various means are employed to attain this. The little ones find much to please and interest in trying to cut from paper common objects, fruits, animals, and the human figure, after observing these and from memory. This is carried through the third year. By arranging the forms cut and telling stories con- cerning them, a language lesson is added and enjoyed. Memory and imaginative drawings, the illustrating of stories give valuable aid in causing the pupils to think, and also power to express their thoughts with the pencil. Water-color is added to the primary course as one means of teaching color, and neat and pleasing work is obtained. The same thought is carried into the grammar grades with added means to aid the development of the pupil. Charcoal as a medium for teaching light and shade is here intro- duced, and is continued through the course. Water-color, pencil, pen and ink, are also added as mediums. Casts, pleasing objects of beautiful form, fruits, flowers, human figure, and nature are used as subjects for the drawing lesson. Mechanical drawing,
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beginning with simple working drawings in the lower grades and increasing in difficulty in the higher classes, is receiving a fair share of attention. Geometric drawing is carried through the seventh and eighth year. The crowded condition of the High School prevents the continuance of this branch of drawing. The drawing classes are obliged to use the hall for work, and there are no conveniences there for this study.
The outlook for the future is encouraging, and many of our pupils are showing ability for good work.
Respectfully,
ELIZABETH A. BILL.
Music.
The schools generally are fully up to the standard established in past years, the exceptions being in schools where the changes of last year caused the inevitable lowering of the record, but the faithfulness of both teachers and pupils will, by the close of the present year, overcome the obstacles with which they are con- tending. As in former years the aim of the course is to give facility in reading music, knowledge of rhythm, a love of good music, and ability to render such as is within the capacity of the pupil. Much time is spent in individual work, both in reading and writing music. Frequent opportunities are given for sight singing ; beside this, there is a daily drill in music. With the younger pupils rote songs are used to give variety and pleasure and as another means of teaching pitch and relative length of sounds. To most of the pupils the music lesson is a source of pleasure which becomes greater as the ability to read music increases. The value of this study is not always realized. Some feel that the few with marked talent are alone benefited by this study. A greater mistake could not be made. The benefit of music may be felt in many ways by all. As a means of devel- oping rapid thinking, keenness of sight, judgment and memory, there is nothing more valuable than reading music. The ability to follow intelligently while others execute will become a source
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of pleasure and profit, even if one is unable to produce the desired tones himself. As a refining influence too much cannot be said in favor of music, and the pleasure to be derived from even a slight knowledge of it is worth the time spent in studying music in school or elsewhere.
I wish to take this opportunity to thank the teachers, com- mittee, and superintendent for their unfailing kindness and helpfulness now as in the past.
Respectfully,
ELIZABETH A. BILL.
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GRADUATION EXERCISES
OF THE
SWAMPSCOTT HIGH SCHOOL
IN THE
PHILLIPS SCHOOL HALL.
Wednesday Evening, June 22nd, 1904
AT 7.45 O'CLOCK.
Order of Exercises.
OVERTURE
INVOCATION
Rev. William Full.
DECLAMATION - " Vesuvius and the Egyptian," . Lytton H. Olga Webb.
SONG - "Out on the Deep." · School.
ESSAY - "Our Debt to the Printing Press."
Dorothy Jasinsky.
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SONG - " The Bells of Seville," School.
Jude
DECLAMATION - " The Courtin'," · · Lowell Mary P. Ingalls.
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