USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Swampscott > Town annual report of Swampscott 1918 > Part 7
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72
TOWN DOCUMENTS.
[Dec. 31
SCHOOL COMMITTEE-1918.
REV. EDWARD TILLOTSON, Chairman 60 Moument avenue Telephone, 2481.
ARTHUR W. STUBBS, Secretary . Telephone, 4344-R. 74 Paradise road
ROBERT F. KIMBALL Telephone, 4950. 70 Atlantic avenue
Regular meeting, first Tuesday of each month at 8 o'clock, P. M.
Superintendent of Schools.
WILLARD M. WHITMAN, 9 Fuller terrace ; telephone, 1928.
Office of Superintendent of Schools, Hadley School; Telephone, 2067. The Superintendent's Office is open on school days from 8.15 to 1.30, and from 2.30 to 5 ; Saturdays, from 9 to 12.
The Superintendent's office hours on school days are from 8 to 9 A. M., and from 2.30 to 4.00 P. M. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Clerk to Superintendent : Cleopatra Leawood, 38 Thomas road.
School Calendar.
Winter Term closes on Friday, February 21, 1919. Spring Term begins on Monday, March 3, 1919. Spring Term closes on Wednesday, April 16, 1919. Summer Term begins on Wednesday, April 23, 1919. High School Graduation, Thursday, June 26, 1919. Summer Term closes Friday, June 27, 1919. Fall Term begins on Monday, September 8, 1919.
Legal Holidays.
The words " legal holiday " shall include the first day of January, the twenty-second day of February, the nineteenth day of April, the thirtieth day of May, the fourth day of July, the first Monday of September, the twelfth day of October, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, or the day following when any of the four days first mentioned, the twelfth day of October or Christmas day occurs on Sunday ; and the public offices shall be closed on all of said days .- Chapter 136, Acts of 1911.
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE'S REPORT.
1918]
Observance of Flag Day.
Resolved : That the Governor shall annually set apart the fourteenth day of June as Flag Day, the date being the anniversary of the adoption of the national flag by the Continental Congress in the year seventeen hundred and twenty-seven ; and shall issue his proclamation recommend- ing that the day be observed by the people of the Commonwealth in the display of the flag and in such other ways as will be in harmony with the general character of the day .- Chapter 5, Resolves of 1911.
Hours of Session.
Senior High School, 8.30 A. M. to 1.30 P. M. Junior High School, 8.30 A. M. to 1.30 P. M. Grades V and VI, 8.30 A. M. to 1.30 P. M. Grades III and IV, 8.30 A. M. to I P. M. Grades I and II, 8.30 A. M. to 12.30 P. M.
No School Signals.
Two double strokes on the fire alarm, 2-2.
7.20 A. M. No school in the Junior or Senior High Schools. 7.50 A. M. No session in grades I to VI inclusive.
Important : If the signal does not ring at 7.20 but rings at 7.50, sessions of school will be held in the Junior and Senior High Schools and no school in grades I to VI inclusive.
74
TOWN DOCUMENTS.
[Dec. 31
Report of the School Committee.
To the Citizens of the Town of Swampscott :
No department of municipal service has felt the strain imposed by war more than the schools. In many communities, particularly in the rural districts of the west, the demands of the government practically crippled the schools, the teachers leaving in droves to take up the more lucrative employment offered in the federal service and for which they were par- ticularly well equipped. Fortunately Swampscott did not suffer in the degree that many other towns in Massachusetts did. A number of teachers left to take up war work or employment related to it, but the vacancies thus caused were satisfactorily filled and the work proceeded without interruption. It is a commentary on the loyalty of the teachers of Swampscott that many of them refused to accept, on the ground that their employment here furnished motives as high in aspiration to serve their country as any employment in the various industries connected with the promotion of the war.
The teachers who have thus faithfully and industriously held to their posts at a considerable personal sacrifice are worthy of more than passing recognition. They have seen the cost of living advance step by step until it is now all out of proportion to their incomes. They have seen wage earners in the industries increasing their earnings to a point far beyond what they receive. They have continued their work cheerfully and uncomplainingly, while common laborers have demanded and received a greater remuneration for their services than the trained and educated instructors of their children. In fact, the time has come, not only in Swampscott but all over the country, when a larger appreciation must be given to the tireless, patient and efficient group of workers who comprise the teaching staffs of our public schools. Their services must be placed on a plane of valuation that will enable them to pursue their work without the embarrassments that accompany poorly paid service. Your Com- mittee, therefore, recommends an advance of $100 a year to the teachers in the Swampscott schools, not in the belief that this will meet a full valua- tion of their services, but as a step toward raising their recompense to a plane at least a little above that of workers who have entered their various occupations without any of the preliminary training required of school teachers. Unless there is a general movement to increase the salaries of teachers there will be a gradual exodus from the profession, while pro- spective recruits will hesitate before entering a work that promises so little remuneration.
Owing to the exigencies of the war and the restrictions placed upon the various materials necessary to new building, your Committee omitted the subject of a new school building for the Machon district in its recom- mendations of last year. Though the present building is inadequate to
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE'S REPORT.
1918]
properly house the children of the territory, and at one time was practi- cally condemned by agents of the State, it has served to postpone the just demands of the people whose children it houses through the agency of certain changes and alterations which have been made from time to time. The limit to these possibilities has been now reached, and something must be done if the children of this district are to have equal facilities with those of other parts of the town.
National and State authorities are urging municipalities to initiate public building at this time. There never has been a time in the history of the country when a greater demand has been made for the employment of labor. The stability of the labor situation in the United States depends largely upon the activity with which cities and towns take up public works. It therefore would seem to be a duty of the School Committee to recommend that the town take the necessary steps to abandon the present inadequate structure and erect a new and more commodious building upon some site to be selected. The town is already in possession of full plans and specifications which are available for its use in the event of their approval.
Though the town may not deem it advisable to initiate further school- house building at this time, the Palmer School situation furnishes food for contemplation. Ultimately a school building in this district must take care of its children until they have reached the junior high school. At present it is caring for only the first five grades. The portable school- house which the town purchased in 1917 is doing admirable service and is furnishing a well-ventilated, well-heated schoolroom for the pupils who use it. But at best it is only a makeshift proposition and should be done away with as soon as the town can see its way clear to raise the present Palmer school building and introduce two or three new rooms.
The Hadley school building continues to fulfill its every expectation, and again and again emphasized the advisability of building for the future. Had this been a smaller structure an almost chaotic state of affairs would have been brought into existence with the opening of the war, and the government orders to suspend all new school building until further notice. It has been the asylum to which the committee has invariably turned when congested conditions in other districts have forced emergency action in caring for the crowded-out pupils. Further than this the building has furnished an example of economical administration without a superior in the state.
Your committee, through the efficient cooperation of the Superintend- ent of schools, with whom the teachers and janitors have loyally worked, succeeded in closing the year well within the appropriation granted by the town, though the cost of many materials was greatly advanced during the year. By the practice of the greatest economy, however, in which the the teachers and pupils cooperated, the use and consumption of supplies was kept at a minimum, and it may be said that nothing which could be put to a further use was wasted.
During the winter of 1917-18 many schools were closed for long periods because of a shortage of coal. The Swampscott schools, however, were fortunate in being able to get a sufficient supply to maintain their schedule and lost no time because of this exigency. The schools were closed for several weeks last fall by advice of the Board of Health. It is doubtful if the time lost under conditions like this is ever made up. The breaking
76
TOWN DOCUMENTS.
[Dec. 31
up of the regular schedule is a misfortune and has a strong tendency to upset the entire school life of the pupils. Juvenile delinquency has been notably increased in many communities through these unexpected and prolonged interruptions in the work. It is to be hoped that they are over for the present, and that the schools may find nothing more in the way of a proper fulfilment of their functions.
The war has given this country many lessons, not a few of which relate to its educational system. But the majority of them must of necessity be taken up in conjunction with other municipalities and are, therefore, largely subjects for initial consideration by state authorities. Your com- mittee is giving several of these its serious attention and hopes to develop lines of work which will overcome various shortcomings which the war has pointed out. One of these is the desirability of better physical edu- cation, instruction and effort along lines that will tend to make the boys better and stronger men and give to the girls a well-rounded womanhood. There is much to be done, but problems of the character raised need time and study for proper and adequate solution.
Your committee has been fortunate in having the cooperation of the citizens of the town in its work. Though necessarily a year of more or less hardship, a year in which it has been difficult to secure the results desired, the work has progressed without the slightest friction in any quarter. It has been the earnest desire of the committee to impartially conduct the affairs of the schools, and it feels that this has been accom- plished. Certainly no problem has arisen in which it has sought to do otherwise than solve it in the best interests of the children at large. It takes pride in the school system of the town and believes that it ranks with the best. Its efforts have been in the direction of progress and improvement, and it purposes to continue that policy in the year to come.
It has annually been a custom of your committee to urge the parents of the children to visit the schools. It reiterates the plea this year. There is nothing that will bring the schools closer to the people, nothing that will give them such an insight as to what is being done for the education of their children, nothing that will operate to bring the parent and teacher into closer bonds of sympathy, than personal visits to the schoolroom. The parents are always welcome, and your committee trusts that the com- ing year may be notable for a large increase in the number of visitations. Thanking you for your attention, we are, very respectfully,
EDWARD TILLOTSON, Chairman. ARTHUR W. STUBBS, ROBERT F. KIMBALL.
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE'S REPORT.
1918]
REPORT OF SECRETARY OF SCHOOL COMMITTEE.
· To the Members of the School Committee :
In accordance with the annual custom I herewith take pleasure in sub- mitting the financial statement of the School Department for the year ending December 31, 1918 :
GENERAL EXPENSES.
General
High
Elementary
School Committee
$492 15
Superintendent
3,222 35
EXPENSES OF INSTRUCTION.
Supervisors . .
4,977 00
Salaries-Principals
$2,399 94
$3,030 00
Salaries-Teachers
11,080 38
23,332 21
Text Books
330 71
799 39
Supplies
855 52
1,663 55
EXPENSES OF OPERATION.
Janitors
1,140 00
3,050 00
Fuel
1,828 82
3,299 68
Miscellaneous
607 63
1,049 78
EXPENSES OF MAINTENANCE.
Repairs, etc.
394 84
1,290 18
AUXILIARY AGENCIES.
Libraries
48 59
Health
200 00
Transporation
60 00
MISCELLANEOUS EXPENSES.
Tuition
139 28
Sundries
.
620 16
OUTLAY EXPENSES.
New equipment
422 75
$10,182 28
$18,637 84 $37,514 79
Appropriation for the year .
·
$66,500 00
Expended for the year ·
·
.
66,334 91
Balance to revert to treasury .
·
$165 09
78
TOWN DOCUMENTS.
[Dec. 31
REPORT OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS.
To the School Committee of the Town of Swampscott :
GENTLEMEN,-In addressing myself to you in my report a year ago, I ventured to sound a warning voiced by the Commissioner of Education of Massachusetts that the citizens should not curtail on education in war times, but should look, through their schools, toward greater individual and national efficiency. In the year that has passed education has come to the fore in so many forms and through so many channels that it hardly seems necessary to urge that due attention be given thereto. Every pro- fessional man, every industrial or mercantile executive, in fact every reader of the daily or magazine press, is familiar with the stress laid upon suitable training, by every branch of the government which has been a factor in carrying the nation through these perilous days.
From the Department of the selective draft comes the revelation of the unfit physical condition of too large a number of America's young men. Herein comes the urgent call for proper Physical Education for all of America's children. From those agencies which have been concerned with speeding up production comes the disclosure that the country is lamentably weak in the quantity of its trained and skilled workers. Then, from those branches of the Government which are concerned with the social and political aspects of the nation, as well as from the selective draft, comes the insistent call that all within our borders be American- ized,-that all our people be citizens, and that they use our English language so that our efficiency may be increased and so that we may be protected from the insidious propaganda that assails us too often through an alien tongue.
In this report I shall consider,-
First : The relation of our schools to three forms of education which our recent national experience has emphasized : Physical Education, Vocational Education and Americanization ; and
Second: Several local problems which the administration of our own schools brings particularly to the front this year. They are : The Junior High School, School Accommodations, Hours of Session, Costs, and Salaries of Teachers.
Physical Education.
In the first place, Physical Education does not mean organized compet- itive athletics or inter-school contests. These are merely a part of such training and at best provide benefits for comparatively few pupils. The training that is implied by a system of Physical Education should be available for all pupils, boys and girls, of all ages, and in such form as may be best suited to individual physical differences.
Practically the only kind of training of this type that we have had in our schools has been in athletics. This, as pointed out above, has benefited but few pupils. We have made some attempt in the High School to have
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE'S REPORT.
1918]
regular gymnasium work for the boys, but this has too often developed into auxiliary practice in certain forms of athletics. Possibly one reason for the lack of general development has been the lack of drill equipment in the gymnasium.
This work has been provided for a small group, the High School boys. For a few girls in the High School we have provided an instructor in basketball. The number profiting by both of these activities is less than 10 per cent. of our school population.
There can be no question as to our not providing proper physical train- ing for all pupils, and national object lessons of the last year are surely of themselves sufficiently pointed to demonstrate its necessity. Accordingly,
I recommend this step for our own schools : That in Septem- ber, 1919, we employ a woman teacher for Physical Training and that she shall be instructor of organized gymnasium work for the girls of the High School, and that she shall institute a sys- tem of physical training for the Elementary schools and supervise the class room teachers in the teaching of the same. In addition to this I recommend that whenever possible we purchase necessary gymnasium equipment for use in the High School.
This extension of our work, together with the continuance of our present supervision of the High School gymnasium and athletics for boys, will constitute an important and justifiable step in giving our chil- dren a better preparation for participation in the duties of an efficient as well as an intelligent citizenship.
Vocational Education.
In some manner or other in the past few years, Vocational Education has seemed to connote Industrial Education. But it must not be taken in such a limited meaning. Vocational Education is any form of educational training which trains for a career. There are industrial careers, of course, but there are also professional, artistic and commercial careers. All these forms must be considered in vocational training. On the other hand, it is equally important not to exclude industrial careers from con- sideration. During the last two years a great many boards have been instituted by the United States Government to facilitate our task of winning the war. Their experience in trying to get suitable laborers and technically trained men for all sorts of positions caused a great agitation for a change in educational methods in this country. That this agitation has come does not mean that the problem is thereby settled nor does it indicate the exact direction that progress must take. The educators in this country, and in fact all over the world, are giving unprecedented attention to the problem of relating the schools to the realities of national existence and national efficiency.
Accordingly, my purpose in this portion of my report is to consider the question of Vocational Education as it is concerned with our own schools in Swampscott. There is no solution of the problem in sight either this year, or next year, or the year after, but it behooves us to consider the matter carefully and to be conversant with what progress is being made in this direction elsewhere, so that we may make progress in our own schools in the most rational way.
Industrial Education first became a living matter in Massachusetts in
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TOWN DOCUMENTS.
[Dec. 31
1907. Since then industrial training has been introduced into many schools. Industrial schools themselves have been established in some places. The result of this has been that, in addition to the academic and commercial training already given in the schools, the first elements of industrial training also appear. The intensity of this latter form depends largely upon the nature of the community, whether it be industrial or residential. Our own community happens to be residential and, in com- mon with many others of like nature, we have limited ourselves to academic and commercial instruction. In addition to this, we have some forms of general Manual Training, but this can be considered vocational in only a broad and general sense. The academic instruction which we give is supposed to fit for college or other higher schools of training in different branches, and the product of our commercial courses are pre- pared to undertake general office work.
If the instruction that we give in our schools is adequate in training for participation in life, we must be acting on the hypothesis that the great majority of our children either continue their educatien in higher schools of learning, or enter general clerical work. But in actual fact this does not turn out to be the case. Not more than 20 per cent. of our pupils each year continue their education in higher institutions. Possibly another 30 per cent. go into commercial positions. In other words, then, 50 per cent. of our pupils who continue their way beyond the common schools benefit only in the meager way which some people designate as cultural. When these pupils graduate from High School, or leave before they have finished their course, they find that they want to do something definite, and sooner or later they take up some definite career.
The problem for us then is: How can we make our training in the schools more contributory to these 50 per cent. of the pupils who have had no definite training directed toward the work which they are going to do? As I said before, the solution is not at hand but we should give attention to the matter at least to the extent that we all be conversant with what is being done in other communities where experiments in this field are being worked out. It is always hard to break away from traditional practice and it is just as well that it is so. But I believe that within the next five years we shall see our way clear to increase the efficiency of our education for all the types of children in our schools.
I might go on to suggest the way in which I think that these changes are to have their initial step. I believe that as soon as a child has finished the fundamental common education, that is, the training of the first six grades, we are going to give attention first of all to careers, whether they be professional, artistic, industrial or commercial. When we discover just what the groups of careers are which pupils of our community enter, then our task in the Junior High School, as well as in the Senior High School, is to set these careers before the pupils in such a way that they will be able to choose at a much earlier date than they now do. Then when the pupil has his career in mind he has a motive, and no one can gainsay that the motive is the mainspring of human endeavor. Every parent is familiar with what children will do when they have a strong motive. Every professional or business man, and every successful or ambitious professional or business man knows how hard he will work and what tasks he can accomplish when he has a strong motive. So also
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SCHOOL COMMITTEE'S REPORT.
1918]
every teacher realizes what good work a pupil will do when he happens to have a sufficiently clear and strong motive in his own mind.
In this connection I want to quote an illustration which was given by a Professor of the Student Army Training Corps at Harvard. He was teaching a group of prospective officers advanced French. They saw o what great value this study would be to them "over seas," and how they could doubtless progress much more rapidly than those who did not have this training. They all worked hard and came to their classes thoroughly prepared and punctual in attendance. The day after the armistice was signed the attendance began to drop off. It dropped off until only about half the class came, irregularly, and those who did come often came with their lessons poorly prepared or not prepared at all. The motive for their good work had been the definite use of French in their careers. When the career lost its possibilities, or rather lost its very existence, then the motive ceased to exist and the good work vanished with it.
In concluding this consideration, it must not be supposed that the cultural element in the Art of Sciences will disappear by placing careers before the love of the pursuit of learning for its own sake. The amount of culture that comes from the study of any subject comes from the interest in that subject and the intensity with which it is undertaken. If both interest and intensity are increased by holding the career in the fore- ground, then the cultural element does not disappear, but becomes of much greater value.
Americanization.
One of the things that we have learned from the great war is that a nation must be solidified socially if it is to meet successfully any great issue. In the case of Russia and other foreign countries, we have glaring examples of the disaster that comes when a nation is not so united. A nation becomes strong in this particular only through its national thought and national ideals. For America to reach this position American thoughts and American ideals must be shared by all the people. And the only way to secure this is through the English language. This doctrine has been accepted so thoroughly in this country that in many communi- ties they have campaigns, the object of which is to have every one know the English language or everyone an American citizen, before a certain given date.
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