USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Canterbury > History of the town of Canterbury, New Hampshire, 1727-1912, v. 1 > Part 37
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District No. 1, John Clough, No. 2, Joseph Gerrish, No. 3, William Forrest, No. 4, Thomas Ames, No. 5, John Foster, No. 6, Joseph Moody, No. 7, Reuben French.
The foregoing division of the town into school districts did not prove satisfactory, for at a town meeting December 7, 1814, William Foster, Joseph Gerrish, Enoch Emery, John Kimball and Israel Sanborn were chosen a committee to divide the town into school districts "according to law." This committee made their report at an adjourned meeting one week later dividing the town into nine districts. This report was accepted.
From time to time various minor changes were made in the boundaries of these districts. Suiting the convenience of the inhabitants situated at a distance from the school house, they were annexed upon application to some contiguous district. The principal change, however, was in District No. 2. This eventually was subdivided and made into four districts, the new ones being numbered 10, 11 and 12.1
Nothing of importance in regard to schools is found in the town records for the next decade. In 1825, the Rev. William Patrick, Amos Cogswell and Dr. Joseph M. Harper were chosen a com- mittee to examine school teachers, and the selectmen were in- structed to pay none but those who secured certificates from this committee. The next year an article in the warrant of the annual meeting "to see if the town will raise $20 to purchase school books for poor scholars" was dismissed without action. There was no uniformity of text books at this time nor for many years later in the schools of the rural towns of New Hampshire. Arithmetics, geographies, grammars and even reading books descended in families and were used by successive generations.
At the annual meeting in 1828, the town "voted that the sev- eral school districts in Canterbury be empowered to choose a per- son in each district as a prudential committee agreeably to the act of the General Court."2 This statute provided that there be chosen in each town of the state at the annual meeting a district committee consisting of one person for each school district "who shall be called the prudential committee thereof, whose duty it shall be to contract with the teachers for his district, to provide
1 For the detailed story of these districts see the special chapters devoted to them.
2 Act of July 6, 1827.
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for their board, to furnish the necessary fuel for the school and immediately on the commencement of any such school to give information thereof to the superintending school committee of the town." Any town, however, could authorize its school districts to choose their own prudential committee instead of selecting them at the annual meeting.
This act was the first recognition in the statutes of the state of that important functionary, although in Canterbury the various class masters and district inspectors of the previous forty years probably performed the duties which now devolved upon the prudential committee. For the next half century this public official in each school district of the state was something of an autocrat in his little domain. He served without pay, but the emoluments of his office consisted in the profit from the teacher's board, unless the latter "boarded around," the wood that he sold to the district and the opportunity it afforded him to hire some relative to keep the school. The office usually went the rounds of the district among the substantial citizens, though there was sometimes much maneuvering among both parents and pupils to secure the employment of some favorite teacher. The story is told of one individual in Canterbury, who afterwards became prominent in public affairs, beginning his political career by defeat- ing the election of his father, whose turn it was to be prudential committee, because the latter was not likely to employ the teacher the son desired.
The authority given at the annual meeting of 1828 to the school districts of Canterbury to choose their prudential committees does not appear to have been wholly satisfactory, for the question of continuing the practice was raised at the March meeting two years later, but the subject was dismissed by vote of the town.
The legislature of 1827 also provided for the appointment by the selectmen of a superintending school committee of not less than three nor more than five persons to examine school teachers, inspect schools twice a year and to "inquire into the regulations and discipline thereof and the proficiency of the scholars therein." Power was given this committee "to dismiss incompetent teachers and expel any scholar who refuses to obey and submit to the neces- sary and reasonable rules, orders and regulations of such school." 1 This authority vested in the superintending school committee to
1 Act of July 6, 1827.
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expel unruly scholars was undoubtedly prompted by the prev- alence of that old custom, previously referred to, of the larger boys "trying titles" of physical strength with the teacher at the beginning of each winter term. It frequently occurred that a term of school was wasted until the prudential committee secured some master of the "manly art" rather than of the sciences and the languages to preside over the school.
The Rev. William Patrick has this to say of the schools of Can- terbury in 1833. "The town is now divided into twelve districts, with nine convenient school houses and not far from five hundred scholars between the ages of four and twenty years. But all of these do not attend constantly. Not more than four hundred may be considered regular attendants. The three districts with- out school houses are small, containing not more than twenty-five scholars. For twenty-five years past it is thought that few towns in the vicinity have furnished a greater number of qualified in- structors. This is particularly the case in the female department. While most of the summer schools have been taught by those belonging to the town, an equal or greater number have instructed in other places."
Mr. Patrick continued on the school board until 1843, at which time he retired from the pastorate of the Congregational Church. His associates at various periods, so far as the records show, were Elder John Harriman, Dr. Joseph M. Harper, Elder Joseph Clough, Dr. Robert Morrill, Dudley Hill, Gardner T. Barker and William H. Foster, the last two having been school teachers prior to their appointment as committeemen. For many years the clergymen of the town were selected for service in this capacity, with due recognition of the medical profession. The Rev. Howard Moody, who was Mr. Patrick's successor as pastor of the Congregational Church, followed him upon the school board and served at various times until 1867. Other ministers who were associates with Mr. Moody in school work were the Rev. Edmund B. Fairfield, and the Rev. Samuel T. Catlin. Dr. Lorrain T. Weeks was the successor of Doctor Harper, while the laymen who were appointed to this position for a decade following 1846 were Jonathan Ayers, Edward Osgood, Luther Sargent and B. Frank Tallant, all of whom were qualified for their service by previous experience as teachers.
Mr. Sargent was first appointed in 1850, and for a good share of the time for thirty-eight years he discharged the duties of superin-
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tending school committee either alone or in conjunction with asso- ciates. Thoroughly equipped as a teacher, he was undoubtedly the most efficient member of the school board of Canterbury dur- ing his generation. His reports show a thorough knowledge of conditions derogatory to the schools of the town and his recommen- dations, had they been followed, would have contributed greatly to their advancement. Mr. Sargent was a man of public spirit and a most useful citizen. At one time he contemplated the writ- ing of a history of Canterbury and he prepared and published in a local newspaper some chapters of the early life of the town. Unfortunately, the data he collected has been lost since his death.
The service rendered by the early members of the school board of Canterbury and their successors is deserving of the highest praise. Their work was often performed with little or no com- pensation and with but little appreciation on the part of the pub- lic of the duties of the position. It is almost painful to read, year after year, their comments upon the defects in the schools, most of which required the initiative of parents to correct. Yet it was by constant. reiteration that the awakening finally came, and the people of the town were prepared to accept readily state legisla- tion for the betterment of the common school system in later years.
For a little more than a quarter of a century following Mr. Patrick's account of the schools in 1833, the only record to be found of them continued to be confined to the votes on the subject at the annual town meetings. These are meager, relating almost wholly to appropriations for their support and the choice of com- mitteemen for their supervision. Occasionally it is recorded that the school committee made a report at the annual meeting. If such reports were written, they have not been preserved. Until recent years, the success of the schools depended more largely upon the prudential committee of each district than upon the efforts of any supervisory board. Each school was a local affair concerning the people of that district. If the teachers employed were inefficient, the remedy was wholly in the hands of the voters when they gathered at a subsequent school meeting. The super- intending school committee hesitated to exercise the powers vested in them by the statutes of the state. Unless those powers were invoked by the people of the district, they were reluctant to interfere. Even after 1860, when the first printed town report
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appeared, which also contained a summary of the work of the schools, the school board were not always specific in their criti- cisms and there is no record of summary action on their part.
For the most part, however, the interest of parents compelled the employment of competent teachers. While in the early days none had the advantages of modern normal training, these teachers were the ambitious young men and women of this and other towns of the state who were seeking an advanced education and in many instances paying for this education by their own exertions. Teaching summers or winters, they attended the academies or colleges the remainder of the school year. Success in the school room was essential to their further employment in this capacity, and, while their teaching was not as systematic as now, they stim- ulated their pupils with their own ambition. Considering the conditions with which they had to deal, crowded school rooms, inadequate appointments, lack of uniformity in text books and innumerable classes, these teachers for the first half of the nine- teenth century wrought a great work in the cause of common school education in New Hampshire. Canterbury furnished more than its share of competent instructors of youth. Many of them were engaged at home, while others attained success elsewhere.
At the annual meeting in 1860, the town adopted the provisions of a recent statute providing for a superintending school committee of three, to one of whom might be delegated the duty of visiting and examining schools, but all were required to participate in the examination of teachers. In their next report the committee of Canterbury say that they appointed times and places for inquiring into the qualifications of teachers for both the summer and the winter terms, but only one or two attended these meetings. Regret is expressed that so few teachers availed themselves of the institutes held for their benefit. General interest in the cause of education seems to have been marked, for the committee report that a lecture given by the county school commissioner was attended by a large audience. It is also noted that, except in the Shaker school, the study of physiology is generally neglected. "In this one district, it had been pursued ever since its introduction to the curriculum of the common school several years before." The general good health of the Shaker community is ascribed by the committee to their knowledge of physiology. It will thus be seen that the school board still relied more upon moral suasion to
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improve conditions than to the powers vested in them by the statutes of the state.
The next year the committee say, "Our district schools, taken as a whole, are not wholly what they should be. A higher qualifi- cation on the part of teachers is required. The schools are falling back in the accuracy of the scholars in elementary knowledge. There is a crowding in of higher branches to the neglect of the elementary. Pupils are puzzling over problems of Greenleaf's Higher Arithmetic and Robinson's Algebra, while utterly unable to apply the first principles of simple arithmetic."
In 1862 and subsequently, the choice of prudential committees in the several districts is the subject of comment and suggestion. Instead of passing this office around in the neighborhood, the school board recommend the selection of the best men and their retention during good behavior.
Lack of discipline is the frequent comment in these reports. In speaking of one of the schools, the committee say of the teacher, "She is very mild and amiable, with a patience almost equaling that of Job. The order was not perfect. The teacher should exercise a little more authority at times, and, when occasion calls for it, she should not be sparing of the rod." Yet a few years later, Edward Osgood, as supervising school committee writing of the school at Hill's Corner taught by Miss Tirzah A. R. Dow, says, "Complete order was maintained during the entire term with- out the rod." These two reports contrast the attitude of different school boards at that time in regard to the method necessary to maintain order in the school room.
The school in the Shaker District is commended in the report for the year 1864 as well as in earlier reports as an example for other districts to follow. The high standard of excellence there attained is ascribed by the committee to "the care with which teachers are selected, to the support the community gives to the teachers and to the influence that surrounds the scholars. No expense is spared in providing a school house and school equipment."
The committee set forth in the report what they think are the requisites to seek in the teacher. "She should be," they say, "engaging in person and manner. It is cruel to impose a for- bidding and repulsive teacher upon the school, from the bare sight of whom the pupil will shrink or feel instinctive rebellion. The
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looks and manner of the teacher, when agreeable, become a pass- port to the pupil's favor and confidence. Teachers should be not only patient and amiable but persevering and constant, not spas- modic and fitful. The easy, slack or careless should never be employed, however well educated or otherwise proficient. A per- son who exhibits the least dereliction in morals should never have the care and training of our youth. The voice should be observed. Every teacher should possess a good, clear voice, neither too rapid nor too moderate, of sufficient volume and sufficiently soft to be pleasant. She will then be able to correct defects in the voices of her pupils. It may be proper to remind parents of their woeful neglect of their children in permitting them to grow up in careless habits of speaking, the bad effects of which are seen in our schools and elsewhere."
Teachers' institutes, in the opinion of the committee in 1865 and 1866, are without profit for the reason that few teachers attend, and they recommend that some means for the special training of teachers be adopted. This recommendation was in anticipation of state action in establishing a normal school. "Preference," the committee think, "should be given to teachers of our own town of acknowledged skill to strangers of whom little is known." Uniformity of text books is recommended as both a saving of time and as a distinct advantage to the schools. It was even later than this that students in the same grade in the Canterbury schools were using different arithmetics, geographies, grammars and even reading books. In 1870, the committee report that they have secured uniform geographies and arithmetics thus reducing the number of classes in those studies in some schools one half.
Following the Civil War there was necessity for economy of expenditures in town affairs. Retrenchment was the order of the day. A saving was attempted in the meager salary of the super- intending school committee by inviting voluntary service of some man or woman in each school district. It was felt at that time that each district had several individuals of sufficient education and capacity to supervise the school in that district. The school board was, therefore, enlarged to twelve, who were to serve with- out pay. The change did not meet the expectations of those who proposed it. When there was trouble in the schools, it was found that so large a board was without individual responsibility and that collectively they exercised no authority.
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It was the privilege of the writer at the second town meeting he attended as a voter to advocate successfully a return to the old system of a board of three to whom compensation should be given. A year or two later, however, the town fell back to the larger board of twelve who contributed their services. In 1881, Charles F. Jones was the chairman of this popular school board, and he made so vigorous a protest in his report against its continuance that the town permanently returned to a board of three and paid them for their service as it did its other public servants. Mr. Jones was a believer in undivided responsibility and authority, and he voiced his opinions in a most forceful manner.
He was a son of Charles Jones, a man of strong intellect and forceful character. Of a judicial temperament, the father was a most careful observer and his conclusions were always based upon sound reasons. Retiring in his disposition, he seldom took part in public affairs but his views carried great weight with his fellow- townsmen. No citizen of his generation in Canterbury was more highly respected.
During the decade from 1870 to 1880, there is outspoken criti- cism of the condition of the school houses in town and their lack of maps, globes and other equipment. The decrease of children in some of the districts led the committee to recommend taking advantage of the law passed in 1878 whereby districts having less than twelve pupils might send to other schools and appropriate a certain sum of money for conveying to and from school such pupils as resided a mile and a half from the school house of a con- tiguous district. This was the beginning of a movement which in the next ten years resulted in the consolidation of some of the school districts of Canterbury.
It will be recalled that the Rev. William Patrick estimated the number of children in town of school age in 1833 at 500, of whom 400 attended school regularly. This number had fallen in 1869, the first year in which statistics appear in the town reports, to 253 attending school in the winter term, and 18 between four and fourteen years of age who for some reason did not attend. The shrinkage in the next fifteen years was slight, but in the decade from 1885 to 1895, the number of students dropped from 226 to 137. At the present time there are about 130 pupils of school age attending the district schools.
The extension of school suffrage to women resulted in 1880
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in the election of Eliza Randall as prudential committee in District No. 2 and Mrs. David M. Clough in District No. 10.1
Prudential committees for school districts were abolished by a statute which went into effect in 1886, and the school money for the town was paid to the school board who hired all the teachers and performed the other functions of the prudential committees in addition to the duties that devolved upon the superintending school committee. In 1887, the number of regular schools in town was reduced to eight and the opinion was expressed in the report of the school board that no further consolidation was practical. Local conditions such as the teaching of small children who were too young to be carried a distance from home, however, called for a single term of school in some localities in addition to the terms in the regular districts, but for the past twenty years there have been practically only eight districts in town. Soon after the founding of Kezer Seminary the common school education of the children in the Baptist District was provided for in this institution. The first year the seminary was opened the tuition of twenty- three pupils was paid there instead of maintaining schools in the Baptist and Hackleborough Districts.
In 1899, a report of the school committee says that it is a matter of congratulation that in the number of weeks of school Canterbury stands seventh among twenty-six towns of Merrimack County. "Only sixty towns and cities of the state have as many or more weeks of school in the year. An additional expenditure of two hundred dollars annually would place the town among the first forty of New Hampshire, a position we might well be proud to occupy considering our resources and the extent of our territory."
During the years 1887, 1888 and 1889, the school year averaged twenty-seven weeks. This was under the town system which began in 1886. Three years previous to this under the district system, the average school year for the whole town was only 18.2 weeks.
For the last twenty-two years the town has elected a woman to the school board, and it is not too much to say that her interest and activities have excelled those of her male associates. A con-
1 Laws of N. H., acts approved August 13, 1878, and July 19, 1879. The law extending school suffrage to women was secured largely through the efforts of David M. Foster, representative from Canterbury in the legislature at that time.
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siderable number of the reports have been written by the women of the board and they show a thorough comprehension of school work. That for the year 1906 by Jennie E. Pickard is a terse and vigorous arraignment of the shortcomings of the schools and spe- cific in its recommendations. The expediency of uniting with one or more towns in forming a supervisory district for the purpose of having a competent superintendent of schools is clearly set forth.
The last half century has shown great changes in the schools of Canterbury. A decrease of 75 per cent. in the number of children has lessened the interest of both teachers and pupils in their work, owing to the smallness of the classes and the early age when the boys and girls of the town are sent away to school. The studies now are all elementary. While the pupils have more individual attention from the instructor and the schools have better equip- ment and supervision than formerly, the stimulus is lacking which fifty years ago came of large classes and the advanced work of older scholars who attended the district school until they were of age. The younger children at that time may not have learned so much from the text books as they do now, but they absorbed informa- tion from the recitations of their elders. The school problems of the early part of the nineteenth century were quite as easily solved as those of today in a rural town like Canterbury. Such towns have the same territory as formerly but fewer inhabitants, a largely diminished number of children, a smaller value of property for assessment and less opportunity for the ambitious teacher. From almost the beginning of the settlement, however, the cause of common school education in Canterbury has never lacked sturdy advocates, and, in spite of shortcomings and failures, there has always been a perceptible degree of progress. Especially is this true in regard to the school buildings and school equipment. In 1894, the town built three new school houses and repaired two others. Some of the abandoned structures, like that of Hill's Cor- ner, had done service for nearly a century. The committee in charge of this work were Paul H. Jones, Frank P. Dow, Alfred G. Chase, Smith L. Morrill and Millard F. Emery.
KEZER SEMINARY.
Provision for this institution was made by John Kezer of Can- terbury in his will dated September 1, 1851. After devising a life interest in his estate to his family, he left the remainder in
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the hands of trustees for a school fund to be used for the maintenance of an academy to be called "Kezer Seminary or Kezer Maple Grove Institute" as the trustees should elect. The trustees named in the will were all residents of the town. They were: Elder Jeremiah Clough, David M. Clough, James H. Her- rick, Edward Osgood, George W. Peverly, Charles C. Clough and Henry L. Clough, and they were given authority to fill vacancies in their board.
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