USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Westford > Town of Westford annual report 1896-1901 > Part 16
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30th. By request of Abel C. Whittier, to see if the Town will vote to exempt for the term of ten years, taxes on im- provement in buildings and machinery for the purpose of developing the Nashoba Springs on farm of said Whittier, and act in relation to the same.
3Ist. By request of Minot A. Bean, to see if the Town will vote to reduce the salary of the Superintendent of the Town Farm to Four Hundred Dollars ($400) per year, and allowing Three Hundred and Fifty Dollars ($350) per year to be expended for outside labor.
32d. By request of Minot A. Bean, to see if the Town will vote to buy an extra pair of horses and a set of double har- nesses to be used on the highway. The same not to cost over Three Hundred and Sixty Dollars ($360), and this amount to be taken from the appropriation for highways.
88
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33d. By request of Minot A. Bean, to see if the Town will vote to have the road teams kept at the Town Farın, and the Farm to furnish hay to said teams at Fourteen Dollars ($14) per ton, allowing two and one-half tons per horse per year.
34th. To hear the report of Committee on Discontinuance of Old Roads, and act in relation to the same.
35th. To see if the Town will vote to authorize the Selectmen to get an estimate of the expense of lighting the Town House with gasoline, to report at some future meeting, and act in relation to the same.
And you are directed to serve this warrant by posting up true and attested copies at the Town House and each Depot in said Westford, eight days at least before the time of holding said meet- ing.
Hereof fail not, and make return of this warrant with your doings thereon, to the Town Clerk, at the time and place of hold- ing the meeting aforesaid.
Given under our hands and seals, this twenty-first day of March, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and ninety-eight.
SHERMAN H. FLETCHER, GEORGE W. HEYWOOD, WESLEY O. HAWKES, Selectmen of Westford.
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
SCHOOL COMMITTEE
OF THE
Town of Westford, Mass.,
FOR THE
SCHOOL YEAR ENDING MARCH 1, 1898.
WESTFO
OWN
RD
G
& INCORPO
1729.
RPORATED
23
SEPT.
LOWELL. MASS. : COURIER-CITIZEN COMPANY. PRINTERS. 1898.
SCHOOL COMMITTEE FOR 1897-98.
A. R. CHOATE, Chairman
Term expires 1898
FRANK H. HILDRETH
1899
GEORGE H. HARTFORD
6 1900
W. J. SLEEPER, Secretary
1900
MRS. ALTA M. TAYLOR
66 IS98
ALFRED WOODBURY
66 1899
EDMUND P. BARKER, Superintendent of Schools. Residence, Ayer, Mass.
ANNUAL REPORT.
Citizens of Westford :
The annual report of your School Committee for the past year is a report of progress in the educational interests of the town.
So much is covered by the excellent reports of the Superin- tendent that the report of the Committee itself is shortened.
The school year has been somewhat broken by sickness among teachers and scholars, so that there has been interference with the best work which would be had with a term uninterrupted by such loss of time. A part of the time lost by sickness at the Graniteville schools during last year was made up this year, and the time of the other schools lost by sickness this year at Centre, Long-Sought-For and Parkerville schools has been made up.
A new heater and ventilator has been put in the Stony Brook School. The Committee were to put in a new heating apparatus when the state inspectors requested a ventilating duct in connec- tion with it. This necessitated delay and study to endeavor to get the best work with as reasonable an outlay as possible. West- ford and Chelmsford both put in the same kind and the working seems very satisfactory. It has been inspected twice by the in- spectors and so far meets their approval. A study of it by the people will show the vast difference compared with, and advan- tage over, the older arrangement where those near the stove were over-heated and those further away often cold, with many having at times exceedingly hot air on the level of their heads and almost frozen feet. With the tests already made, the variation of tem- peratures at all levels and at all points of the room has not varied over from two degrees to five degrees.
Westford is behind her sister towns in length of school year. All our neighboring towns have thirty-six weeks, and, in fact, nearly all the towns of the state. We have only had thirty-four weeks generally, and this year less, for all time made up by the Graniteville schools for the year before came, of course, from this year's funds.
4
This brings us again to the matter of consolidation, which we have several times recommended. Further conversation with the people in those towns near that have tried it, further confirms their previous statements of success and improvement of schools and scholars. Not only is it economy, but the scholar from the ; outlying district gets so much more advantage that it is really surprising that the parent does not come forward and demand it of the town for his children. Such was done in our neighboring . town of Concord and we presume will be here, later.
We gave you the figures last year showing the increase in the amount expended for transportation of pupils in the state for a number of years, and the increase in 1895 was over $13,000. The increase for 1896-that being the last year covered by the . report of the State Board of Education-was $14,527.82, showing that there is a growing demand for it, and evidently both for economy and better results. !
We again submit the figures of average attendance for the two smallest schools, which might advantageously be combined with other schools-the Long-Sought-For with the Wright and the Minot's Corner with the Centre schools.
AVERAGE ATTENDANCE 1897-98.
Long-Sought-For.
Minot's Corner.
April
.7.1
II.4
May
.7.3
13.I
June
8.8
12.7
September
8.7
10.5
October
.7.7
II.I
November,
8.5
II.O
December
8.4
II.O
January
8.8
10.5
February (one week)
8.0
II.7
For the year.
3. I
II.4
Number of grades.
.5
6
The Long-Sought-For School, with eight pupils, having five grades, and the Minot's Corner School, with twelve pupils, six grades.
Formerly each district provided its own school. Then all
5
were taken under town control and the general public taxed for all. The school has been carried to the scholar; now it has been found better for the scholar, and more economical for the town, to carry the child to the school.
Transportation of pupils and consolidation or centralizing of schools continues to extend, and Massachusetts is by no means the only state doing so and finding it better for pupil and tax- payer. The following states also have provided legally for it: New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Ohio and South Dakota.
The following are some of the good results given by a careful observer through the United States Commissioner of Education :
I. A much larger per cent. of enumerated pupils enrolled.
2. No tardiness among transported pupils.
3. Irregular attendance reduced.
4. Pupils better classified and graded.
5. No wet feet or clothing, nor colds resulting therefrom.
6. No quarreling, improper language or improper conduct on the way to and from school.
7. Pupils under the rare of responsible persons from the time they leave home in the morning until they return at night.
8. Pupils better supplied with apparatus.
9. Pupils have the advantage of that interest, enthusiasm and confidence which large classes always bring.
IO. Better teachers can be employed, hence better schools.
II. The plan insures more thorough and complete super- vision.
12. It is more economical.
The new Academy building has been completed and the High School and eighth grade have been working there since September, 1897. The change from the old building is a very marked one, and while those now attending in the new, commodi- ous building are congratulating themselves on the advance, let all recall the great results and advantage Westford has had for over one hundred years in a high grade school for her use-a lasting evidence of wisdom of early citizens and their interest in educa- tion.
The plan of closing schools on the most inclement days seems.
6
to meet approval and the signals reach more than was anticipated in so scattered a community. The signals are given at Granite- ville, Forge Village, Brookside and the Centre.
Changes have been made at the Centre Grammar School to give more light, if possible, by a skylight, and the black- boards have been improved by straightening them. The new blackboards are of slate and they will gradually be inserted throughout the town, as repairs are needed. Some were inserted at Parkerville, Stony Brook and Nabnassett schools, also, this year.
During the coming year the ceiling at Parkerville will have to be repaired and the room whitened.
Stony Brook schoolhouse needs painting soon and a cellar should be put in at the Forge Village School and the heater and fuel placed in it before long. The saving in fuel borrowed(?) will pay the interest on cost of expenditure.
Text books and supplies have been furnished as follows:
Westford Academy for High School. $185.84
Eighth Grade.
60.28
Centre Grammar. 36.49
Centre Primary
23.14
Minot's Corner
14.28
Parkerville
20.55
Nashobah
23.71
Forge Village Grammar
44.78
Forge Village Primary
25.90
Graniteville Grammar. .
67.56
Graniteville Intermediate
43.36
Graniteville Primary B.
23.48
Graniteville Primary A
16.26
Wright
29.40
Long-Sought-For
15.02
Nabnassett
18.68
Stony Brook
39.61
:
7
EXPENSES PER WEEK.
Janitors $ 13.25
Fuel 15.00
Teaching 158.00
$ 186.25
For thirty-six weeks. $6705.00
Income to town from state. 475.00
$6230.00 Estimated saving by transporting two schools. 245.00
Necessary for thirty-six weeks of school, the same as other towns. $5985.00
In considering the amount expended for education the value of it should be brought into mind, and we know of no better way to express this outside of the comfort one gets for himself or her- self, and which he gives also to others, than to give its money value as shown by the report of the Board of Education for Mas- sachusetts, or, better yet, let me quote the conclusion of the report of Secretary Hill for 1896 :-
"The state has about three and one-half times as many inhab- itants as fifty years ago, nine times as much property, and expends exclusively, for school maintenance, eleven times as much money. That is to say, the people have increased in wealth nearly three times as fast as they have increased in number, and have shown their growing regard for education by increasing their expendi- tures for schools even more rapidly than they have grown in wealth. Does it all pay? . Attention has already been called, in a previous report, to the significant earning power of Massachusetts people, as shown by census statistics, the average being seventy- three cents for every man, woman and child, as against an average of forty cents a day for each person in the whole country.
"This excess of thirty-three cents a day means $100 a year for each inhabitant of Massachusetts, or $250,000,000.00 per year for the entire population,-an amount so large that the annual ex- penditure for education, which is about one-twenty-fifth of that sum, seems relatively insignificant.
"Thoughtful men attribute this vast excess of wealth-pro- ducing power to that intelligence, self-reliance and character that
8
are so well nurtured under Massachusetts influences and largely in her public schools. The expenditure for schools, if we meas- ure results in a mere utilitarian way, seems, therefore, to pay for itself many times over.
"When we look further, however, we see returns of a more exalted kind in the expansion of the human mind, in its deeper insight into the realm of nature, in its better comprehension of social and civic duties, in the opening of new and perennial springs for its refreshment and enjoyment-and everything, in- deed, that makes for its larger and richer life-returns not yielded by every school, but coming, in a large way, from the schools as a whole. Whatever one's material earnings and possessions, it re- mains true that the only world he actually lives in, the only king- dom that is really his, is the kingdom of his own mind. As life is worth living, this kingdom is worth extending and enriching; and the public school, therefore, which is the most potent and persist- ent contributor to the wealth of this kingdom, is equally worth supporting and perfecting."
Mr. A. Woodbury dissents from article on consolidation and transportation.
A. R. CHOATE,
GEO. H. HARTFORD,
F. H. HILDRETH, W. J. SLEEPER, MRS. ALTA M. TAYLOR,
ALFRED WOODBURY,
School Committee.
- FINANCIAL STATEMENT.
INCOME.
Balance of Massachusetts School Fund. $ II0.22
Appropriation 5600.00
From state on account of Superintendent of Schools 200.00
Income Massachusetts School Fund. 281.28
From town of Groton (tuition to March 1, 1897) 35.00
From Westford Academy for services of A. Mabelle Drew 21.00
$6247.50
9
EXPENDITURES.
Teachers $5183.80 488.70 435.87 $6108.37
Fuel
Janitor service.
Balance $139.13
This shows a balance by using the income from the Massa- chusetts school fund in order to balance accounts. This really should not be used until this year's account and there is an actual deficit of $142.15.
HIGH SCHOOL PUPILS IN WESTFORD ACADEMY.
Balance from last year. $1186.00
Appropriation 100.00
$1286.00
Expended for tuition I186.00
Balance $100.00
This balance will be applied on this year's payments, and only $1400 will need be appropriated, instead of the regular amount, $1500.
TEXT BOOKS AND SCHOOL SUPPLIES.
Appropriation $700.00
Received from sales 14.49
$714.49
Expended
743.36
Overdrawn $28.87
Due from Westford Academy on account of sales 7.20
Leaving real amount overdrawn $21.67
EXPENSE OF SUPERVISION.
Salary paid by town $640.00 Rebate received from state. 500.00
Net cost to town. .$140.00
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APPROPRIATIONS RECOMMENDED.
Schools $6000.00
High School pupils at Westford Academy $1400.00'
Text books and school supplies. $700.00
Transportation
$350.00
COST OF SCHOOLS.
CENTRE.
Teaching
$660.00
Fuel
78.07
Care of house
57.10
GRANITEVILLE.
Teaching
$1394.00
Fuel
192.00
Care of house
162.10
FORGE VILLAGE.
Teaching
$658.00
Fuel
77.75
Care of. house.
83.65
MINOT'S CORNER.
Teaching
$262.40
Fuel
23.00
Care of house
18.00
PARKERVILLE.
Teaching
$264.00
Fuel
18.50
Care of house
22.25
NASHOBA.
Teaching
$264.00
Fuel
14.50
Care of house
18.00
EIGHTII GRADE.
Teaching
$351.00
Fuel
3.00
Care of house
15.00
NABNASSETT.
Teaching
$295.20
Fuel
7.50
Care of house
.14.85
11
STONY BROOK.
Teaching $297.00
Fuel
34.88
Care of house.
14.37
LONG-SOUGHT-FOR.
Teaching
$264.00
Fuel
19.13
Care of house
12.75
WRIGHT.
Teaching
$259.20
Fuel
22.00
Care of house
18.50
Music
$215.00
Westford Academy
$1186.00
SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT.
To the School Committee :
The schools of Westford, during the portion of the year they have been in session, have made good progress.
The Academy, with thirty-five town pupils, has done excel- lent work. In this school there are four distinct classes, nun- bering six, three, eight and eighteen pupils respectively, beginning with the highest class. Six pupils are candidates for diplomas in June. It is interesting to observe that every district in town, ex- cept Wright and Long-Sought-For, has been represented in this school. Two pupils have attended from Forge Village, seven from Graniteville, one from Nabnasset, eleven from Stony Brook, one from Minot's Corner, one from Nashoba, three from Parker- ville, and nine from the Centre and vicinity. While the valuable results achieved have been due almost entirely to the accurate scholarship and faithful teaching of the instructors, the attendant circumstances of a new building, of added appliances, and greater conveniences have increased in no small degree the interest and profit of the school.
The Eighth Grade, too, has enjoyed its facilities in the new Academy building. It has numbered twenty-one pupils, and six- teen or seventeen of them will be prepared to enter upon high school work in the Academy next fall. The teacher of this school has aided the Academy by hearing one academic recitation daily.
Of the fifteen other schools in town, but six have the same teachers now as one year ago. These have maintained well the success of former years. Of the remaining schools, two have had the same teachers throughout the entire school year; seven, dur- ing two terms. While some of these teachers have done superior work, all have put forth effort and are worthy of commendation.
ATTENDANCE.
Enrolment, 553; seven more than last year.
Average attendance, 402; four more than last year.
13
Per cent. of attendance, 92.6; one-half per cent. less than last vear.
Tardinesses, 1377; sixty-three less than last year.
Dismissals, 326; 116 less than last year.
Visits by parents and friends, 905; 252 more than last year.
The one-half per cent. loss in attendance for the year is more than accounted for by the unusually severe storms of the last month of the winter term. Had the attendance that month been as good as during the preceding month the record for the year would have been 933 per cent., or one-half per cent. more than last year.
The banner for best attendance has been assigned monthly as follows: Twice to the Stony Brook, Wright and Eighth Grades, cach; once to Long-Sought-For and Nabnasset, each.
COURSE OF STUDIES.
Few changes have been made in the course of study during the year. The principal modifications are the following :
I. The course has been partially rewritten, extending through the first three years' work, with view to incorporating into the printed course those changes that had been made from time to time during the previous three years; and, wherever possible, to simplify it.
2. The course in physiology has been revised. The work of the first three years is oral, with Buckalew and Lewis's "The Human Body" for a teacher's guide. In the fourth and fifth grades Baldwin's Primary Lessons in Human Physiology has been furnished for pupils' use, and in the upper grammar grades Blaisdell's "How to Keep Well" has been placed in the pupils' hands. Three exercises a week during the entire fall term have been devoted to this subject, and it is believed that more and better work has been accomplished than has ever before been possible.
3. The course in literature has been strengthened by assign- ing certain specified selections for memorizing, seven including one patriotic song, to each grade.
TEXT-BOOKS.
Closely allied to the course of studies are the text-books used.
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In the appendix will be found a revised list of text-books for use in the common schools of Westford. Not every book now in use has been included in the list, but only such as it seems de- sirable to purchase when the supply now on hand shall be worn out.
Much care has been taken with the reading list to make it good and adequate. Ini the first two years a large amount of easy reading is furnished. A part of this reading is in the direction of literature and nature stories. Beginning with the third year, while one or more regular readers is given for purposes of class drill, reading matter is also furnished in literature, history, geography and nature, each year. Though a complete set of these books may not be found in any one school at the same time. yet by transferring books from one school to another, it is made possible to give each school a wide range of valuable and interest- ing reading matter.
A TEACHERS' LIBRARY.
In the appendix is also given a list of the books which have been furnished the teachers as helps in their work, some in one school, others in another, and a few in all, according as they are adapted to the work done in each school. By intelligent and diligent use of these books teachers are able to render to the town services of greatly enhanced value and thereby to return to the town much more than the books cost. By bringing the titles together in one list it is hoped to make the books more available and to constitute the nucleus, at least, of a small but valuable teachers' library.
THE GRADING AT THE CENTRE SCHOOLS.
The Centre schools have been graded this year as follows:
Primary, grades I-III, thirty-six pupils.
Grammar, grades IV-VI, twenty-seven pupils.
Eighth Grade, grade VIII, twenty-one pupils.
There has been no seventh grade, owing to no promotion having been made from the Primary School in 1894.
The Primary School will receive new pupils this fall, and should promote its advanced class of eleven pupils to the fourth grade up stairs.
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The Grammar School is not in condition to receive a class from below without promoting at the same time its highest class out of the school. Two classes in a grammar school is the ideal number; three, as our Grammar School has had for several years, is a possible arrangement, the number of recitations, however, re- quiring them to be shortened in length, so that much less advance- menit is made; but four grades are clearly impracticable.
Again, our Grammar School room is not large enough to accommodate four grades. It contains now thirty seats, and, with the number of pupils increased from twenty-seven to thirty-eight, there would not be floor space enough for the eight additional seats required without unduly crowding the room. The ceiling is low and the ventilation, which, with twenty-seven pupils, as now, is poor. with thirty-eight pupils would be intolerable.
So, whether we consider the instruction or the health of the pupils, it seems necessary that the Grammar School promote its advanced class of seven pupils to the next higher school .- the present Eighth Grade.
The names and grading of the schools might then be as follows:
Centre Grammar, grades VII and VIII.
Centre Intermediate, grades IV-VI.
Centre Primary, grades I-III.
MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS OF TEACHERS AND THE TOWN IN THE MATTER OF CONTRACTS.
A source of much annoyance to smaller towns is the drawing off of their good teachers to the cities through the inducements of larger salaries and greater social privileges. The small cities lose in like manner to the larger cities, and the larger to the largest. It is the law of supply and demand operating in every kind of commodity, and with teachers as with every other kind of labor. Whoever has to sell seeks the highest market. Whoever buys aims to secure the most or the best for his money. We who live in rural communities are under the same law. We sell our produce, buy our supplies, even hire our ministers, under the same law of intelligent discrimination, and the same limitations of securing and retaining only as much as our means enable us to pay
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for. The fact that some of the teachers in our employ are at times thought worthy of higher pay than we can afford, while it brings regret at our comparative lack of means, should also bring gladness to our hearts and lips that we have enjoyed the services of a good teacher so long, that we have helped to make her a better teacher than when she came to us, and that in leaving us she is to be a gainer.
This hope for better things which a young teacher should feel when she takes up work in our schools is of inestimable value. It is a mighty factor in causing her to come to us in the first place, and, while with us, to do her best, and to render services of ever- increasing value. Far be it from us in hiring teachers to write over every schoolhouse door the legend-Who enters here leaves hope of preferment behind. Rather is it a wise policy to secure the best we can, especially good ability, even though at first it may be only partly developed, encourage and foster growth in the theory and practice of teaching, make it financially profitable and socially pleasant for good teachers to remain with us as long as possible, and, when merited preferment comes, give them a hearty God speed for the future.
The real cause for annoyance, where we have a right to feel aggrieved, is when a teacher leaves her work without due notice and at specially inopportune times. The evil has become so great as to attract the attention of the State Association of School Su- perintendents, who, at their last meeting in February, 1898, agreed upon the following statement of what they considered the propri- eties that should be observed in making such changes:
"It is our judgment that no attempt should be made by su- perintendents, or those in charge of school affairs, to induce teach- er's to leave their positions immediately before the beginning of the fall term, or during the first or last month of the school year; that no attempt should be made to induce teachers to leave their positions except after notice of four weeks; that no teacher should be considered an available candidate for a new position until he shall have served at least one year in his present position unless he has made it a condition of acceptance that he may leave at any time after giving proper notice; that teachers should be mindful of the interests of the schools in which they teach, and should be
-
17
unwilling to leave their positions unless released by those who have employed them; that teachers should be unwilling to leave positions wherein they have not served at least one year, unless they have made it : condition of acceptance that they may leave at any time after proper notice; that it is the duty of school author- ities, after notice of four weeks, to release teachers who can mate- rially better themselves, unless there are unusual circumstances making such a change exceptionally injurious to the schools; that we deprecate any contract with teachers which is made mainly for the benefit of the district, town or city, whereby school authorities seek to obligate teachers to a greater degree than they obligate themselves."
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