USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Acton > Town annual reports of Acton, Massachusetts 1894-1900 > Part 9
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SCHOOL REPORT
ment, and out of that lurid sky fell millions of tons of ashes, and the mother, and babe, and city were firmly embedded many feet- beneath the new surface. There for eighteen hundred years they remained.
A few years ago they were unburied. Hollow in the ashes- still stood erect that arm above the mud-a hollow, that was all. The flesh and bones were gone. Only ashes, solid as a rock, sur- rounded it.
In those ashes were shaped the hollow where the arm had been, and above the arm still stood the mould of the baby's body. There it was found. Some lime was poured into it, a cast was. made, and the cast is now preserved in the British Museum, a memorial to this Roman mother's love.
This incident is but an exemplification of what every mother would do for her child, under similar circumstances.
We all know from experience how natural it is for us to plan so that our children shall have a little better chance in the world than we had. This is especially trne as regards their education.
In my college days, full three-fourths of my classmates came from the farms of New England-from homes where it meant sacrifice and privation to meet the necessary expenses. I have in my library at home a large volume, of which I think a great. deal. It contains some three or four hundred photographs, eight by ten, of statesmen who have reached distinction during the past thirty or forty years. It presents the faces and names of men familiar to us by their renown, whose deeds have often been re- corded in the newspapers. On the page opposite each photograph is a brief biographical sketch of the man, and as I have read them I have been surprised at the number who sprang from hum- ble country homes, and whose education was acquired under cir- cumstances of considerable privation. ·
I believe you are fond of quoting the saying that "Acton furnished the men while Concord furnished the ground," in the fight of April 19, 1775. In a much larger sense may we say that the country towns furnish the men of brains, while the cities fur- nish the opportunities for them to expand and reach their full stature.
If the country schools were as well equipped with appliances as are the city schools, they would outrank them in many re-
91
TOWN OF ACTON.
spects. I have never regretted that I was born in the country, although I must confess that I have at times experienced the lack of logical training in youth, so essential to a complete edu- cation. I have always had a great deal of sympathy for the school children of our cities, whose playground is the narrow and often crowded street, and whose opportunities for contact with nature, and for expansion in every direction are reduced to a minimum. As a rule the children who enter the city schools di- rect from the country towns, although deficient in some of the essentials of training, generally show a scope of mind which en- ables them to make rapid strides, as soon as they get a fair start.
You have built good school-houses, and, I doubt not you em- ploy the best teachers. Do you look into the schoolroom often enough to assure yourselves on this point ? Nothing encourages the teachers more, or makes them more faithful, than for you to see and appreciate what they are doing.
It is sometimes the case that parents will stand aloof and criticise the management of the schools, when a closer acquaint- ance and intimacy would assure them that everything was as it should be. The school committee, who are supposed to be al- ways in sympathetic touch with the needs of the schools, are not unfrequently blamed for attending to their duties too conscien- tiously.
Again, the child comes home from school and begins to show forth his newly acquired knowledge. The parents listen, and are not quite satisfied. Somehow things are different from what they used to be when they went to school, and therefore they be- gin to find fault, forgetting that the world is moving onward, and that the schools must change their methods of teaching if they are to keep pace with the swiftly advancing tide of improve- ments.
Parents have occasionally said to me, "You do not do the problems in arithmetic in the same way they used to do them when I went to school, for whenever I try to assist my boy at home he says, 'that isn't right, the teacher doesn't allow us to do them that way.' "
I sometimes hear the complaint, (not in recent years, how- ever), " My child has been to school several weeks and has not
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SCHOOL REPORT
been allowed to use a book once." Also, " My child has been taught to read before learning the alphabet."
In reply I would say, " I think you will find everything all right. We do not teach school in just the way in which you have been the most familiar. Wait awhile and see how things come out."
It is better, I think, to assume that the teacher is in the right until we are fully assured that she is in the wrong, and then speak with her.
So, too, in matters of discipline, before entering complaint, look into the schoolroom, talk with the teacher, and be sure you have a just cause. I venture the assertion that not one person in one hundred could exercise the patience and the discretion which the trained teacher is called upon to use every day she teaches school.
Allow me to state also that it is my candid belief, from long experience, that the children in our best schools of to-day acquire more real and practical knowledge in the first three years of their school lives than they obtained in five years, thirty years ago.
You have a good high school, (and I am told, a good princi- pal, too), which you support freely and generously, even at some sacrifice. Do you look in upon it occasionally to see that you are getting what you are paying for ? Do you give it a chance to do its best ? How about the appliances and books of reference. In what condition is the laboratory, physical and chemical ? Is there opportunity for individual experiments, or must each pupil depend upon the text-books and the experiments of the teacher ? If so, your children are losing three-fourths of the value of their science instruction, and, in this respect, are no better off than the students of thirty years ago.
Science is now ranked as among the most useful and practi- cal of all the studies. I said a moment ago to the graduates that they were born in an age of great events. I heard a great deal in my youth of the seven great wonders of the world. We do not hear so much about them now-a-days, for they are not to be compared with the wonders of this day and generation.
As I have stood on the Brooklyn bridge, stretched in mid-air across the East River, and viewed its myriads of cables, large and small, its mass of humanity, its teams of traffic, and the swiftly
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TOWN OF ACTON.
moving cable cars, the Colossus of Rhodes, or the pyramids and the sphynx of Egypt sank into insignificance in comparison. Scarcely less wonderful are the intricacies of the modern printing press as represented in the rooms of a large daily newspaper, where, as by magic, the type is set, an electrotype taken, the pa- pers printed, cut, folded and counted, and the type distributed again, by automatic process, and all with a rapidity and precision that is indeed marvelous.
The electric railway and other appliances of electricity are wonders too great for comprehension. The mysterious power which moves the wheels is likewise an instrument of instant death unless harnessed aright. We stand amazed before that knowledge which is able to harness it with even greater safety than we harness the horse, and make it subservient to man in so many ways. Nor does wonder cease when we contemplate that, whereas one to two thousand volts are sufficient to kill a man in- stantly, a shock of fifty thousand volts may be received with ab- solute immunity from danger.
The study of science makes it possible for the boy or girl to have a part in shaping these great events, but in order that it may become of the greatest practical importance, there must be appara- tus sufficient for each pupil to operate for himself, and an ade- quate teaching force. One teacher can hardly fill the chairs of science, literature, and the classics.
Our modern teaching expects the individual to do things himself as soon as he comes to school, for it is the only way to make him think, self reliant and original. To this end we sur- round him with such influences and appliances as will lead him to observe, compare, and draw conclusions. He begins his lessons in science soon after his first lessons in reading, and holds to them throughout his entire course.
This principle we attempt to apply to every branch of learn- ing, so far as we can. The science of grammar with its rules for parsing now gives place, very largely, to practice in writing and speaking good English, and to an acquaintance with the litera- ture of our best authors.
The study of geography is the last to be severed from the traditions of the past, and I found it one of the most difficult
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SCHOOL REPORT
tasks I ever undertook. The same old form of recitation, of mem_ orizing text, locating cities, and map drawing prevail in nine- tenths of the schools of the country. But there is a movement on foot to put even this subject on the laboratory plan. The correct principle in all teaching is to see that the child has clear ideas of things themselves, that he makes the symbols for himself, and that he uses these symbols in acquiring new knowledge.
The children of my city now take their first lesson in geogra- phy out-doors. There they learn from direct observation what hill is, the slope of a hill, water-parting, valley, river, basin, plain, ocean, etc., etc. They study the whole topography of Chelsea, mould it with sand on tables provided for the purpose, make a map of it, putting in the proper shade lines and contours for hills, and indicate the action of water which falls in the form of rain and snow. They are taught the uses of the wind vane anl ther- mometer, and the effect of winds, heat and cold, thus forming at the start habits of observing correctly, and stating correctly the facts observed. This is made the basis of their future knowledge of the world, which is treate.l as the special home of man and the environment in which his development takes place.
Such kind of teaching requires a great deal of apparatus in the way of maps, charts, globes, photographs, pictures, models, etc. The ordinary flat wall maps were found to be of little use, because they represented so little that was intelligible to children. We therefore obtained from W. E. Howell, of Washington, D.C., a model of Massachusetts which gave, in bird's-eye view, a per- fect representation of the topography of the state, in raised sur. face, showing the hills, mountains, valleys, rivers, etc., as they exist, which well supplemented the study of Chelsea.
The next step would have been to obtain a model of the United States, but as this is very expensive, we sent abroad and obtained a set of wall maps which had the proper shading and slope lines, which the children had been taught to interpret. Take, for instance, the country of Switzerland: its topography (which you know to be very mountainous), is as surely, though not as clearly, shown as that from the model of Massachusetts. The rivers and lakes are seen at a glance, and could be located and even drawn from the shading. They see that the banks of the Rhone are high and steep, extending up the sides of moun-
95
TOWN OF ACTON.
tains. From facts learned about Chelsea, (they have observed the water running down the streets in heavy rain storms, and have been taught the different kinds of soil, and common miner- als,) they are easily led to understand that a large amount of soil is annually washed down the slopes into the river, and deposited along the banks where the valley stretches out, and some is car- ried into Lake Geneva; that thus, near its mouth, a large plain was formed which made possible the beautiful city of Geneva. The lake itself is noted for its great depth aud transparency.
They learn that the silt which the water washes into the river is full of bits of mica, and that it is the mica which gives the lake its peculiar transparency. Pictures and photographs of the region, showing the mountains, river, city, men and their cus- toms, all make an impression on the mind which it is not easy to eradicate. It is the next thing to an actual journey of investi- gation.
How much more real and practical is such instruction than the old method of recitation, such as, " The River Rhone rises in among the Alps Mountains, flows in a southwesterly direction, and empties into the Mediterranean Sea," and there leaves the matter.
This is only one phase of a very great subject, which I have allowed myself to dwell upon at some length in order to show the great value of proper appliances to help the children compete successfully with the world as they will find it.
A little money expended judiciously for apparatus will go a great way. The superintendent whom you have chosen to give value and practicability to the instruction in your schools, is well posted as to their greatest needs, and allow me to urge you to en- courage him in his work by adopting his suggestions, as far as you feel that you can afford it.
I am not unmindful of the limitations of the country towns where there is no great amount of wealth, nor of the fact that you have already made immense strides in advance of where you were a few years ago.
The state ought, by right, come to the aid of the country towns, and I believe she will before long. California has solved this phase of the problem by providing for the entire support, doing it cheerfully and generously, and Pennsylvania has ap-
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SCHOOL REPORT
proached it by appropriating $5,500,000 yearly. She has appro- priated more for education in the past six years than in the pre- ceding fifty years.
Centralizing the schools is now considered to be the greatest advance in recent years. By this plan all the pupils are conveyed by carriage, at public expense, to the central village. There are in Massachusetts one hundred and seventy-eight towns in which the pupils are so conveyed, and at an expense of over fifty thou- sand dollars.
It is claimed that by this means it is possible to have a first class system of graded schools, with best appliances; that there is a saving of expense ; that the attendance is greatly improved and that tardiness is entirely overcome. Whether this arrange- ment is best for Acton has doubtless been brought to your attention.
The town of Revere finds it for her interest, financially and educationally, to send her high school pupils to the Chelsea high school, some sixty or more, paying a tuition of sixty-five dollars each per annum, or about four thousand dollars in all.
You have all heard more or less about " The Little Red School house." It has been sung in song, made the battle-cry for- inspiring patriotism, and is even used for advertising schemes. Except as it is used as the symbol for the public school-the country towns perhaps being considered as presenting the best. type of true Americanism-it has no significance. In every other respect the red school house is a myth, or at most but a sentiment. The red school houses of my boyhood days, or as they may be seen at the present day scattered along the highways of the more rural sections of New England, are cheerless and comfortless, within and without, with nothing neat or attractive, or aught about them to inspire æsthetic taste or high ideals.
People may go into ecstacies, if they choose, about the old- fashioned houses and furniture of our great-grandfathers, but as for me, I prefer the luxurious comfort of modern things. Life at. best is but a struggle, and full of hardships, requiring a full third of the span for a preparation for the active duties of the remain- der. Let us shorten the time of preparation as much as we can by increasing the facilities, in the hope and expectation of making the harvest-time one of increased usefulness, prosperity, and hap- piness.
TOWN WARRANT.
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. MIDDLESEX, SS. To either of the Constables of the Town of Acton, in the County of Middlesex, Greeting :
You are hereby required in the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to notify the inhabitants of the town of Acton, qualified to vote in elections and town affairs, to assemble in the Town Hall, in said town, on MONDAY, THE SIXTH DAY OF APRIL, A. D., 1896, at nine o'clock A. M., then and there to act upon the following articles as they may think proper, viz :
ARTICLE 1. To choose a Moderator to preside at said meeting.
ART. 2. To see if the town will accept the reports of the Selectmen, Overseers of Poor, School Committee, and other town officers.
ART. 3. To choose all necessary town officers and commit- ties, and fix salaries.
ART. 4. To see if the town will accept of the jury list as revised by the selectmen.
ART. 5. To see if the town will vote to sell the school house in the south-east part of the town, or act anything thereon.
ART. 6. To see if the town will authorize the treasurer, with the approval of the selectmen, to borrow money for the town, if necessary, in anticipation of the taxes for the current year.
ART. 7. To see if the town will accept the endowment of the Acton Memorial Library by the Hon. William A. Wilde with the conditions attached, or act anything thereon.
ART. 8. To see if the town will vote to sell the Town Farm, or act anything thereon.
ART. 9. To see if the town will vote to buy another farm for the care of the poor.
ART. 10. To see if the town will vote to lay out $500 for repairs on town farm buildings.
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TOWN WARRANT
ART. 11. To see if the town will vote to discontinue all the pieces of roads in front of Livermore Bros.' House south of Lowell road except the one leading to the town farm road, or act anything thereon.
ART. 12. To see if the town will vote to straighten and repair the road leading from the Puffer Place ( so called ) to the Acton road as petitioned to and laid out by the Road Commis- sioners.
ART. 13. To see what amount of money the town will raise for the repairing of roads and bridges the present ycar.
ART. 14. To see if the town will raise the sum of $500 for the repair of the highway between the houses of Patrick O'Neil in East Acton and Anson Piper in South Acton, or take any action thereon.
ART. 15. To see if the town will allow a discount on taxes paid on or before Nov. 1, or act anything thereon.
ART. 16. To see what amount of money the town will raise for the support of Memorial Library the present year.
ART. 17. To hear and act upon the report of any committee chosen to report at this meeting.
ART. 18. To see what amount of money the town will raise for the support of schools the present year, or act anything thereon.
ART. 19. To see what amount of money the town will raise for school supplies the present year.
ART. 20. To see if the town will maintain street lamps the present year, or act anything thereon. 103
ART. 21. To vote " Yes " or " No " in answer to the question, "Shall licenses be granted for the sale of intoxicating liquors in the town the present year ? "
ART. 22. To see if the town will appropiate a sum of money for the enforcement of the liquor law.
ART. 23. To see if the town will appropriate a sum of money for the due observance of Memorial Day, or act anything thereon.
ART. 24. To see what action the town will take in reference to tramps.
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TOWN WARRANT.
ART. 25. To see if the town will vote to build a piece of road from the road leading from West Acton to Stow at a point near the residence of Levi W. Stevens, past A. F. Blanchard's new houses to the road leading from the Leland place to the Boxboro road, as petitioned to and laid out by the Road Com- missioners, or act anything thereon.
ART. 26. To see if the town will vote to build a piece of road from the road leading from West to South Acton at a point nearly opposite Hall Bros.' Mill, to the new road near the residence of John Vose, as petitioned to and laid out by the Road Com- missioners, or act anything thereon.
ART. 27. To see if the town will vote to buy a stone crusher, or act anything thereon.
ART. 28. To see what amount of money the town raise to defray town charges the present year.
ART. 29. To see if the town will vote to repair and paint the inside of the Town Hall, or act anything thereon.
ART. 30. To see if the town will vote to enlarge the school grounds in South Acton, or act anything thereon.
ART. 31. To see if the town will raise the sum of $200 to repair the road leading from South Acton, past the residence of W. S. Warren to Fletcher corner, or act anything thereon.
ART. 32. To see if the town will raise the sum of $250 to repair the road from the residence of E. H. Cutler to the turn- pike road, or act anything thereon.
And you are hereby directed to serve this warrant by posting up copies attested by you in the following places : One in each of the Post Offices in the town, one at each of the Railroad Stations in the town, one in each of the stores of Tuttles, Jones & Wetherbee, M. E. Taylor & Co., H. A. Littlefield, C. H. Mead & Co., one at the Magog House and one in the office of F. J. Hastings & Co., seven days at least before the time appointed for holding said meeting.
Hereof fail not and make due return of this warrant with
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TOWN WARRANT.
your doings thereon, to the Selectmen or Town Clerk, on or before the time for holding said meeting.
Given under our hands in Acton this eighteenth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-six.
E. FAULKNER CONANT, DANIEL J. WETHERBEE, ISAIAH HUTCHINS,
Selectmen of Acton.
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
TOWN OFFICERS
OF THE
TOWN OF ACTON, MASS.,
FROM
MARCH 12, 1896, TO MARCH 12, 1897,
TOGETHER WITH THE
SCHOOL REPORT.
RATED
OZNI
-1735.
ACTON
AELECTRI CO
- DONTON,
ACTON, MASS. : THE ENTERPRISE PRINTING COMPANY. 1897.
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
TOWN OFFICERS
OF THE
TOWN OF ACTON, MASS.,
FROM
MARCH 12, 1896, TO MARCH 12, 1897, TOGETHER WITH THE
SCHOOL REPORT®
RATED
-1735.
ACTON.
ACTON, MASS. : THE ENTERPRISE PRINTING COMPANY. 1897.
Town Officers = 1896.
Town Clerk. Horace F. Tuttle.
Treasurer. Jonathan K. W. Wetherbee.
Selectmen.
E. Faulkner Conant. Daniel J. Wetherbee. Isaiah Hutchins.
· Assessors.
Anson C. Piper. James B. Tuttle. Wm. F. Stevens.
Overseers of the Poor.
Lyman Tuttle. Edwin C. Parker. Moses A. Reed.
Collector of Taxes. Wm. F. Stevens. Road Commissioners.
Wm. Kingsley, 3 years. Nahum Littlefield, 2 years. Herman A. Gould, 1 year.
Auditor. Hiram J. Hapgood.
School Committee.
Charles J. Williams, 3 years. Isaiah Hutchins, 2 years.
F. A. Houston, 1 year. Horace F. Tuttle, 1 year.
James Kingsley.
Constables. Edwin A. Phalen. Win. F. Stevens. Reuben L. Reed.
4
ANNUAL REPORTS
John Fletcher.
Cemetery Committee. Levi W. Stevens. Horace F. Tuttle.
Fence Viewers .
Daniel H. Farrar.
Reuben L. Reed.
Surveyors of Wood, Lumber, Etc.
Edward F. Richardson. Jonathan P. Fletcher. Herbert T. Clark. Edgar H. Hall.
Registrars of Voters. Julian Tuttle, 3 years. Frank H. Whitcomb. James McGreen. Horace F. Tuttle, Clerk. Trustees of Memorial Library.
Luther Conant. Moses Taylor. Adelbert Mead.
Daniel J. Wetherbee. Delette H. Hall. Hiram J. Hapgood.
Chosen by the Town-
Chas. J. Williams, 3 years. Wm. D. Tuttle, 2 years. L. A. Hesselton, 1 year.
5
TOWN OF ACTON.
Treasurer's Report.
TOWN OF ACTON, in account with J. K. W. WETHERBEE,
Treasurer.
1897.
DR.
March 12. To cash paid, State tax, $1,050 00
66 County tax, 1,506 17
66 on Selectmen's
orders, 29,355 31
Balance due the town,
847 90
$32,759 38
CR. 1896
March 12. By balance in the treasury, $631 65
Received from First National bank of Ayer, borrowed money, 5,000 00
Howard B. White, admr., borrowed money, 3,000 00
Arthur F. Blanchard, lic. to slaughter, 1 00
James Hill, license to slaughter, 1 00
Horace F. Tuttle, on account of su- pervision of schools, 375 00
Asaph Parlin, guardian, board of Annie U. Parlin at hospital, 162 03 State Treasurer, for inspection of animals, 20 00
6
ANNUAL REPORTS
Rec'd, State Treasurer, corporation tax, $760 01
National bank tax, 257 88
.. Military aid, chap. 279, acts 1889, 116 25 State aid, chap. 301, acts 1889, 555 00
66 66
66
6 income Mass. School fund, 262 58
Mrs. Leland, tuition at Centre school, one term, 6 00
Lyman Tuttle, storage at Centre school house, 2 00
Geo. G. Keith, stoves from South school house, 24 00
Samuel Jones, Jr., school house and land in south-east district, 126 50
County Treasurer on acct. dog tax, 194 94
J. Devane, for road cleanings, 7 50
Lyman Tuttle, 5 cows sold from town farm, 164 50
Lyman Tuttle, apples sold, town farm, 276 07
66 horse
6!
75 00
66 66 milk 66
874 16
66 wood 6 66
45 25
66
pork
17 45
66 66 calves 6. 66
8 25
66 potatoes "
66 66 1 50
66
66
eggs 66
66
1 24
old iron "
66 1 12
John Fletcher, lots sold in Woodlawn
cemetery,
30 00
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