USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Fairhaven > Town annual report of the offices of Fairhaven, Massachusetts 1857 > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
An alteration in the seats of the school house, in this district, would contribute greatly to the comfort, as well as the health of the scholars.
Scholars.
Length of Schools.
Summer,
21
Av. att. 15.5
4.25 months,
Wages of Teachers. $72.25
Winter,
37
29.30
4.08
66
162.65
DISTRICT No. 16.
The attendance during the Summer term of this school, which was taught by Miss Abbie P. Le Baron, was small and irregular, and the improvement of the school was unsatisfactory to the Committee.
The Winter term was under the direction of Mr. Henry C. Welch. It was his misfortune to begin his experience as a teacher in a school where the parents could not agree in their preferences for a teacher. But we are pleased to state, that, notwithstanding this
15
discouragement, and the spirit of insubordination manifested on the part of some of his pupils, he has conducted the school in a manner which has won the confidence of the Committee. The attendance of scholars during the year has been very faulty.
Scholars.
Av. att.
Length of Schools.
Summer,
37
Winter,
52
17 38.26
5 months, 4.75 €¢
Wages of Teachers. $80. 166.25
DISTRICT No. 17.
There have been only two families the past year on the Island which constitutes this district, and as no school-house has been provided, your Committee have secured board, for such as have desired it, in other districts, where they have enjoyed the benefits of school instruction.
DISTRICT No. 18.
Miss Elizabeth King has taught this school during the year. A neat and comfortable school-room, an able and enthusiastic teacher and a band of pupils that can bear questioning, have always made the visits of your Committee in this district most agreeable.
Scholars.
Av. att. 19.6
Length of Schools.
Summer,
31
Winter,
34
24.30
5 months, 4.9
Wages of Teachers. $110. 84.
DISTRICT No. 19.
This is one of the larger, and, as commonly reported, one of the most difficult schools in the town. It has been the past year under the superintendence of Mrs. M. Hafford. Although the manner in which this school has been conducted has not been entirely satisfactory to the Committee, they have not failed to discover signs of permanent benefit in those who have
16
best improved its privileges. Miss Esther Delano has continued, persevering with her little charge, as assistant in this school.
Scholars.
Av. att.
Length of Schools.
Wages of Teachers.
Summer,
70
53
5 months,
Winter,
67
51
3.25 “
$170. 120.50
Before closing the report, Gentlemen, your Commit- tee would gladly, were it practicable, offer some sug- gestions which should serve to awaken in the minds of our citizens generally, a higher appreciation of what constitutes true education and educational privileges among us. A building, however neat and commo- dious, situated in however eligible a locality, furnished with benches however well filled with pupils, and a desk occupied by a locum tenens, styled a teacher, does not for that answer to the true idea of a school. Nor yet are the branches that are taught in it, however select they may be, or the method of teaching, how- ever perfect in itself, the thing of highest moment. Beyond all these considerations, important as they truly are, there is one of still greater importance, and that is the moral tone of a school. To one unaccus- tomed to visit in succession various schools of a town or a village, the meaning of this expression will hardly be apprehended. A school, as truly as a family, has a distinctive social life of its own. The very mental and moral atmosphere, so to speak, may be pure, or it may be tainted. To live and breathe in it tends to elevate or to contaminate. The longer we are familiar with any school the more apparent does this distinctive feature become. Yet even a passing acquaintance with a variety of schools, will often serve to place them in marked contrast, in this particular. You
17
enter the door of a school room during the hours of study, and take your seat in full view of a score or two of faces, and soon perhaps the impression becomes irresistible, that you are in a corrupt moral atmosphere. You feel as if " confronted with a bad countenance." External appearances all aside, the floor swept or un- swept, the walls clean or disfigured, it is the cast of mind, the thought, the feeling, in a word, the moral character of the school that makes the most vivid im- pression upon you. In like manner, you enter another school, and in a moment, before you can take your seat, all is changed. What a contrast ! The sur- roundings in point of comeliness and cleanliness may be greatly inferior, but you breathe in a different atmos- phere. You feel it. Here is moral sensibility. Here is conscience. And you make no hesitation in decid- ing under which of these influences you would choose that a child should be placed. The sensibilities then, no less than the intellect, are susceptible of education, and especially is this true in the early periods of child- hood. It follows, therefore, that a school, whatever may be its prescribed course of study, and whatever the qualifications of its teachers, does but partially serve the purpose of education unless it maintains a good moral tone. Rather, we should say, it is defective in the most important point of all. It does but a meagre work of education, if, while it exercises the in- tellect, it stifles or debases the finer feelings of our nature. The true idea, we may say the original idea of a New England village school, is that of an institu- tion from which every urchin and every lass shall re- turn home each night, better in morals, mind and manners.
Great caution, therefore, and discretion should be
C
18
exercised ; in making selection of teachers for our schools. And in order to secure such as shall prove in the highest sense a benefit to the community, sev- eral suggestions may be in place.
The plan by which at present each district, through its Prudential Committee, provides its own teacher or teachers, whatever it may have to recommend it, in some respects cannot fail to operate, on the general scale, unfavorably to the cause of education among us. The conviction has continually strengthened in the minds of your Committee that the town, as a whole, would enjoy far better instruction if the responsibility of selecting and appointing teachers was lodged with the general Committee.
But another suggestion, which your Committee would make and urge upon your attention, is that of the vital importance of entrusting our educational in- terests in the hands of none but competent and judi- cious men. No man is fitted to make choice of a teacher for the public, who has not himself a heart of warmest interest in the welfare of the young, and a mind capable of appreciating the qualities requisite for a public instructor.
Further, your Committee suggest the necessity of providing, at all times, a fair and even generous remu- neration, according to their actual accomplishments, for those employed to conduct our schools. Without this we cannot hope to retain for any length of time more than mediocrity of excellence in this most im- portant public interest. To inquire what will secure a teacher, rather than what will secure a good one, is only suffering ourselves to be outbidden in the pursuit of first talent, while we subject our children and youth to the tuition of second or third rate teachers.
19
The Committee cannot but regard the High School as of prime importance to the general interests of education among all lower grades of schools. While it stands as a standard and stimulus to many scholars who would otherwise content themselves with the low- er attainments of the common schools, and while it actually affords to many of our aspiring youth the ad- vantages of an excellent education, such as the fathers and mothers among us of a former generation might well crave, its actual benefit to the community does not end here. Even in the more remote districts which are sometimes said to derive no benefit from this insti- tution, its good influence, if it be rightly cherished and guarded, must be sensibly if not consciously felt. It reveals many a deficiency in the management of the lower schools and ofttimes points directly to the place where a monster-evil, a neglect or an abuse must be corrected. For observe a class of candidates under process of examination for admission to this school. The examination. we will suppose to be thorough as every examination should be, for this is the High School. The scholars have come up through every grade, of Primary, Intermedial and Grammar School instruction ; and now from this look-out we propose to determine how the work in each has been done. Does the vigilance of the Committee detect a general failure upon the principles of English Grammar, they infer a defectiveness in the Grammar School grade of instruction. And if such failure be confined to the candidates from a given school, the inference, after a fair examination, is just, that not all is right in that school. If, as your Committee have found in past examinations, candidates are sadly deficient in Spelling, they turn their attention at once to the Grammar
20
School, nor stopping here they proceed a step lower to the Intermedial School, nor resting here they enter the Primary department, each of which is, in its turn, responsible for this evil. The most palpable defect in the education of our youth, the discovery of which was made at the door of our High School, led the Committee to investigate the condition of the schools in respect to this branch of study, and the method of instruction pursued in each, not only such as are rep- resented in the High School, but every school in town.
To conclude, your Committee cannot but express the desire that the High School may yet become in a higher sense than at present a school of superior advantages for obtaining a useful and ornamental education ; a school in view of which it should often be said of our youth, who seek for instruction else- where, " They go further to fare worse." With diffi- culty only can this desirable result be wrought out. With ease the school may be reduced to the level of a preparatory department, a stepping stone for its grad- uates to an ordinary High School.
The amount voted by the town for school
purposes the past year, was $7,500.00
Received from State School Fund, 220.05
Balance from last year's accounts, 123.29
Total, $7,843.34
21
The apportionment of funds to the various Districts the past year, was as follows :
District No. 1,.
2,. $250.
.250.
66 12 and 13, . 2075.
66
6
3,. 175.
66
14, .233.
66 4,. 250.
15, 250.
66
5, .250.
16,
265.
66
6, . .250.
17, .. 60.
7, .250.
18,
200.
60
8, . . 250.
66
19, .300.
9, . . 233.
High School,. 1685.
The special care of the different Districts was com- mitted to the several members of the Committee, as follows :
To Walter A. Davis, Jr., Nos. 1, 2, 5, 6, 18.
To Martin L. Eldridge, 66 3, 4, 7, 8,
9.
To Jonathan Cowen,
14, 15, 16, 17.
To Job Almy,
To J. Willard,
All of which your Committee respectfully submit :
JOHN WILLARD,
School
WALTER A. DAVIS, Jr.,
MARTIN L. ELDRIDGE,
Committee.
JONATHAN COWEN,
District No. 11, · $363.
66 10,.
.250.
" 10, 11, 12 & 13, 19.
FAIRHAVEN, April 5th, 1858.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.