USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 2 > Part 49
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Henry P. Mason, Esq., of Waldoboro, was appointed Attorney for the Town and Representative of the Building Committee in the matter of the construction of the School Building under rules of Federal Govern- ment.
Work was actually started on the project on June 19th, A. D., 1935 when J. R. Partridge, with a force of men, began tearing down the Church building. It later became necessary to dynamite this building on account of unsafe conditions.
The above data, together with local papers and a few photo- graphs, were sealed in a copper receptacle and placed in the corner- stone of the high school building without ceremony.
The school building was actually accepted by the selectmen on January 15, 1936, but the work on it was not fully completed until late in February, and the building was occupied this latter month. The total amount expended on its construction was $60,- 941.62. There remained an unexpended surplus of $1,934.11, which was turned over to the Town Treasurer and applied to the amor- tization of the loans. Under this contract Mr. Partridge lost $62.41.
In the meantime, a valuable adjunct to the building was effected in the Philbrook field, so called, which was presented to and accepted by the High School Athletic Association as an athletic field on October 21, 1935. In subsequent years the Waldo- boro Athletic Association and the town by the expenditure of labor and capital has converted this into one of the best playing fields in the district. A further incident related to the new school came on March 8, 1937, when by vote of the town the name Church Street was changed to School Street.
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The dedication of the building was held June 25, 1936, in conjunction with the graduation week end of that year. While guests were arriving on this Thursday evening, music was furnished by a chorus of sixty voices from students in the combined schools of the town under the direction of Guy Irving Waltz. At 8:00 P.M., the formal dedicatory exercises began. The program follows:
Prayer Music Greetings from Citizens Greetings from School Greetings from Alumni Music
History of the Building (compiled by Henry P. Mason)
Poem (by Henry P. Mason) "The North Church Speaks" Poem (by Henry P. Mason) "The High School Answers"
Music Address
Singing: "America" Benediction
Rev. Horace M. Taylor Chorus
William G. Reed, Esq. Earle Spear Jessie L. Keene
Chorus Supt. A. L. Shorey
Ruby Miller
Olive Piper
Chorus Edward E. Roderick
(Dept. Comm. of Education)
The Assembly Rev. J. Reid Howse
It may be fairly said that public education in Waldoboro took on an unwonted vitality on July 1, 1937, when A. D. Gray became Superintendent of Schools. Mr. Gray was a graduate of Columbia University and completed his training for educational work at the Teachers' College of the same institution. Thus he was the first technically trained man to assume the headship of the Waldoboro school system. He was unquestionably the first in this position to realize that education should train the individual to cope successfully with a complex and swiftly changing world, and that to achieve this goal it would have to be based on an understanding of that which is the real essence of contemporary society. Briefly summarized, the educational philosophy of the new superintendent was the following:
Largely through the fast and uncontrolled evolution of sci- ence and technology the world is, and possibly will for ever con- tinue to be in transition from a one-time static to a more and more functional form of society. Man's attitudes and points of view have been responding to these fast-moving forces until he no longer regards change as merely incidental to an otherwise fixed form of society, but as the dominant and perpetual charac- teristic of its growth. These propositions do not mean an inter- pretation of human society as a blind, squirming organism without shape or direction on the one hand, or a predetermined world
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
order controlled by a small segment of itself on the other, but a vast unending stream of humanity striving constantly for higher levels of culture and economic well-being. The lack of vision necessary to understand these trends in American society is respon- sible for the inadequacy of education in many of the rural states and smaller communities, where the needed broad objectives of tolerance, understanding and unbiased and effective thinking in the processes of education have been held in check by the rote- ridden traditions of a state educational ritualism.
To the discerning eye such a viewpoint clearly bears the hallmark of Teachers' College, but it does possess to a degree the power to invigorate. This philosophy the new superintendent sought to work into the thought patterns of the citizens of one of the most conservative towns in one of the most conservative of states. Such an effort on his part provided the proverbial oil and water combination, with which he was compelled to contend for eight years, but he did carry his program far, introducing con- cretely into the high school curriculum the conviction that the student should receive the kind of vocational training which would best fit him for the field of his aptitudes, abilities, and interests, and, at the same time the cultural training that would lead him increas- ingly to higher levels of living and of civic participation.
To this end Mr. Gray succeeded, in March 1938, in induc- ing the town to appropriate $900 to establish an agricultural course in the school. Other vocational courses met opposition which was, however, slowly and steadily ground down. In March 1942, $360 was raised for musical instruction in the high school, and the next year, in March 1943, the home economics course was approved. It is doubtful that the cultural part of Mr. Gray's program was quite as successful. After the school had done the work, he pictured the pupil as "able to return to a home environ- ment and family life of his own and of his family's creating, where good books, good magazines, good music and inspiring art abound; where neighbors' children are welcome and an atmosphere of magnanimity and good will prevail." However desirable such ob- jectives may be, we fear that there are few indeed of such modern Edens in the town. Rather than a quick transmutation of his cul- tural values into family living, he found his program checked by a thick-shelled bourgeois Philistinism, which, as an all-pervasive and well-nigh irresistible trend in American life, is the greatest road-block to any community on its way to educational and cultural progress.
Apart from giving to education in the town a new philo- sophical goal, the new administration also set before itself a con- crete program, some of the objectives of which were already many years overdue. This program follows:
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1. The centralization of the schools.
2. Provision for proper housing facilities to precede centralization.
3. Provision for proper conveyance equipment.
4. The adoption of sufficiently high teacher qualification requirements to secure the type of teaching necessary to the attainment of the ob- jectives set.
5. Reconstruction of the curriculum to provide the courses necessary to the objective.
6. The provision of textbooks and other materials necessary to the in- tegration and continuous development of the subject matter and growth of pupil understanding.
7. The horizontal correlation of courses for broadening and strengthen- ing the foundation of subsequent learning.
8. The establishing of as much vocational orientation and training at the secondary level as would fulfill the philosophy outlined and still come within the allowance of the budget.
9. The provision of adequate health and physical education and recrea- tion as a necessary part of the general program.
This in brief was the long-range program laid down by Superintendent Gray when he took over the administration of the local schools. The situation confronting him contained many survivals from the earliest days. There were the new and old high school buildings in the village, and in the rural districts schools were still operating in North, East, South and West Waldoboro, at Feyler's Corner, Orff's Corner, Dutch Neck, Gross Neck, and Winslow's Mills. All these rural schools housed eight grades. The average annual salary of elementary teachers was $545.09; of sec- ondary women teachers, $800, and of men teachers at this level, $1,053. Of the fourteen elementary teachers only four had two years of normal training or the equivalent. In the rural schools the number of daily recitations ran to more than thirty in num- ber each day, which was an allotment of about ten minutes for each recitation, when two recess periods of twenty minutes each were deducted. As was to be expected under such conditions, recitations in all schools were omitted at random. Physical teaching facilities comprised faded globes and a few ragged maps, in dust- covered cases.
Despite this educational lag reaching back nearly a century the new superintendent started his work. Faced by opposition at every novel step, he proceeded as rapidly as he could secure the money and public support. Rural conveyance was reorganized so that there was no duplication in territory served, stimulating intense invective on the part of former beneficiaries of unneces- sary service; teachers were required to attend summer schools to improve their teaching skills. The unrecorded conversations addressed to this proposal by people whose daughters or other rela- tives and political friends held teaching positions would undoubt- edly make interesting reading. Other advances included a state-
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subsidized course in health and physical education in 1942, reach- ing all levels from the twelfth grade down to the first; the setting up of a central administrative office in 1937 for the entire union, and shortly thereafter a budgetary and accounting system, a pay- roll plan, and a pupil recording system designed to yield all the data essential to future needs of the pupil in his school career.
The problem of consolidating all schools in the village was a difficult one. For a time only a partial solution was possible. This comprised the appropriation of two rooms in the new high school building and using them to house all seventh and eighth graders in the town. The fifth and sixth grades, which had been previously housed in a single room in the new building, were re- moved to the Old Brick School and housed in an empty room on the top floor. Here the consolidating process was halted and destined to wait until the public could be brought to realize the need of a new building. At this moment there came a hiatus in the program of long-range pupil welfare planning. This was pre- cipitated by a chimney fire in 1941, at "the Old Brick," which damaged the building so badly as to make it unfit for further use without remodelling. Then the fact came to the surface that the people were far from ready to countenance a new building, hardly ready, in fact, to face the necessity of repairing the old one.
But the human usually does what he has to do when the consequences of not doing become more intolerable than those of doing. And so it was that after a season of griping in which the sense of outrage had partially spent itself in talk, the voters, in May 1941, appropriated $10,000 to remodel the building, despite the fact that the architect's estimate had called for $18,000. This, perhaps, was the last manifestation of the town's ancient reluctance to spend money for education. An effort was made in a September meeting to boost the appropriation. This failing, the work pro- ceeded and as funds became exhausted the town was compelled to authorize additional amounts - $2,816.94 for completing basic work; $3,500 for plumbing, heating, and lighting, and then, in March 1942, a further $1,500 to finish the two upper rooms. When completed the building which in its early history had provided room for twelve grades housed five grades for the whole town at the population level of 1942.
During this fifth decade of the century appropriations for education rose to their most generous levels in our history, aug- mented, to be sure, by state subsidies and state requirements. Since the state had taken over the certification of teachers, and its bounties were available only to teachers so certified, the standard of teacher qualifications rose and with it the necessity of paying larger salaries to meet such standards. There were many other changes in this decade. In 1940 the Dutch Neck, Orff's Corner,
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Hahn and East Waldoboro schools were discontinued, and the Winslow's Mills school in 1948 was turned over for use to a civilian organization with a recapture clause in the terms of the sale.
In the year 1941 the town was the beneficiary of a bequest for educational purposes under the terms of the will of George G. Genthner. Mr. Genthner was born and grew up in what is now known as the James Storer house, directly across the road from the Ada Carroll home on the North Waldoboro Road. As a young man he had joined the local migrations in the 80's to the Massa- chusetts "straw shops," and located in Westboro. In the fullness of time he became the owner of the factory where he had started as an apprentice and at his death left the sum of $25,000 to be known as the George G. Genthner fund, the sum to become avail- able on the death of his wife, and the income to be used for "the education of worthy and needy poor children of Waldoboro," preference to be given to those of his old home District No. 11 (North Waldoboro). This bequest was accepted by the town at a meeting on October 10, 1941. A copy of the terms of this will are recorded in the official records of the Town Clerk.
In July 1945 A. D. Gray's term as educational director in Waldoboro came to an end. In the brief period of eight years he had overcome the lag of decades in the development of the town's schools, and he left them on a basis of organization com- parable to that of any small-town system in the state. It is indeed ironic that the man who had done most for education in the town in a period of two centuries should have been compelled to step down, but reforms, especially if drastic in character, are usually disturbing to existing privilege and private advantage, and there are always those who set "individual rights," fancied or real, above public gains. By reason of these general principles, applicable everywhere, grievances accumulate, fictions circulate as facts, acts are distorted and the distortions magnified until they become the prevailing force in public opinion. It is in this manner that the effectiveness and influence of good public officials are destroyed, and when in a democracy such a point is reached, a man's work is done. So it was with Mr. Gray.
In 1945 Earle M. Spear succeeded to the office of superin- tendent. He had been the principal of the local high school since 1927, and had worked with Mr. Gray through the latter's eight years in office. He was a man seasoned in educational work, cogni- zant and appreciative of the great contribution of his predecessor. He recognized clearly that the necessary pioneer work in the field had been done by Mr. Gray, and that his program and progress lay in correcting crude organizational details and in perfecting the many hasty improvisations necessarily existent in a system so rapidly revamped. Hence between the two administrations there
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was no hiatus, no reversal of basic policies, no interruption in the steady educational advance.
Under the present state organization of the public schools Waldoboro is the core town in "Union 73." The periphery area under the direction of Superintendent Spear includes the towns of Bremen, Nobleboro, Jefferson, and Warren. Under the setup Waldoboro, as if mocking her own past, has become something of an educational center, drawing into its high school as tuition pupils a considerable part of the secondary school population of the adjacent towns. This has been of substantial advantage to the town and its school, providing as it does a sizable accretion to the school budget and tying the adjacent towns up to Waldoboro as a trading, banking, social, amusement, and cultural center.
During the last two decades, and as a result of Mr. Gray's radical reorganization, and the wise, carefully planned work of Mr. Spear, the town has reached a position of educational excel- lence in its schools comparable to any community of similar size in the state. To reach such a status the town has taken two and one quarter centuries. In this chronicle considerable space has been devoted to educational history. This has been unavoidable, for the beggarly state of public education in years past begat a degree of ignorance and illiteracy in the voting population that blos- somed forth into attitudes, prejudices, and hatreds which modified and colored the town's entire history. We need but remind our- selves that a century ago there was a school population of 1,661 with only about fifty per cent attending schools of a sort and with the town expending for schools a little more than $1.00 per pupil. Such a state of affairs created a citizenry in which fourth, fifth, and sixth-grade educations, or less, represented the normal or average level in the town. The consequences of such a condition have been disastrous.
Today, a century later, the school population has shrunk to 470. In 1950 the per capita cost of education in the elementary grades was $90.19, and in the high school $140.46. Here there is clearly a difference, for today every child in the town under six- teen years of age is required to attend school, and today the boy or girl who does not follow through and graduate from high school is an exception. In this simple fact one may reasonably discover an augury for an era of greater intelligence, understanding, civic- mindedness, cooperativeness, and cultural development in the decades that are to come. In fact, such a condition is already ap- parent, and the town in its present-day renascence may possibly find some of the seeds of its rebirth in its new invigoration of education.
ALVRA D. GRAY
THE UNION BLOCK
XLVIII
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
The real trouble is that people here are from birth to death at the mercy of great social forces which move almost like the march of destiny.
ROBERT A. WOODS
A S THE YEAR 1900 DAWNED on the world with its debate between Kaiser Wilhelm II and Theodore Roosevelt as to whether it was the nineteenth or twentieth century, the little town on the Medo- mak seemed to be on a fairly firm economic footing. At least so it seemed, for a fleet of mammoth five-masters was being built in the old Reed & Welt yard, and the size of these schooners had drawn all the old, able-bodied master workmen back to familiar tasks, along with a good many hopeful novices. In addition, the old granite quarry of Day & Feyler was in full operation, and this had brought a sizable influx of new blood and life into the town. The village streets on a Saturday night, or on any weekday evening, offered a prosperous picture in pleasing contrast to that under a sagging economy a few years earlier.
This prosperity was in reality a transitory and illusive one, for the main tide in the American economy was still setting out and away from the Maine coastal towns. There were also further misfortunes at hand from the old and destructive enemy of fire, by which the town lost its finest business block and one of its few remaining small industries. From my boyhood I clearly recall the morning of June 5, 1900. It was a bright and pleasant morning. As I was making myself ready for school the church bells in the village started their noisy clangor. The sound carried far up and down the valley in the clear and quiet morning, and soon the suburban population was pouring hurriedly into the village to man the pumps on the old tubs. The fire had started in the attic of the Union Block, and shut off as it was from air it burned very slowly downward, but burn it did, and by noon the south and east walls had collapsed into the streets. A steamer from Rockland and a handtub from Thomaston placed on platform cars and rushed over the Maine Central lines arrived too late to aid in averting the
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catastrophe. It is clear that where the start of the fire was dis- covered so early a few modern extinguishers would easily and quickly have checked it in its inception.
The loss of this structure was never made good, for the pres- ent wooden block erected in 1902 on the same site by Gay and Matthews was a poor and ugly substitute for a brick building of some architectural merit. The second fire loss followed ten days later when the large two-story wooden structure known as "Steve Jones Sail Loft" was destroyed in a blaze believed to have been of incendiary origin. Since the fleet of Palmer schooners was being built at this time, and the loft was a busy place, the building was immediately restored by the present one-story structure now oc- cupied by the Colonial Craft Rug Company.
The destructive effect of these fires led to renewed agitation among the villagers. The town was now in the twentieth century and possessed no water works, no protection against fire, and no lighting system. The village back-district feud had been weaken- ing for a decade now, but it still revealed some political vitality, and its hand was still traceable in the vetos invariably imposed on the insurgent modernism of the village. On July 14, 1900, the village made its bid in a Town Meeting for twenty hydrants, to cost $1,000 annually, but the proposition was rejected by a narrow margin. Undismayed and determined, the central area tried its luck again in a September meeting, but here, too, action on hydrants was deferred, and the selectmen were told "to call no more meetings on this matter before the annual meeting" in March.
Over the decades village progress had been a matter of private initiative engaging itself in enterprises over which the voters had no veto. Thus it was that early in the new century the Waldoboro Water, Electric Light & Power Company acquired the Achorn Mill and its water privilege at the Great Falls of the Medomak, rebuilt the dam, installed a turbine water wheel, and in the spring of 1902 was selling its power in the village for electric lighting. It also sought the water franchise and on this point it encountered the customary opposition, whether bona fide or dummy is not clear. But there does seem to have been some movement in the direction of municipal water works, for at the March meeting of 1901, the town voted to instruct its representatives in the Legislature "to oppose the extension of the charter of the Waldoboro Water & Electric Light & Power Company, and to advocate the passage of the Municipal Water Charter on behalf of the town."
Apparently this advocacy netted nothing, for shortly the Legislative Committee recommended unanimously the extension of the charter of the existing company. The town, however, was successful in blocking any action on the part of this company,
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and in the meeting of April 15, 1903, the article to allow the citizens to extend hydrants from the Methodist Church to the "Pants Fac- tory" of M. M. Richards as a protection against fire only was lost. The Lincoln County News (April 23, 1903) made the follow- ing revealing comment: "This article gave the orators from the outskirts of our town a chance. ... When the question was put to a vote, the back people were a solid body against it." This could have been nothing more than downright malice, for no appropriation was involved, since the village folk planned to raise the necessary funds by private subscription. It is clear that the ancient back-district antagonism was still alive, and since it had the votes it held the high trump, for the source of the water supply was the town-owned reservoir on the farm of Dr. F. M. Eveleth.
There was slow progress even in the face of unreasoned opposition. In March 1905 the villagers were granted access, but "for fire only." This was an entering wedge and the village folk kept hammering. In an August meeting of 1907, most probably with a minimum of back-district folk present, permission was granted to the proposed Waldoboro Water Company to enlarge and use the reservoir, "the town reserving all rights it now has to use water from said reservoir for the factory." But even this vote did not lay all the dust of battle, for at a meeting of December 2, 1907, an attempt was made to reconsider the August vote. In March 1908 the controversy was finally settled when it was voted to permit use of the reservoir to the Water Company "providing it furnish free water to the Factory operating for any purpose."
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