USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Memoirs of Milwaukee County : from the earliest historical times down to the present, including a genealogical and biographical record of representative families in Milwaukee County, Volume I > Part 42
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The five years having expired in 1873, some changes were made in the text-books. Greene's grammar was substituted for Kerl's; Swin- ton's history for Goodrich's; Guyot's geographies for Mitchel's; Cut- ter's physiology was added and Alden's manual was dropped from the list ; music was added to the course of study in all the grades, and phys- ical exercises and instruction in morals and manners were directed.
As early as 1865 the state teachers' association recommended to the legislature the passage of a law compelling children of certain ages to attend school for a specified time each year. Nothing was done at that time, but in 1873 there were so many complaints that a large number of children were not in school who ought to be, that the legislature passed an act providing for the establishment of truancy schools for pupils be- tween the ages of seven and sixteen years. In his report for that year Superintendent Lau recommended to the common council the establish- ment of such schools in Milwaukee and the appointment of truancy officers, "whose duty it shall be to investigate all cases of truancy in the schools, and look after all children leading idle and vagrant lives." The records, however, do not show that such schools were established. Con- cerning Mr. Lau's superintendency, Donnelly says: "Mr. Lau's theo- ries tended largely toward an entire change of the matter used and the
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methods followed prior to his time. There was so much change at- tempted that confusion and uncertainty followed as a matter of conse- quence. Such extensive change in school work never improves the existing order of things. School work is rarely so bad as to warrant an entire change in all that relates to it." Mr. Lau was succeeded by James MacAlister in May, 1874.
James MacAlister was a native of Glasgow, Scotland, and received his education in his native land. While still a young man he came to America, and soon became connected with the schools of Milwaukee. His first school there was taught in Palmer's addition. From 1860 to 1864 he was principal of the Fourth district school, which was then the largest school of the kind in the state. He then entered the Albany law school, and in 1865 received the degree of LL. B. From 1866 to 1874 he practiced his profession in Milwaukee, and was then elected superintendent of schools, having been president of the school board in 1873. After serving as superintendent until 1877, he retired from the office for two years, but was again elected in 1880. As superintendent he displayed rare executive ability, and the Milwaukee schools achieved a wider reputation under his management than ever before.
In 1874 the teachers' library was founded, upon the suggestion of Mr. MacAlister. It was designed to contain works calculated to aid the teachers in the exercise of their duties ; was kept in the office of the superintendent, who was ex-officio librarian, and six years later it con- tained nearly 500 volumes, all standard works on the subject of educa- tion. At the same time the library was started the teachers' associa- tion was founded, having for its object, "the social and intellectual im- provement of its members."
In the reports of the school board to the common council in 1868 and 1869, complaints were made that each ward school was regarded as an independent school, rather than one of several, all working upon the same general lines. As this had a tendency to destroy uniformity in the system of instruction, the board recommended that "the city should be divided into school districts without regard toward lines," but no action was taken by the council upon the recommendation. Some slight change was made, however, at the beginning of the school year in 1875. Up to that time the school buildings had been designated by names-usually of some old settler or prominent citizen. In 1875 the Juneau school was changed to the First district school; Webster, to the Second district ; Jefferson, to the Second district primary; Jackson, to the Third district ; Pomeroy, to the Third district primary ; Plankinton, to the Fourth district ; Palmer, to the Fourth district primary ; Mitchell, to the Fifth district; Humboldt, to the Sixth district; Hadley, to the
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Seventh district ; Douglas, to the Eighth district : Quentin, to the Ninth district ; Washington, to the Tenth district; Teutonia, to the Tenth dis- trict primary; Franklin, to the Eleventh district; Lincoln, to the Twelfth district; Union, to the Thirteenth district; and Round House to the Thirteenth branch. But even in these changes the district lines corresponded to the ward lines, except a slight variation in theTwelfth and Thirteenth wards.
During this year the rules were amended so as to allow to each dis- trict school one principal ; one first and one second assistant ; one teach- er for every 44 pupils in each of the first four grades ; one teacher for every 54 in the fifth, sixth and seventh grades ; and one for every 66 in the eighth, ninth and tenth grades.
In December, 1875, Mr. MacAlister submitted to the common coun- cil a recommendation that the Milwaukee schools prepare an exhibit for the educational department of the Centennial exposition to be held at Philadelphia in 1876. The council approved the suggestion, made an appropriation to defray the expenses, and the following exhibit was ar- ranged : A large silk banner upon which was printed statistics relating to the schools, the number of buildings, teachers, pupils enrolled and in attendance, value of school property, annual cost of maintenance, etc., photographs of the school buildings appropriately framed ; photo- graphs of blackboard drawings made by pupils in the primary grades, framed for exhibition ; pencil drawings made by pupils of the inter- mediate and higher grades, also framed; 114 volumes of written work by pupils of the upper grades ; copies of questions used in examina- tions of pupils ; a map of the city showing the location of the several school buildings ; a copy of the Washington tablet ; floor plans and ele- vations of the school buildings, framed for wall exhibition ; a file of the school board reports, etc. The exhibit was the largest and most com- plete of any city in the United States, and was awarded a diploma and a medal. M. Buisson, president of the French commission on educa- tion to the exposition, was so impressed by the collection that he made a visit to the city and spent several days in a personal inspection of the schools. On March 5. 1878, the board voted to accept the invi- tation to send an exhibit to the Universal exposition at Paris, France. The collection consisted mainly of the material collected for the Cen- tennial exposition, with the addition of some more recent school statis- tics. Of the 103 volumes of written work shown at Paris, eight were given to Japan, ten to Italy, and the remainder were presented to the French minister of public instruction to be placed in the pedagogical museum and library in the LePalais Bourbon. A silver medal was awarded the exhibit, but it was never received by the city, a diploma being sent in its place.
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The Washington tablet referred to as part of the Centennial ex- hibit was the donation of the Milwaukee school children toward the restoration of Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. Super- intendent MacAlister, under the direction of the school board, issued a memorial circular inviting the school children to assist in restoring Washington's home to its condition when he resided there, and Mrs. Alexander Mitchell, the vice-regent of the Mount Vernon association for Wisconsin, suggested that the school children of Milwaukee as- sume some definite part of the work. She proposed "a gate and lodge" and on Feb. 21, 1876, exercises commemorative of Washington's birthi- day were held in all the public schools of the city. The work of pre- paring the Centennial collection had aroused a spirit of patriotism in the children, who contributed liberally to a collection on February 21, when the sum of $668.32 was realized from their mites. This amount was placed in the hands of Mrs. Mitchell to be applied to the purpose named in the memorial circular, and a copy of the memorial tablet was ordered to be framed and hung in the lodge when it was completed.
In May, 1878, John J. Somers was elected superintendent. In his first report he called the attention of the board to the necessity of a better method of heating and ventilating the school rooms, all of which except those in the high school buildings were heated by stoves with no provision whatever for supplying fresh air to the pupils. The ad- ministration of Mr. Somers was uneventful, and in the spring of 1880 James MacAlister was again elected superintendent.
It was during Mr. MacAlister's second administration that even- ing schools were introduced. Monday, Wednesday and Friday even- ings were designated for boys, and Tuesday and Thursday evenings for girls. The first evening schools were opened in the fall of 1880, when the school board supplied the pupils with books, slates and sta- tionery for a small fee, but as this was found to result in diminished attendance the fee plan was abandoned and the books, etc., were fur- nished free. In 1891 the pupils were required to furnish their own books, a plan which has been pursued since that time. Donnelly's His- tory of the Milwaukee Public Schools (published in 1893), says : "A good deal of disappointment has been experienced in evening school work. As a rule, the attendance is quite large when they are first opened in the fall, but it gradually decreases as the term advances. Several expedients have been resorted to for the purpose of securing greater regularity of attendance. So far, it is not claimed by any one that a cure has been found. One thing is noticed by all evening school teachers, and that is that the persons that need to use them most are the ones who are most irregular in their attendance. There is one
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evil consequence that grows out of evening schools. It is this : Many poor people withdraw their boys and girls from the day schools, to en- gage in low-priced jobs, under the mistaken belief that they can get as much education as is needful in the evening schools." Since this was written the conditions have somewhat improved, but the evening school problem is as yet only partially solved.
At the board meeting of June 21, 1881, corporal punishment again came up for discussion. Mr. MacAlister favored suspension of the refractory pupil, as it brought the parent into co-operation with the teacher, but the board finally ordered that corporal punishment might be resorted to in extreme cases, after other remedies had failed, with the restrictions that it could be inflicted only by the principal or an auth- orized assistant, out of the class and when the school was not in session. It was not to be excessive nor cruel, nor "by blows upon or about the face or any vital part, or by pinching, twisting arms or hands, or pull- ing hair or ears, or by shutting up in closets or lonely confinement." A complete record of the offense and the punishment was required to be kept in all cases of corporal punishment. Augustus J. Rogers, writing in 1895, says: "These restrictions seem to have been necessary for some of the schools. Many teachers still in the schools remember the case of a lad sent by a principal with a note to the principal of another school. He went to the office and awaited the arrival of the principal. When the principal came, before the note could be delivered, the boy was set upon and severely beaten, without giving him a hearing. It was his custom to treat all boys sent to the office in this manner."
Mr. MacAlister resigned the office of superintendent on April 3, 1883, to accept a similar position in the city of Philadelphia, Pa. A special meeting of the board was called a few days later and William E. Anderson was elected to vacancy.
William E. Anderson was born at Rugby, England, in March, 1845, and attended a private academy in that town until he was twelve years of age, when he came with his parents to the United States. Dur- ing the next five years he lived on farms in Racine and Waukesha coun- ties, and in the summer of 1862 he enlisted as a private in Company A, Twenty-second Wisconsin infantry, which served under Gen. W. T. Sherman until the end of the war. Mr. Anderson then was employed in the machine shops of J. I. Case & Co. at Racine until the fall of 1868, when he entered Beloit College. The following year he entered the Whitewater normal school, where he was graduated in 1871. From 1872 to 1875 he was principal of Waukesha public schools, and while in this position he married Miss Mary E., daughter of Hon. George Brown. ex-member of the legislature from Waukesha county. In 1875
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he was appointed principal of the Fifth district school in Milwaukee, where he continued until elected superintendent. He held the office of superintendent of the Milwaukee schools until 1892, and during his administration a number of important improvements were made in the school system of the city.
Rogers says: "The tendency during Mr. MacAlister's superin- tendency was to elevate the teaching profession, to favor high attain- ments, culture and skill in the teacher, to introduce a more rigid stand- ing in scholarship for graduation from the ward schools and for ad- mission to the high school. Mr. Anderson still continued this policy during his subsequent nine years of service, but he held more strongly to experience and skill in actual school work as factors in estimating a teacher's value."
On Sept. 4, 1883, Mr. Anderson, in response to a request of the school board, presented a course of study then in use in the public schools, with suggestions as to changes that he thought advisable. Among these changes was the revival of physiology, which had been dropped from the list of studies in 1878, and he recommended that it be taught orally. He recommended that the "general lessons" in the different grades be made more definite and that they embrace a general knowledge of familiar things. Upon this recommendation the first manual on "Matter and Method" was published that year, and during the next ten years five other editions were published. The following year the superintendent introduced experimental physics in the eighth grade, and some of the physical geography work of this grade was dropped. More attention was paid during his administration to supple- mentary reading than had been done under any of his predecessors and at the close of his superintendency several of the district schools had large collections of supplementary reading matter.
The teachers' association, founded in 1874, began holding regular monthly meetings in 1877. For several years the meetings were largely "social and literary," but under Mr. Anderson they were held with more regularity and became more professional in their character. Dur- ing the winter of 1886 an institute was conducted by Mr. Anderson, as- sisted by several of the principals. It was devoted chiefly to experi- ments in physical geography, was well attended, and aroused consider- able enthusiasm among the teachers with regard to experimental meth- ods of teaching.
In 1879 the Wisconsin legislature passed a law providing that all children between the ages of seven and fourteen years should attend school for at least twelve weeks in each year. Parents or guardians were made subject to fines for non-compliance with the law. The first
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effect was to increase the attendance in all the schools, but after a short time the people found out that the authorities were lax in the en- forcement of the law and the attendance fell off until it was about the same it had been prior to the passage of the act. On June 3, 1886, the school board directed the superintendent to investigate the extent of truancy and get information regarding legislation of Massachusetts, New York and Illinois pertaining to truancy. On Oct. 7 he re- ported that Massachusetts had sixty-three truant officers, fourteen of whom were in the city of Boston ; that New York city had twelve truant agents, and that in both states truancy had been materially diminished by the application of truancy laws. In 1889 the act of 1879 was re- pealed and what was known as the "Bennett law" was passed. It was more stringent in its provisions than the act of 1879. Children from seven to fourteen years old were required to attend school for twelve weeks or more each year, and no school was to be recognized as such unless reading, writing, arithmetic and United States history were taught therein "in the English language." To make the attendance at school more probable, children under thirteen years old were prohibited from working in any shop, factory, mine or other place of business. Justices of the peace and police magistrates were charged with the enforcement of the law and given power to inflict penalties upon parents or guardians for failure to comply with its provisions. On Aug. 5, 1890, the Milwaukee school board voted to make the twelve weeks immediately following Oct. I the period for the compulsory attendance of all children who came within the provisions of the law. The Bennett law was exceedingly unpopular from the start and the legislature of 1891 repealed it, enacting another in its stead. The new law required parents or guardians to keep children between the ages of seven and thirteen years in school, "unless they can receive equiv- alent instruction in some other way." None of the compulsory laws were very rigidly enforced in Milwaukee, probably owing to the fact that the school rooms were usually filled to their utmost capacity, and it was deemed inexpedient to make much of an effort to decrease truancy because of this lack of room.
On June 5, 1886, the school board amended the rule relating to the appointment and salaries of teachers. Under the rule as amended new teachers were appointed on three months' probation. The prin- cipal of a district school received a salary of $1.400 for the first year after the rule became effective, with an increase of $100 annually until the maximum of $1.700 was reached. Teachers of this class were required to be twenty-five years of age, and to have had three years' experience before being appointd to a principalship. Principals
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of primary schools each received $900 for the first year when in charge of four rooms, and $50 for each additional room, with an annual increase for two years, though the salary was not to be over $1,300 at any time. First assistants received a salary of $700, with an annual increase of $100 until the maximum of $900 was attained. Teachers of the sixth and seventh grades were to receive $650 and $700, respectively. German teachers received $800 for the first year under the new rule, with an annual increase of $100 for three years. Special assistant German teachers started on a salary of $400 and received $50 of an increase each year until the salary amounted to $650, when the increase was to end. Substitutes were to be paid $1.50 a day when actually employed in actual school work, and when not so employed they were to receive fifty cents for each day they reported for duty. In 1892 the principals asked for an increase that would bring their salaries up to $1,000, but the board refused to grant the request.
Donnelly says: "In the year 1888 to 1889, the cooking school was added to the Milwaukee public schools as a department of special instruction. Girls from the fifth grade upward are eligible to receive instruction. Two classes from each school have been taught each vear. The course embraces ordinarily about twenty lessons, and in- cludes most of the essential branches of cooking. Mesdames Young, Sanderson Pereles and Crosby deserve great credit (1) for establish- ing a cooking school which demonstrated the practicability of the schemes; (2) for convincing the school board of the necessity of adopt- ing it."
Pursuant to the provisions of an act passed by the legislature of 1889, the school board in that year raised the salary of Superintendent Anderson from $3,000 to $4,000 and appointed H. O. R. Siefert assistant superintendent at a salary of $2,500. At the same time the salary of the secretary of the school board was raised from $1,400 to $2,000, and the compensation for taking the school census was raised from $600 to $1,000.
Calisthenics was first added to the course of study in 1876, and placed under the direction of Prof. George Brosius, who gave instruc- tion in the art to classes of teachers after regular school hours and on Saturday forenoons. This extra work on the part of the teachers, without a corresponding increase in pay, resulted in considerable opposition to calisthenics. After a time the direction of the exercises was discontinued, as it was claimed that the teachers were suffi- ciently familiar with the subject to conduct the exercises without special supervision. In 1890 the school board appointed four special
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directors of calisthenics, whose duty it was to visit the different schools, conduct the exercises, and in this way give to the teachers practical instruction in the art as practiced in the best turning schools.
Several changes were made in the graded course of study during Mr. MacAlister's superintendency. In 1877 he recommended the con- solidation of the higher grades in the district schools, but the sugges- tion did not at that time meet with favor by the board. Mr. Anderson advocated the same policy, arguing that by consolidating the higher grades in one school with the corresponding grades in another it would make more room for the increasing numbers in the lower grades, and would also save expense in the teaching of the upper grades. His persistency finally won and in 1891 the eighth grade in the Second and Ninth ward schools was consolidated, and the eighth grade in the Eleventh ward school was consolidated with that of the Twelfth.
In May, 1880, A. H. Schattenberg was elected secretary to suc- ceed Thomas Desmond, and in 1889 the business of the board had increased to such a degree as to justify the election of an assistant secretary, who began his duties with the beginning of that year. Early the following year irregularities were discovered in the affairs of the office and Mr. Schattenberg committed suicide rather than face the exposure that he saw was imminent. An investigation disclosed the fact that Mr. Schattenberg was a defaulter to the amount of some $50,000, which was a source of surprise to the members of the board, who had always recognized his ability and had believed him as honest as he was efficient. This is the only scandal of any magnitude in which the Milwaukee schools were ever involved.
During the administration of Mr. Anderson the Milwaukee schools were represented at several industrial expositions and educa- tional conventions by appropriate exhibits of work, etc. From July 15 to 18, 1884, the National Educational Association held a conven- tion and exposition at Madison, Wis. Milwaukee was represented there by bound volumes of pupils' work, kindergarten creations, etc. This material, with the addition of photographs of school buildings and some other items, was sent to the New Orleans exposition later in the year, where it won favorable comment. On April 5, 1887, Super- intendent Anderson recommended an exhibit of kindergarten work at the meeting of the National Educational Association at Chicago in July. A collection of such work was prepared, and while the exhibit was good it was not as thorough as some that were shown on other occasions. Some delay was experienced in preparing an exhibit for the World's Columbian exposition at Chicago in 1893. The school
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board, on Dec. 1, 1891, passed a resolution, recommending the appoint- ment of a World's Fair committee, and nothing further was done until May 2, 1892, when the city council consulted the school board on the advisability of making a school exhibit at Chicago. The board asked for an appropriation of $6,000, which the council cut to $3,000, and as the school authorities were afraid that amount was not suffici- ent to defray the expenses of such a display as they desired to make, they hesitated about undertaking the work. Finally, only sixty days before the exhibit was to be in place in the Liberal Arts building on the exposition grounds, the teachers were directed to begin the collection of materials. In the short time that remained about one hundred volumes of written work were prepared; photographs of buildings and laboratories were taken and framed; maps, drawings, etc., from the upper grades were got together and properly mounted; a good col- lection of kindergarten work, in which Milwaukee has always excelled, was assembled, and when the great exposition was opened Milwaukee was fairly well represented, considering the great haste with which the display had been arranged. The total expense of the undertaking was $1,813.67. Had the school officials commenced the work sooner and used more of the appropriation of $3,000 made by the council, Milwaukee could certainly have made a better showing. As it was, each department of the schools won an award of some kind; the high school for excellence and improvement shown in literary and scientific work and mechanical drawing; the elementary schools for excellence in clay modeling, English, geography and kindergarten work; and the volumes of pupils' work for comprehensive presenta- tion of system, statistics, courses of study, buildings, practical manual training, etc.
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