USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Plymouth > Town annual report of the officers of the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts for the year ending 1910 > Part 19
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safe government. The primary school, therefore, should be provided with everything necessary for efficient work. No wasted time or effort caused by overcrowded schools or classes, or by overburdened or incapable teachers should be tolerated. The conditions for good work must be ample and ever present if the service of the schools is to meet the need for which they are instituted.
GRAMMAR SCHOOLS.
The grammar schools include grades 5 to 9. The number enrolled in these schools at present is 811, about 36 per cent. of the total school enrolment. They occupy nineteen school rooms, making an average of forty-three pupils to each teacher.
These 811 pupils are enrolled in the five grammar grades as follows :
Boys.
Girls.
Total.
Grade V,
119
119
238
Grade VI,
94
98
192
Grade VII,
99
81
180
Grade VIII,
63
73
136
Grade IX,
24
41
65
399
412
811
Promotions are made in each school by the regular teacher at the end of the school year in June. In doubtful cases the Superintendent is consulted. These promotions are based on the estimate of the pupil's daily work made by the teacher, and recorded at the end of each month, in the grammar schools, on report cards sent to the parents. When conditions seem to justify it, a pupil may be promoted on trial for a month. In such
-
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a case, the parent is notified by written form of the intended. conditional promotion, and the promotion in this form is made- only in case the parent gives written consent thereto. If, at the end of the probationary period, the pupil's work warrants it, the promotion is made for the rest of the year; but no pupil is expected to be retained in any class when his interests are best served by his going to a higher or lower one.
Since the opening, last October, of three school rooms at. the South Street Engine House, the pupils of the upper grades are fairly well provided for. All pupils of the eighth and ninth. grades, except a few children of the former grade at Manomet and Chiltonville, are attending the schools at the center of the town. This became necessary by reason of there being no room for any of those pupils at the north. Bringing these- children to schools out of their own district is making the bill for transportation seem large; but the amount paid for that. purpose is not nearly so great as it would be to maintain a school at the north for the few pupils of the eighth and ninth grades there. And bringing most of the children of these two. grades together practically in one school enables us to do much. more efficient work with them, and to do it more economically.
The program of work in the grammar schools is being con- tinued along the usual lines. It was hoped that this year conditions would make it seem possible to offer to those pupils- of the seventh and eighth grades who chose it, some form of industrial work. But circumstances have not favored this change. Experience of other communities in this form of school training is meager. I know of no place of equal op- portunities with this that is doing it very successfully. And so the schools are yet restricting their work, in the main, to- the so-called, but often miscalled, essentials. No pupil is given an average time of more than two and a half hours a week to that form of industrial work called manual training. Prac- tically all the school time is given to the traditional subjects of school work. And this work is being done fairly well-in
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some cases very well. But not in every case. We know it to be true even better than the critic who delights in telling it, that very many go from these schools poorly equipped with what the school is supposed to furnish them; that many write. poorly, spell incorrectly and handle even simple numbers in- accurately. But this lament is nothing new; it has always been made since the public school began, and has always been true, and will continue to be true, of many who have the op- portunities that the best schools afford. If the master mechanic may select those whom he would train, he can guarantee the: men he sends out; but what master would agree to send out. machinists for whom he could vouch if he were given no chance of choice in their selection? The public school is a demo- cratic institution, including and inviting children of every sort and condition. The same inequalities and imperfections of intellect, disposition and physical capacity are to be found among pupils as are found in other sections of society; and no institution, or manner or kind of instruction, can wholly eradicate them. Children come to school endowed with vary- ing amount and quality of intellect. The school can never create that. It cannot, in the strict sense, even train the in- tellectual power which the child already possesses. It can only offer the right opportunities and use every right incentive to inspire the child to use them to his best intellectual de- velopment and physical welfare. Of the opportunities for this development there is hardly a lack. If every pupil in regular and continuous attendance upon an average Plymouth school does not become able to use in an elementary way the different subjects in the curriculum offered for his training, it cannot. truly be alleged that he has not had ample time and oppor- tunity to master them.
But opportunity has never been the determining factor in education. The community through its schools can, and should, make most ample provision for the educational needs of its children; but the individual child determines for him-
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self how far and to what extent he will make use of the op- portunities thus provided.
And so it comes about that there is truth in the criticism that many children leave the schools with scant ability to do the work the school has presumably prepared them to do, just as children left the schools fifty years ago, and as they will continue to leave them until opportunity and education mean the same thing. But it may well be found that the criticism which places upon the school, or upon any agency outside of the child himself, the responsibility for his lack of equipment, is neither just nor intelligent.
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HIGH SCHOOL.
Those who receive certificates from the grammar schools are admitted to the High School. No formal examinations are required, except in the case of those from other places who apply for admission. There were 54 who received certificates from the ninth grade last June, and 52 of these entered the High School. In addition to those entering from the ninth grade, 28 from the eighth grade who were regarded as ready to do the work of the High School, were admitted on trial. This made the total membership of the entering class 80.
The present current expenses of the High School are :
Teachers' salaries,
$7,590 00
Janitor,
550 00
Fuel and light (estimated),
800 00
Books and supplies (estimated),
1,000 00
$9,940 00
This makes the current expense for each pupil in the present total membership of the High School $45.60.
1
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The present membership of the High School is 218 pupils, with eight regular teachers. The work of the school is carried on in four courses, as follows :
Boys.
Girls.
Total.
Classical Course,
2-
30
37
Scientific Course,
38
6
44
Literary Course,
7
26
33
Commercial Course,
36
68
104
88
130
218
Each of the four courses named above ordinarily requires four years for its completion. The student can prepare for college or technical school in four years. With a few restrictions such as seem necessary to prevent waste of time by injudicious or careless selection of subjects, any student for whom a full course is unnecessary or impossible may ordinarily take a special or partial course suited to his purpose. In this way, too, pupils who wish to take a full course, but who, for reasons of health are not able to do so, may make the work of each year easier by doing it more leisurely, taking five or more years to complete the regular four years' course. By such an arrangement the advantages of the school are offered to some who would other- wise be barred from them, while the number of classes and the teaching work of the school are not materially increased thereby.
The High School is slowly increasing in numbers. Five years ago the number in attendance was 145, or approxi- mately seven per cent. of the whole school enrolment. To-day there are 218 in the High School, or about ten per cent. of the total school enrolment. That is, in five years the High School has increased its attendance about fifty per cent., while the enrolment of all the schools has increased less than fifteen per cent.
Three of the eight teachers comprising the High School staff have left during the year. Early in July, Mr. Leicester
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A. Williams, who had been principal of the school less than two years, resigned his position, and Mr. William C. Whiting, who had managed very successfully a large High School at Melrose, Mass., was elected to fill the vacancy. We are for- tunate to secure a man of such wide and successful experience to fill this position.
Some of the class rooms at the High School need new furni- ture. Most of the desks and seats of these rooms were brought from the old High School building, are small in size, non- adjustable, and have long since outlived their usefulness. They should be replaced by modern adjustable furniture as soon as possible.
The High School is offering to all pupils qualified to do it, work in either of the four fairly distinct courses mentioned above. The smallest number of pupils is enrolled in the so- called classical or college preparatory course. The school is required by law to maintain such a course. Pupils who come to it well prepared, whose purpose is well defined and who have the strength, both mental and physical, as well as the disposition to work hard, can accomplish this preparatory work in four years. This school, like many others, has the privilege of sending its graduates on certificate to those colleges and technical schools which admit students in that way. But the school does not certify students except in those subjects in which they have maintained an average rank indicated by the letter B; nor does it recommend to any college for examination any of its students in any subjects other than those they have studied and passed with an average rank of B. To earn that standing, it is necessary for some pupils to spend five years in the preparatory course; and for the majority of pupils this added year's work is very desirable, if not necessary.
The removal of the ninth grade pupils from the High School building to South Street has given the High School much needed room. Since the commercial course was started, it has increased in numbers until at present nearly half the members
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of the school are enrolled in it. The quarters provided for this course are somewhat cramped. It could use more room to good advantage; but even with the added room available to the school by the removal of the ninth grade, the classes, as at present organized, are using the building to its full capacity. The commercial course is doing good work, so far as it goes; but it would be greatly strengthened if larger quarters and a more varied business equipment could be given it, more time assigned to the work, and all its activities be brought into direct contact with actual business. There is a large demand for responsible boys and girls well prepared in this line of work.
The graduating exercises of the class of nineteen hundred and eleven were held at the High School building on Tuesday evening, June 20, 1911, with the following programme :
PROGRAMME.
Music. The Mill, School Chorus.
A. Jensen
Essay. With Johnson at the Club, Miss Haskins.
Essay. A Posthumous Letter of John Alden,
Miss Errington.
Music. Gipsy Life,
Robert Schumann School Chorus. Essay. The Welfare Work at the Plymouth Cordage, Miss De Vine.
Essay.
At Sunset,
Miss Covell.
Wrighton
Music.
Bright Star of Eve, Arise !
O, Hail Us Ye Free !
Verdi
School Chorus.
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Essay. The Silent City, Miss Whiting. Essay. The Meaning of America, Miss Robbins. Music. Chorus of Peers, School Chorus.
Presentation of Diplomas. Class Song, America.
Arthur Sullivan
CLASS SONG.
Words by Miss Covell. Music by Miss Brown.
In the days gone by, if we ever thought Of the farewell that soon must be sounded, We have never dreamed it clutched at each heart With a measure of grief so unbounded; Nor that thou, dear school, whose comforting walls Have thus welcomed our faces each morn, Could so fill each soul with such keen regret As the moment of parting draws on.
Yet beyond thy threshold lies all the world With its seekers, ambitious of treasure; Shall we reach the top of the hill of renown We must start now, unmindful of pleasure. So away we must turn from thee, dear old school, And, regardful alway for thy glory, Strive to enter thy name in the annals of fame, By endeav'ring in all things to extol thee.
Musical Director, Miss Alice C. Persons. Pianist, Kenneth Hallett, '12.
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GRADUATES.
Harriet S. Allen Philip Stanley Barnes Wilfred Jacobs Brown Eskel Olof Carlson
Marguerite Mary Devine *Margaret Townsend Errington *Margaret Frances Holmes *Rose Elizabeth Lynch Margaret Lydia McCarthy Blanche Roselle Read Mary Alice Rogers
Mabel Frances Savoy
*Eunice Alden Whiting
Edith May Andrews Theodora Locke Brown *Frances Davis Burns *Marie Tirzah Covell Clara Abbott Dixon Beulah Gertrude Haskins Margaret Susan Kelton Theo Martin *Rosie Perlberg Maria Thompson Robbins *Elizabeth Holmes Saunders Alton Lee Stevens Evelyn Wright
Certificates to :
Frederick Lawrence Bartlett Harold Everson Douglas *Honor pupils.
EVENING SCHOOLS.
The school census this year reports forty-one young women and thirty-one young men as illiterate. The law has again changed its definition of an illiterate minor so far as his at- tendance at Evening School is concerned, to mean one between the age of sixteen and twenty-one, instead of between the age of sixteen and eighteen. All such minors as are working in the mills are in fairly regular attendance at the Evening Schools-most of them at the Knapp.
The record for the past year is as follows : Number of boys enrolled, 67
Number of girls enrolled, 52
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Average number belonging, 87
Average evening attendance, 72 83
Percentage of attendance,
The current expense of the Evening Schools for the past year, exclusive of heat and light, was $735.50, an expenditure of $8.50 for each pupil in the average number belonging to the school for fifty-six school sessions.
The work in these Evening Schools is satisfactory, so far as it goes, but these schools are falling far short of what they might accomplish. The average Evening School does not fill a very large place in any community. With us, it is doing little more than meeting the legal requirement of the illiterates who must attend it. This winter we have provided for a class of about twenty, mostly young men of grammar school attainment, who are anxious to add to their meager stock of school knowledge. To that extent we are going beyond the requirements we are obliged to fill. But the course of work in this school is not broad enough. It does not meet and closely touch the needs of many whom this school should help in a definite, practical way. In addition to the graded elementary school work which the class mentioned is pursuing, courses in mechanical draw- ing and draughting, applied physical science and industrial chemistry would attract and, if efficiently conducted, prove valuable to a large number of men here who are anxious. to have a broader knowledge of the line of work they are doing, and to become fitted for larger opportunities. We might begin with a wood working class in the Cornish School. There is a room there equipped with benches and tools. The addition of a band saw and a circular saw, and a lathe or two, with power, would suitably provide for a class of from fifteen to twenty. The work would be largely individual, each man choosing the particular work which he needed. Our Evening Schools have three weekly sessions of two hours each. Four hours could be given to shop work, one hour to shop arith- metic, and one hour to mechanical drawing. The main pur-
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pose would be, not to teach a trade, but to give the young man learning a trade, the chance to go faster; and to help the man at his trade to broaden his knowledge of his work. This be- ginning need cost little beyond the cost of instruction and a small additional equipment; and it would offer a line of work attractive as well as valuable, to many earnest men who have little interest in the academic work of the ordinary Evening School.
UNGRADED SCHOOLS.
The three schools-one each at Long Pond, Ship Pond and Cedarville-have together an average membership of twenty- six pupils. Besides these, there are three pupils at South Pond who are carried to the Russell Mills School at Chiltonville. The current expense incurred for these children, including transportation, is $1,830, or $63 for each pupil in the average membership.
It is often difficult to provide satisfactorily for these schools. The larger centralized and closely graded schools attract all teachers. They consider it a deprivation to be placed in these outside schools, and will remain there only until schools in a more populous district are open to them. The school author- ities have tried to make conditions such that good teachers may be secured and induced to remain in the ungraded schools ; but the incentive to such teachers to remain is not wholly, nor mainly, in the power of the School Committee. Harmony and co-operation on the part of parents, and their kindly and loyal support of the teachers, will often do much more than any- thing the School Committee can do to make the work in these outlying schools successful. Such helpfulness on the part of
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parents will not only prolong the good teacher's stay, but the knowledge of it will do much, when a change must be made, to induce a desirable teacher to accept the position.
EYE AND EAR TEST.
The table given below shows the result of the annual test, made by the teachers, of the eye sight and hearing of the pupils in school. The State Board of Education furnishes the neces- sary appliances with directions for their use for these tests; and the teachers have received valuable help and suggestion from the School Physician in difficult or uncertain cases.
Number of pupils tested,
2,198
Number found defective in sight,
206
Percentage found defective in sight,
9.4
Number found defective in hearing,
32
Percentage found defective in hearing,
1.5
Number of parents or guardians notified,
164
TEACHERS.
There are at present in service in the day schools sixty-two teachers, which number includes one teacher of music and one of manual training, including drawing.
During the year sixteen, or one-fourth of the whole number, have left the service here.
Four or five of this number left for causes beyond our con- trol ; more money would have retained the others.
Realizing that the character and efficiency of the schools
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depend vitally on the teaching corps, great care has been exer- cised in selecting teachers and placing them in those schools for which they seem particularly suited. We have tried to limit each class to a reasonable number of pupils, so far as possible, to furnish each school with such equipment as a good teacher needs, and then to assure her of freedom to work out her own best self. And under the conditions the teachers are doing well. All teachers do not work in the same way, nor with equal success. In every school system characterized in the main by the best ideals, marked differences of efficiency will appear and persist. No two schools can use to equally good advantage, the material with which they have to work. To. the trained observer, this difference of efficiency soon becomes. evident; and he soon learns that, if he would be fair, he must. not judge the success of the work done in that community by the standard of either of those two schools. He must visit many schools, note their atmosphere, the tasks assigned, the- incentives employed, the standard set, the qualities displayed by the teacher, the attitude and habits of the pupils, and the- way in which they approach a task and the spirit in which they carry it through. The opinion of an experienced ob- server who does less than this to form an estimate of the effi- ciency of a system of schools, is worth very little. The trained school expert, such as every community is presumed to employ, would find our own schools quite imperfect. No one is more painfully aware of that fact than those of us who are giving our life work to them. But he would also find that, in the main, the teachers here are doing their work with commend- able zeal and success; that the schools are devoting themselves- to the fundamental subjects of an elementary education, and that they are doing the work in a creditable manner. And this, too, notwithstanding the fact that some, perhaps many, are found about to leave the schools without the ability to. spell correctly and to use figures accurately. For this ex- perienced observer knows that the ability to spell or to write
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well is not the only, nor the best, criterion by which to judge whether the school is efficiently serving its purpose. The public school is the people's one assimilative agency. It is set to help prepare new members to bear their part among a free people. Its real efficiency is measured less by the distance the children leaving it have gone in the school course than by the direction in which they are faced. It is less a question of what they can do now than of what they will do in the future. The real success of the school lies in the efficiency with which it trans- forms incongruous and threatening elements into positive and helpful factors of society. Measured in this way, the school's success commands respect and admiration.
With my renewed appreciation of all who are in any way contributing to the further success of the schools, this report is
Respectfully submitted,
FRANCIS J. HEAVENS, Superintendent.
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APPENDIX
SUMMARY OF STATISTICS FOR SCHOOL YEAR END-
ING JUNE 23, 1911.
Whole number of pupils enrolled,
2,207
Number under 7 years of age,
387
Number between 7 and 14 years,
1,492
Number between 14 and 15 years,
133
Number over 15 years of age,
195
Average membership of all the schools,
2,081
Average daily attendance,
1,957
Per cent. of attendance,
94
Number days absence of pupils,
28,900
Number cases of tardiness,
3,810
Number dismissals before close of school,
865%
Number cases truancy reported,
91
Number days teachers absent from school,
84
Number school buildings in use,
22
Number teachers regularly employed,
61
High school,
8
Grammar school,
22
Primary school,
28
Ungraded school,
3
Special teachers, one for music and one for drawing and sloyd, 2
63
Present number of pupils enrolled, Jan. 15, 1912, 2,214
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LIST OF TEACHERS
IN THE SCHOOLS OF PLYMOUTH, MASS.,
1911-1912.
High School.
William C. Whiting, Principal.
Gertrude Smart
Elizabeth Mackenzie
Elizabeth Hunter
Walton E. Briggs
Carolyn F. Cook
Mary G. Thomas
Helen L. Barnes
Spooner Street School.
Grade.
1. Bertha M. McNaught.
Hedge School.
Grade.
1. Elizabeth H. Sampson.
1. Grace N. Bramhall.
2. Lucy L. Hildreth.
3. Ella F. Robinson.
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South Street School.
9. Annie D. Dunham.
9. Emma A. Jordan.
8. Katharine A. O'Brien.
Allerton Street School.
Grade.
1. Lula C. Vaille.
Frederick N. Knapp School.
Grade.
7. William T. Whitney, principal
6. Lydia E. Holmes.
5. M. Alice Morong.
4. Maude H. Lermond.
4. Kate G. Zahn.
3. Amy B. Bishop.
4. Etta G. McDonald.
2. Annie W. Burgess.
1. Flora A. Keene.
Cold Spring School.
Grade.
2. Gertrude C. Bennett.
3. Mabel F. Douglas. 5. Susan C. Thomas.
Oak Street School.
Grade.
1. Agnes V. Eaton. 2-3. Clara W. Mayhew.
.
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Burton School.
Grade.
8. Grace M. McKowen.
Mabel C. Ray.
4. Teresa A. Rogan.
4. Nettie E. Knight.
Cornish School.
Grade.
Addie L. Bartlett, principal.
8. Frances I. Bagnell.
6. Myra H. Dean.
6. Laura M. Whitney.
5. Nancy M. Bucknam.
6. Harriet J. Johnson.
3. Margaret M. Longfellow.
2. Marion T. Wholley.
1. Grace F. Franklin.
Mount Pleasant School.
Grade.
7. Augusta M. Morton, principal. 6. Alma L. Pommer.
5. Grace L. Knight.
4. Leella F. Barnes.
3. Annie M. Frost.
1-2. Lizzie E. Mitchell.
Mount Pleasant Primary.
Grade.
1-2. Grace R. Moore. 1-5. Cora W. Gray.
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Chiltonville.
Grade.
6-9. Maud R. Robinson.
1-5. Stella F. Fearing.
1-5. Kate W. Sampson. 1-5. Mary A. Morton.
Grade.
Manomet.
6-9. Elizabeth A. Black. 1-5. Grace L. Farrington.
Vallerville.
Ungraded.
Grace Blackmer.
Cedarville.
Ungraded.
Rhoda Moore.
Long Pond.
Ungraded.
Jennie C. Powers.
Music.
Gertrude M. Heartz.
Manual Training, including Drawing. Jennie F. Stratton.
.
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REPORT OF ATTENDANCE FOR SCHOOL YEAR
ENDING JUNE 23rd, 1911.
SCHOOLS
Total Enroll- ment for year
Average Number
Belonging
Average Daily
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