USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Weymouth > Town annual report of Weymouth 1886 > Part 11
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It reads as follows : -
To the Board of School Committee of Weymouth :
GENTLEMEN, - While we believe the thorough intellectual training our schools aim to secure is indispensable, we also recognize the fact that every pupil possesses a deeper nature to which our responsibility ex- tends.
To the development of this nature, we must look in a great degree for those qualities that affect the disposition, the character, the happiness, and the usefulness of those we are moulding for life. This development can be attained only by culture. We believe there is no one available agent that will do more toward securing this than the science of music.
Its influence upon the mind, temper, and behavior renders it a valuable aid to our work; but the gentle though potent force it possesses for awakening the finest impulses, for generating that spirit of cheerfulness and contentment that graces the individual and gives strength to the State, for forming a universally recognized avenue for the ingress of patriotism, morality, and religion, - we believe entitles it to a place in our curriculum.
The undersigned, therefore, teachers of Weymouth, feeling that success can be attained only by systematic and thorough instruction from one specially qualified for the work, respectfully petition your honorable body to appoint an instructor in vocal music for the public schools of Wey- mouth.
Let me add, on my own behalf, that it would be in keeping with the general spirit and character of the town to introduce music. Weymouth is pre-eminently the people's town. Broken up into vil- lages, with an extensive system of roads and sidewalks to maintain, matters are not so centralized here as elsewhere. There are no monopolies or great corporations overshadowing all minor interests. There are no preponderatingly large estates controlled by single
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individuals. On the other hand, there is little absolute poverty, and it is hard to find a shanty or a tumble-down dwelling in the whole place. The stranger who comes here is surprised to find so many fine residences, not on any one street or in any one locality, but scattered all over the town, and sometimes appearing in out-of- the-way and rather surprising situations. The same is true of the shoe shops, which, both large and small, are found, not only upon the highways, but the byways. Probably there is no town of its size in the State where the comforts and blessings of life are dis- tribnted so evenly. If there is a lack of splendor on the one hand, there is an absence of squalor on the other. Looking to the people themselves, we find the same broad, high level of endowments. While we have no distinguished family, such as Quincy can boast, and no distinguished citizen, such as Hingham can boast, and, per- haps, lack the aristocratic standing of the towns with which we are flanked, we have a population of an exceptionally high average of intelligence, to whose collective wisdom and good judgment it is pretty safe to leave the affairs of state.
In keeping with the democratic tendency of the place, the town enjoy's quite a number of advantages which make it desirable as a place of residence and resort. It has a free public library, admi- rably conducted and well sustained. It has a number of im- provement associations - one for each village - with a total cash balance in the treasury of nearly a thousand dollars last spring, and a self-supporting agricultural and industrial association, which would be an honor to any community, and is, I think, the only one in the county. With a town debt that can be lifted at any time, Weymouth has lately introduced water, which was taken to such an extent the past year and used so liberally for watering lawns and gardens as to completely transform the general appearance of the place in the course of a single season. It has a historical society, conspicuous for its antiquarian labors and careful research ; and what is not generally so well known, it has a school attendance ·which, if I mistake not, is larger in proportion to the population than that of any other city or town of its size in the State. I will not assert this positively, because I have not had the time to make the detailed comparisions and inquiries that are necessary, but, nevertheless, I believe the statement to be true.
With deeply rooted convictions upon the slavery question, Wey- mouth sent, as was to have been expected, an extraordinarily
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large number of soldiers to the war, - over nine hundred ! - not a few of them to die on the field of battle. And so I might go on filling out the list of good things about Weymouth, and further substantiating its claim to the distinction of being called the people's town; but I desist. Because it is the people's town, I hope for the employment of a special teacher of music, and trust you will give the matter the consideration it merits.
In my last annual report, I wrote as follows : -
When a rich man discovers in his daughter an unusual talent for music, what does he do? He gives her the best private instruction; he places her under some celebrated teacher ; perhaps he sends her to Europe. At any rate, he does all he can to encourage the development of the tal- ent by which he feels that a special distinction is conferred upon his child. When the rich so strenuously demand musical instruction for their chil- ren, the poor should have it, - at least, within bounds, - in this republi- can land of ours. There is no caste in education. The schools are for all classes. High and low, rich and poor, meet upon a level before a schoolhouse door. While we cannot go so far and do so much for each individual child as the rich, out of their abundant means, can do for them- selves, we can and should give each child a good start in music. We can and should teach every child the elements of music.
Just so I feel to-day. So far as in my power lies, so far as my voice and influence and efforts as Superintendent may extend, I desire to make the schools the people's schools.
Among the cities and towns of the State that employ a special teacher of music are the following : -
Andover, Amesbury, Arlington, Attleboro', Beverly, Boston, Bradford, Brockton, Brookline, Cambridge, Canton, Chelsea, Clinton, Concord, Dedham, Easton, Fitchburg, Framingham, Gloucester, Greenfield, Haverhill, Holliston, Holyoke, Hyde Park, Lawrence, Leominster, Lexington, Lowell, Lynn, Malden, Marl- boro', Medford, New Bedford, Newton, North Adams, North Andover, Northampton, Peabody, Pittsfield, Plymouth, Quincy, Reading, Salem, Somerville, South Abington, Springfield, Stone- ham, Taunton, Tewksbury, Waltham, Watertown, Wellesley,. Westboro', Westfield, Winchester, Woburn, Worcester.
The only cities and towns of the State of more than ten thousand inhabitants that do not employ a special teacher of music are Fall River, Newburyport, and Weymouth ; and it should be said for Newburyport that it raises movey by private subscription to pay for the services of a special teacher in the largest graded school.
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May not the exceptional history of Fall River, as a city of strikes and defalcations, be attributed to the fact that the people have failed to provide properly for the musical instruction of their chil- dren ?
" The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils."
A FEW OTHER FAULTS.
And now, while I am speaking of our one great weakness, let me go on and point out a few other faults, which are, perhaps, con- spicuous enough to merit notice in an annual school report. I have reference, still, to faults of the school-room proper, and not to sanita- tion, ventilation, and other matters which, though connected with school management, are not purely educational. I have reference, also, to present lines of work, and not to military drill, the kinder- garten, industrial education, sewing. and the like, which might, or might not, be introduced to advantage, some time in the future.
FIRST FAULT .- The penmanship of the pupils in the primary grades is left too much to take care of itself, and, judged by a high modern standard, is not satisfactory. The teachers do not make such a study of the presentation of forms - letters and parts of let- ters - as they ought. They do not work with their pupils and write with them as much as they ought.
SECOND FAULT .- In the First Primary and Third Intermediate, es- pecially, increased attention should be paid to adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing - the mere mechanical processes. In these grades the pupils should have the tables at their tongues end, and in all the intermediate grades they should be experts in adding, experts in footing up ledger columns. We have been pay- ing too much attention to the development work of the new educa- tion, and too little to the practical and substantial drill of the old. We are, as a consequence, weak in ready reckoning. The pupils can perform quite difficult problems, without being sufficiently quick and accurate in mental combination.
THIRD FAULT .- We are neglecting elocution. The pupils in the upper grammar grades cannot read well enough. Old-fashioned drill in some one piece is necessary. Our reading books constitute a library on wheels, and are passed around from schoolhouse to schoolhouse every eight weeks, affording a great variety of fresh
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reading matter. In the lower grades and, indeed, in all the grades except the first and perhaps the second grammar, this works well. The pieces are, for the most part, simple, and the reading takes care of itself in great measure. It is, in short, a pastime. But towards the completion of the grammar course this recreation palls. The pupils begin to feel a desire to read higher than themselves. The Fourth Readers, the highest in use below the High School, do , not furnish reading matter quite deep enough for the better class of minds. It is true they contain, as a rule, quite a number of standard selections, but the books are retained so short a time that a ripe acquaintance with them is impossible. Adequate drill in the masterpieces of the English language is practically pro- hibited. I think it would be well, therefore, to buy some Fifth Readers to be retained permanently in the school-room and used as drill books, after the manner of the olden time We shall then reap the advantage of modern methods without the sacrifice of any ancient gains.
FOURTH FAULT .- We do not ally language with history, geog- raphy, and other subjects, as we ought, by writing topics on the blackboard, and otherwise stimulating the pupils to express them- selves. Massing facts in the memory is not teaching. We suffer in history especially through verbatim recitations, and the confine- ment to a single text-book. The facts of history are not so im- portant as the handling of them. Collateral reading should be encouraged. The pupils should stand up on their feet and express themselves on given subjects, for and against, according to their convictions. If we could put history upon a correct, not to say ideal, basis, we should confer a great boon upon the town at large. A lesson in history must be a lesson in language, to a greater or less extent. Memorizing names and dates goes but a little way. A recitation in history is a discipline of the mind, and a training in manners if properly conducted. It is rhetorical and conversa- tional to a certain extent. A young teacher in a small country town who was trying to get his pupils to read up and talk, recently said to me, " At first my pupils shook their heads. They seemed to think it unreasonable to expect them to go outside the text-book or to have any ideas of their own. They were at a complete loss for words. Now they are beginning to talk a little. Sometimes they express themselves quite at length. When they put ten words of their own together, I feel encouraged, because I can see what progress they have made."
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I will ask you to come to the aid of the teachers by the purchase of a few juvenile works calculated to awaken an interest in histor- ical literature, and broaden the instruction in this important branch. A number of the teachers have provided considerable collateral reading of their own, but they cannot be expected to provide as much as the pupils ought to have.
A WORD WITH THE JANITORS.
On the back of the janitors' bill blanks is printed the following : -
Janitors are required to hold the keys of the school buildings, and act as custodians of the school property throughout the entire calendar year. During term time they are required to keep the school-rooms, halls, stair- ways, and the school furniture clean and neat, and for this purpose to sweep the floors and dust the furniture at least twice a week. During the cold season they are required to maintain fires sufficient to keep the tem- perature as nearly 68º F. as practicable. Janitors are also expected to keep the outbuildings in a tidy condition ; to make pathways through the snow ; to notify the local committee of any injury to the school property, and in general to exercise a careful oversight of the school buildings and prem- ises. For this service the compensation, as fixed by the committee, is $17, reckoning for each school term, from January to July, and $13 from July to January. Recitation-rooms in actual use draw half pay. Bills must be presented promptly at the close of each half-year.
The pay of the janitors is inadequate, and some allowance should be made for that; but the above is practically the contract, and the janitors, knowing it beforehand, should not make it unless they intend to fulfil its terms. I have no fault to find with the janitors as a whole. They constitute a body of good, faithful workers. Some of them do all that is required of them, and per- form their work in a manner to elicit the highest praise from the teachers ; others do it fairly well ; still others shirk. So it is in all departments of life and work. If the whole world could be re- duced to a common level, and all mankind placed upon an equal footing, one with another, before nightfall some would begin to mount to the top of the ladder and others would begin their de- scent to the lowest rung.
What I would have the janitors feel is this : They are a part of the system. Their position is one of great trust and responsi- bility. If they do not do their work well, the teachers cannot do theirs well. If they do not keep the rooms tidy, the teachers can- not inculcate habits of neatness and order. If they do not keep the rooms warm, the work of the school-room cannot go on.
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I would also have the janitors feel and know this : The teachers and Superintendent will make no complaint unless they are abso- lutely driven to it. They feel that sympathy for a co-worker who goes into and out of their school-room every day that they will keep still and suffer rather than say a word against him. Of course there comes a time when forbearance ceases to be a virtue, but the reluctance to speak out is at all times very great. Teachers take into consideration the fact that the janitor lives perhaps a long way off ; that he is underpaid ; that he has other work to do, and the like. They call upon him only in cases of absolute necessity. . They criticise him only when they must. But business is business, and janitors, like other people, should do their duty, even though they do work hard for the money they get. Heating is the main thing ; sweeping comes next. Some janitors do not attend to their fires properly in the mornings, and do not get the rooms warm and comfortable before the pupils arrive ; some do not sweep out twice a week ; some do not dust; some smoke about the building ; others combine two or three of these faults ; still others have, I am happy to say, no faults, and fail in no particular.
I would recommended that, at the Landing, a janitor, with a salary of $500 say, be employed for all the schools. That is about the amount paid now for the fifteen rooms, at thirty dollars a room, including the usual allowance for small jobs ; and is enough to se- cure the services of a good man who would devote his whole time to the work. A similar combination could and should be effected at East Weymouth as soon as the new building is completed. The present arrangement is an outcome of the old district system, and divides up the work too much.
THE OUTLOOK IN EAST WEYMOUTH.
On the completion of the new six-room school building at East Weymouth, which is now well under way, this village will be on a par, or very nearly on a par, with the other villages in the matter of school accommodations. This building will accommodate all the pupils in the eastern part of the village, and enable you to dispense. with the Pleasant Street and Grant Street, as well as the High Street and School Street schoolhouses.
It may seem to some that too much is being done for East Wey- mouth. If so, a few moments' consideration of the facts will dispel
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the illusion. How many good school-rooms are there in East Weymouth? There are twelve - four in the Franklin, two in the Bicknell, and six in the new building. We may also include the one room in the Grant Street schoolhouse, which is a fair building.
How many teachers are there? There are fourteen now, but of late years it has generally been necessary to employ an additional teacher during the spring term, making fifteen. To accommodate these fifteen teachers it has been necessary to occupy not only the two small rooms in the Middle Street schoolhouse, which ought to be abandoned, but a small anteroom in the Franklin building, greatly to the inconvenience of the other teachers upon the upper floor. A four-room building is needed in the vicinity of Shaw's Corner, fully as much as a six-room building on Commercial Square. There is danger that the rights of the people of the Middle Street section will be neglected too long. It is their turn next. The fair thing has been done for the eastern part of the village, and now the fair thing should be done for the western part. The Middle Street schoolhouse is the only poor schoolhouse remaining in the town.
SOME MISTAKEN NOTIONS WITH REGARD TO THE EMPLOYMENT OF TEACHERS.
I had more or less to say in my last annual report about the formation of a training class for teachers. I had hoped that an eight-room building would be erected on the hill, in the rear of the Methodist Church, and that the grammar grades would be trans- ferred to it, leaving the Franklin free to become a primary school. When this was done, I wanted to establish, in connection with the Franklin primary, a training school for teachers, the Franklin build- ing being particularly well adapted to this purpose. Circumstances have blocked the carrying out of the plan as originally proposed, and I will no longer urge the formation of such a class or school.
It does, however, seem as if, in this enlightened age, something should be done to prevent teachers from serving an entire appren- ticeship in the art of teaching after they have been placed in actual charge of a school. There is a popular impression that grad- nating from the high school establishes a young lady's claim to become a teacher in the town, and qualifies her for the duties of the position which, as an instructor of youth, she would be called
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upon tò fill. But this is an erroneous impression. There is a science of pedagogy, and it is only in a normal' school or in a well-con- conducted training school that the science is taught. From the high school, applicants for schools should go on to the normal, and remain there at least two years. So many changes in methods of instruction, especially for little children, have taken place in recent years, and all based upon psychological facts, that unless they do this, they will not know what these changes are, and will labor at a disadvantage for a long time. We live under the shadow of a great normal school, - one of the best in the world, - and yet, out of fifty-four teachers, we have only seven who have attended a full or a partial normal course, and only one, I believe, who is the ' graduate of a training school. Our schools suffer from the work of novitiates, who take months and sometimes years to acquire that composure and confidence, together with the knowledge of what to do and how to do it, which it is the special province of the normal school to impart. When we separate the expense account into the salaries of teachers, some twenty-three thousand dollars, on the one hand; and fuel, repairs, school supplies, and all other items, some eight thousand dollars; on the other hand, we see how conspicuously important, even from the monetary point of view, is this work of selecting and preparing for the duties of the school- room the various applicants who present themselves. It is indeed the highest work that a school committee and superintendent have to perform.
There is also quite a strong feeling that only resident teachers should be employed. This I believe to be a grave mistake. What sort of a town would this be, and what could prevent it from deteriorating in the course of time, if you put up the bars against the other professions, and refused to have anything to do with any lawyer, doctor, minister, merchant, or manufacturer who was not born and raised in the town? I agree that there should be few non-resident teachers, but those few are necessary to keep up the standard of the schools. I agree, also, that in cases where the selection lies between a resident and a non-resident teacher, the resident should have the preference, all other things being equal. To put in a poor non-resident teacher is a most reprehensible thing to do.
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PRIZES AND GIFTS.
For flower displays and specimens of drawing and penmanship, the following schools and pupils received prizes or gratuities at the last annual fair of the Weymouth Agricultural and Industrial As- sociation : -
For flower displays (flowers taken from a schoolhouse vard),
First prize, Howe School
. $2 00
Second prize, Pratt School
1 50
Third prize, Athens School - 00
Fourth prize, Shaw School 50
Gratuity, Holbrook School 50
Gratuity, Bates School
40)
Gratuity, Franklin School
40
For drawings,
First prize, North High School . Second prize, South High School
1 50
1 '00
1 00
1 00
1 00
1 00
. 1 00
For specimens of penmanship, Louie Carroll, Tufts Primary. Florence Turner, Lincoln Pri- mary. Rose Thayer, School St. Pri- mary.
Mary E. Fogarty, High St, In- termediate.
James Saville, Athens Inter- mediate.
Katie O'Connor, Bicknell Inter- mediate.
Katie L. Tracy, Hunt Gram- mar.
Lizzie Hallahan, Bates Gram- mar.
Mary E. Spencer, Athens Gram- mar.
Each received a gratuity of 50 cents.
For the care and decoration of schoolhouse yards, the village improvement associations gave as follows : South Weymouth, $60 ; Weymouth, $40; East Weymouth, $30; and North Weymouth, $15.
Gratuity, Bates Grammar School Gratuity, Pratt Grammar School Gratuity, Franklin Grammar School . Gratuity, Tufts Intermediate School . Gratuity, Bicknell Intermediate School Gratuity, Shaw Intermediate School .
$1 75
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In addition to the above, the South Weymouth Improvement Association gave three prizes for the best looking schoolhouse yards in Wards 4 and 5. These prizes were awarded as follows :-
First prize, Pratt School . $5 00
Second prize, South High School 3 00
Third prize, Bates School 2 00 .
It affords me pleasure, also, to acknowledge for the many others in- terested, as well as myself, the receipt of a gift, which, though unique and valuable in itself, is all the more highly prized because it rep- resents in a measure the scholarship and, I may say, the genius of a citizen of this town. During the past year, Mr. Leonard Gard- ner gave to each of the High Schools a large and handsomely framed chart of the carth, very neatly executed, and showing the limits of visibility of the transit of Venus across the sun's disk, Dec 5, 1882. The .computations that accompany the chart be- long to the department of higher mathematics, and, like the draw- ings - both the work of the donor - are fittingly installed in a school-room hall. It is needless to say that teachers and pupils alike - and I am at liberty to add, the school authorities - feel honored by a donation which it would be in the power of but few to duplicate.
VISITORS:
During the school year, ending July 2, the schools had 4,518 visitors - a larger number than at any previous time in their his- tory. These visitors were distributed as follows : High Schools, 104; Ward 1, 738 ; Ward 2, 1,159 ; Ward 3, 1,419; Ward 4, 454; Ward 5, 644.
The gifts to the schools, and the large number of visitors, are a proof of the interest the people take in the cause of education.
IN CONCLUSION.
During the past year the Old Colony Railroad Company has put up, at North Weymouth, an ornamental railway station in stained wood, the erection of which, twenty-five years ago, would have been regarded by the shareholders and others as a piece of folly and extravagance. But we look upon these matters differently now. The world has changed. In like manner, the town has
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