Town annual reports of the several departments for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1862-1866, Part 27

Author: Worcester (Mass.)
Publication date: 1862
Publisher: The City
Number of Pages: 1076

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Town annual reports of the several departments for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1862-1866 > Part 27

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).

The truant school has during the last year been placed upon an apparently permanent basis, as one of the recognized insti- tutions of the city. It is yet in its infancy, and will doubt- less reach a far greater degree of efficiency, and a better system than it has yet attained. Among all the acts which our position has enabled us to accomplish, there is no one upon which, I think, we can hereafter look back with greater satisfaction than upon this. It has necessarily been attended with more expense in establishing it, than will be necessary for its yearly maintainance, but I believe no one of the chari- ties of the city is more deserving of public sympathy and support.

Of that department of the government, the police, for whose acts and management, the responsibility rests more directly upon the mayor, than upon his associates of either branch of the council, delicacy and propriety perhaps should prevent me from speaking, in view of the issue so plainly made, and the verdict that was rendered at the recent election. nor would I upon my own account, but that justice may be done to others. The wisdom of my appointments if ques- tioned at all has already received a sufficient endorsement. The manner in which the duties of that department have been discharged, has ever received my entire and hearty approval. I have never asked anything that has not been promptly and thoroughly done; nor has anything been done or attempted, that I have had occasion to disclaim or censure. Instead of being a burden to carry along as in too many instances in the

past, this department under its able chief, has been to me a staff upon which I could lean for aid and support. Whether it could have done more for the moral welfare of the city, will only be known when a bolder and better officer than I, with the same instruments and opportunities, shall honestly make the attempt. For myself I am more than satisfied with a success beyond my hopes or expectations. In this as in the other departments of the government, the necessities of the times have compelled an increase of pay and salaries, and the cost of the police has been considerably increased over that of the preceding year.

The crowning act of your two years of official duty, will doubtless by all of you be considered the great work of fur- nishing our city with an abundant supply of pure soft water. When nearly two years ago, a petition was presented, once more asking of the city council, that measures should be taken to supply this want, who among you, and still less out- side of your number, looked forward to the consummation of this project in the short period of two years. Allowing no merely temporary expedients, of which yourselves had furnished the most valuable one by your improvements in and about Bell Pond in 1863, to be made the pretext for diverting you from your purpose, and fully realizing the magnitude and responsibility of the task, and the danger of delay, you seized and improved the favorable opportunity before it was lost, and probably forever lost to the city. A delay of six months would have added about fifty per cent. or $30,000 to the cost of the pipes which have already been laid, and the exception- al character of the last summer would have had a tendency to have increased an opposition which would probably have

proved fatal to the enterprise. The pipes are now in good working order. No break or fracture has occurred or is like to occur, and there is not, nor has there been, any defect be- yond the ordinary leaks to which all new works of the kind are liable. The pipes are now, and for some time have been subjected to their heaviest strain. The water has been in common use through the city for a period of two weeks, and the increased power and efficiency of the acqueduct as a means of protection against fire has been satisfactorily tested. The whole expense of the new aqueduct and its extensions, to this date has been $100,539.57, of which sum, $90,800 has been paid. Your appropriation, you will recollect, for the main work was $110,000 and the estimate for the additional distributing pipes was $9000. There is due to the depart- ment for wood sold, pipes laid for the U. S. Government, &c. $2863.92, making the whole sum placed at the disposal of the committee $121,853.92. The completion of the work as originally proposed ought not and probably will not exceed the unexpended balance of $21,000.

I congratulate you, the members of the city government of 1863 and 1864, that you have thus associated your names with this the grandest scheme of public improvement which our city has yet been called to undertake. I deem myself fortunate indeed, to have been permitted to aid you in accom- plishing this important and beneficent work.

There are other matters of more or less importance which have engaged much of our time and thought during the year, which I will not occupy more of it to enumerate. A few words upon the financial condition of the city as we leave it, and I will relieve your patience.

By the large expenditures of the city upon the aqueduct and for bounties and state aid, the debt of the city has been, as was expected, largely increased during the year. It amounted on the first of January last to $214,815. It has been increased on account of the acqueduct, $90,000

For bounties, say, 30,000

For state aid advanced, 12,000

$132,000

Total debt at present time, $347,000.

The amount due to the city from the state treasury, being the tax upon the stock held by our citizens in corporations, amounting to about $21,000 will pay all floating debts and leave something to be applied towards the reduction of the old debt. There is $1500 in the state treasury deposited for the purpose of procuring volunteers. The sum of $51,000 is also due for state aid, making the actual debt of the city about $290,000.

GENTLEMEN OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN:

For the expression of your approbation of the manner in which I have discharged my official duties in this chair and elsewhere, contained in the vote you have been pleased to pass, I ask you to receive my sincere thanks. For the gen- erous support you have at all times given me, for the confi- dence and trust you have reposed in me, I have sometimes thought, too unquestioning and unlimited, I am most truly grateful. It can be said of us as was said of that first and far abler body of men who organized our present form of municipal government, and laid deep and strong the founda- tions of our prosperity as a city, "that we have passed upon

the most important matters of public concern " probably more important than any they were called to act upon, "with hard- ly more than in one or two instances a divided vote, and without a single note of discordance" through our entire two years. I am equally happy to add, that in all our official intercourse with those who have had charge of the other great departments of the government, the fire department, the police, the highways and the schools, and equally with the civil and military authorities of the state and nation, the same entire harmony and cordiality and co-operation has al- ways existed. While strife and contention and angry party feeling have pervaded the entire community, scarcely sparing any place the most sacred, or person the most obscure or ex- alted, the spirit of peace and good will, mutual respect and entire forgetfulness of self or party, have characterized your every act and word. In parting with you and from all with whom I have been so intimately and pleasantly associated in duty, I can only add the expression of my wishes for your and their continued prosperity and happiness.

REPORT OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE,

FOR THE YEAR 1864.

The Superintendent respectfully submits the Annual Re- port of the Public Schools of the city of Worcester for the year 1864.

EFFECT OF THE WAR UPON THE NUMBER OF SCHOLARS.

The public schools felt the effects of the protracted civil war at a later period and perhaps in a less degree than either the business or the currency of the country, both of which are so vitally connected with the life and success of the nation as to exhibit their sensitiveness at the sound of the first cannon.

The calling of a large number of men from the productive industrial pursuits to be consumers in the army has largely increased the demand for labor, and correspondingly increased the wages which labor can command. So that while the army has made a draft upon labor, labor has made a draft upon the schools for such as can be made useful in the shop, or the store or on the farm. The increased cost of living and the en- hanced price of labor, have conspired to draw from the schools an unusually large number of lads and girls who under ordi- nary circumstances would have continued their studies.

On account of the demands of patriotism to which many young men from both the high and the grammar schools

have nobly responded, and of the necessity of some families to increase their scanty and insufficient income by what their children can earn-for the paucity of laborers has made the services of children acceptable where only adults were former- ly employed, the schools in the higher grades though not seriously diminished, have not increased in their usual ratio.

EFFECT OF THE WAR UPON THE COST OF MAINTAINING THE SCHOOLS.

Another effect of the war upon the schools has been to largely increase the expense of maintaining them. With an advance in labor of more than fifty per cent., and in building materials of more than a hundred, the repairs of the school property have been as few as the strictest enconomy would permit. No work has been anticipated, and none has been postponed to which delay would add expense. The salaries of the teachers were wisely and necessarily revised and enlarged at the commencement of the year. This advance together with the salaries of the few teachers added to the corps dur- ing the year, has swelled the item of salaries from $27,619.59 in the year 1863, to $34,445.34 in the year 1864.

IMPROVEMENTS MADE IN SCHOOL BUILDINGS.

Permanent improvements have been made in the Walnut street house where the need of suitable dressing rooms has always been felt, and has given frequent occasion for many public spirited citizens to desire the erection of a new and more commodious house for the high school. By the expenditure of less than $500 two convenient and beautiful dressing rooms have been constructed in the basement and supplied with sinks, mirrors and other appropriate furniture.

Extensive improvements have also been made in the base- ment of the Pleasant street house, which was built without a cellar on an insecure foundation. The outer walls were firm, but the basement floor rested upon timbers in close proximity to the damp ground which hastened the decay of the timber, threatened the downfall of the upper floors, and awakened fears for the safety of the children. Under the direction of the committee on school houses, the south and most danger- ous half of the basement was thoroughly repaired. The miry basin of clay was filled with cinders, and a substantial brick floor laid, adding greatly to the convenience as well as to the security of the building. The subjection of the north base- ment to the same treatment would secure to that side all that has been gained on the other with the additional advantage of converting the present badly ventilated, half lighted and very contracted school room into a convenient and healthy one.

The yard of the Summer street house has been improved by relaying in the most substantial manner the eastern wall under the direction of Mr. Edward Earle, a member of the school board, whose estate adjoins that of the school and who paid one-half the cost of the improvement. A new . front fence is needed, and the irregular northern line should be straightened and a substantial. fence placed upon it.

The old house in East Worcester,-long neglected with the expectation that a new house would enable the committee to dispense with its use, has, on finding that it must still be used, been repaired and the external wood work painted.

No other extraordinary expenses have been incurred. To postpone to a period when labor and materials will be less ex-

pensive all improvements which the exigencies of the time do not imperatively demand has been the uniform policy of the department from the commencement of the war.

The nine new school rooms added in the year 1863, relieved the pressure upon some of the grades and reduced to a reasonable size all the schools except the primaries, which in the south part of the city are still crowded to excess. The organization of a new one it will be hardly possible to postpone beyond the next annual examination. Where a room can be found for it is a problem yet unsolved. All the rooms belonging to the city and those leased in Temple street are already filled.

SCHOOL ROOMS NEEDED.

In the annual report for the year 1863, the erection of a house of the size and style of the new one in East Worcester at, or near, the foot of Providence street, where numerous densely populated streets converge, was recommended. Other municipal enterprises of great importance and the critical state of the country postponed action on the recommendation; but all that was then said in its favor still holds good, and, moreover the recent conversion of the late female college into a military hospital has rendered the Providence street school house nearly inaccessible,-the street by which it is approach- ed being entirely closed,-and its close proximity to the hospital wards has made it almost untenable. A new house at the foot of the hill would enable the city to dispense with the Temple street house for which $300 per year is paid and obviate the neces- sity of sending so many young children into the immediate vicinity of the military hospital where their eyes must look on scenes and their ears hear language which will greatly

impair if not wholly neutralize the moral influences of the schools.

The enlargement of the Northville house was recommended in the report for the year 1863. Early in the year 1864 a petition from the inhabitants of that district asking for an- other school room was laid before the school board and the request was endorsed by them and sent to the city council, where action upon it was delayed so long that the proposition must be considered by the city council for the year 1865.

The Burncoat Plain house is most unfortunately located. Its surroundings are not such as any good parent would be willing that his child should become familiar with, and no parent who desires to keep his child's mind pure would hesi- tate how to answer the question whether the educational advantages of the school can compensate for the moral effect of the scenes which are daily witnessed in that vicinity. One of two things ought at once to be effected,-either an imme- diate moral purification of the neighborhood, or the removal of the school house to a less objectionable locality.

THE NEED OF WELL DEFINED DISTRICTS.

A serious defect exists in the location of the school houses in the centre district to which no immediate remedy can be applied-the want of well defined districts within the limits of which there should be schools of every grade, in which every child living within the district could find the school to which he should belong without the trouble of seeking from the superintendent a ticket of admission to be renewed on every change of residence and after every protracted absence.

In most cities each ward has within itself schools enough

of every grade for all the children of that ward, and the resi- dents of one ward cannot attend the schools of another. A different policy prevailed in Worcester when her school sys- tem was in its infancy and the defects are becoming more apparent and the labor more onerous as the city enlarges. It was comparatively a small matter to assign each child to his appropriate school when the schools were only twenty and the scholars less than a thousand, but the work becomes formidable when the schools are seventy- three and the scholars five thousand. An important step towards the adjustment of these difficulties would be the erection of a new house sufficiently large to accommodate one school of every grade in the fourth ward, one of the most populous wards in the city and having at present no school in it above a primary. If every child in the city knew to what district he belonged and that he could not attend a public school out of that district, much of the annoyance which now arises from the personal preferences and prejudices of parents by which they are induced to attempt to get their children into the school of their favorite teacher, or out of the school where the teacher has wittingly or unwittingly given offence, would cease, and both parents and children would be delivered from the temptation to disregard the regulations of the schools in the expectation that misconduct in one would open the way into another where the offence, if not unknown, would be either tolerated or ignored.

CHANGE IN THE COURSE OF STUDY ; READING AND SPELLING.

The most prevalent defect in the schools of all grades has for a long time been in the reading and spelling. The rea-

sons were noticed at length in the report for the year 1863, namely, imposing upon the child at too early an age other studies,-geography and arithmetic etc.,-to the neglect of the spelling book and the reader. The school board have now applied an effective remedy to that evil. Geography, ex- cept as it is orally taught, is now excluded from the primary schools and is allowed in the secondary only in a form which the pupils may understand and enjoy.

The change has infused new life and energy into the schools below the grammar grade, greatly improved the reading and spelling, and dissipated from the minds of the children their very natural dread of the hard words and unintelligible sen- tences of the geography by substituting the living teacher for the dead book as a medium of instruction.

ORAL TEACHING.

The introduction of oral teaching is likely to affect the teachers as favorably as the scholars. Some, who thought they could not teach orally, have, on making the attempt, discovered themselves to be the happy possessors of very desirable, but too long latent, talents; and the attempt has developed a skill in imparting instruction, in awakening the interest of their schools and in exciting their pupils to think which few of them thought they had.

But in this, as in all desirable arts, there are of course ex- ceptions. We by no means assume that all persons can become eminent and accomplished teachers, for, like poets, the teacher "is born, not made." Two classes of persons always fail, those who cannot, and those who will not. Those, however gifted, who are so thoroughly convinced they

cannot do a given thing that they will not try to do it, are no more likely to bequeath to posterity the rich legacy of noble deeds and splendid achievements than they to whom God has given no talents.

WRITING.

Writing taught by a competent teacher giving weekly lessons in all the schools above the primary is a new feature in this city, introduced in the summer term with a provision for its continuance through the school year. The plan of the committee requires the teachers to make themselves familiar with the system taught, so that at the close of the year they may be able, the writing master being no longer employed, to assume the entire charge of the writing, each in their own school. If the plan is successful and all the teachers do be- come qualified to instruct their classes thoroughly in the adopt- ed system, a great and permanent good will flow from the present policy. The cost will be limited to one year ;- the fruits will be gathered in many.

VOCAL MUSIC.

The experiment of employing a teacher of vocal music in the higher grades was made in the year 1863 with such suc- cess as to warrant its continuance this year. A vocal concert in Mechanics Hall by the children connected with the public schools would have closed the summer term if the hall had then been open for public use, but the changes which were being made in the hall for the reception of the new organ postponed the proposed concert to a more "convenient season."

· Near the close of the fall term, however, by the generosity of the hall committee, in acknowledgment of the distinguish- ed services of Messrs. Abraham Firth and Dr. Merrick Bemis, warm friends of the schools and members of the board, in securing the organ for the hall, the scholars in all the public schools, half at a time, were permitted to enjoy an organ con- cert. Between the organ pieces were interspersed several choruses sung by a choir of more than six-hundred juvenile voices.

The committee on music deem it both possible and desirable to teach the elements of music in the public schools. Some parents who adopt the utilitarian view of education which excludes all studies which may not directly contribute to practical usefulness, and may not be used in the business of life, and who think their children have no musical taste or talents, prefer that the elements of that science should not be taught in the public schools. Others, however, hold that music is a science which all may learn as easily as arithmetic or grammar and that the study of it is as useful a mental discipline as the study of any other science, and while the number who will become proficient in the art may be limited, it will not be more limited than the number who will excel in literature or the natural sciences; and that in practical utility it will bear comparison with any of the other studies in the public schools.

AGE OF ADMISSION.

An important change in the rule which fixes the age at which a child may be admitted into the public schools has been made the last year. The admissible age, which for a

long time has been fixed at four years, has been wisely chan- ged to five. If a still greater age had been fixed upon the children would lose nothing on the score of education. The less a child goes to school before he is seven years of age the more will he generally know and the better will he be fitted to learn at ten. The physical constitution of the child de- mands all the first years of life for its own peculiar and symmetrical development. The mental development comes later and bears to the physical such a relation as the blossom bears to the stalk and the acorn to the oak. For their own good children at the early age of four or five years ought to be excluded from the school room,-ought not to be imprison- ed in a narrow chair five or six hours a day, their little limbs aching to run, and every constrained muscle in a fever to be free and express itself in intense activity. The only reason urged for earlier admission is that the school furnishes a place of security for the infant and relieves the mother of its care, a reason which, if valid, would convert the sub-primary schools into infantile nurseries and make their cost chargeable to the department of paupers or of public streets with quite as much propriety as to that of schools.

The change in the rule has favorably affected the schools by diminishing the number in attendance and giving to those that remain all the labor and care of the teachers. The educator may profit by the lesson which the farmer has learned, that the thorough cultivation of a few acres is more profitable than the partial cultivation of many.

The public shares with the schools the benefit of the change. The health of the children is better cared for, the ventilation of the school room is improved, and the children do not

learn the idle and listless habits which are usually formed by being unemployed in early life and which, when once formed, are not easily overcome.

GOVERNMENT AND DISCIPLINE.

The government and discipline of a school make greater demands on the head and heart of the instructor than the ! mere teaching. The number whose knowledge is ample to conduct a recitation is large, but the number who can govern well and discipline wisely is small. The defects in the order of the school room and in the general conduct of the scholars are perhaps as often to be attributed to the weakness and in- capacity of the teacher as to the perverseness and insubordi- nation of the scholars. Any person may have a demonstra- tion of this by observing how a school appears under the charge of a first class teacher and disciplinarian, and how its aspect is changed when an inferior teacher is placed at its head.

It is to be regreted that the principles of school government receive so little attention and are so imperfectly understood. An indifferent teacher differs from a good one as a politician from a statesman ;- the one is the creature of the hour-of policy and expedients, intent on meeting the present exigency with the least possible immediate inconvenience and cost, while the other decides the case which rises to-day in accordance with principles which were tested and found immovable yesterday and which will be equally sound to-morrow. The control of a school is not always the government of it. The former may result from art and management, or mere physical force; the latter only from mental vigor and moral influence;

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.

Town annual reports of the several departments for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1862-1866, Part 27

Author: Worcester (Mass.) Publication date: 1862 Publisher: The City Number of Pages: 1076

Author: Worcester (Mass.)
Publication date: 1862
Publisher: The City
Number of Pages: 1076