USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume II > Part 14
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OBJECTIONS TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
As late as 1856 there was a strong minority in the community that did not believe in the public schools. The opposition became so strong that, in that year, the Board of Education found it proper to answer the critics. Two objections were commonly advanced by citizens: First, that the public schools were expensive and heavy taxation was necessary to establish and maintain them. Second, that public schools are injurious inasmuch as they merely cultivate the intellectual faculties and neglect the moral training of pupils. After the lapse of more than half a century this last objection is again heard, although it is not now advanced as an argument for the abandonment of public schools, but rather as a plea for moral training in the schools.
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THE FIRST BOARD OF EDUCATION, 1851.
By 1850, with Newark's population now close to 40,000, it began to be apparent that the school system was rapidly being outgrown, and in that year a new law was made, entitled "An Act to Establish Public Schools in the City of Newark." Although Newark had had public schools for several years, as we have seen, the new law gave the city greater and much needed powers. Three years later came another law, "An Act to Incorporate the Board of Education of the City of Newark," which had really been established in 1851. Samuel H. Pennington was its first president, and the members composing the first board, besides President Pennington, were: Silas Merchant. Lucius D. Baldwin, Milton H. Baldwin, Alexander N. Dougherty, John Whitehead, Horatio N. Peters, Stephen Congar, William A. Righter and James F. Bond. Stephen Congar was the first superintendent of schools, and Frederick W. Ricord (afterwards Mayor of the city) was the first secretary. Newark has had but five city superintendents of schools: Stephen Congar, George B. Sears, Dr. William N. Barringer, Charles B. Gilbert and the present incumbent (1913), Dr. Addison B. Poland, who succeeded Mr. Gilbert in 1901. The first published report of the Board of Education was issued in 1856.
THIRD HIGH SCHOOL IN THE COUNTRY.
Newark's first high school building, the third in the United States, was erected in 1853 and 1854, at the corner of Washington and Linden streets, and opened on January 7, 1855. It was enlarged in 1883, improved in 1886, and first used as a city normal school on April 1, 1899, the Barringer High School being opened on Feb- ruary 1, 1899. The Newark Normal School, as such, disappeared in 1913, when the Newark State Normal School was created, the hand- some new building at Belleville and Fourth avenues and Broad street, originally intended for a purely local institution, being formally converted into a State school on July 1, 1913, and opened for its first school year in September of the same year. The Central Manual Training and Commercial High School was opened
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on February 1, 1911; the East Side High School in September, 1911, and the South Side High School in the autumn of 1913. The first principal of Newark's first high school was Isaiah Peckham.
NORMAL SCHOOL BEGINNING, 1855.
On January 26, 1855, the Board of Education decided to provide a training place for its teachers, and the following resolution was adopted: "A Normal School for the improvement and education of teachers shall be established in the High School building [Wash- ington and Linden streets]. The studies prescribed by the Board of Education in the public schools and the best methods of tuition and government will be taught by the instructors in charge of said Normal School.
"The school will be open on Saturday of each week during the regular term of the public schools, and shall commence at nine o'clock a. m. and close at one o'clock p. m."
The organization of this school was put in the hands of the high school committee and of the city superintendent. It was opened on the second Monday of April, 1855, with one class of males and three of females. Eighty-five pupils were registered during the first year, and of these, nine were male and thirty-five female teachers in Newark's schools. That same year eight of the pupils of the new school were given positions in the local schools. The school, once established, was under the management of the principal of the male department of the high school, "and such other teachers as shall be necessary. The school shall be under the supervision of the committee on teachers of public schools. *
* The teachers in the public schools below the grade of principal of a grammar school, except such as shall have received a certificate of qualification of the principal grade, from the president of the Board, shall be required to attend punctually and regularly the ses- sions of the Normal School, unless excused by the committee on teachers of public schools. A limited number of pupils desirous of becoming qualified as teachers will be admitted to the Normal School, under the direction of the committee."
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The Newark Normal School was made a daily institution in 1879, and was for many years located in the old Market Street School, on the north side of that street, near the Court House. It remained there until 1899, when the high school organization was removed from the Linden and Washington street building to the Barringer School on Ridge street, opposite Branch Brook Park.
In 1855 Newark's first evening school, under the public school system, was started.
PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION SINCE EARLY 1880's.
In 1885 Newark's summer schools, the first in the United States, were started. In 1912 Newark ranked fifth in evening school attendance in the United States. Newark had kindergarten classes in its German-English schools as early as 1861. (See the chapters on the Germans in Newark for other facts about the schools of Newark.) Newark was one of the first American cities to supply free text-books.
For nearly a quarter of a century Newark's public schools did little more than mark time. But in the last three or four years of the last century the awakening began. The first great quickening impulse was the introduction of civil service in the appointment of . graduates from the local Normal School to the classrooms of the city's schools. The graduate whose marks showed her to be highest in scholarship and general efficiency received the first appointment, under the new order of things, and so on down the line. Next came the application of civil service to the appointment of all teachers whether from the local Normal School and elsewhere, and the formulation of a specific system of ratings by means of which standings of individuals were to be determined. School civil service was begun by Superintendent Charles B. Gilbert, who broke the way for his successor, Superintendent A. B. Poland, to inaugurate even more sweeping and beneficial reforms. The first Board of Examiners was created through the efforts of Mr. Gilbert.
Almost simultaneously with this change others were in the making. From 1872 to the time school civil service was introduced
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as just described, the population of the city had almost doubled. Centralization, concentration, a closer surveillance over the actual classroom work, now became essential. The whole system had been too loosely organized; it was not easy to learn quickly just what was being done and what left undone. Co-ordination and other long but expressive words were heard of constantly in all delibera- tions of the educators.
Now came the introduction of the supervisory system. It met with bitter opposition on the part of many of the educators. The supervisors were called spies and all manner of harsh things were said against them. They were even denounced by clergymen and others. All this opposition passed long ago; the vital need of super- vision was slowly recognized. To-day no one would even think of suggesting its abolishment.
Away back in 1872, City Superintendent Sears advocatel the introduction of kindergarten instruction. He was years ahead of his time in this. It was not until about fifteen years ago (1913) that the kindergarten came to Newark's public schools.
Even before this the ancient and honorable supremacy of the "three R's" was threatened. The demand all through the country was for a broader, more comprehensive curriculum. It was now realized that a large proportion of school children were denied the advantages of the higher grades, since they must go to work, and the desire to give these children more broadening instruction, the best possible equipment for their combat with the world, grew rapidly stronger. It is this spirit that has had a vast deal to do with the many remarkable and sweeping changes made in the courses of study. It actuated the introduction of more cultural studies and of some of the so-called fads which tend to promote well-balanced mental development. It inspired the use of new and advanced methods for teaching the elementary branches; it played its part, for instance, in the abandonment of teaching children their letters, since it had been found that they could learn to read much more rapidly by learning words first. Few of the many innovations have been made without struggle and opposition, but in nearly
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every case all this has faded away as soon as the new plan had been given a fair trial and its efficacy proven out of the actual results.
Manual training was introduced about 1900. It has had a profound effect upon the entire school system. It paved the way for the movement for industrial and vocational education which is now one of the dominant public school problems throughout the land. It has had a profound effect upon the entire school system.
Recognition of the need of physical training came about the same time, and it has long been a definite part of the curriculum. Practice has shown the pupils do better work at their lessons as a result of it. It pays, many times over. The first Newark public school to be equipped with a gymnasium was Hamburg place, about 1904. Now, every new school has its gymnasium. The playground feature has been quickened into newer and better life, and folk dancing is another phase of school life to-day which owes its being directly to the demand for physical training in all possible and reasonable forms. Newark was the second city in the United States to organize a Public School Athletic Association. This was done in 1904.
A movement for better school buildings began about 1900, but it did not take anything like proper form until the small Board of Education was organized, in 1907. The structures planned and reared since that time are many of them among the best examples of public school architecture to be found anywhere in the country.
Until about 1895 comparatively little attention was paid to the evening schools. We now feel that they are quite as important a phase of the public education system as the day schools; that they need as good teachers, if not better than the day schools, and that by means of them a great work is being done toward the making of good citizens out of large numbers of the foreign born. The foreign classes of the night schools, where adult foreigners are taught the English language and the elements of good citizenship at the same time, are one of the newest and most significant fea- tures of night school work. The free lectures for the people, given throughout each winter in many of the school auditoriums, have
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become an institution in Newark and are contributing in no small degree to the further education and the general uplift of a large part of the adult community.
The ungraded schools for incorrigible children are now on a footing hitherto undreamed of. Classes for defective children, and for the deaf, blind, for those predisposed to tuberculosis, as well as for anaemic children, have all been organized and put in an excel- lent state of efficiency in the last two or three years (1913). No one can overestimate the benefit of these last innovations. Scores, and later hundreds, of children who formerly would have grown to manhood and womanhood unable to provide for themselves, are now to be made wholly or partly self-sustaining through these new methods of early education and by means of special medical treat- ment. The system of medical inspection and of school nurse sur- veillance is repaying the city many times over for the outlay.
With the opening of the second decade of the present century the demand for industrial and for vocational training has grown with amazing swiftness. Newark has (in 1913) a fine industrial school for boys and is certain to amplify and expand this system in the next few years. It has taken over a century to approach to the ideals of Moses N. Combs, truly father of Newark's industries, who not only realized that the children of the poor had a right to education, but extended the benefits of it out of his own pocket, not so much with a view of providing opportunities for cultural advance- ment as to train the young mechanics of Newark to become better workmen, and therefore more worthy of their hire.
In the forty years preceding 1913, Newark doubled the per capita cost per annum of public school education, but there are very few who have made themselves acquainted with what the schools are doing who will not say that it is very well worth the while. While we are spending twice as much money, we are in many ways far more economical in school administration than ever before. We are conserving the bodies while training the minds of the children, and we are caring for the helpless that some day a certain propor- tion of them, at least, shall care for themselves. We are thus to
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eliminate an amount of physical and mental waste which would otherwise be appalling to contemplate. We are giving the children many times more than their parents and grandparents got from the public schools, and we therefore have a right to believe that we are providing for a much more efficient generation to meet the more exacting and complex conditions of modern life. We are doing infinitely better by all the children than ever before; we are reach- ing the poorest and most neglected and giving them advantages that were scarcely thought of but a decade ago. We are already doing many of the things that even Socialists a few years ago scarcely asked of the State.
Newark was the second city in the United States to establish all-year schools. This was done in the spring of 1912, in two school buildings, Seventh Avenue and Belmont Avenue. In these schools children may complete the eight grammar grades in a year, and in many instances two years, less time than in the regular schools.
The Newark Technical School was organized in 1885, through the instrumentality of the Newark Board of Trade and in accord- ance with an industrial education law enacted on March 24, 1881. It is still (1913) conducted under this law and its supplements, the State appropriating annually $10,000 for its maintenance and the city $20,000. Its quarters were at first in rented rooms in West . Park street. The building fronting on High street was erected chiefly through private subscriptions gathered largely by the untir- ing industry of its first and, so far, its only director, Charles A. Colton. The Newark Technical School's first class was graduated in 1888. It has been a most valuable factor in the city's educational work ever since.
NATHAN HEDGES AND BERNARD KEARNEY.
Two of the famous schools of Newark, which were founded in the days when free public schools were almost unthought of, and which continued to thrive after they were well established, were those of Nathan Hedges and of Barnard Kearney. They were typical schools of their time, in which the personality of the teacher counted
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for well-nigh everything. These two old Newark teachers impressed upon scores of Newark youth solid principles for good conduct and right living. There was a certain element of moral training in these two schools and in many others like them in other places at the same time which the thoughtful citizen of to-day recognizes as of the highest value, and which he regrets deeply is not in evidence in the public schools now.
Nathan Hedges' school was in Bank street, near Washington. He opened it about 1820, and it was continued for nearly half a century. One writer said of him in 1884 that he had the gift "to teach with a success that is seldom equalled, in many instances hav- ing had as his pupils the grandchildren of those to whom he had imparted the first principles of learning. Mr. Hedges was born at Madison, N. J., in 1792, and, although not a classical scholar, was a thorough mathematician and grammarian. As a teacher he en- joyed a high reputation, and as a disciplinarian he had no superior. Most of the men of Newark who were in active business thirty years ago [in the early fifties] had been his pupils, and, doubtless, held him in awe to the latest moments of his life. He died January 21, 1875, universally respected and regretted."
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KEARNEY A MASTER-TEACHER.
Bernard Kearney was a contemporary of Hedges and a man of forceful personality. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, in February, 1798, and came to the United States in 1822. He opened his first Newark school in Plane street, near Market. Among his pupils was Archbishop Corrigan, who was born in a house on Market street, but three or four doors east of Broad, on the north side. Master Kearney won the highest respect of the community, not only for his learning, but for his high standards of living and his irreproachable character. He was a member of the Board of Educa- tion in 1859-60 and of the Common Council in 1862-65. He died at the age of eighty-five on February 25, 1882.
Master Kearney's school was patronized by Protestants as well as Catholics, "the former," wrote Dr. James Elliott in 1904, "being
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clerks for merchants and lawyers who attended Kearney's school * to learn penmanship, bookkeeping and stenography. * * Father Moran [the father of the Roman Catholic Church in New- ark, as told in the preceding chapter] desired to secure Bernard Kearney as principal of the school he had planned to be a model one, a school in which the children of the very poor of his parish would receive books and instruction free. His plan was for every adult Catholic to contribute two cents a week to the school fund for this purpose. He could not secure Mr. Kearney, however, for that teacher had in his seminary pupils who had paid a quarter's tuition in advance."
Kearney's school was in Bank street, six doors west of Broad. Later it had several different locations, at Broad and Commerce streets, on the northeast corner of New and Halsey streets. For a time Mr. Kearney had charge of St. Patrick's Cathedral School. Failing to obtain the services of Kearney, Father Moran employed John Nugent, "a young man," wrote Dr. Elliott, "recently arrived from Ireland, a graduate of Maynoth College. ** He was a student in the law office of William A. Whitehead. He was in charge of the school for two years." The school was located at 168 Plane' street and was the first parochial school in Newark. Young Nugent, its first principal, subsequently became private sec- retary to United States Senator William Wright, of this city, and while in Washington, D. C., was correspondent of the New York Herald. Later on he edited The Vindicator, a Newark weekly paper, and after a time removed to California, where he estab- lished the San Francisco Herald.
But not even Kearney's or Nugent's schools were the first in which instruction was given to the children of Newark Catholics. Dr. Elliott explains that, "After 1820 Edward Quinn, a classical scholar who settled in Newark, gave lessons to children and young men and women. Mission priests came from New York once a week and said mass at the house of Daniel Durning and at other houses. * As there are a good many of Mr. Kearney's pupils in, Newark yet, it may be of interest to them and their children to
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record here some things concerning him. He was an expert engraver, and specimens of his skill in this art were seen on many coffin plates. * The father of General Philip Kearny was a pupil of Bernard Kearney for a time. General Kearny's father lived in New York, but he was a large New Jersey property owner also. He was attacked with 'writer's cramp' and for a long time could not use a pen. He was treated * without permanent relief. Finally, he called at Bernard Kearney's seminary in Bank street, where the two men had a discussion over the correct spelling of the Kearney name, Bernard standing for the use of the two 'e's' and his visitor for one only. Mr. Kearny signed for a course of twelve lessons in penmanship. The discussion about spelling brought out the fact that the ancestors of teacher and pupil came from the same part of Ireland. *
* * Former United States Senator James Smith, Jr., Judge Michael J. Ledwith and other Newark men owe their excellence as penmen to Bernard Kearney's instruction."
ST. MARY'S ACADEMY.
St. Mary's Academy, a Roman Catholic educational institution with a reputation wider than the State, was established in 1859, soon after the coming of the Sisters of Charity to Newark. An old Ward homestead, on the southeast corner of Bleecker and Wash- ington streets (sometimes spoken of as Washington's headquarters, but without anything but the faintest of traditions to support the story), was purchased by Archbishop Bayley for $10,000, half of that sum being subscribed by the members of St. Patrick's Cathe- dral parish. In 1910 this property was sold for $100,000. The old Ward house was at first used by the Sisters, as a home for novices, as a hospital and as a select school for girls. The Sisters also con- ducted a boys' preparatory school there for a time. The last class to be graduated from the Academy got its diplomas in 1910. It was not found feasible to establish it anywhere else, when the property was sold. St. Mary's numbered among its graduates women of prominence and attainments now scattered throughout this country and in the old world.
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ST. BENEDICT'S COLLEGE.
In March, 1881, St. Benedict's College was chartered, and it has ever since been a Newark educational institution of great value, located on the northeast corner of High and William streets. It is, as a prospectus tells, "A day college, designed to give young men a complete classical or commercial education; it is conducted by members of the Order of St. Benedict." Within the last decade (1913) the college has broadened and improved its courses to meet the changing conditions of the times.
THE CARTERET BOOK CLUB.
The Carteret Book Club is a chartered organization, estab- lished in December, 1908, formed for the literary study and promotion of the arts pertaining to the production of books, includ- ing the occasional publication of books designed to illustrate, pro- mote and encourage those arts, and the acquisition of such property, real and personal, as the club may deem necessary for the promo- tion of its general objects, with power to acquire and hold objects of art and curiosity, and to provide for and hold exhibitions for the promotion of, the general objects of the club.
The incorporators were Vice Chancellor James E. Howell, Noah F. Morrison and John C. Dana. The first officers were: James E. Howell, President ; John C. Dana, Secretary. Hon. Frank J. Swayze, Rev. Joseph F. Folsom and Thomas L. Raymond, with the presi- dent and secretary, formed the Board of Directors.
The club has published four books: The Letters of Nathaniel Hawthorne in two volumes, in 1910, printed at the Marion Press, Long Island; The Letters of E. Bulwer-Lytton to the Actor Macready, in 1911, printed at the Merrymount Press, Boston; an Essay by Walt Whitman on Criticism, and an Essay by Charles Dudley Warner on Dickens, in 1913, printed at the Marion Press. None of these books had been published before. They were issued in editions of 100 copies.
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THE NEWARK MUSEUM ASSOCIATION.
The Newark Museum Association was incorporated in April, 1909, to establish in the city of Newark, New Jersey, a museum for the reception and exhibition of objects of art, science, history and technology, and for the encouragement of the study of the arts and sciences, and to that end to acquire such real estate and personal property as may be convenient and necessary for the purpose.
The first officers were: President, Franklin Murphy; First Vice-President, James E. Howell; Second Vice-President, J. William Clark; Third Vice-President, James S. Higbie; Treasurer, Charles Bradley ; Secretary, John Cotton Dana; Chairman Executive Com- mittee, Dr. Archibald Mercer.
The property of the association now (1913) fills the fourth floor of the Library building and occupies some space in the corridors of the third floor. It includes paintings, bronzes, coins, medals, fabrics, engravings, rocks, minerals, plants, birds, shells, wood carvings and books.
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