USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume II > Part 13
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In the six years the percentage of new sittings in the schools provided, as compared with increase in registers, showed : For Manhattan, 62.18; for The Bronx, 61.96; for Brooklyn, 53.06; for Queens, 66.85; for Rich- mond, 54.55. The total sittings planned for elementary schools for the years 1918-1920 were: For Manhattan, 11,580; for The Bronx, 21,270; for Brooklyn, 30,150; for Queens, 9,315; for Richmond, 900.
The following is a list of places and communities in The Bronx de- manding new or improved school buildings in 1920: vicinity of 184th Street and Jerome Avenue requested an addition to Public School 33; the vicinity of 164th Street and Anderson Avenue requested new site and building for Highbridge section ; Olinville Avenue wanted an addition to Public School 41, and site for more play space; the vicinity of Vyse and Tremont avenues requested an Auditorium for P. S. 6; vicinity of 126th Street and Washington Avenue wanted the church property altered at P. S. 58; Classon Point requested site and building at annex of P. S. 47; East 233rd Street wanted site and building for Edenwald; east of White Plains Road wanted site and building in the vicinity of P. S. 13; north of 233rd Street requested site and building in the vicinity of P. S.
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19; 176th Street and Prospect Avenue wanted an addition to P. S. 44; Tremont Avenue and Mount Hope Place wanted site for an addition and play space for P. S. 28; 163rd Street and Grant Avenue requested site for addition and play space for P. S. 35; Unionport wanted audi- torium for P. S. 36; eastern part of District No. 20 wanted two sites and buildings; Third Avenue and 169th Street wanted gymnasium and play- ground for P. S. 2; Ritter Place wanted play space for P. S. 40; College Avenue and 145th Street wanted a new building for P. S. 1; 141st Street and Brook Avenue wanted an addition of twelve rooms for P. S. 30.
Two years after the report given above, that is in August, 1922, Dr. Ettinger told of the progress that had been made: "As the report sets forth, noteworthy progress has been made in the erection of school buildings during the past two years. During that period 21 new elementary school buildings, containing 27,997 sittings, have been opened and contracts have Been let for 43 additional elementary school buildings with 36,841 sittings, and 5 high schools, containing 8,076 sittings. Such remarkable achievements bear eloquent testimony to the wisdom and generosity of the city financial authorities and the Board of Education, and I hope will make impossible a recurrence of the assumption that by some device or other the city can, in the interest of the tax rate, dodge the obligation to provide new school buildings for our constantly grow- ing school population."
Further on in his report he said : "The Bronx now sends 4,263 students to the Manhattan high schools. If the 13,500 additional sittings which we are planning for the new high school in The Bronx, in our budgets for 1922 and 1923, are provided by 1925, all the 'excess' students now in The Bronx (7,392) would be adequately housed, and ample provision would be made for 6,000 growth in the next three years. If the George Washington High School and the Julia Richman High School are erected in the next two years (aggregate capacity 8,000), and 6,000 ad- ditional sittings are provided in other new schools, there will be adequate room for all in 1925, in Manhattan."
Pupils in High Schools-The register of pupils in all courses in the high schools in The Bronx during March, 1920, was as follows :
Evander Childs : First year, 598 boys, 831 girls ; second year, 355 boys, 530 girls ; third year, 157 boys, 350 girls ; fourth year, 123 boys, 164 girls ; total, 1,233 boys, 1,875 girls, or 3,108 pupils in all. Morris : First year, 675 boys, 702 girls; second year, 504 boys, 717 girls; third year, 333 boys, 281 girls; fourth year, 238 boys, 166 girls; fifth year, 1 boy, 36 girls ; cooperative, 2 boys, 49 girls ; total, 1,753 boys, 1,951 girls, or 3,704 in all. Roosevelt : First year, 179 boys, 590 girls; second year, 84 boys, 347 girls; third year, 29 boys, 217 girls; fourth year, 8 boys, 13 girls ; cooperative, 8 boys, 13 girls ; total, 308 boys, 1,189 girls, or 1,497 in all.
Champlain, Di.
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In the report which gives these figures the following remarks are also made: "The Borough of The Bronx is growing most rapidly and is be- coming a great centre for manufacturing. Its boys who now plan to enter the industries must now travel long distances to Stuyvesant High School. I would recommend that The Board of Education seek to acquire a site in the southern part of The Bronx for a technical high school and it establish such a school at the earliest possible moment."
In the high schools in The Bronx the hidden talent of the students is sought out. Thus concerning Dramatics in the Evander Childs High School in 1920 we are told: "Early in the year a committee was ap- pointed to develop and direct the work of dramatics. The committee organized the student body into five divisions. There were dramatic organizations formed in the First Year, the Second Year, the Third Year, the Seventh Term, and the Eighth Term. For each of these or- ganizations there was a sub-committee of teachers appointed, which consulted with the student members as to the plays to be selected, which held try-outs to determine the players, and which coached the acting and managed the production. Dramatic productions during the term have been as follows: a. Three invitation performances of plays prepared by the Second and by the First year organizations; two per- formances by the former and one double bill by the latter. b. Three assembly performances, one by the Second Year and two by the First year organizations. c. Three plays given as a triple bill (called the Festival Plays) on the Dramatics Day of the Dedication Celebration. There were three performances of this production. One of the plays was given by the Seventh Term organization, and the other two by that of the Third Year. d. The Senior Play by the Eighth Term group. There were two performances of this. e. Two performances of a comic opera produced by the Third Year organization. f. A Class play given by the Commercial Seniors. Among these productions were Alfred Noyes's "Sherwood," Anatole France's "The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife," W. E. Howell's "The Sleeping Car," Stuart Walker's "Six Who Pass While the Lentils Boil," Lord Dunsany's "Golden Doom," Arthur A. Penn's "Yokohama Maid" (the comic opera), and Lady Gregory's "Spreading the News." Aside from the training of the players, there was much work to be done in the mechanics of the stage equipment. The new building was erected without the slightest provision for a stage, and the platform is ill adapted to theatrical performances. Three teach- ers from the art and shop departments have performed wonders in pro- viding an artistic stage setting to all the plays. This consists of large screens of a neutral tint that can be easily moved, and upon which the necessary decorations can be hung. Two of the students have worked out the complex electric lighting problems and have made much of the equipment. An attempt was made by the committee to develop in the
Bronx-35
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students the power of studying their own parts, that there might be individuality, and that there might be the greatest profit to the student himself. The result is that those taking part in the plays have learned not only to overcome self-consciousness, to practice team work, and to learn clear expression, but they have gained much in the study of litera- ture, and in the development of character."
On the subject of economy in program making in Evander Childs High School we are told, moreover: "Our method of program making has been systemized to such an extent that we are able now with very little interruption of school work to have every individual program made out and the school started on with the new term without loss of a single day. Last term, individual programs of about sixteen hundred students were completed by a committee of five teachers and ten boys in two school days, the Wednesday and Thursday of the last week of January. No teacher was taken from his classes or other work at any time previous to those days. The result was that the term was brought to a successful close with much less interruption of regular work than had been possible in the past."
For some years an experiment has been conducted in the Morris High School of giving stenography to first term students in the three years' commercial course. These students have been given ten periods a week of stenography and typewriting. As the wisdom of giving this course has been questioned by teachers in other schools the superintendent made an inquiry of Principal Bogart, of Morris High School, and of the first assistant who was in charge of this work, and received the following reports which, based on several years' experience, bear out the conclusions to which teachers of stenography in New York have generally come. Mr. Bogart reported : "At a joint conference of the Commercial Depart- ment and the Department of Stenography and Typewriting, it was the consensus of opinion that stenography is best deferred until the second year. Typewriting may well be given in the first year. Our experience this term confirms the decision." Miss E. M. Hagar, of the Theodore Roosevelt High School, formerly chairman of the stenography depart- ment of Morris High School, wrote: "In the matter of teaching short- hand the first term students' four years' experience with that experiment determines that I advise against it. The students who have six terms of shorthand undoubtedly know more of it than those who have four, but they cannot do enough better work to justify the devotion of an entire year to it. The student in the first year is too immature, too unfamiliar with methods of study and application, and too deficient in English to accomplish anything like as much as second year students. To get even such results as we have from them, we have had to work them much too hard. It seems apparent that more students leave school be-
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cause of the difficulty to them of the subject, than are kept in school, because they wish to learn shorthand in that year."
Vocational Teaching-With regard to vocational teaching in the schools of The Bronx the superintendent's report for 1923 says:
"Vocational subjects are taught in several different classes of schools with different aims. There are first, the vocational schools for boys, de- signed to train boys who have completed the grammar school course to enter one of a number of trades ; the course of study is largely devoted to the theory and practice of the trade but contains elements of academic work in English, history and civics, applied mathematics, and physical training. Second, there is the vocational school for girls wth similar aims but different plan of organization. Third, there is the Textile High School, designed to train girls and boys to enter some branch of the textile trades that find in New York City a manufacturing centre and market. The curriculum of this school also contains a considerable element of academic work. These three classes of schools have evening sessions, and together with a considerable number of evening trade schools and evening high schools constitute the largest field education that the city affords. The courses in these evening schools are more purely vocational, though they offer facilities for pursuing academic work side by side with the trade work. The 'short course' designed to inculcate knowledge and skill in a particular process is a distinctive feature of the evening work. Fifth, there are the vocational classes in elementary schools designed to give children manual training in several of the trades with a view to vocational guidance and choice. Sixth, there are vocational courses in the continuation schools to enable pupils to advance in their respective vocations. Vocational instruction is also given in the parental, truant, and vocational schools, in the schools for the deaf, and in some of the classes for handicapped children. There are also the technical high schools, and the commercial high schools af- fording instruction in various lines. The problem of securing teachers for these classes now involves the licensing of men and women in over 100 different subjects. Vocational education has received an enormous impetus in the last few years. Not very long ago we had no such classes in our schools. Now there is an ever-increasing demand for the ex- tension of every type of vocational training to meet the requirements of the business and industrial life of this city which has become the most complex industrial center in the world.
Universities in The Bronx-It is a great feather in the cap of The Bronx that there are two universities in the borough. Fordham Uni- versity was formerly known as St. John's College. It is a Catholic in- stitution, directed by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, adjoining Bronx Park and the Botanical Gardens, which were formed in part out
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of land formerly belonging to the college. St. John's College was begun as the New York Diocesan College and Seminary by Archbishop Hughes in 1839. He purchased for that purpose in the village of Fordham for $30,000, the old Rose Hill manor house and ninety-eight acres of land. Tradition says that this was where Cooper found the scene for his novel "The Spy." St. John's College was opened with six students, June 24, 1841. The Rev. John McCluskey, afterwards the first American cardinal, was its president, and its faculty was secular priests and lay instructors. The ecclesiastical part or seminary was called St. Joseph's and was in charge of Italian Lazarists, with the Rev. Dr. Felix Villanis at its head. It had fourteen students. After several years of this secular administration Archbishop Hughes invited the Jesuits to take charge, and a number of the order came to New York from St. Mary's, Wash- ington (later Marion) County, Kentucky, for that purpose. The Rev. Augustus J. Thebaud was the first rector of both college and seminary. The New York Legislature granted the college its charter to give de- grees in theology, arts, law, and medicine, on April 10, 1846. In 1856 Archbishop Hughes resumed direct control of St. Joseph's Seminary and returned its management to secular priests. It was moved to Troy and opened there on October 18, 1864. In 1896 it was moved to its present location, Dunwoodie, Westchester County. On June 21, 1904, the board of trustees of St. John's authorized the opening of law and medical departments in addition to the arts course and on March 7, 1907, the charter was amended by the regents of the State University to formally establish this, and allow St. John's College to change its corporate name to Fordham University. In 1912 a College of Pharmacy was opened. The grounds cover seventy acres, upon which are erected ten buildings for the use of the faculty and students. In 1920 the num- ber of students at the university was nearly two thousand. There are nearly two hundred professors.
The Rev. William J. Duane, S. J., is the president of this fast growing University. The total enrollment in all schools of the institution for the 1925-1926 session was 6,310 students and it is expected that the 1926-1927 registration will exceed this number by a few hundred. The following schools are conducted by the University : St. John's College of Arts and Sciences; the School of Law; the Graduate School and Ex- tension Department ; the Teachers' College ; the School of Social Service ; the School of Pharmacy; the School of Finance and Accountancy ; the Pre-Law School and the Summer School.
There has been very much building activity around the University during the past few years. The new gymnasium, seismic station and library form a trio of buildings which are unequalled in New York City for their splendor and appointments. The library is the latest building to be completed at the University. This structure was finished
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in January, 1926, and was erected by the University at a cost of half a million dollars. The style of architecture is Collegiate Gothic, in harmony with the other buildings on the campus, the prototype of which exists in the college buildings of Cambridge and Oxford univer- sities, England. It is situated on a site in close proximity to the main driveway and is the first building which greets the visitor on the path leading to the college grounds. The distinctive feature about the ex- terior of the structure is the huge Gothic Tower which rises from the centre of the building. The Tower measures 75 feet in height and adds considerably to the building's beauty. The main reading room ac- commodates 250 pupils. There are at present about 50,000 volumes in the library, but the University is constantly adding new volumes and hopes to reach the capacity number of volumes in the near future-200,000.
Another interesting building on the campus is the small, mausoleum- like structure, just east of the Auditorium building, which houses Ford- ham's seismic instrument. The Seismic Station is the gift of William J. Spain in memory of his son, a student at the University at the time of his death. It was completed in October, 1924, and is the only one such station in the Borough of The Bronx and one of the only two such stations located in the city of New York. The only other earth- recording instrument is at the Museum of Natural History. The Ford- ham station contains two very highly sensitive instruments, the Wiech- ert machine and the Milne-Shaw. The former rests on a pier buried 25 feet in bed rock and magnifies ground movements 80 times, and the vibrations of the earth's surface are mechanically recorded on smoked paper. The second machine is the most modern and sensitive one available and was built in England by the special order of the University. It has a magnifying power of over three times that of the Wiechert machine and magnifies ground movements 250 times. Pho- tographic records of the earth's motion are recorded on this instrument. Since its completion in 1924 the station has been particularly successful in recording all quakes, and by means of arrangements which are in effect between Fordham and Oxford universities whereby an immediate interchange of the findings of both stations are made, has determined the locations of these quakes in a particularly efficient manner.
The Fordham Gymnasium is another structure which enhances the beauty of the campus by its magnificence. Situated on a site at the northern section of the grounds, bordering on the Botanical Gardens, it commands an imposing view of the various athletic fields of the University. It was completed in October, 1924, at a cost of about $400,000 and is Collegiate Gothic in its style of architecture. It is the largest gymnasium in the city, the main floor having an unobstructed floor space of 27,000 square feet. The gymnasium contains a modern swimming pool, 75 by 30 feet, showers, rubbing rooms, drying room,
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wrestling room, boxing room, running track, basketball courts, handball courts, a trophy room and the offices of the Graduate Manager and Faculty Director of Athletics. It has a seating capacity of 8,000.
The University is constantly growing and enlarging the scope of its work. During the administration of Father Duane as president it has witnessed a great growth and from a small college with half a dozen students in 1841 has developed into the leading Catholic Uni- versity in the East, of which the people of The Bronx may be justly proud.
New York University also now has its seat on the Heights. This institution for higher education had its inception at a meeting of citizens in January, 1830, in the rooms of the New York Historical Society; when a committee of nine was elected to proceed in the establishment of a new university on a liberal comprehensive foundation. The plan of the founders contemplated a college, engineering school, school of law, schools of medicine, school of education, school of agriculture, and a graduate school. The charter was obtained on April 18, 1831. The first chancellor was the Rev. James M. Matthews, D. D. The site at Washington Square was acquired in 1833 and the corner-stone of the first university building was laid in the summer of that year. The institution opened with the regular college courses and with special courses in mathematics and science for engineers. The law school was established in 1835 and the medical college in 1839. The early period of the university was rendered distinctive by the service of certain of its professors to the community. Professor Samuel F. B. Morse in- vented the recording telegraph, and Dr. John W. Draper perfected Daguerre's system of photography and took the first picture of the human countenance within the university walls; while Dr. Valentine Mott as dean of the medical college, and Benjamin Butler as principal of the law faculty, rendered prominent service to their respective professions.
The expansion of the institution into its present organization of nine degree-giving schools and three divisions has taken place since 1890. The magnificent site of University Heights, on the banks of the River Harlem, in The Borough of The Bronx, consists of more than forty acres and was acquired during this same period, the first accession being in 1891. The acquisition of new property was accomplished by the re- organization of the existing university schools and the addition of new schools as the pressure of the times demanded them. The instruction has in recent years been carried on in four different centres as follows: at University Heights; the College of Arts and Pure Science (1831) granting the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science; the School of Applied Science (1862) granting the degrees of Bachelor of Science in civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and chemical
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engineering, and the advanced degrees of Civil Engineer, Mechanical Engineer, and Chemical Engineer; and the Summer School (1895) ; at Washington Square-the School of Law (1835) granting the degrees of Bachelor of Laws, Master of Laws, and Doctor ot Jurisprudence ; the Graduate School (1886) granting the degrees of Master of Arts, Mas- ter of Science, Doctor of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy; the School of Pedagogy (1890) granting the degrees of Bachelor of Science in Peda- gogy, Master of Pedagogy, and Doctor of Pedagogy; the School of Commerce, Accounts, and Finance (1900) granting the degrees of Bachelor of Commercial Science and Master of Commercial Science; the Washington Square College (1903) granting the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science; the Woman's Law Class (1890) granting the chancellor's certificate upon completion of a course of lectures on the principles of law; and the Extramural Division (1908), which is organized for the purpose of conducting courses for university credit outside the university walls. At First Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street is the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College (1839) granting the degrees of Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Public Health, and at No. 141 West Fifty-fourth Street is the New York State Veterinary College (1899) granting the degree of Doctor of Veterinary Surgery.
The grounds of the university are valued at $1,263,000 and the build- ings at $2,293,000. The library of the university contains 115,000 volumes and 95,000 pamphlets. The university received in tuition fees in 1913-14 the sum of $451,000. The corporation of the university is the Council, a self-perpetuating body of thirty-two members, one fourth of whom go out of office annually. The Women's Advisory Committee, consisting of women appointed by the Council, was organized in con- nection with the founding of the School of Pedagogy in 1890 and has done effective service in the university's work for women, aiding in the raising of endowment, furnishing of equipment, and the establish- ment of new courses. Dr. Elmer Ellsworth Brown, formerly United States Commissioner of Education, was elected Chancellor in 1911, suc- ceeding Henry M. McCracken, who served from 1891 to 1910 and re- tired in the latter year as Chancellor Emeritus.
Seven members of the faculty of New York University were made members of the University chapter of Sigma Xi, honorary scientific society, at ceremonies on University Heights on March 20, 1926. Pro- fessor F. K. Richtmyer, head of the department of physics at Cornell, presided and later gave the chapter its charter. The faculty members initiated were Dr. William Howard Barber, lecturer in surgery; Pro- fessor Arthur Edward Hill, head of the Department of Chemistry ; Professor John C. Hubbard, head of the Department of Physics; Pro- fessor Alexander Klemin, associate in æronautics; Charles Krunwiede, Dr. William H. Park, head of the Department of Bacteriology and
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