USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Town annual reports of the several departments for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1878 > Part 3
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WORCESTER SCHOOLS.
EXTRACT FROM THE MAYOR'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
SCHOOLS.
During the present school year, the ordinary increase of scholars, together with the transfer of pupils from private schools and places of private instruction, owing in some meas- ure, perhaps, to the stringency of the times, has had the effect to fill our public schools to nearly, or quite their full capacity. In some portions of the city they are crowded almost to over- flowing, and in all parts are full, to say the least. During the past season a new building for school purposes has been erected and completed on Winslow street, and is now occupied. Addi- tional accommodations have been provided on Grafton street; and at Lake View, so called, a new building is now in process of erection. While it is very certain that, at no distant day, it will become necessary to provide further accommodations to meet the wants of a rapidly increasing population, it is con- fidently hoped that nothing further will be required during the present year, beyond what can be furnished temporarily.
The magnitude of the appropriation required from year to year for the support and maintenance of our schools, almost or quite the largest in any one department of our government, impelled me, a year since, to call the attention of those having the disbursement of it in charge, to the importance of their trust. I gave expression to some opinions as to the manner in which our schools were conducted, the apparent results which they had produced, and were then producing, and the results which, as it seemed to me, the people had a right to expect from them. These opinions represented my honest and well settled convic- tions ; and in the discussion of a matter of so much importance committed to our care and management, I deemed it not only
29
EXTRACT FROM THE MAYOR'S ADDRESS.
my prerogative, but my duty, to give utterance to them. It is a matter of satisfaction to me to know that the expression of them has met with a hearty response, from all quarters, from those who are most interested in the success of our schools, and who are looking to them as the most powerful agencies for pro- moting or retarding the healthy growth of every element of usefulness in the young, in whom rest the hopes, and upon whom depend the strength, of the future. Those opinions, then expressed, I have seen no reason to change. They have met with no serious opposition, but on the other hand have been practically adopted. As a consequence, there has been a marked improvement in the use of the time at the disposal of those in the immediate charge of our schools. More attention has been given to studies of a more practical and valuable character, to the exclusion of those more ornamental and unimportant, and, when I say more practicable and valuable, I mean more valua- ble to those who, from their very circumstances in life, can, at the best, have the benefit of only a partial course in the schools, and who have need of being taught in those things which will be of most value to them in the ordinary pursuits of life, and will best qualify them to become valuable members of society. And I can only hope that those opinions will lead to further discussion, and that our schools may feel and show further good effects from such discussion.
There is no one subject, perhaps, which interests and engages the attention of so large a proportion of our people-which comes so nearly home to each one of them-as this self-same question of schools and education. And there is no reason why it should not be so. For, when we reflect for a moment, that in less than a score of years, the boys and girls in our schools to-day, will take the places we now occupy, that upon them and their acts, upon their intelligence and their virtue, will depend so much the permanence and value of our institutions and the prosperity and happiness of those in whom all our present hopes are centered, we feel and realize the reason of its being so. As we go on, each generation will demand a higher culture, a more general intelligence ; and it is fortunate that we are all willing and eager to do our part in laying the foundation for it. For, to-day, no parent in the ordinary walks of life is satisfied with
30
CITY DOCUMENT .- NO. 33.
giving his child the same advantages that were given to him. He is constantly seeking something higher and better for him. He feels an honest pride in every step which his child takes in advance of himself. He spares no, pains, hesitates at no sacri- fice, which can contribute towards giving that child an oppor- tunity for exploring fields of learning which he never dreamed of, much less entered.
Now, conceding this to be true, and I imagine there are few who will refuse their assent to it-the natural inference to be drawn is, that upon this question of schools and education, we are all animated by the same spirit, and are aiming at the same result -to ascertain, if possible, that system of education for the people which shall produce the best results, and that management of the schools which shall yield the largest and most satisfactory returns for the money which we so freely spend upon them.
But, in dealing with this question practically, there is one error into which we are liable to fall, and which we shall do well to guard against; and that is, when our schools are going on successfully and smoothly, giving us personally no trouble, with no challenge from any quarter as to the mode of their con- duct and management, we are too apt to come to the conclusion that they are models and cannot be improved upon. We pride ourselves upon their excellencies, and shut our eyes to their defects ; and nothing arouses us from this comfortable state of self-congratulation and self-satisfaction, into which we have suffered ourselves to be drawn, until we make the discovery, all at once, that we have been living upon our fancied reputation for excellence, while our neighbors have made rapid strides, and have far outstripped us in the matters of educational reform.
No system can be so perfect as to be above criticism ; and no one should be censured for making it. Let us rather listen to criticism, when made, and examine it. If it be deserved, let us profit by it, from whatever source it may come; if not, it can, at least, have done no real harm.
Before leaving this subject, upon which I have, perhaps, already spent too much time, I desire, at the risk of being con- sidered a revolutionist, to call your attention to one feature in our present scheme of common school education. I do it, not so much with the view of precipitating any radical change in the sys-
31
EXTRACT FROM THE MAYOR'S ADDRESS.
tem, as to that of taking some steps which may eventually lead to a modification of some of the more objectionable features of it.
The question to which I refer, and which I think deserves the deliberate, patient, intelligent and unprejudiced considera- tion of our school authorities, is, whether our graded schools, as such, and as they are now conducted and managed, have not, for all the purposes of the best popular education, in its largest and truest sense, proved substantially a failure. It is a question which, I am persuaded, must be met at no distant day ; and the more we shall have examined it, generally and in detail, and made ourselves acquainted with it, the better prepared shall we be to meet it.
That the system has some advantages, more particularly of an administrative character, will not be denied. It has the ability to deal with a larger number of scholars, in the same length of time, perhaps, than any other. But the dealing is not of the right kind. It is the pouring in, rather than the drawing out. It always crams, but rarely teaches. And the question which is now agitating the minds of some of our best educators is, whether the sacrifices demanded by it, are not too great for the benefits derived from it; whether there is not more lost in the quality of the teaching than there is gained in the quantity ; whether the whole system is not too mechanical, too artificial, dealing too much with formulas and too little with ideas; whether the attempt to apply the same treatment to different minds and different temperaments, the dull dragging down and impeding the bright and active, for the sake of carrying them along together in the same grade, is not worse than useless- positively ruinous; whether there is not great danger in the attempt to bring all diversities of gifts and talents which may be found in the different members of a school into one arbitrary line, for the purposes of a general treatment, applying to each and all the same inflexible and unyielding rule, and so incurring the risk of crushing out every trace of the natural and the true, in the pupil, and substituting the more shapely and comely, perhaps, but less desirable, and less attractive form of the artificial and the false ; whether, in brief, the process which the system calls for, has not the tendency, from its very character, to turn out from our schools mere machines, rather than think- ing, reasoning, and well educated men and women.
Superintendent's Report.
To His Honor the Mayor, and the School Board of Worcester :
In conformity to your regulations, I submit the following as my Eleventh Annual Report; and by these regulations this report, which it is the duty of the Superintendent to prepare, becomes the report of the School Board to the public, and the school authorities of the State.
ABSTRACT OF STATISTICS.
FOR THE YAER 1878.
I. POPULATION.
Population, Census of 1875, 49,317
Estimated Population, . 52,000
Children between the ages of five and fifteen, May, 1878, .
9,406
II. FINANCIAL.
Valuation, May, 1878,
$41,969,748 00
Decrease for the year,
37,069 07
City Debt, December, 1878, less Cash and Sinking Fund,
2,343,621 41
State, county, and city tax, 1878, Rate of taxation, .0154
674,062 11
Value of school houses and lots, 841,417 00
Other School property, .
55,197 40
* Ordinary expenses of Schools, 132,312 54
Per cent. of same to valuation, .0031
Per cent. of same to whole tax, .197
Repairs of school houses, furniture and stoves,
5,512 87
$137,825 41
* See detailed statement in Secretary's report.
33
SCHOOLS .- SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT.
Permanent improvements to school houses,
$1,613 94
New furniture, etc.,
388 80
Rents,
1,461 75
$3,464 49
Expended for all purposes,
$141,289 90
Charged by the Auditor,
980 84
Average cost per scholar for all schools, including ordinary repairs, ·
17 09
Same last year,
$18 88
Cost of Evening Schools,
2,097 88
Average per scholar,
7 47
Cost of Evening Drawing Schools,
601 10
Average per Scholar,
6 18
Cost of High School, Increase,
241 83
Average per scholar,
35 77
Decrease,
3 77
III. SCHOOL HOUSES.
Number occupied December, 1878, 36
Rooms, not including recitation rooms,
170
Rooms rented.
3
Drawing School rooms, recitation and Evening School rooms, additional,
6
Whole number of sittings:
In High School, 502 Additional space for, 97
Grammar Schools, Grades IX-VI, 2,034 .
Secondary Schools, Grades V and IV,
2,330
Primary Schools, Grades III, II, and I.
3,787
Suburban Schools,
344
IV. SCHOOLS.
High School, twelve rooms, .
1
Grammar rooms, Grades IX-VI, 43
Secondary rooms, Grades V-IV.
46
Primary rooms, Grades III, II, I.
70
Suburban Schools, 10
Northville, Tatnuck, Valley Falls, Trowbridgeville, Blithewood, Bloom- ingdale, Adams Square, Burncoat, North Pond, Chamberlain.
Evening Schools,
6
Washington street for boys; Walnut street for girls; Dix street, Belmont street, Cambridge street and New Worcester for both.
Free Evening Drawing Schools, both sexes, 5
V. TEACHERS.
Male teachers in High School, 6
Female teachers in High School,
7
Male teachers in Grammar Schools,
6
Female teachers in all grades below the High School,
170
Special teacher of Music, male,
1
Special teacher of Drawing, female,
1
Number of teachers in Day Schools,
3
191
·
16,394 23
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CITY DOCUMENT .- NO. 33.
Male teachers in Evening Schools,
11
Female teachers in Evening Schools, 14
Teachers in Free Evening Drawing Schools, male,
3
Whole number of teachers,
219
VI. PUPILS.
Number registered in Day Schools,
9,540
Increase, 245
In Evening Schools,
624
In Free Evening Drawing Schools,
120
Number registered in all schools,
10,284
Increase,
383
Number over 15 years old, Increase, 74
1,339
Estimated number in this city in private schools here, (including 1,000 in
St. John's Parochial), 1,200
Pupils in State Normal School, this city,
97
Average number belonging to public schools,
8,064
Increase, 613
Average number belonging to Day Schools,
7,686
Increase,
683
Average daily attendance in Day Schools,
7,124
Increase,
617
Average daily absence, 562
Number at close of Fall term, 1877,
7,348
At close of Winter term, 1877-8, Increase from last year,
286
At close of Spring term,
. 7,307
Increase,
455
At close of Summer term, Increase,
612
At close of Fall term,
7,873
Increase,
324
Per cent. of daily attendance to average number belonging,
93.9 .
Increase,
0.1
Number perfect in attendance the whole year, Increase, 74
573
Perfect three terms,
703
Perfect two terms,
793
Perfect one term,
1,574
Number registered in High School,
609
Decrease,
34
Boys,
306
Decrease,
19
Girls,
303
Decrease,
15
Number at close of the year, Decrease,
7
Number of graduates, June, 1878,
56
Number left the school,
125
Increase,
32
·
7,203
Decrease, 66
. 7,422
·
480
35
SCHOOLS .- SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT.
Average number belonging,
458
Average daily attendance,
441
Average daily absence,
17
Per cent. of daily attendance to average number belonging, 96.4
Average age of pupils, December, 1878,
16.2
Average number of pupils to a regular teacher,
35
STATISTICS.
The abstract above will furnish much interesting study for those who desire to ascertain what the schools are doing, and in certain respects how they stand, relatively, with former years. The statistics in the Secretary's tables, further on, also contain much valuable information from which to judge of the causes which may favor or hinder the progress of the pupils. As stated in a former report, however, these statistics can never show the real advancement of the children in the development of character, which is a prime object in all good schools, and in the attainment of sound scholarship and correct habits of study. The training of the mind and the growth of character are spiritual things - very different from the management of machinery or the making of boots and shoes. The results are spiritual, hidden, and unseen till they show themselves years later in the action of human lives. These results cannot be measured by per cents. any more than christianity can be esti- mated in this way. It would not be feasible to judge of a pastor's usefulness by the per cent. of religious character in the members of his congregation : Mr. A. seventy-nine per cent. a christian; Mr. B. eighty-five per cent. and so on. It is just as impossible to rate the value of a teacher, of a school, or of a system of education in this way. In order to form a correct judgment of either or of all them, it is necessary to make extended observation for a long time; and yet there are not wanting those who make up their mind and express opinions with great positiveness upon very insufficient data-sometimes upon the supposed results in scarcely more than a single family.
These statistics, which have been preserved in the same form through a long series of years, become valuable, like tables of mortality, as they cover longer periods of time.
In keeping the statistics of attendance, of tardiness, of scholar-
36
CITY DOCUMENT .- NO. 33.
ship in the several branches of study which is done in the several schools, etc., the object is not merely to make a good showing; and of this the teachers should take note. That school is not necessarily nor presumably the best whose per cents. are the highest. The value of the school may even be diminished by too much effort for this result. In raising too high the standard of attendance, in the attempt to reduce the tardiness to zero, and in placing the standard of scholarship too high, pupils may even be driven from school altogether. There is a certain amount of influence which can be judiciously applied in all these directions. What this amount is, in the case of each individual pupil, can be determined only by a wise and careful teacher. The record is not an end in itself; it is only an indi- cation of what remedy will probably be needful for any evil in the operation of the school system which may thus appear.
SCHOOL HOUSES.
Within the year a house has been fitted up upon the lot on Grafton St., to which reference was made in the last report, containing two rooms sufficient for about one hundred pupils. The rooms, though comfortable are not permanent; and already they are more than full. Upon the lot on Winslow St., referred to at the same time, a substantial brick house of four rooms has been erected. This house has been occupied to its full capacity with more than two hundred pupils. Owing to the dulness of the times it has been built in a very thorough manner at the very moderate cost of $13,000, including a lot of 25000 feet, in a thickly settled part of the city.
A few features of this house are worthy of note. The outside is plain and substantial; the roof is made for protection, and not to display cheap ornament; there are no gutters to fill with ice in winter and cause leaks in the roof; the basement is more than half its depth above ground; and being paved with con- crete, and opening into the play grounds, it is very useful in rainy weather; the entrances are but one or two steps above the level of the ground, a half flight of stairs extending down- ward to the basement, and upward to the main floor; thus icy
37
SCHOOLS .- SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT.
steps in winter are avoided. The windows reach nearly to the ceiling; the ventilation is well provided for; the four rooms are heated by two hot-air furnaces; and the plan admits of the addition of four new rooms without materially disturbing the part already built, or erecting any more stairs or passages.
A new school house for a single school is in process of erec- tion at the growing suburban settlement at Lake View, on the margin of Lake Quinsigamond.
The school house at South Worcester is more than full, many of the pupils coming from the neighborhood of the Adriatic Mills, between the Boston & Albany and the Norwich & Wor- cester railroads. Many pupils from this vicinity also go to the Woodland street school which, in some of its grades especially, is crowded. The time is not far distant when more room will be needed at Southgate street, where the lot is ample for a large house.
To show that further room is at present necessary, the report of the Committee on School Houses is here appended :
NEEDLESS EXPENSE.
" In two of the rooms at Oxford street, two teachers are em- ployed for the instruction of only as many pupils as could be cared for by one. This involves the cost of one teacher's salary, $450, that might be saved if we had sufficient room.
At Green street two rooms are hired at an annual cost of $480, which could be saved to pay the interest on the cost of proper school accommodations.
At Providence street two attic rooms are used which are unsuitable, both because they are difficult to reach and because they are dangerous.
At Grafton street sixty-six pupils are crowded into a room suitable for not more than forty-five or fifty. If adequate room were provided, there would be saved nine hundred and thirty dollars per annum, a sum equivalent to the interest at five per cent. of $18,600. This amount would more than cover the cost of the buildings which it is proposed to call for in this report.
WE RECOMMEND THEREFORE,
First, the immediate enlargement of the Oxford street school house on the plan substantially as set forth in our report to you at your last meeting ; and
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CITY DOCUMENT .- NO. 33.
Second, the construction of a school house upon the Grafton street lot, similar to the Winslow street house.
The neighborhood around Oxford street is entitled to as good accommodations for its pupils as any other part of the city. In fact those pupils, as soon as they go beyond the Fourth or the Fifth grade, have to be scattered among the Walnut street, the Dix street, the Winslow street, the Woodland street, and the Sycamore street houses; and it sometimes happens that child- ren from one family are sent to two or three of these places, unavoidably, because the nearer room of the appropriate grade may be full. But the parents, none the less, justly complain. The proposed enlargement would obviate much of this evil and keep members of the same family in one house till they reach the higher grades - the Eighth or Ninth.
The old house, fortunately without a mansard roof, is substantially, though plainly built; the bell-tower, whatever may be thought of it as an ornament, is likely to remain, and will serve to break up the monotony which the plan proposed might otherwise have. The yard will be no smaller than it is now, for the basement will be part of the play-ground. In so central a spot large play-grounds are generally impracticable.
And lastly, all the houses surrounding this are full, and in two of them, Dix street and Woodland street, basements are now used which ought to be abandoned. Three of the pro- posed new rooms would thus be filled with the present surplus of pupils ; and judging of the natural increase in the future as in the past, the fourth room will be wanted before it will be ready, if work upon it is begun at once.
As already stated, one room at Grafton street numbers sixty- six pupils ; the spring will undoubtedly bring forty more, and there is no place in which to put them.
The rooms in the attic at Providence street ought to be aband- oned; but if abandoned and the proposed new house occupied, in a short time without doubt, they will have to be used again ; for in spite of hard times and in spite of the repressive wisdom of any body, children continue to be born; and in pure self- defence, if not from motives of benevolence, they must be sent to school. The Green street railroad-station being abandoned, the scholars who now go to Providence street, can some of them be sent eastward to Grafton street, and those from Green street and Ledge street, as occasion may require, can be sent to Providence street. In Ledge street house one basement is used for a school which some think unsuitable ; and in the assembly hall, which is needed and was designed for other uses, one school room has been partitioned off in the corner, besides the two rooms formerly finished in the south end of that hall.
39
SCHOOLS .- SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT.
The schools at East Worcester, at Ash street, at Salem street, at Ledge street, at Providence street and Green street, as stated above, and at Union Hill, are all well filled; and the large territory from which pupils are sent to all these schools would be relieved of its natural increase of school population by the proposed new house, by means of the transfers of pupils such as have been indicated above.
For these reasons and others which an intimate acquaintance with the subject in all its bearings will disclose, it seems to us that the interests of the city, economically as well as education- ally, require the erection of this house also, as soon as may be."
PUPILS.
The number of pupils has increased by more than five hun- dred within the year -enough to fill a large house of ten rooms. This is an answer to those who claimed, one year ago, that the school houses called for by the school committee were not needed. It would be very much better, both in the interest of the pupils, and in the interest of economy, if it were always assumed that those specially charged with the administration of schools are as patriotic, as frugal, and as competent to perform their duties, as the same men would be considered if engaged in any other branch of the public service. Had this always been assumed, some expensive delays in the construction of school houses, and the consequent embarrassment of the schools would have been avoided. Of these five hundred additional scholars, about three-fifths fill the new houses just described, and the remainder have been distributed among the other houses, in some instances crowding them as already stated. With this larger number the cost of carrying on the schools is very much increased ; for it does not generally happen that the new schol- ars can be placed in those schools where there is room for them. A scholar from Grove street, for example, cannot be placed in a vacant seat at Quinsigamond. Hence, when there are 7,500 pupils actually in school, five hundred additional scholars would naturally add more than one fifteenth to the cost. If then, with this increase of pupils, the cost of the schools has not materially increased but rather diminished, economy has been practiced.
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