USA > New York > New York City > History of New York City : embracing an outline sketch of events from 1609 to 1830, and a full account of its development from 1830 to 1884, Volume I > Part 32
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Dr. Haven, perceiving his studious habits and longing for knowledge, especially of the healing art, gave him every opportunity for study in his power. During the two years Gray was with him the youth acquired a fair knowledge of Latin, under the instructions of the principal of the village academy, since expanded into Madison University. His wardrobe needing replenishment, he taught a district school a few months, obtamed a new suit of clothes, and started on foot to visit his parents, more than two hundred miles deeper in the western wilderness, in Chautauqua County, where they had removed. Hle opened a private school near Dunkirk, was very successful, and having studied continually with the object of entering the medical profession, he was enabled. with money enough saved from his earnings. to start for New York to take instruction in the medical college there. He bore influential letters of introduction ; among others one from Governor De Witt Clinton to Dr. Hosack and others. He received the diploma of a Doctor of Medicine from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in March, 1826, when he was twenty-two years of age.
By the advice of Dr. Hosack, Dr. Gray began the practice of his profession in the city of New York, and continued active in it fifty-five years. He opened an office in Charlton Street, then far " up town." His success was remarkable from the beginning. He married a daughter of Dr. Amos G. Hull, and his personal and professional relations in the city were most happy. As we have seen, he became the first convert of the apostle of homeopathy, Dr. Gram, and was ever afterward his most efficient champion by word and deed.
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professional skill and counsel. Success in his practice brought friends, old and new, to his support. A convert from the old school now and then appeared, as we have seen, and it was not a very long time before Dr. Gray needed a carriage again in the performance of his daily duties.
The violent professional assaults made upon Dr. Gray practically proved the truth of the saying, " The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." The comparative results of the various sorts of medi- cal treatment were so decidedly in favor of the mild and simple and successful course pursued from the first by Dr. Gray and his handful of compeers that they set thoughtful persons to candid thinking, and gave a powerful impulse to the spread of homoeopathy ; and Dr. Gray lived to see Hahnemann's system of cure, from the first planting in this country, established in every part of it, with its educated and trained practitioners numbered by thousands, its societies and institutions sanc- tioned by law in every State of the Republic, with its colleges, hos- pitals, infirmaries, and dispensaries existing in numbers to meet the rapidly increasing demand.
In 1834 Dr. Gray, in conjunction with his brother-in-law (his pupil and convert), Dr. A. G. Hull, established the first American Journal of Homeopathy. Its issue soon ceased for want of support, but was afterward revived for a while under another name. At Dr. Gray's suggestion, an association of all the disciples of Hahnemann in the United States was formed, with the title of " American Institute of Homeopathy." It is the oldest national medical institution in the country. Dr. Gray was for years the leading spirit of the society.
The literature of homoeopathy in America received very important but not very numerous contributions from the pen of Dr. Gray ; his personal exertions in promoting the spread and success of the new system of therapeutics were enormous. As president of the State Homoeopathic Medical Society, he successfully exerted his influence with the Legislature of New York in favor of the enactment of a law for the promotion of a higher standard of education by providing for the appointment of a board of State examiners, entirely unconnected with .the medical colleges, for the examination of candidates for a higher honorary degree, to be conferred only by the regents of the University of the State. After much opposition such a law was enacted May 16, 1872. Under this "advanced medical act" the Board of Regents enjoined a rigid code of rules and regulations for the conduct of these examiners. Dr. Gray was appointed president of the first board of examiners, and held that position until his death, which occurred on June 5, 1852, when he was in the seventy-eighth year of his age.
Arrastraday
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Dr. Gray was a thorough classical scholar, and conspicuous for his wide and varied knowledge. . He was generous, kind-hearted, and ever ready to give a hand to help the needy. His professional benefac- tions among the poor were far beyond the public ken. The sick poor always found in him an attentive physician and a sympathizing friend. A single anecdote will fitly illustrate this phase of his character. A poor sewing-girl went to Dr. Gray for advice. He gave her a vial of medicine, and told her to go home and go to bed.
" I can't do that, doctor," said the girl, " for I am dependent on what I earn every day for my living."
" If that is so," said the doctor, " I'll change the medicine a little. Give me back the vial."
Ile took it, and wrapping around it a ten-dollar bill, returned it to the poor girl, and repeated his order :
" Go home and go to bed. Take the medicine, wrapper and all."
New York City has now a large body of homoeopathic physicians of the highest professional character and attainments. Among the most successful of these are Drs. Egbert Guernsey," E. E. Marcy,t and William Tod Helmuth. The latter is regarded as one of the most skil- ful surgeons in the city, and has contributed largely and usefully to the literature of homœopathy .;
* Dr. Egbert Guernsey is a native of Litchfield, Connecticut, and a graduate of the medical department of the University of the City of New York. He took his degree in 1814. After his graduation he took charge of a drug-store for a while. In 1849 he was appointed city physician of Williamsburgh, now Brooklyn, Eastern District. At that time the cholera prevailed in New York and Brooklyn. After exhausting every means the allopathic materia medica furnished for the restoration of his patients, he consulted Dr. Cox, a recent convert to homeopathy, who, in his prescription of a few doses of arsenicum, prepared homoeopathically, relieved a patient he was attending. This service induced him to examine the system of Hahnemann, and he became a convert. He was eminently successful in all cholera and dysentery cases. Dr. Guernsey settled in the city of New York in 1851, and the next year he published his work on " Domestic Practice," a most valuable family guide. His practice in New York soon became extensive, and also profitable to his patients and himself.
, + Dr. E. E. Marcy is a native of Massachusetts, and was born in 1819. After practis- ing medicine allopathically for about ten years, he discarded it and began the homdo- pathic practice in New York about 1850, where he originated the North American Homeo. pathic Journal, of which he was the principal editor for about fifteen years. Dr. Marcy is a very skilful physician and has a large practice. His contributions to homeopathic literature are many and important.
# William Tod Helmuth, M.D., was born in Philadelphia, Pa., October 30, 1833. He was educated at St. Timothy's College, Baltimore, and in 1850 began the study of medi- cine under his unele, Dr. William S. Helmuth, then professor of the history and practice of medicine in the Homeopathie Medical College of Pennsylvania. Graduating in 1853
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with honor, he received his doctorate and began the practice of his profession, having for a while acted as dispensary physician of the college.
In 1855, when he was only twenty-two years of age, Dr. Helmuth was elected professor of anatomy in his alma mater, and in the same year he completed and published a work of 650 pages, entitled " Surgery, and its Adaptation to Homoeopathic Practice." In 1558 Dr. Helmuth removed to St. Louis and became one of the founders of the Homoeopathic Medical College of Missouri, in which he occupied the chair of anatomy. He also be. came one of the surgeons of the Good Samaritan Hospital, which position he occupied until 1870, when he made his place of residence and field of professional labor in the city of New York.
In 1866 Dr. Helmuth delivered the annual address before the American Institute of Homeopathy, and in 1867, at its session in the city of New York, he was chosen its president. The following year he went to Europe for the purpose of increasing his knowledge of surgical science, and made quite an extensive tour on the continent. On his return, in 1869, he organized the St. Louis College of Homeopathic Physicians and Surgeons, and became its dean and professor of surgery. In 1870 he received an urgent call to the chair of surgery in the Homoeopathic Medical College of New York, which he accepted. On his departure from St. Louis for his new field of action his profes- sional and other friends in that city gave him a banquet, and presented him with a com- plete service of silver, as " a token of their high esteem for him as a citizen and a man of science." With such a gratifying farewell demonstration he left the West and took up his residence in the commercial metropolis of the Republic, where he is now, in the enjoyment of an extensive professional practice, which he soon won by his skill and industry.
Dr. Helmuth married Miss Pritchard, of St. Louis, in 1859. Since that time his lit- erary labors in the cause of medical science have been extensive and useful. We have seen that at the age of twenty-two he published an important volume. In 1864 he became one of the founders and the principal editor of the Western Homoeopathic Observer, which he conducted with great ability until he left St. Louis, a period of about seven years. During his residence in New York, besides making frequent contributions to periodical medical literature, he has revised and annotated the four editions of his " System of Surgery." He has published a volume of " Surgical Clinics," a monograph on " Nerve Stretching."' an account of " A Dozen Cases in Clinical Surgery" (which are all rare and interesting), an essay on " The Excision of the Rectum." and a quarto volume on "Supra-Pubic Lithotomy," illustrated with colored lithographie plates. Dr. Helmuth has indulged in lighter literature, having issued several humorous poems, among them " The Doctor Woman," " My First Patient, " " How I Became a Surgeon, " and a collec- tion of fugitive pieces entitled " Scratches of a Surgeon," and a little volume entitled " A Steamer Book"- a sort of book of travel to be read upon a steamboat.
Dr. Helmuth, besides occupying the chair of surgery in the New York Homeopathic Medical College, is one of the surgeons to the Ward's Island Hospital, to the Hahnemann Hospital, and to the New York College and Hospital for Women. He is a " Veteran" member of the American Institute of Homeopathy : a Fellow of the New York Medico- Chirurgical Society ; a member and late president of the Homeopathic County Medical Society ; a permanent member of the Homeopathic Medical Society of the State of New York ; and during a recent visit to Europe was elected an honorary member of the Société Homoopathique de France. He is also an honorary member of the State socie- ties of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
CHAPTER XVI.
"N 1832 a radical change in the system of public instruction in the I
. city of New York was begun. Before considering that topic further, let us take a brief retrospective glance at the condition of public instruction on Manhattan Island from the beginning of settle- ments thereon.
The Hollanders who settled on the site of the city of New York had enjoyed the blessings of free public schools in their native land, and provision was made in the charter of the Dutch West India Company for " good and fit preachers, schoolmasters, and comforters of the sick" in the wilderness of New Netherland. It was ordained that the relig- ious and secular teachers should walk hand in hand in the high employ- . ment of educating the head and the heart. For a time the minister and schoolmaster were found in the same person, but in 1633 Dominie Bogardus, the minister, who had also been the school-teacher, was relieved of pedagogical duties. and Adam Roelandsen was installed as schoolmaster. He was the first of a long line of secular instructors of the young, who may be justly regarded as among the grandest builders of our free institutions. Roelandsen should be canonized as the tutelar saint of the thousands of school-teachers in the city of New York who to-day are fostering education, which, as Burke said, is " the cheap defence of nations."
When Dutch rule-ended on Manhattan Island there were three pub- lic schools and more than a dozen private schools in New Amsterdam, now New York. The first of these is vet in existence, and known as the " School of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church," founded by Governor Stuyvesant, and probably the oldest educational institution in our country.
In 1659 an excellent Latin School was established, and fostered by the Dutch Goverment. It was continued eight years after the Eng- lish took possession of New Amsterdam. William III. deereed that the minister of the Dutch Church should have the right to nominate school-teachers. In 1702 a Free Grammar School was founded. and an edifice for it was built on the King's Farm. Two years later William
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Vesey, a minister of the Church of England, opened a school for col- ored children. This was followed in 1710 by the establishment, by that church, of Trinity School.
In 1732 the first free school for the teaching of Latin, Greek, and mathematics was established by law, and in 1773 the English language was first taught in the Dutch Church school. All the schools were closed during the Revolution. The Dutch Church school reopened in 1784. The next year the Manumission Society was formed, with John Jay as its president, and its first school for colored children was opened in 1787, on Cliff Street, with one hundred pupils. At that time there were about four thousand colored people in the city, of whom more than one half were slaves. Other schools were afterward opened by this society.
The first movement for establishing common schools throughout the State was suggested by Governor George Clinton in his annual message in 1795. The Legislature appropriated 850,000 a year for five years for the purpose. It was at that period that a benevolent spirit, directed in its work largely to providing means of education for the poor, began to prevail in England and the United States. Sunday- schools were established, and in 1802 the Female Association for the Relief of the Poor, founded by benevolent women, members of the Society of Friends or Quakers, opened a school for the free education of white girls. This society was the original founder of the free-school system in New York City. It soon extended its influence and labors, so that at one time it had several large elementary free schools under its direction and control. It wrought vigorously and gloriously for nearly half a century, when it expired, leaving a sweet memory of good deeds as a legacy for mankind.
The success of this society and the advice of its members induced a number of gentlemen. mostly of the same religious society, to attempt the same benevolent purpose for the neglected boys of the city. This led to the establishment of the Free School Society, which afterward became the Public School Society of the City of New York.
The Free School Society was established in 1805, and opened its first school in May, 1806. The population of the city of New York was then nearly seventy-six thousand. A Teachers' Association had been in ex- istence about six years. There were then in the city one hundred and forty-one teacher's, all engaged in private schools, excepting a few in the denominational schools. Of these, thirty-five were women. The same year the common-school fund of the State was established by law.
The primary object of the Free School Society of the city was to
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impart education to the neglected classes. Leading citizens took great interest in its efforts. De Witt Clinton was its warm supporter and its first president. Indeed the petition for its charter (granted April 9, 1.05) was first signed by him, and last signed by Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill.
The society took prompt measures to put the new plan into opera- tion. A school was opened in May, 1806, in a small room in the old Mission House, on Madison Street, near Pearl Street. It was soon overcrowded with nearly seventy children, when Colonel Rutgers gave the society a lot of land in Henry Street on which to build a school- house. It was not used immediately, for prudential reasons. The city corporation allowed the society the use of a building adjoining the almshouse and $500 to put it in suitable condition. When completed it would accommodate about two hundred pupils. To this building the school was removed, in April. 1807, where it soon had one hundred and fifty pupils, including fifty pauper children. This building, too, was soon overcrowded.
The society now procured from the city authorities a building known as the Old Arsenal, on Chambers Street and Tryon Row, and a small sum of money ($1500) to assist in making it suitable for a school, on the condition that they should educate all the children in the almshouse. It was made to accommodate five hundred children. Meanwhile the society had received some aid from the Legislature, with a promise of more. In December, 1809, the new school building, long known as No. 1, was opened with interesting ceremonies, De Witt Clinton giv- ing a memorable address, as president of the Free School Society. A report of the board of education in 1854, referring to that address, spoke of it as " sowing the seed wheat of all the harvests of education which subsequent years have gathered into our garners." Among the most conspicuous working members of the society at that time were De Witt Clinton, Thomas Eddy, Samuel Wood, Robert Brown, John Griscom, Joseph Curtis, Charles Wilkes, Cadwallader D. Colden, Dr. John W. Francis, and others.
The Legislature continued to give moderate pecuniary aid, and the corporation of Trinity Church, which had a large parochial free school in operation, gave to the society several lots on Christopher Street for a school building in 1811. The name of the society in Isos was changed from the Society for Establishing a Free School to the Free School Society of the City of New York.
By subscription from the citizens the society raised about $13,000 to erect a school-house on the lot generously given them by Colonel
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Rutgers. It was completed early in the autumn of 1811, and on the 13th of November it was opened as Public School No. 2.
The second war for independence (1812-15) interrupted the beneti- cent labors of the society, but they resumed their work with vigor at its close. They received from the Legislature that year (1815) their quota of the State school fund, amounting to $3708. From that time the number of public-school houses gradually increased. In 1818 No. : was opened for pupils on the corner of Amos and Hudson streets, and the next year No. + was erected in Rivington Street, when a new de- parture in the arrangement of public-school buildings was made. That was the first in which were separate departments for boys and girls. Afterward a small library was introduced into each school.
The free public schools became more and more popular, and the favor of the citizens received a powerful impetus from a circumstance which occurred in 1824. In October of that year Lafayette visited the city of New York. In company with State and city officials he visited Public School No. 3, which contained five hundred boys and two hun- dred girls. In the presence of these seven hundred children, all tidy in appearance and orderly in behavior, this " guest of the nation" listened to a poetical address recited by a class of girls in concert. At two o'clock in the afternoon of the same day Lafayette reviewed all the children of the public schools in the city before a large concourse of people in the City Hall Park. The children numbered more than three thousand. They carried banners with appropriate inscriptions, on one of which were the significant words, " EDUCATION IS THE BASIS OF FREE GOVERNMENT." A sweet little girl recited a touching poetic address, expressing, in the name of the children of America, their gratitude to this friend and associate of Washington. When she closed the address, she gently laid a beautiful wreath of laurel and flowers on the head of the venerable man, who rewarded the little spokeswoman with an affectionate kiss.
The public schools had now become so popular that " middle-class citizens," desirous of having their children taught in them, offered to pay for tuition. This afforded to the trustees a temptation to adopt an injurious measure. There had been much opposition to the free schools on the ground that those who accepted the boon acknowledged them- selves a sort of paupers. To allay this feeling the society considered the propriety of converting the schools into pay schools. They ascertained that there were in the city about four hundred pay schools, most of them small and miserably conducted, and it was concluded if the studies in the public school should be revised and greatly extended, and
t
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at the same time a small amount of pay for instruction demanded, they would secure the personal interest and patronage of the large and im- portant class of citizens who supported these private schools. It was proposed to consolidate the schools of the Free School Society, of the Manumission Society, and those of the Female Association under one organization known as the Public School Society.
It was argued that the proposed scheme would be a more democratic principle in the schools, where the rich and poor would meet together ; that it would harmonize religious sects ; that it would attract more attention and support to the public schools, and secure a uniform sys- tem in all elementary schools ; also to foster the cultivation of a proper feeling of independence among the poor and laboring classes.
These specious arguments prevailed, and in January, 1826, the society procured a new charter, which authorized them, under the title of the Public School Society, to receive low rates of payment for teaching. from 25 cents to 82 per quarter. Fifty members were added to the trustees, and an executive committee was appointed, consisting of five trustees elected by ballot, together with the president, vice-president. secretary, and treasurer, and the chairman of each of the several local sections, " with power to appoint teachers and take general charge during the recess of the board of trustees."
This committee became the working power of the society. New school-houses were erected to meet the expected great influx of pupils, and the course of studies in the schools was greatly extended. Steps were also taken for establishing a normal school for the " instruction of tutors and monitors," for the Lancastrian system was in full force.
The pay system speedily proved to be a disastrous failure. Many of those who had never paid before withdrew their children ; there was great difficulty in collecting the dues from parents ; many insisted that . as the schools received money from the State school fund, there existed no right to demand pay from individuals, and the popularity of the public-school system rapidly declined. The number of children who came in from the private schools was far less than anticipated. Many parents paid only one or two quarters, so as to have their children appear on the pay-list, and never paid afterward. The register of pupils on August 1, 1825, showed the number to be 5919 ; on the first of May, 1826, the day when the new law went into operation, it had shrunk, in nine months, to 4654.
The trustees struggled against fate so long as hope remained, but when they perceived the solid ground slipping from beneath their feet -the grand postulate that Education is a right appearing like a new
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light in the social firmament-the undoubted signs of utter and disas- trous failure appearing on every side, they paused to consider. They perceived, among the most alarming symptoms of disintegration of the system, the growth of an injurious caste spirit. The children whose parents paid looked down upon those whose parents did not or could not pay. They also discovered that the doors of the denominational free schools were thrown wide open, and that they had established cheap pay schools which were drawing many children from the public schools. The intelligence of the period had outstripped the monitorial system, which had become a hindrance, and the clamor for assistant teachers was loud and powerful. They finally gave up the contest and abolished the pay system altogether. On February 3, 1832, public notice was given that the public schools were open to all as a common right, and that every effort would be made to render them attractive and desirable to all classes. This act was done just in time to save the public-school system from ruin.
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