History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 52

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666

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D.N. Mc Clung

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

intermediate, eighty and two-tenths; high, eighty-five and four-tenths ; normal, ninety-five; deaf-mute, eighty- three and three-tenths: total, seventy-seven and four- tenths. Average enrollment to each teacher: District schools, sixty-three and seven-tenths; intermediate, fifty- four and two-tenths; high, fifty-nine and two-tenths. Av- erage belonging to each, fifty and four-tenths, forty-four and eight-tenths, fifty-one and seven-tenths. Average in daily attendance, forty-eight and nine-tenths, forty-three and five-tenths, and fifty and five-tenths. In the district and intermediate schools, fifty is the maximum of daily attendance allowed by the board of education. The in- crease during the year, in enrollment of pupils, was one thousand and eighty-six; in the number belonging, nine hundred and forty-four; in daily attendance, nine hun- dred and sixty-five, against corresponding numbers for the previous year of two hundred and ninety-two, thirty- seven, and fifty-one.

The amount paid for tuition during the year 1879-80 was five hundred and two thousand three hundred and sixty-seven dollars and twenty-four cents, exclusive of music, nine thousand nine hundred and seventy-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents; penmanship, five thousand nine hundred and eighty-four dollars and fifty-one cents ; and drawing, three thousand six hundred and seventy- eight dollars and eighty-seven cents ;- making a grand total of five hundred and twenty-two thousand and thirty dollars and sixty-one cents. The average cost of the special teachers, per pupil, of those actually belonging to the schools, was thirty-seven cents for music, twenty-two cents for drawing, and thirteen and eight-tenths penman- ship. Average tuitionary cost, on the average number be- longing, excluding special teachers-district schools, six- teen dollars and sixty-two cents per pupil; intermediate, twenty-nine dollars and eighty cents; high, thirty-seven dollars and eighty-one cents; all the schools, eighteen dol- lars and twenty-nine cents. This is ninety-four cents less than the average tuitionary cost of the previous year, which reduced that of the year 1877-8 by forty-five cents. It inay here be remarked that the board gen- erously fixes the rate of tuition for non-resident pupils in the district schools at only sixteen dollars per year, and in the intermediate but twenty dollars, which is less in each case than the actual cost, and in the latter case nine dollars and eighty cents less.

Seven night-schools-five for white and two for colored pupils-were maintained during five months of the year. Twenty-eight male and twenty female teachers were em- ployed, with an average number of pupils enrolled to each teacher of fifty-one; average attendance, twenty- two. Average ages-white pupils, fifteen and one-half years; colored, twenty-four years. Thirty-six pupils grad- uated from the high school in this department.

The grand total of persons of school age in the city, as ascertained September, 1879, was eighty-seven thousand six hundred and eighteen. In the public schools there were different pupils, thirty-two thousand one hundred and ten; in church schools, fourteen thousand one hun- dred and ninety-five ; private schools, one thousand six hundred and forty; night schools, two thousand four

hundred and sixty-seven; in charitable and reformatory institutions (estimated), six hundred ;- making a total of fifty-one thousand and twelve, or nearly sixty per cent. of the entire number of persons of school age, of whom many are apprentices or otherwise engaged in business, or are married, and some are under private tutors. Others are in business colleges or higher institutions of learning. Superintendent Peaslee's figures leave but fifteen thou- sand eight hundred and fifty-seven, out of sixty-two thou- sand one hundred and fifty-one children between the ages of six and fourteen, who do not attend any school.

An annual institute is held for the benefit of the teach- ers, during the week next preceding the opening of the public schools; and the First German Assistants', and other pedagogic associations hold monthly meetings during the year, in the interests of their respective lines of work.

In his report for 1879-80, the Superintendent mentions with approbation the instruction of the year in object- lessons and in gems of literature. His system in the latter branch had had time to be tested, and to take firm hold upon the regards of both teachers and pupils. We make the following extract, in partial illustration of the method :

One hour per week is the time now devoted to this subject in the district and intermediate schools. A part of this time is usually taken from that assigned to morning exercises and a part from Friday after- noon. However, that is left-judiciously, I think-to the discretion of the teacher. I have recommended eight lines as a fair amount for each week's work. At this rate the pupils, in passing through the district and intermediate schools, would commit two thousand five hundred and sixty lines, and in passing through the district, intermediate, and high schools, three thousand eight hundred and forty lines; which is equivalent in amount to one hundred and twenty-eight pages of Mc- Guffey's Third Reader. It is not enough that the selections be simply memorized ; each one of them should be made the subject of a lesson, to be given by the teacher. The teacher should not only see that the pupils thoroughly understand the meaning of each word and sentence, that they give the substance of each passage in their own language, and make the proper application of the same before requiring them to commit it to memory ; but she should also endeavor, by appropriate talks, to impress upon the minds of her pupils the ideas intended to be conveyed, and to enthuse them, if possible, with the spirit of the extract. After the selection has been mem- orized thoroughly, the attention of the teacher should be given to the elocution-to the beautiful delivery of the same. This can be done well by concert drill. The concert should be supplemented by indi- vidual recitation.

Good results were also reported upon the celebrations of authorial birthdays (Whittier's, Longfellow's, and in the Woodward High School Emerson's) in the schools during the year. The progressive methods adopted in certain of the ordinary branches, as history, and instruc- tion in general information, also show to excellent advantage in the lucid pages of Superintendent Peaslee. This summary of his last report, albeit too brief, and nec- essarily making important omissions, is a fitting close to the history of elementary public education in the Queen City.

THE HIGH SCHOOLS.

The "Central High School," opened July 27, 1847, in the basement of the German Lutheran church on Walnut street, was the first public high school in the city. The names of the committee of the Board of Education, on whose report the school was founded, have

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been preserved, and should ever be held in honor. They were Bellamy Storer, Dr. John A. Warder, Charles S. Bryant, William Goodwin, and D. R. Cady. H. H. Barney, afterwards State Commissioner of Common Schools, was its first principal. Its course of study in- cluded reading, etymology, penmanship, ancient and modern history and languages, belles-lettres, botany, chemistry, natural philosophy, anatomy and physiology, moral and political science, book-keeping, vocal music, composition, and declamation-a very excellent curric- ulum for that day. Fifty-eight girls and thirty-nine boys, ninety-seven pupils in all, attended at the opening; but the school rapidly grew in numbers, and four years after its organization it was broken into two others, the famous Woodward and Hughes High Schools. The following sketch of the history of these institutions, pre- pared by Colonel D. F. DeWolf, at present State School Commissioner, for the Centennial volume on Education in Ohio, is quite sufficient for the purposes of this book:

William Woodward was an upright farmer, of frugal habits and sim- ple tastes, a good, true, and humane Christian man. Long before his death he found himself possessed of wealth by the approach of the corporate limits of Cincinnati to a farm which he owned, and to which he had moved from Connecticut when Cincinnati was a hamlet. He and his friend Samuel Lewis had consulted together regarding the edu- cation of youth and its relation to human happiness, and especially to the welfare of his country. He had no hesitation in determining that it was his duty to render actual assistance, then much needed, in fur- nishing educational facilities for youth who could not procure them for themselves. He transferred to trustees that part of his farm lying nearest to the city as an endowment for the establishment and mainte- nance of schools-providing in his deed of trust that orphans and the children of widows should have the preference of admission to the school. Mr. Lewis being the chief manager of the trust, the revenues were well husbanded, and a successful school was kept up for some time. The State common-school system was afterwards inaugurated, and rendered this, as a lower-grade school, superfluous. On the advice of Mr. Lewis, the conditions of the trust were so modified by Mr. Woodward as to allow of the establishment of the "Woodward College or High School." On the union of the high schools and the common schools, the original Woodward High School building was taken down, and the present beautiful building were erected, which is a monument to his memory and creditable to the taste and judgment of the board of education.

Mr. Woodward lived to witness the full success of his scheme and to enjoy the heartfelt gratitude and ever-increasing esteem of his fellow- citizens and countrymen.

The farm of Thomas Hughes, an Englishman by birth and a practi- cal shoemaker until his death, joined that of Mr. Woodward. The lat- ter had little difficulty in directing the mind of Mr. Hughes into his own channel of thought. As a result he bequeathed his land to Wil- liam Woodward, William Greene, Nathan Guilford, Elisha Hotchkiss, and Jacob Williams, in trust. The land was leased on a perpetual ground-rent, and the accumulation of a fund awaited, sufficient to erect a building for a school to be supported by the future revenues. Losses and delays were occasioned by failures and consequent lawsuits on the part of parties to whom the interest in these leases had been sold. Matters were finally adjusted, and the city was put in possession of the annual revenues.

In 1852 these two funds were united and merged in the city school fund-the Hughes fund amounting to twelve thousand or thirteen thou- sand dollars. The Hughes High School building was erected at a cost of twenty-three thousand dollars. The reports now [1876] show the annual receipts from the two funds to be from eleven thousand to twelve thousand dollars.

These funds greatly facilitated the supply of early educational ad- vantages to the youth of Cincinnati, and now afford the means for se- curing special conveniences or special instruction without burdening the taxpayers. Hon. H. H. Barney became principal of the Hughes High School, and Dr. Joseph Ray principal of the Woodward High School, in 1852. Under these eminent teachers the schools at once as- sumed a position of great dignity among the educational institutions of

the country. They did much to attract the attention of educated and influential citizens of the State to the subject of high-school education. It was now no longer doubtful that the public high schools, supported by appropriations of tlie public funds sufficient to secure the services of the most accomplished educators of the land, must possess facilities for imparting thorough culture unknown to any other schools, and under such relations to the family and other social privileges as are congenial to every intelligent parent. The warm and hearty support of these schools, with the active co-operation of such men of culture as William Goodman, Dr. James La Roy, Kev. James H. Perkins, Hon. Samuel Lewis, Nathan Guilford, William Greene, the Hon. Bellamy Storer, E. D. Mansfield, E. S. Brooks, and others of the highest social position, did much to overcome the prejudices of more common minds, and to place the public schools of the State on the highest plane of respecta- bility. The best families patronized the schools. They were visited from all parts of the State. The cities that had not secured public high schools feltan additional impulse to act in this direction, and "the people's schools" were regarded as in all respects the most desirable in- stitutions to foster. All that had been claimed for them in the earlier discussions of their merits was realized.

The principals of the Hughes High School have been H. H. Barney, Cyrus Knowlton, J. L. Thornton, and E. W. Coy. The principals of the Woodward High School have been Dr. Joseph Ray, D. Shepardson, M. Woolson and George W. Harper.

THE CITY NORMAL SCHOOL.

The following sketch of the history of this institution was also written for the Centennial volume, in an admi- rable chapter on the Normal Schools of the State, by Miss Delia A. Lathrop, now wife of Professor Williams, of the Ohio Wesleyan university, but then and for a number of years the accomplished and successful prin- cipal of the school :

The City Normal school of Cincinnati was organized September, 1868. It originated in a felt need of better teachers in the lower grades of the city schools. As vacancies in teachers' positions occurred in the higher grades, promotions were made from the lower, the time of the children being considered more valuable with advancing years. The vacancies constantly made in the lower grades by these promotions were filled with inexperienced girls, and so these grades came to serve the purpose of training-schools for teachers for the upper grades.

For several years the superintendent of schools, and some of the most progressive members of the board of education, had felt that some measures must be adopted to prevent the great waste of time and labor in primary schools, through inexperience and lack of professional knowledge. Accordingly, in the summer of 1868, the board voted to open a school for the training of candidates for teachers' positions in the primary grades of the Cincinnati schools.

Notable among the men whose influence gave impulse and character to the movement, were John Hancock, superintendent of schools, H. L. Wehmer, and J. B. Powell, esq., members of the board of education. The action of the board was unanimous in favor of its establishment.

The school was located in the Eighth district school-house, where it is still in operation. At its opening, two ordinary school-rooms were set apart for its use-one for normal school instruction, and one for practice with children. The second year three rooms were occupied, and now seven school-rooms are devoted to the Normal school work- two for normal instruction and five for practice in teaching.

The expenses of the school are paid from the common-school fund of the city. Tuition is free to all candidates who state it is their intention to enter the Cincinnati public schools as teachers; to others it is sixty dollars per annum.

Pupils, to be admitted to the school, must be graduates of the Cin- cinnati high schools, or of some school of similar standing, or hold a teacher's certificate from the Cincinnati board of examiners of teachers, or have passed an equivalent examination before the normal school committee. The subjects upon which an examination is instituted for a teacher's certificate are mental and practical arithmetic, English grammar, geography, United States history and general history, read- ing, spelling, natural philosophy, anatomy and physiology, music, drawing, and penmanship. No certificate is issued to an applicant whose average of correct answers in grammar, geography, or written arithmetic is less than seventy per cent., or whose average on the whole number of marks is less than seventy per cent. . This is the lowest standard of admission to the Normal school.

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

There is but one course of study pursued at option in German or English, for German or English positions respectively. The peculiari- ties of this course are : First, it is planned with reference to a definite purpose-the management and instruction of the lower grades of the Cincinnati public schools; second, it is broad in that it aims to discuss principles of education and deduce. methods from them, instead of teaching them empirically ; third, it is entirely professional. It consists of methods of teaching all the subjects pursued in the lower grades of the Cincinnati public schools, together with the history of education, school-management, mental philosophy, and the philosophy of educa- tion. Special attention is given to penmanship, music, and drawing.

This study is supplemented by practice, each pupil spending about ten weeks-the time varying somewhat with the size of the classes-in the management and instruction of one of the ordinary lower-grade eity schools. This time is spent consecutively, and is designed to familiarize the pupil-teacher with the everyday routine of school work in all its phases, as far as this ean be done in the time allowed. Critic- teachers have constant oversight of the work of the pupil-teachers, and make daily criticisms and corrections. The pupil-teachers are marked weekly in a register, open to all, upon the following items: Punctu- ality, promptness, personal bearing, neatness (in person and work), correct use of language, improvement of time, ability to control, ability to instruct, ability to criticise, and ability to profit by criticism.

A diploma from the school secures to its holder the preference over an inexperienced teacher in appointment to a position, there being a rule of the board of education that no such person shall be employed while a graduate of the Normal school awaits appointment. It also secures one hundred dollars per annum additional salary until the maxi- mum salary is reached. If the graduate teach seven years-the time required to arrive at the maximum salary-she will have received five hundred and fifty dollars more for services than if she had received the position without a normal school diploma.

The first principal of the school was Miss Sara Dugane, called to this position from the city training school of Boston. She resigned at the expiration of the first year, and was succeeded by the present incum- bent, (1876), Miss Delia A. Lathrop, then principal of the city normal school of Worcester, Massachusetts.

The number of pupils in the school for the year 1874-5 was seventy- eight-sixty English and eighteen German. The number enrolled in the practice sehool was three hundred and fifty-five. There were forty-one graduates of the normal school-thirty-five English and six German. Since the organization of the school there have been two hundred and forty graduates.

Professor John Mickleborough is now the principal of the Normal school.

CITY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS.

Although the Queen City had graded schools more than fifty years ago (1829), she had no local superintend- ent until 1850, three years after the public schools of Columbus, and two years after those of Sandusky and Massillon, had superintendents. Under a special law passed by the Assembly, March 23d of that year, the Hon. Nathan Guilford, formerly a Senator in that body from Cincinnati, was elected City School Superintendent by popular vote-a plan, then or since permitted nowhere else in the State. He was re-elected and served in all two years, upon the munificent salary of five hundred dollars a year. In his last annual report he made a vig- orous appeal for the education and Americanization of foreign immigrants to this country, and a protest against the memoriter plan of recitations, then lately adopted in the Central High School. Upon the expiration of Mr. Guilford's term the popular suffrage chose to the office Dr. Merrell, who held it but a short time, however, re- signing before the close of his year.

The general act of 1853, providing for City and Town Superintendents of Schools, abolished the feature of elec- tion by the people, and vested the power of appointment in the City Board of Education. The first to be chosen

under the new arrangement, and the first real superin- tendent of public schools for Cincinnati, as the office is now almost universally accounted, was Professor Andrew J. Rickoff, who was already well and favorably known in southern Ohio as an able and energetic educator. He had removed with his family from Portsmouth, at the mouth of the Scioto, to become a teacher in the public schools of Cincinnati. He served one year as assistant in the sixth district school, and on the retirement of the princi- pal, Mr. Rufus Hubbard, who had been appointed to take charge of the new house of refuge, he was appointed as his successor. Here he remained about two years and a half, when he resigned his position to go into other busi- ness, as he supposed, permanently. In April, 1854, he received the appointment of city superintendent from the board of education. The first attention of the new super- intendent was directed to the existing organization and classification of the schools, which had been the result of accident rather than design. In a report made to the board of education in June, he recommended the estab- lishment of the present intermediate school system. Nat- urally the proposition met with determined opposition, both in and out of the board of education. It was adopted, however, in October, just before the completion of the new school house on Baymiller street, and when that school was opened the next month, the Baymiller school became the first intermediate school of the city and still retains the title. The whole theory of the new organization may be explained by saying that this school, instead of gathering up all grades of pupils from the im- mediate neighborhood, received only the two higher classes of the three large schools there, and we believe is still known as the eighth, eleventh and twelfth district schools.

This new school became a competitor to the feeble higher grades of the ten or twelve remaining district schools. Its classification was more thorough, better methods of instruction were made possible, teachers were inspired with greater zest for the work, and the old or- ganization had to go down before it. It was not long before arrangements had been completed for extending the system to all parts of the city.

In the year following the first detailed course of study, prescribing exact conditions of promotion from grade to grade, was recommended to the board of education and adopted with great unanimity. In the same year the principal of each large school was made in fact, as he had formerly been in name, a local superintendent, and thus an assistant to the general superintendent. This plan has since become almost universal in the schools of all the larger cities. In the discussion of a proposition to make a like change in the office and duty of the mas- ters of the Boston schools, the plan was called the Cin- cinnati plan. It is probable that the plan originated there.

The methods pursued in every grade and department of instruction received the closest attention, as they cer- tainly needed to. Young women, fresh from the high school, were generally employed as teachers, without having given so much as an hour's attention, to the work that lay before them. They had to be not only instructed

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in the method of doing, but they had to be shown what was to be done. Meetings of teachers, of one grade or another, at first voluntary, but, when the movement had gathered force, authoritatively called, were held almost every Saturday. Here object lessons, methods of teach- ing, reading, writing, arithmetic, modes of government, etc., etc., were fully discussed. The result was a revival which was felt for many years after.

Before the time of the municipal elections in the spring of 1859, Superintendent Rickoff publicly announced his intention to decline a reappointment to the superinten- dency, and in the following September he opened a school of his own, which was maintained with gratifying success for nine years and until he left the city to take up his residence in Cleveland.

Mr. Rickoff was elected to the office of school exam- iner in 1855. This he continued to hold some years after he ceased to be superintendent. In 1864 he was elected from the first ward for the board of education, and the year following that he was elected as president of the board on the retirement of the Hon. Rufus King, who had held the presidency for nearly fifteen years. Before the end of his term he removed to Mt. Harrison, and became ineligible for a second term. For one year Mr. Rickoff's relation to the public schools of Cincin- nati was entirely severed, but in the summer of 1867, during his absence from the city, he was again elected to the superintendency of the school. This appointment he felt obliged to decline, but at a better salary accepted a similar position in Cleveland a few weeks afterward. His present term of office and fifteenth year of service in Cleveland will expire in September, 1882.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 52

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co. Number of Pages: 666

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666