USA > New Hampshire > State builders; an illustrated historical and biographical record of the state of New Hampshire at the beginning of the twentieth century > Part 7
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There were many undeniable advantages in the old- fashioned district school, particularly for the bright boys and girls. They listened daily to the instruction of all the classes from the primer to the Latin grammar, and they unconsciously absorbed in a few terms a working knowl- edge of subjects which would have taken a much longer period to obtain under the graded system so universal at present. On the other hand, the pupils of average or mediocre ability labored under a distinct disadvantage in the old-time schools as compared with those of to-day. This was a direct result of the multiplicity of classes, the brief recitation period, the impossibility of individual help in the ungraded school and the absence of these disadvan- tages in the graded schools.
CHAPTER II
EARLY ACADEMIES
Among the New Hampshire academies, Phillips Exe- ter, Appleton, Atkinson, Gilmanton, Haverhill and Fran- cestown are the only ones now in existence which have passed the century mark. The following brief descrip- tions of these six must stand for all. Their purpose was alike, their standards were practically the same and the results achieved, while not always equal in amount, always tended toward the same high ideals.
Phillips Exeter, the first academy to be founded in New Hampshire, was started at Exeter through the mu- nificence of Dr. John Phillips. From the incorporation of the academy in 1781 to his death fourteen years later his bequests amounted to about sixty thousand dollars in all. Thus the first academy in New Hampshire became
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also for its time one of the most heavily endowed. The first building was of small dimensions with four school- rooms, all of which were not finished. There was no regu- lar course of study, each pupil taking up such branches as he was found competent to follow; indeed, as late as 1788 there were but two pupils in the school who had sufficiently mastered reading and spelling to enter into the "mysteries of Latin." In 1797, however, a certificate was granted Lewis Cass, the future statesman, in which it was stated that he had acquired "the principles of English, French, Latin and Greek languages, geography, arithmetic and practical geometry; that he had made very valuable progress in the study of rhetoric, history, natu- ral and moral philosophy, logic, astronomy and natural law." This would indicate that the curriculum had been much extended and the standard raised. Again in 1808 and in 1818 the course of study was enlarged and at the latter date a rigid line was drawn between the English and classical departments. During the early years of the academy all pupils were required to spend five or six hours each day in the schoolroom, where both the study and recitation work were done in the presence of a teacher; but in 1858 this custom was abolished and the pupils were required to be present only for recitation. The aim of the academy from the beginning has been to develop manliness and self reliance on the part of its pupils, and the long list of honored names among its alumni shows how well this object has been attained. No school in New England at the present time can boast a wider or more enviable reputation.
Eight years after the founding of Phillips Exeter Academy the people of New Ipswich decided to establish a school where the branches of the higher education could be taught to better advantage than in the town grammar schools. Mr. John Hubbard was elected the first teacher at a salary of sixty pounds per year. Almost from the
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start the academy was self supporting. In 1789 a fund was collected by subscription for the erection of an acad- emy building, and it was completed in the same year. The school at the present time has but few pupils, but during the many years of its existence its influence has been felt with peculiar force throughout that section of the state.
Atkinson Academy, one of the few established during the eighteenth century, was incorporated in 1791. The first building was burned in 1802, but it was quickly erected again the following year, the greater part of the expense being borne by the people of Atkinson. In view of their misfortune a grant was made by the legislature to raise by lottery the amount of two thousand dollars, the proceeds to go to the academy. A grant was also made of half a township of land in Coos County, but through some mismanagement neither the lottery nor the grant of land amounted to a great deal. Nevertheless . the academy flourished and up to 1850 it had numbered among its graduates nearly two thousand students. At the present time, in common with so many other acade- mies, its students are few and its influence proportion- ately lessened.
At Gilmanton in 1792 a committee appointed for the purpose reported "that the establishment of an academy would be useful to the inhabitants and beneficial to the public." Accordingly under an act of the legislature the academy was incorporated in 1794. Its first teacher was Peter L. Folsom, who acted as principal for six years. In January, 1808, the academy building was burned to the ground, but within five weeks after the fire the frame of a new building was erected in its place. This school has always taken high rank among the academies of the state. A large number of young men have been fitted for col- lege, many of whom have proved themselves strong in the affairs of the nation. In 1833 a theological department
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was established in connection with Gilmanton Academy, and many clergymen have here received a thorough theo- logical training.
In 1793 the settlers of Haverhill decided to establish an academy. A building was erected and the institution incorporated in 1794. Its object as set forth in the char- ter was "to promote religion, purity, virtue and morality, and for teaching the youth in English, Latin, and Greek languages; in writing, music and the art of speaking; in geography. logic, geometry, mathematics, and such other branches of science as opportunity may present and the teachers shall order and direct." A list of the sub- jects taught in Haverhill Academy serve as an example of the curricula of other academies at this time. The first academy building was burnt in 1814 and it was voted to rebuild with stone. Through varying periods of pros- perity and adversity the Haverhill Academy has come down to the present time.
The spring of 1801 saw the beginning of the Frances- town Academy. Its first teacher was Alexander Dustin, a college bred man, a graduate of Dartmouth in 1799. For several years the academy continued under his effi- cient management. From the beginning the school was a success. In 1818 a new building was constructed of brick. Although the school had been in operation since 1801 it was not incorporated until 1819. From that time down to the present there are found in a list of its teach- ers and graduates some of New Hampshire's greatest names. "Among its students have been one President of the United States; two United States Senators; many members of Congress; Judges, from Police Court to the United States Supreme Court; one Major-General in the Union Army; and a great number of Professors, Tutors, Ministers, Physicians, Missionaries, Governors and lead- ers in every department of learning and enterprise."
The limitations of this article are such that it is im-
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possible to enter into a lengthy description of the one hundred thirty New Hampshire academies, the majority of which have sprung into life, performed nobly the duties for which they were intended and have passed to the end of an honorable and useful existence.
The town and city high schools are direct descendants of the old-fashioned academy. As education became more common it was made possible for the cities and even the small towns to procure men and women of suit- able learning and experience to teach the higher branches at a moderate cost. Thus the young people were able to obtain an academic training at home. At the present time there are many such high schools which send out each year pupils well equipped in the academic branches of education.
CHAPTER III
THE INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING
Dartmouth College had its beginning as a school for Indian boys, established by Eleazor Wheelock in 1755 at Lebanon, Connecticut. Wheelock's original idea in founding this school was to educate the American In- dian, but very soon he enlarged upon this idea and admit- ted American boys, with the understanding that they would later become missionaries among the Indian tribes. Ten years after the founding of the school, Dr. Wheelock sent an Indian named Occum, a graduate of his school, to England, where he addressed immense au- diences and succeeded in raising funds to the amount of eleven thousand pounds. Governor John Wentworth of New Hampshire in 1770 offered Dr. Wheelock an exten- sive grant of land in New Hampshire if he would move his school to that province, and he also promised a most liberal charter for the college, which it was Wheel-
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ock's ambition to found. A site for the institution was finally selected at Hanover, and after overcoming almost insuperable obstacles, the actual scholastic life of the college began. The first class was graduated August 28, 1771, and consisted of four students, Governor John Wentworth driving all the way from Portsmouth in order to be present at the ceremony.
The Dartmouth Medical School began with a course of lectures given by Dr. Nathan Smith, a graduate of Harvard Medical School, in 1790. The following year the medical department was formally accepted by the trustees of Dartmouth College, and the same year a class of four students was graduated, each receiving the degree of M. B.
From such small beginnings has the present Dart -. mouth College sprung. It ranks among the oldest of the American colleges, and it has established for itself a repu- tation of which every New Hampshire citizen may be justly proud.
In 1866 a school for agriculture was started under the title of "The New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts." It was organized with a board of nine trustees; five were appointed by the Governor and Council and four by the trustees of Dartmouth College. By act of Congress, New Hampshire was entitled to one hundred fifty thousand acres of land scrip, the sale of which amounted to about eighty thousand dollars. This sum was invested in six per cent bonds, none of it being available for the erection of buildings. The college was first located in Hanover, where it was more or less closely associated with Dartmouth College, not entirely to its advantage.
The real prosperity of the college began upon its re- moval from Hanover to Durham, when it fell heir to the Benjamin Thompson estate, amounting in all to nearly five hundred thousand dollars. Beautiful and spacious
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buildings were erected, mechanical, physical and chemical laboratories were thoroughly equipped, in fact, every con- venience was supplied for a college of mechanic arts according to modern ideas.
The Thayer School of Civil Engineering was founded by General Sylvanus Thayer of the United States Army. In 1867 he gave seventy thousand dollars as a fund for the school and established conditions which made it prac- tically a post graduate institution. Its requirements for graduation are probably more severe than those of any other school of a similar kind, and its graduates are looked upon by the profession as men thoroughly quali- fied in all departments of civil engineering.
In 1870 an act passed the legislature for the establish- ment of a Normal School, a board of trustees to be appointed by the Governor and Council. The school was finally located at Plymouth. At first it labored under a great disadvantage by not receiving pecuniary aid from the state, the expenses of the school being met by tuition collected from the pupils. It was not until 1875 that the state made a sufficient appropriation for the school to be declared free to its students.
In 1878 the appropriation was only three thousand dollars, but, as the efficiency and the needs of the school have become more apparent, it has been gradually in- creased until the state at present grants twenty-five thou- sand dollars a year toward the expenses of the school. From the beginning the town of Plymouth gave over its children into the hands of the trustees of the Normal School for a model and a practice school. At the present time the Normal School, which numbers over one hun- dred fifty pupils, is in a very flourishing condition. The large and commodious building erected in 1890 for recitation purposes, etc., as well as the dormitory build- ing, which at the time of their erection were deemed suffi- ciently large for years to come, have already been out-
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grown, and the school bids fair under proper financial conditions to become one of the largest normal schools in New England.
CHAPTER IV
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD OF THE COMMON SCHOOLS
In 1789 the general court of New Hampshire repealed all previous laws in regard to the common schools and started anew on the basis of taxing all the inhabitants of the several towns except non-residents, on the polls and real estate at the rate of five pounds for every twenty shillings that each town paid to the support of the state. The first year it was in operation this tax amounted throughout the entire state to nearly five thousand pounds, and the law read "that the money thus raised to be expended for the sole purpose of keeping an English Grammar School, or schools for teaching reading, writ- ing, and arithmetic; but in each shire or half shire town, the school kept shall be a grammar school for the purpose of teaching the Latin, and Greek languages, as well as the aforesaid branches." The above law also required that each candidate for a school should bring letters regarding his qualifications from some well-known teacher, minis- ter, principal of academy or president of a college.
The selectmen were held responsible for collecting the full amount thus assessed for school purposes. The idea of compelling each town to provide at least a certain defi- nite amount for school purposes was found to be a great improvement over the old methods, and in 1791 the amount was increased from five pounds on every twenty shillings of the state assessment to seven pounds ten shillings. This law stood in force until 1805, when a law of far-reaching importance was passed enabling towns to divide into school districts, the districts to raise money
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by taxation for the purpose of building and repairing schoolhouses. This law produced the desired effect, and a great many schoolhouses were erected under its pro- visions. It is interesting to note that in some towns a vote was passed to divide the township into "squadrons" instead of districts. Just where this term squadron origi- nated is not clear, unless it was taken from the military idea.
The location of the district school was often the source of endless quarrels, although generally a compromise was agreed upon so that all pupils would have to travel about the same distance, which accounts for finding school- houses perched in the most out of the way and unlooked for places, with sometimes not a single farmhouse in sight.
In 1807 a fourth law was passed raising the school rate to seventy dollars for every dollar of the state tax, the money to be expended for teaching reading, writing and arithmetic, and at the same time annulling the law that required a school to be held in shire and half shire towns in which Latin and Greek were to be taught. Whether this was because the general court deemed that the eleven academies now in existence were amply suffi- cient to take care of such students as wished to taste the higher education, or whether it was believed that greater general good would come to the state by the expenditure of the entire amount for the betterment of the common schools, is not known. It is certainly true, however, that from this time academies took the place of the old gram- mar schools and flourished in great numbers.
The effect these academies have wrought upon the towns in which they were located is hard to measure. They have brought an air of culture and an appreciation of educational values to homes which without the aca- demic influence would have been without mental or moral uplift. The day of the academy may be past, but its
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influence is not past, and it will last so long as the town forms the unit of New England life.
The school law of 1807, which, indirectly, was so effective in the establishment of academies, was followed a year later by a law containing a clause in regard to the supervision of schools, which is the first official mention we have in the New Hampshire records that there was deemed any need of such supervision. The law read that the towns should appoint a committee of three or more persons who should inspect the schools annually in "a manner which they might judge most conducive to the progress of literature, morality and religion." This law also increased the number of branches to be taught, and beside reading, writing and arithmetic, English grammar and geography were added. School mistresses, however, were allowed to do away with arithmetic and geography, and "in place thereof to substitute such other branches as are deemed necessary for female education."
In 1812 the state established a literary fund. This was done for the sole purpose of founding a state college. The funds were to be raised by taxing each year the bank- ing corporations throughout the state one-half of one per cent on their actual capital stock. In 1828 the idea of founding a college was abandoned, and the funds then available, amounting to sixty-four thousand dollars, were distributed to the different towns according to their ap- portionment of the public taxes. The money was to go toward the support of the public schools, and it was in addition to the amount required by law. In 1848 the basis of distribution was changed, and up to the present time it has been made upon the relative number of chil- dren attending two weeks or more in the several towns during the year .*
In 1827 the legislature passed a law the spirit of which
* The present law (1902) is identical, except that the tax is levied on banking funds held by non-residents.
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remains active even to the present time. It accurately defined how the town should be divided into districts, and laid down provisions regarding the authority of school districts and their officers. It also proportioned the money to each school district. The qualifications for teachers were raised and the law required all pupils to be provided with books, either by parents or guardians, or at the public expense in case of the needy. A superin- tending school committee were also to be appointed an- nually, who were to visit all the schools in their respective towns at least twice a year, determine upon the proper text books and aid the teacher to maintain a full and regular attendance.
In addition to the above mentioned duties this superin- tending committee were to make an annual report stating the time each school had run, the names of the teachers, the whole number of pupils between four and fourteen that had not attended school and the number between fourteen and twenty-one who could not read and write. The only difficulty with this law was the fact that there was no provision for collecting the statistics from the several towns into one report.
In 1829 a law was passed that each school district, ex- cept in the town of Portsmouth, for which special laws had been passed, should appoint a committee not greater than three which should be called the prudential commit- tee. This committee was supposed to have charge of the school moneys. They called the district school meetings, selected teachers, furnished fuel for the schoolhouses, attended to the minor repairs, and made such report to the superintending committee as would be of assistance to them in their work. By the law of 1833 the superin- tending committees were practically done away with and all of their powers were assumed by the prudential com- mittees.
The rate of assessment had steadily increased by vari-
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ous acts of the legislature. In 1840 it was one hundred dollars for every dollar of the public tax. In 1852 it was one hundred thirty-five dollars, in 1853 it was one hun- dred fifty dollars, in 1854 it was one hundred seventy-five dollars, in 1855 two hundred dollars, and in 1870 two hundred fifty dollars .* A town was not restricted to the sum thus raised, but could add to the amount as much as it pleased. About 1840 the advantages of graded schools began to appear, and the men interested in educational matters throughout the state strove to get some law upon the statute books which would enable the New Hampshire schools to take advantage of the graded system. Accord- ingly in 1840 an act was passed allowing a school to be graded when the pupils should number fifty or more, and the most progressive towns were quick to avail them- seives of this privilege. In 1845 the authority was given to "any two or more contiguous school districts in any town or towns in this state to associate together and form a union for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a high school or schools for the instruction of the older and more advanced scholars belonging to the associated districts."
In 1846 a state commissioner of common schools was appointed whose duty compelled him "to spend at least twenty weeks in the different counties of the state for the purpose of promoting, by inquiries, addresses and other means, the cause of education." He was also re- quired to make an annual report from the statistics which the committees of the several towns were obliged to fur- nish. Two years later the "Somersworth Act" was passed, which allowed school districts, independent of the town, to raise money for the maintenance of high schools. The effect of this law was far reaching, and many dis- tricts took advantage of its provisions and founded high schools.
* In 1902 the rate is six hundred dollars.
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The exact status of the town superintending committee is a difficult one to define. From 1827 until 1848 their duties ranged from having entire control of the schools to being merely an advisory body. In fact, as has been noted, between 1833 and 1846 the superintending com- mittee could be dispensed with entirely if the town so desired. In 1859 a bill was passed somewhat enlarging the duties of the superintending committee, although in all important points it was identical with the law of 1827. They were to select and dismiss teachers, prescribe rules of conduct for the pupils, decide what text books should be used and also the courses of study to be followed. Each teacher was to be supplied with a register, and the com- mittee were obliged at the end of the year to summarize and return to the state officer certain statistics from the same.
The first law restricting the employment of children in manufacturing establishments was passed in 1848. Since this time the law has been greatly strengthened by enactment at various sessions of the legislature. At pres- ent it is such that no child under fourteen can be em- ployed while the schools are in session; no child between fourteen and sixteen years old can be employed unless he can read and write in English; and no child between six- teen and twenty-one shall be employed who cannot read and write in English, unless he is a regular attendant upon the evening schools while they are in session, such evening schools to be established in manufacturing towns upon petition signed by 5 per cent of the legal voters.
In 1850 the office of the state commissioner of common schools was abolished, and in its place a board of county school commissioners was appointed, the board to elect its own secretary, who was to prepare statistics and re- ports. It was the duty of this county board to recom- mend books, methods of instruction, rules of discipline, etc. Each commissioner was obliged to spend at least
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one day in each town of his district at some time during the year. He was also obliged to take charge of county in- stitutions, which were becoming popular, and for their time served an excellent purpose. This board of county school commissioners continued until 1867, when it was discontinued, and again one man was placed at the head of the educational affairs of the state. This officer was now termed the superintendent of public instruction, and he with the governor and council constituted the State Board of Education.
In 1868 a bill was passed requiring each county to hold a teacher's institute annually at the expense of the state. This law, followed closely by one passed in 1870 estab- lishing a State Normal School, marks a period of decided awakening to the needs of educational improvement, and aside from a slight setback in 1874, when the state failed to make any appropriation for institutes and did away for a short time with a state superintendent, the progress in educational matters has been steady if not rapid.
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