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MARY DAVISON BRADFORD
MEMOIRS
OF
MARY D. BRADFORD
Autobiographical and Historical Reminiscences of Education
In Wisconsin, Through Progressive Service From
Rural School Teaching to City
Superintendent
ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
.B57A3
copy 2
PUBLISHED BY
THE ANTES PRESS
EVANSVILLE, WISCONSIN
©CIA 59574
To the Memory of
MY FATHER AND MOTHER
AND SISTER IDA
All of this book except the last three chapters and the Appendix appeared serially in “The Wisconsin Magazine of History,” beginning in September 1930, and continued through nine successive issues of that quarterly. The work was undertaken at the suggestion of Dr. Joseph Schafer, Superintendent of the Wisconsin Historical Society and Editor of the magazine, who, under date of April 3, 1928, wrote me as follows:
On account of your long experience in educational work in this state you are in a better situation than any one else whose name now occurs to me to present a narrative which shall be of special value to the future historian of Wisconsin Education during the last half century. Of course, I am not suggesting that your narrative should confine itself to educational matters. What I should like is the general story of your life, with emphasis upon any points which remain in your memory as particularly interesting or vital: pioneer conditions in Kenosha County, social life in county and town, the influence of local leaders, the effect of legislation as it was felt in a local way, educational and otherwise.
“These suggest only a few of the ideas which will throng upon your mind when you begin to write. Inasmuch, however, as your professional career had been educational and has covered practically a complete round of public school education in this State, I would expect that you would devote more time and space to that subject than to probably all others.”
Some serious deliberation on my part ensued. What were my resources that warranted success in such an undertaking? Ideas “thronged upon
my
mind”
before
I began to write: was this the purpose for which I had saved all that material now filling a large trunk and a capacious box kept for years in storage? Was that miscellaneous collection, that
“impedimenta”
troublesome to myself and others, and surely
In that collection there were pamphlets and reports of my own compiling, and notebooks of lecture outlines dating back to Normal School teaching days; there was a bundle of diaries which, while it didn't contain all that I had written of that sort of thing, might contribute something to the new project; there were albums and some of the photographs in them were labeled with names and dates, thanks be! There were letter files of carefully selected correspondence about public services of one sort or another; and scrap books, together with other collections of clipping, somewhat related to, and covering, successive periods of my work. The fact that these clippings began, after awhile, to be dated and thus given some historical value, causes me to think that my husband had taught me the importance of such dating, without which, from the historical point of view, most clippings are but waste paper. Such was the yield, by the old trunk, to my “stock in trade” for the new venture.
There was another item that might be usable in part. I had begun to write a family history, designed only for the descendents of Andrew and Caroline Davison, the first chapter of which was completed; and there was a note book containing incidents and stories to be used in that history. Much of this came from my eldest sister, Ida, whose memory retained reminiscences of events related by our parents, as well
It was a year and a half before I settled down to serious work on these “Memoirs”; but I had been thinking about it. Ida, then past eighty years of age, was living with a niece in Evanston, Ill. Her health had begun to decline, but her mind was clear and vigorous. When I visited her, I took occasion to have her review some of the more important incidents and reminiscences that seemed appropriately usable. Sometimes it was a hazy remembrance of one of my own childhood experiences that needed clearing up by a new recital by her, as that of the accident to our father; and, by way of further illustration, I will mention another one, which seems to have been my earliest recollection connected with the Civil War. It led me to ask her this question—“Did it actually happen that a troop of soldiers came riding into our farm yard at night fall, and asked to be fed and housed?” “Yes, it was so, but some of them were ‘barned’ instead of ‘housed’ for there wasn't room elsewhere for them.” And then would follow an account of the circumstances that caused these men on their way from Camp Randall at Madison to Camp Douglas, Chicago, to lose their way and visit our home. She remembered some of their names and the conversation that took place between the soldiers and my brothers, and knew the fate of their leader. Her memory was replete with incidents of that period, one of which of a peculiarly personal and original character is related near the close of Chapter III.
When drawing upon the source material described, it has been quite a problem to decide just what to use. Adherance to the original suggestion of having these “Memoirs” contributory to the educational history of Wisconsin, through the limited range of my own associations and observations, has kept me from including many personal incidents
If it should be thought that I have extended to too great a length the account of my last eleven years of public service, this explanation is offered of that prolonged account, which extends three chapters (16, 17, and 18) beyond the limit fixed by the Magazine: After closing my work in the office of Superintendent of Schools in 1921, some of my women friends, variously located in administrative positions, urged me to write an account of my experiences in an office which so few women have been privileged to occupy. These friends professed to be interested in knowing just how the woman's point of view would influence procedures and processes in such an important field of educational service. Before hearing from Dr. Schafer, I had given considerable thought to doing as these friends had suggested. These chapters contain accounts of what seemed to be the most important of those undertakings and experiences.
Without the installment plan of carrying out this project, it is doubtful if I could have completed it even by this time, two and a half years after it was started, for other interests and other duties of either a public or a private nature have claimed some attention. The doling out of my contributions to the Magazine every three months has enabled me to meet my schedule, although it has not conduced to balance in the whole. Towards the end, as will be seen, a sufficient momentum was gained to carry me beyond the narrative relating to my public school work into an account of the years since that work closed—the “Appendix.”
Thanks are due from me to Dr. Schafer for his confidence in my ability to do what he wanted done, as expressed in the letter quoted—the initial step in this undertaking; and
I wish also to express my thanks to a few readers of the Magazine who from time to time have sent me encouraging words of appreciation. These kind messages always caused me to wonder if there were many others who agreed with the writers of them.
Since every day spent in teaching children and youth, or in helping others to do so, is seen now to have been an enlarging experience, I am grateful to every community—small and large, near or far in time or place—and chiefly in Wisconsin—that offered me the opportunity to serve in the former or the latter capacity. First among these is my home city, Kenosha, and next is Stevens Point.
Mary Davison Bradford
Kenosha, Oct. 10, 1932.
Chapter
I. A Pioneer Family in Paris, Kenosha County, Wis.
II. A District School of the Eighteen-fifties
III. The Impressive Decade of the Sixties
IV. School and Home Training
V. I Become a “Scholar” in the Kenosha Public Schools
VI. My First Teaching Experiences in the Country
VII. In the Kenosha Public Schools
VIII. A Year as Student in the Oshkosh Normal School
IX. My First Attempt at High School Teaching
X. Married Life
XI. Ten Years of High School Teaching
XII. Early Days of the Central State Teachers College at Stevens Points, Wis.
XIII. There Years in the Stout Training School at Menomonie, Wis.
XIV. A Year in the Whitewater Normal School
XV. A Superintendent of Schools—My First Three Years in That Office
XVI. A Period of Doubtful Tenure
XVII. A Most Eventful Triennium
XVIII. Closing Years of Paid Public Service
XIX. Appendix—A Decade of Leisure
Index
Frontispiece
Southport in 1844
Home of the Davison Family from 1848 to 1854. The “Willow Crest Farm” today
Home of the Davison Family from 1854 to 1868. Birthplace of Author of these Memoirs
School House of District No. 5 Paris, built in 1851
The Hale Family, Pioneer Neighbors of the Davisons
Two Young Davison Girls in Their Sunday Best
Ida A. Davison, the Mainstay of the Family
“He Knew the Scriptures from His Youth”—the treasured picture from the old farm home
The Light of Other Days
The First High School Building in Wisconsin
The Assembly Room of First High School
Rev. Henry M. Simmons
Liberty Corners Country School House—My Second “Mile-stone”
George Summer Albee, first president of the Oshkosh Normal School
The First Oshkosh Normal School Building
Miss Rose C. Swart, of Oshkosh Normal School and Teachers College
The Western Girl with the “Quee-uh” Speech
Dr. Wm. M. W. Davison, Chicago Physician
Myself, when a High School Teacher
Col. Michael Frank, “Father of the Free Public School System of Wisconsin”
My Father and Mother, as they looked in 1888
Theron B. Pray, first President of the Stevens Point Normal, 1894-1906
Jennie Rebecca Faddis, first Primary Critic Teacher, Stevens Point Normal School
An Exhibit of Art in Stevens Point Normal, five years after its opening
Stevens Point Normal School Building in 1900
Stout Institute
Mabel Tainter Memorial, Menomonie, Wis.
Lorenzo D. Harvey, one of Wisconsin's Educational Leaders and President of Stout Institute
Alma L. Binzel, Director of Kindergarten Training School, Stout Institute
Albert Salisbury, President of Whitewater, Wis. Normal School
Walter T. Marllat, Editor of Kenosha
Evening News
Children's Play Festival in Library Park, Kenosha
Board of Education, Kenosha, 1914-1915
Myself, when Superintendent of Kenosha Schools
Scene at a School Social Centre, and Picture of School Gardens
Health Measures
Washington School, Kenosha, opened in 1920
Awatif, Daughter of a Moslem Teacher and Reformer of Cairo, Egypt
A Photograph with Antiquity for a Background
“The Five Sisters Window” in York Minster, England
Dryburgh Abbey, Scott's Burial Place
New Central High School, Kenosha
Portrait in Library of New Central H. S.
Henry M. Simmons Memorial Church—now the Kenosha Boys’ and Girls’ Library
My
father, Andrew Jackson Davison, was a pioneer settler of Kenosha County. He was born in Norwich, Chenango County, New York, November 13, 1814, the youngest of a family of six sons of George W. and Mary Carter Davison, originally from Connecticut. He was a man of high grade of intellect but with meagre schooling, having been obliged at an early age to earn his living by engaging in occupations which, to us, seem anything but light. He was always a reader, and having an excellent memory became a well-informed man.
As a young man Andrew J. Davison worked during the winter seasons in Buffalo or elsewhere East at his trade, that of shoemaker; in summer he “followed the lakes” between Buffalo and Chicago. His brothers, William, John, and Cordillo of Buffalo were lake captains, as was also B. F. Davison, who lived in Chicago, at the western end of the traffic route. An item of family history often repeated and believed to be true is that William Davison's vessel was the first to carry a load of wheat from Chicago down the lakes. Lighters were used to transport the grain from shore to vessel.
After experiencing great dangers and hardships, Andrew decided to give up sailing, and to engage in a less hazardous business,—that of farming in the West. Sometime in the spring or fall of 1839, he landed from his brother John's
By means of a rowboat he was taken up the Chicago River through the swamp covering much of the site of the present great city, and was landed at a point from which a wagon road running northward could be easily reached. From the fall of 1836, a weekly stage had been running over the Milwaukee Road between Chicago and Milwaukee;
On that long walk of over eighty miles, the first house seen was Peter Martin's tavern on the Town Line, afterward the Plank Road, three miles west of Southport. After dinner he pushed on to Ives’ Grove in Racine County. A heavy rain came on and he was wet to the skin when he got to the tavern there. He never told the story of that journey without expressing gratitude to the tavern keepers, man and wife, for the hospitality shown for the loan of clothing while his own was being dried, for excellent food, and a comfortable bed. In the morning he continued his journey and reached Milwaukee early in the forenoon. At the Government Land Office he selected two quarter sections of land in Racine County, Kenosha County having not then been set off as a
The reputation of this section of Wisconsin as one of the richest and most favored agricultural regions of the West, coupled with the government price of ten shillings ($1.25) an acre, had created a great demand for farms here. The young man sensed the situation and felt sure that delay would be dangerous to his interests. So he set out as soon as possible on his tramp of thirty miles or so for the inspection of the two pieces he had selected, his course lying in a southerly direction from Milwaukee.
The first piece examined had the desired conditions: timber for fences and for buildings, some raw prairie land “needing only the service of a breaking team to turn the sod, in order to be ready for the seed; bur oak groves near open spaces as sites for homes, no clearing being needed.” West of it was a wide stretch of marsh land, part of the Des Plaines River basin, into which this piece of land drained.
He knew that this land was what he wanted. He was anxious to have the business clinched, and hurried back to Milwaukee, paid his $200, got his papers, and the northeast quarter of section 11 of the town of Paris became the property of Andrew J. Davison. 3 The preêmption receipt given A. J. Davison at Milwaukee at the time of purchase was No. 5476. The entry of this at Milwaukee bears the date of Sept, 28, 1889. The land patent was issued to A. J. Davison by the General Land Office in Washington under date of Mar. 3, 1848, signed by Pres. Tyler. It was received for record in Kenosha, June 9, 1854.
He came back in the fall of that year and arranged with Hiram Ball, who kept a tavern at Kellogg's Corners and with whom he had stopped, to do the things required of new settlers by the rules of the Settlers’ Association of Milwaukee. These rules specified that the claimant of a quarter section should have at least three acres plowed and under cultivation within the first six months, and at the end of a year have either a house built or an additional three acres plowed.
When Andrew came back the next time, he found that nothing had been done of the work promised, so he determined to stay and attend to it himself. While a hired man was doing the plowing, he cut the trees and split the rails for a stake and rider fence. Whether this species of fence was the same as the zig-zag rail fence, I do not know. But the account of these early experiences always included the making of “the stake and rider fence” and impressed me as a special sort of achievement.
Several seasons went by with the alternations of shoemaking and sailing, with trips up into the country to see his land while the vessel on which he worked was being unloaded and loaded at Chicago. But slow as progress was, Andrew's purpose to establish a home on his farm never weakened. Instead of that, it was quickened and strengthened; for a certain handsome, black-eyed young woman, whom he had met in Buffalo, and whom he hoped to win as his wife, had made it very plain to him that she would not marry a sailor. Her Copy of mural painting in Kenosha County Courthouse, made from an old sketch that belonged to Zalmon G. Simmons, Sr. It was on
such a wharf as the one pictured in the foreground that Caroline G. Davidson landed in 1848 as a bride
So when Andrew came back to Wisconsin later, he was actuated by a new and absorbing purpose—that of preparing the logs for the construction of a house to which to bring the young woman who had promised to leave the comfortable, well-equipped home of her parents in Chautauqua County, New York, to share with him the life of a new settler in the distant West. The site selected for this house was near the south limit of the farm and today is that of the home of the present owner of that quarter section.
On May 23, 1843, Andrew Jackson Davison and Caroline Garnsey Wagoner were married. Soon after this event, leaving his bride at her father's home, the groom came West to further the work of preparation for her arrival.
In late summer she came by the Lakes and landed at Kenosha, then Southport. A pier had been constructed in 1842. Thus she escaped the experience of being transported ashore in a scow that had been kept at the harbor for landing goods and passengers.Wisconsin Historical Collections,
iii, 395-420.
They followed a trail running northwesterly from Southport. She often told us children of that first ride. She couldn't see from the wagon over the top of the grass, and not a habitation came to view. We know that Somers had a number of homes by 1843, for since the first white man came in 1835, this township, located near the Lake and the port, had been settled rapidly; but the tall grass hid everything.
A few years ago when searching through an old file of the Southport
Telegraph
for data pertaining to a question that then interested me, I found an article written by an early settler who came to Wisconsin the year before my father did. I copied this paragraph as it expressed what my father and mother probably saw then. The writer said:
I first saw the prairies of Wisconsin in the Spring of 1838, and reveled among the flowers in youthful glee. I saw an immensity of acres, untilled and luxurious, with the wildest, tallest grass, only awaiting the arrival of the plow to make them what they have since become,—a certain source of wealth to thousands, and the grain fields of the world. I found the people few and scattered, but not so rude in their minds and habits as one might suppose, save an exceptional case.
Carl Sandburg tells in
The Prairie Years
of the removal of the Lincoln family from Indiana to Macon County, Illinois, in 1829;
Grass stood up six and eight feet; men and horses and cattle were lost to sight in it; so tough were the grass-roots that timber could not get roothold in it; the grass seemed to be saying to the trees, ‘You shall
Prairie Years,
105.
In 1843, my mother was one of the “ox-wagon gang” and was seeing the same conditions that Sandburg describes.
For some reason there had been a delay in getting doors and windows for the new log house and for awhile blankets were put up to cover the openings. To the newcomer these seemed but slight protection when the terrifying howling of wolves was heard at night. Their nearest neighbor in 1843 was at Kellogg's Corners, two and a half miles away.
Another story which she often told us, with never-lessening effect, was about an old Indian, who used to borrow father's gun. Once he came when father was away, and the young wife was terribly scared. She was afraid to refuse him the gun and powderhorn, for she didn't know what he might do after he got it. But nothing happened, and mother ceased to be alarmed by these visits. She told of a friendly exchange she was able to make, he bringing her game, and she giving him some salt pork, which he seemed to greatly prize.
My elder brother was born in this log house, January 23, 1845. He was called Cordillo, a family name. On August 20, 1846, a daughter was born, and was named Ida. At the time of this writing, April, 1930, she is living, and will be frequently mentioned in these annals. Her remarkably clear and accurate memory of names, dates, and events has been a great help to the writer, born ten years later than she; in fact, the account of the early days in home and school is in substance hers.
She remembers the plan of the first home. It stood some distance back from the road, on a slight rise of ground. The front of the house was east, and the one door and a window were on that side. These opened into the living room, which extended across the house, and had also a west window. Off
This seems an appropriate place to tell of an event which, while it nearly deprived the family of this “mainstay” as she afterwards became, seems to have sufficient bearing upon the conditions of those early times to warrant its recital.
In the summer of 1847, mother, in poor health and very homesick, went with her two babies to visit her old home, taking as usual the water route. She staid a year and then father, who had visited his family once or twice during this time, went East to bring her back. The return trip was made on a propeller bound for Chicago. It was a very rough passage and Ida, then about two years of age, was taken very sick. The parents, alarmed and anxious, persuaded the captain to put them ashore at Southport instead of carrying them on to Chicago. But the conditions for landing were bad. A strong east wind was blowing and the waves were high, which made the approach to the dock very dangerous. The passengers had to be ready to jump at just the right moment. Undoubtedly my father's sailing experience was very useful in this emergency. He jumped first with the older child in his arms. Mother handed the sick baby to a passenger to hold while she made her jump. This she did successfully. Just at that moment a great wave threatened to crash the steamer against the dock, and the order to back her was given. Imagine the horror of the mother when the boat began to move away, and the space widened over the water between her and the child. “Throw her” was father's peremptory order and over the dangerous space the bundle
Father had rented the south eighty acres with the log house to a newly arrived immigrant from England. While mother was in the East, he prepared for the erection of a new frame house on the north eighty. Since it was not ready for occupancy at the time of her return, the family settled down at Southport and lived there until the spring of 1849. Father found ready employment, as he had the previous winter, with F. W. Lyman, who had the principal shoe shop in Southport. While they lived in Southport their third child was born, on August 29, 1848. He was named William Miller Wagoner, after mother's father.
I will digress from my chronological recital to say that this son grown to manhood on the farm, determined to study medicine. He was handicapped by an inadequate education, but coming to Kenosha to live in 1868, he became the close friend of Dr. N. A. Pennoyer, then a young man. While William was earning and saving for his college course by working at the Simmons factory (then making cheese-boxes) Dr. Pennoyer directed his study and encouraged him in his purpose. William graduated from Hahnemann College, Chicago, in 1877, and practised medicine in the West and later in Chicago. He died in Kenosha, March 2, 1901, aged 52 years.
Now to return to the family story. As soon as the frame house wa finished enough to be habitable, the family moved into it. A shop was located upstairs where father could carry on his work. There, winters and when farm work permitted, he made boots and shoes for the neighbors. Besides this, he took work from Mr. Lyman, walking the ten miles back and forth, bringing out the packs of boot-uppers for soling and
Grandfather Davison spent several winters with father, and had a bed room off the shop. He was very active and, although pat eighty years, was able to walk the ten miles to town with father.
One article of furniture in the living room of the frame house seems to me to have been unique. It was a long settee with rockers, and served the two purposes of rocking-chair and cradle. There was a frame with spindles which could be adjusted at the front of the long seat, thus enclosing more than half its length, and leaving a space for sitting at the end. Thus a safe bed was made for the baby, who could be comfortably rocked by the one occupying the seat. This duty was assigned the older sister, who managed it by seizing with one hand a post of the front frame and with the other a back spindle of the settee,—a well-remembered performance of her very early childhood.
As yet there was no barn at the farm. The only outbuilding father had, if it could be called a building, was a shed made of poles, which covered with straw, furnished some protection for his oxen and one cow. There was no granary.
The summer of 1849 is noted for the great wheat crop throughout southern Wisconsin.four Wisconsin Counties,
128.Telegraph,
Colonel Michael Frank, says of this wheat crop under date of August 11, 1849: ... “a vast quantity of wheat on the ground, the amount for market will be large.” Two days later in this diary an item is recorded which seems to bear the relation to the one just cited of effect and cause. It is this: August 13, 1849, “Hutchinson's new warehouse near the steam mill about finished.” Champion I. Hutchinson was one of the prominent business men of Southport arriving in the early forties. He had married the daughter of the Episcopal minister of the place and stood high in Southport society. C. I. Hutchinson & Company were mentioned in 1842. It was in connection with this warehouse and the builder of it, C. I. Hutchinson, that the most disgraceful event in the early history of Southport occurred.
My father's account of it as recalled is this: In 1849, when there was such a great yield of wheat, few of the farmers had granaries, and were, therefore, ready to accept Mr. Hutchinson's proposition for storage in his new warehouse. Wagonload after wagonload was drawn to town; farmers from as far west as Walworth Country availed themselves of his offer. Receipts were given for the amount of grain delivered, and the pledge made that when navigation opened in the spring, the grain would be sold and the farmers paid the market price received.
From now on the name Kenosha will be used instead of Southport, for on January 26, 1850, a bill was passed by the legislature creating Kenosha County from a part of Racine County; and on February 7, 1850, another bill was passed changing the name of the place to Kenosha and incorporating it as a city. There was great excitement over these events and much rejoicing. But Kenosha and all the near-by country was destined to become excited soon about another matter.
Early in the spring of 1850 the word spread like wildfire from farm to farm that wheat from the Hutchinson warehouse was being loaded on to vessels.Farmers hastened to town to find the report true; their wheat was gone and gone also was Hutchinson with the money. Believing that the thief was secreted somewhere in Kenosha by his friends, it was with difficulty that a riot was averted. When we think that the grain entrusted to this man was the first real promise of return for all the hard labor of these farmers, that upon it rested plans for improved homes and increased comforts, and, further, that it was a time of great money shortage with interest rates exhorbitantly high, it is not difficult to imagine the effect of this disaster not only upon the losers, but on the reputation of Kenosha.
Some of the farmers clung to the hope that although Hutchinson himself had fled to California, the Hutchinson firm could be held responsible for the money of which they had been defrauded, but after a lapse of time, the news came that this firm had failed, and then the storm really broke. It seems that after the first emptying of the warehouse, there had been stored there a quantity of wheat that a certain buyer had purchased and paid for. This grain the desperate farmers determined to have and rushed to town armed major of Kenosha, and therefore, actively engaged in quieting the riot. I quote again from the diary, under date of Saturday, April 6, 1850. He says:
A riotous disturbance at the ware house this morning. I was called upon to suppress it. The excitement ... grew out of the late failure of C. I. Hutchinson, he having defrauded the farmer, etc. out of some 40,000 bushels of wheat left in store at his ware house. There being a quantity of wheat new in the ware house, belonging to different individuals, those who have lost wheat claim to it by force ...
The “etc” in the phrase “he having defrauded the farmers, etc” is the diarist's; and the only explanation of it that I
Then follows an account in the diary of the events of that day, and of the following day, which was Sunday, April 7, 1850. He says:
A man from Ohio ... had got a writ of replevin from the U. S. Court to take some 12,000 bu. wheat belonging to him and the Dep. U.S. Marshal... had come to execute the write. I found a crowd of some 2 or 300 in front of the ware house ...
It was this that farmers determined should not be done. It seems to me very probable that many of these thought that they were being deceived again, and disbelieved the statement of its ownership by others. Colonel Frank records how at that early hour he explained to the mob the nature of the writ and “enjoined the obedience of law.” He evidently thought that his effort was effective for he went home, and later to church.
But things at the wharf didn't stop. He was called from meeting, he says, and found the warehouse crowd doubled in number. The marshal “had been obliged by the interference of the crowd to stop taking wheat.” Colonel Frank partially satisfied the farmers by promising that the warehouse would be effectively closed against any more withdrawal of wheat by anybody. The place was barricaded at his orders but it availed little. The barricade was pulled down. The attackers were rendered still more desperate by the news that the United States marshal had sent to Milwaukee for a company of infantry to enforce the execution of the process. The diary says: “...there was much murmuring among the people,” and the record for the day closes with this: “The excitement during the whole of this day has been the most extraordinary it was ever my lot to witness. The streets were full of people earnestly discussing.”
The next day, Monday, April 8, a mass meeting of the farmers was held in front of the Methodist Church, which stood on the site now occupied by the Dayton Hotel. “Strong apprehension of a serious outbreak anticipated.” Walking with hickory canes coming into use for a day or two past,” are sentences from that day's diary.
April 9, “Excitement much diminished,” he says.
April 10, “Two companies of Milwaukee Infantry arrived ... to assist in enforcing the execution of the process in removing wheat from the ware house. There was a great crowd of people ...”
April 11, “They [infantry] took the boat for Milwaukee about 3½
p. m.
”
Thus ended this historical episode of eighty years ago this month.
The boat which had brought the soldiers on this unhappy errand and carried them back was commanded by Captain William Davison, of Buffalo, my uncle already mentioned. He happened to be in the harbor at Milwaukee, and his vessel was requisitioned by the government to transport the soldiers.
The questions very naturally suggested are: “Was A. J. Davison one of the defrauded farmers?” and “Was he one of the mob?” The answer is “No” to both questions. Since the reasons for his escape tell the story of another way of taking care of grain than that of storing it in granaries or in warehouses, I will give an account of what is said to have been done at the Davison farm.
With him, as with others, labor was rewarded in that summer of 1849 by the first large yield of wheat he had had. The threshing was done by a horse power, treadmill threshing machine. Without a granary, as I have said, father prepared, as best he could, to store his grain in the open. Whether or not he was solicited by Hutchinson's agent to
Whether this method was used elsewhere, or whether it was the result of my father's ingenuity and self-reliance, I do not know. Perhaps this was the general procedure, and may be just what Colonel Frank meant when he wrote under date of August 11, 1849, as already quoted: “A vast quantity of wheat on the ground.” But however that may have been, this is the story of how one farmer escaped the disaster that plunged so many of his neighbors into a state of discouragement bordering on despair, and caused Racine to be preferred for several years afterwards as a trading place.
As soon after this summer as circumstances would permit, a granary was built. It immediately was tenanted by a newly arrived German family, for father found that hard labor had begun to tell on his health, and that it was necessary for him to have regular help.
In the new frame house were born two daughters, Hannah Camp, named after the maternal grandmother, born January 20, 1851, and Caroline Garnsey, bearing mother's name, born July 17, 1853. The children now numbered five, and the two oldest ones had, in 1853, been going to school for three years.
The new frame house was located on the north side of the farm nearly half a mile from the log house, and the distance to the new district school house was over a mile. In stormy weather the children were carried to and from school
My curiosity about the way things used to be done brought an account of this moving from Ida, then a child of eight years, who remembered it well, although not allowed to stay out of school to witness it. Knowing that their walk home that night would be a half-mile shorter she and Cordillo went to school that morning as usual. The story also furnishes an instance of the fine spirit of neighborliness of those early times. I trust that the details of this event will not be tiresome to my readers.
The cellar had been dug at the new site, and the stones collected for the cellar wall and foundation. The half-mile course to be taken through the fields in the moving was cleared of hazel brush and other obstructions and was made as smooth as possible. Over this course the granary went first, father being able to move that with his ox team and that of a neighbor. To this a stove and some furniture were moved and the place made habitable for the family. When I asked why the old log house was not used, I was told that when the human tenant family had left it, there remained numerous other tenants to be gotten rid of later, which was effectively done.
The frame house was prepared for the trip by having placed under its sides timbers smoothed and curved at the ends like huge sled runners. Word had gone out through WILLOW CREST FARM
The upright part of this house built in 1848 was the home of the Davison family until 1854. It is the house that had the half-mile sleigh ride to join company with the old log house built in 1843. It is now the home of Edward Henn and family.
We sometimes learn, when reading of movings and barn raisings and such events, that a certain kind of refreshment was offered as an inducement and as an expression of appreciation, but to nothing of that sort could be attributed the popularity of this occasion. My father was a teetotaler. But after the work was done, all the men were invited to the granary, where there awaited them good hot coffee, and a table loaded with eatables—a feast that had taken mother and her competent German helper, Margaret Myers, all the day before to prepare. Old Jerry Slater is remembered a having said, “This is the better than whisky!” But I like to believe that it wa not wholly the reputation of the Davisons for generous feeds that brought the neighborly response. The times were characterized by the spirit of mutual helpfulness, and this was probably a reciprocal act for similar services that had been rendered them.
But there were some things still to be desired in the new situation, the house was on post, and when strong winds blew, there was danger of it being upset. Ida recalls a time when the children were all taken from their bed in the middle
In the spring of 1854, father was able to make a very advantageous sale of this property. A newly arrived German immigrant wanted it. He was Carl Kreucher, a high-class educated man who came from Hesse-Homburg, bringing a large family of children, some of them well grown. (The “oi” vowel sound in his same as he gave it, was very soon corrupted to “oo” and is so pronounced today.)
At the time of this sale Ida was eight years old. She has a very clear remembrance of the event, and since certain circumstances connected with it seem to have more than a mere family interest, further details of the transaction are here given. It took place in the living room of the frame house. There was present a near neighbor, Obed Pease Hale, commonly called Squire Hale, who was the justice of the peace of the town. He was a settler from Ohio, a lawyer by training and profession, and had been called in to draw up the necessary papers. There was also Jacob Meyers, a German neighbor and good friend, who had settled in an adjoining district in Paris Township about the same time as my father, and whose knowledge of English qualified him to act as interpreter.
Carl Kreucher brought gold coin to pay for the farm, the price agreed upon being $3,700. For this he got 160 acres of land, under cultivation for ten years, a new frame house, good for the times, with an old log house for an ell, an orchard beginning to bear, and corps all planted—the corn being up “so that the rows showed.”
Father had told with the idea of going to a warmer climate. His strenuous work since boyhood, the strain and exposure of sailor's life, and the hardships of the Wisconsin winters had brought on a rheumatic condition for which he sought relief. He was then forty years old. He left mother and the children to live with the Hales and started east.
It was a fully earned vacation that my father gave himself. First he visited his boyhood home in Chenango County, New York. He found few that he knew. If old friends had not been claimed by death, they had been caught up, as he had been, by the great westward migration and were scattered in various quarters. Next he went to southern Ohio, which had been his place of work for several winters. There, also, old friends had dispersed, and many left behind were shaking with the ague, the universal malady then of more southern sections. Then he went to Logansport, Indiana, where an old friend and schoolmate lived. He liked the looks of the land which was occupied by American settlers. But ague was prevalent here, also, and school houses were scarce. Educationally, they were not so far along in that part of Indiana as they were in southern Wisconsin, and with a man
He came back to Wisconsin welcomed by neighbors and friends, and bought the “Willis Place,” a farm of 160 acres adjoining the first farm on the south. In some respects it was a better farm than the first, for the orchard was bearing, and there was a good barn,—but the house! It was poorly built, unpainted, run down. I can easily imagine how my mother felt to move into a house like that, after having been the proud possessor of one of the best houses in the district. But there was one condition that helped to reconcile her, the children were a good half mile nearer school.
In the “Willis house” as it was usually called, I, Mary Lemira, was born January 15, 1856, and Sarah Isabel, November 17, 1859. The family of seven children of Andrew J. and Caroline G. Davison is now all assembled.
There comes to mind here a poem in that old reader used in my childhood:
I remember, I remember the house where I was born,
The little window where the sun came peeping in at morn.
It had two rooms downstairs, a kitchen and a sitting room—both “living rooms.” Attached to the kitchen was a lean-to, serving in the summer as a kitchen, and in the winter as a storeroom. Off the sitting room was a “bed sink” shut off by a curtain. The chamber above was all one room, unfinished. Between the studding the clapboards showed, and between the rafters could be seen the widely spaced boards, and the shingles over them. As soon as possible the house was made somewhat more habitable. Outside the clap-boards were put up-right boards, well battened. The north THE HOME IN PARIS, KENOSHA COUNTY OF THE DAVISON FAMILY, FROM 1854 TO 1868
Birthplace of Mary and Isabell. The right wing was not there then, and a “lean-to” was in place of the left wing. Several trees of the
original bur oak grove are seen. It is now the home of Ell Frederick and family.
This house is still standing, the main part just as it was in 1854, when it came into the possession of the Davison family. Then it stood in the midst of a grove of large bur oaks—the pride of my father—which was kept intact as long as we lived there, but soon disappeared after the farm changed hands. (The farm was sold in 1868 to Theodore Frederick.) I remember the position of every one of those beautiful trees. Naturally a nature lover, and fond of trees, it is the bur oak that seems to have for me an especial interest. I believe that this is the effect of those childhood associations, another manifestation of which is the emotional response I feel to such poems as that of Lowell's “The Oak.”
What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade is his!
There needs no crown to mark the forest's king;
and all the rest of that beautiful appreciation of my beloved
bur oak trees!
From the lower horizontal branch of one of them—not low down, however,—hung the strong rope swing. It was no short, jerky pendulum. When the muscular arms of older brothers, pushing, and catching and pushing again, each time
I remember well this cheese making, although the details of the process are supplied by my older sister who assisted in the work. The preparation of the rennet for curdling the milk was the first step in the process. From calves killed on the farm, the fourth stomach or rennet bag was saved. This was carefully washed and filled with salt. Salt was also put on the outside of it, and then it was hung up to dry. These dried membranes would last for years. When needed, mother would cut off a piece about the size of the palm of her hand and put it asoak in cold water.
The size of father's herd of cows was such that it took the milk of one evening and of the following morning to make a cheese of the size desired. That former quantity, put in pans over night, was skimmed in the morning, since the cream was needed in the making of the family butter. To this was added all of the morning's milk, a large vat being used. Into this was poured a cupful of the rennet water. In half an hour the milk was curdled. Then with a big wooden knife the smooth soft mass was cut through one way and across, until its surface was marked into two-inch squares. Into the crevices made, the whey quickly gathered. This whey was carefully dipped off, and put on the stove to heat. When quite warm, it was poured back over the mass. Then
Between the trees a bench was placed. In its plank top was a circular groove into which fitted the tin cheese hoop. Several small drainage grooves radiated from this circular one. After the hoop was in place, new muslin, clean and wet, was spread over the bottom of the receptacle and made to line it, the corners being brought over the top of the ring.
The curd was then put in, and the first layer carefully pressed into the bottom so as to insure a regular edge for the cheese. Then the rest of the curd was poured in and pressed down. Two corners of the cheese cloth were spread over the top, then a circular block of wood that just fitted the hoop was put on top, and over it the other two corners of the cloth were spread. Other blocks were used to raise the height of these “toppers.” A lever fastened to one of the trees was then brought across the blocks, and a kettle filled with stones was hung on the end of the lever. Under this pressure the whey was squeezed from the curd and flowed off through the radiating grooves.
The product was a cheese about six inches thick which weighed sixteen or seventeen pounds. The removal of the cheese was an interesting event to us youngsters. Frequently the block didn't fit tight, and a margin was trimmed off which had escaped pressure through a chink. I recall the nimitable squeaky sound it made when I chewed these delectable bits!
The well, with its oaken bucket and its nearby watering trough for the horses, was under the oak trees.
We were fortunate in having a very remarkable echo between the house and the barn, and with it are associated other delightful experiences of those childhood days. Standing just outside the kitchen door facing the barn, we would startle the air with strange halooings, listening after each one for the echo, at first clear and loud, then less and less distinct and finally fading out. We loved to hear mother call from the house to father in the barn, and count the times we could hear echoed back the last syllable of “Andrew” sent out by her clear, carrying voice.
Back of the house was the orchard bearing a variety of apples. There were harvest apples, the progress of which toward ripening was eagerly watched and waited for. They were yellow, sweet and of a delicate texture. I have many times searched the markets to find places like that early variety, but in vain. I wonder where the one who set the orchard got those trees. From that orchard came also an abundant supply of fall and winter apples. The harvesting and storing of the latter is a well remembered event.
An incident which shows the beautiful neighborliness of the time will close this part of my story. As already related, Carl Kreucher brought a large family of children to America. One of the younger children, a boy of eight or ten years was sickly. His angelic face depicted suffering and foretold an early death. As is usual in such cases, the mother's heart was centered upon him, and she grieved unconsolably when little Jacob died.
A man by the name of Gregory, who lived on a farm in the neighborhood, now known as the Biehn farm, made coffins. From him one was procured for the Kreucher child. It was a rough, bare pine box, and it can easily be imagined how the mother felt about putting the body of her beloved child into such a receptacle. It was at this time that my mother lent a hand. Calling to her assistance Mary Ann
In
the summer of 1850, when Cordillo my older brother was five and a half years old, and Ida was four, they started going to school. The school was held in a private house, the home of a settler named MacShuler, who lived on the same section line road to the south of the Davison home, and such distance away as to require the use of the oxen and wagon to get the children to and from school when the weather was at all unfavorable.
The room used was the large, unplastered living room of the farm house. The equipment was the same as that of the schools attended by fathers and mothers in the East, and of which we often read. In the center was a long desk at which the older pupils sat to do their writing,—not composition so much as copy-book work. This piece of school furniture had a narrow horizontal board in the middle to hold the ink bottles, and on each side of this and fastened to it were the sloping boards for the common long desk. On each side was a bench seat. Along the sides of the room, attached to the walls, were sloping boards, braced somehow, and adjusted in height to benches upon which the pupils sat for study, their books resting on the slanting shelf. Their backs were toward the middle of the room, and when called to the class for recitations, they flopped their feet over the bench and stood up. There was a piece of blackboard at the end of the room opposite the door.
Their first teacher was Margaret Gould, the stepdaughter of a Mr. Scott, an early settler and neighbor of my family. Miss Gould was a capable woman, ready to do many SCHOOL HOUSE OF DISTRICT NO. 5, PARIS, BUILT IN 1851
Now known as the Three Oaks. The mail box and the telephone wires, the pump and he flag staff
modernize this 80-year old place.
The education of Cordillo and Ida began in the regular way,—that is, with the learning of their letters. It was a long time after that, when it was discovered that the names of the letters have little to do with word recognition; but at that time to have postponed that step, as is done today, would have been regarded as an act of pedagogical heresy, and an evidence of unfitness in the teacher. Ida recalls the names of some of the pupils, and some of the happenings on the playground. She not only learned the names of the characters in the alphabet, but was able to spell the word “it” at the end of the term. It was, however, regarded as a successful experience, for the teacher was kind-hearted, and understood children. A favorable first impression of school was made.
In 1851 a public schoolhouse was built on the east and west road between sections 12 and 13. It was located on the south side of a farm then owned by a Mr. Pritchard, and afterwards by Henrry Midllecamp. It stood in a grove of bur oak trees, some of which must still be there since today the school has the name of the “Three Oaks School.” It was built by Mr. Scott and his son Oliver. The logs for the foundation were cut from the roadside of Mr. Scott's farm and my father's oxen hauled them to the school site—more than a mile away. Ida recalls how during the summer when the school was under construction, she and Cordillo and Frances Scott walked every day to the new building to carry dinners to the workmen.
It was a frame structure of the usual size and form, and stood near the road facing south, just where it does now. To keep the pupils from looking out of the windows when
There were three rows of desks, and Mr. Scott, a skillful carpenter, had fashioned good ones, with comfortable backs, and shelves for the books. The middle row was designed for the smaller children, and each seat would accommodate three or four of them. On each side of this middle row, separated by a narrow aisle, were seats for the older children, each designed for two, the boys sitting on one side of the room and the girls on the other. A well remembered form of punishment was to make a troublesome boy cross over and sit with a girl. Whether or not this served its purpose depended entirely on the nature of the boy, and sometimes it was not the boy but the girl who was punished.
Across the entire end of the room behind the teacher's desk was a blackboard,—literally that. In the front of the room, at the left of the door, was a bench for the water pail. The coats, cloaks, shawls, hoods, and caps were hung on nails at that end of the room, the girls using the right side and the boys the left, in proximity to the open water pail. Curtains or shades there were none.
One who as a child attended this school visited it recently. She noticed, first, that the window sills had been lowered; that modern desks had replaced the old ones, and that slate blackboards and curtains had been added to the school facilities. The house built seventy-nine years ago is still in good condition.
This school was opened in the fall of 1851. By this time, twelve years after A. J. Davison had bought his land of the government, the district was well settle. Before proceeding with the school history, I will name as many as can be recalled by my sister of the families who belonged in District No. 5. The exact chronology of their settlement in the district is not attempted in all cases, “earlier” or “later” expressing all that is believed or known about this matter.
Among the first settlers who sent children to school in the early fifties occur such family names as Gregory, Vaughn, Willis, Lease, Allen, Fleming, Baker, Bailey, Hale, Stover, McHuron, which names seem to indicate Yankee stock. A number of these sold out after a few years, usually to foreigners, and moved away, probably following the westward movement. Among these new families were those of German, Dutch, Bohemian, Welsh, and Irish origin.
On the farm adjoining the Willis farm on the south lived the Hale family. Obadiah Peace Hale and his wife were natives of Ohio who came to Wisconsin in 1842. Mr. Hale, a lawyer by profession, was justice of the peace for many years. He and my father were very close friends. Although he was not a great success as a farmer, Mr. Hale and his family were important factors in the neighborhood. I remember him always as somewhat stooped. My father used to attribute this to his posture in sitting. When at home he sat with his chair tipped back and his feet on his desk; when calling on a neighbor, he sat similarly tilted against the wall with one heel clutched on the front round of the chair and
The family consisted of four children, the three oldest born in Ohio. They were Melvina, born in 1832, who married George Palmer; Delina, born in 1833, who married Courtland A. Dewey, and became well-known in Kenosha; George, born in 1840, and Myron, born in 1845. George Hale enlisted for the Civil War, August 12, 1862, in Company H, Thirty-third Wisconsin Infantry. He was a lieutenant in this company during its participation in the siege of Vicksburg, and his diary of that event is an interesting document. He was known to us in Kenosha as Captain Hale, and was for many years a prominent citizen and member of the G. A. R. His death occurred n October 24, 1911. Myron as a youth of twenty enlisted as one of the “Hundred Day Boys.” He contracted typhoid fever and died September 27, 1865, the day after reaching home.
Another much valued neighbor was Patrick maceldowney—a name soon shortened to Downey. Mr. Downey had studied in Ireland for the priesthood, and was a real scholar, versed in the Greek, Hebrew and Latin languages. All he is remembered as having said in explanation of his change of plan was that when the time came for ordination (if this is the right word) he refused “holy orders.” Mrs. Downey was a woman of refinement, beautiful in appearance and character. They had three sons, John, Henry, and Barney, and in the family besides these were Katherine McNeil, a niece of Mr. Downey, and two granddaughters of Mrs. Downey, children of a daughter by a previous marriage, named Mary and Elizabeth Stewart. They came to Wisconsin from the East, where Mr. Downey had been a linen peddler.
SQUIRE HALE'S FAMILY IN 1874
Erstwhile neighbors of the Davisons. Standing, Capt. George Hale and Delina
Hale Dewey. Seated at right, Obed Pease Hale and Laura B. King Hale. Seated
left, Courtland H. Dewey and Ellen Leonard Hale.
After the war, in 1866 or ‘67, this family left the neighborhood and moved to a new home in the forest of northern Wisconsin, not far from Appleton. I remember well their day of departure, greatly impressed by the sadness of my parents over the loss of these much loved neighbors,—bound to them by the ties of friendship, strengthened by common sorrows and reciprocated helpfulness in times of need.
In the spring of 1876, when I was a student at the Oshkosh Normal School, my brother William came for me in vacation time and took me to visit the Downeys. We found them living in a comfortable log house. Henry, unmarried, worked the farm and Mary Stewart kept the house. John was settled in Appleton. Mrs. Downey, still sweet and interesting, was a suffering invalid; and Mr. Downey, at an advanced age, exemplifying the life-long habits of the student, was occupying himself with the study of
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
. He discussed with us interesting discoveries in English etymology.
To the north lived the Carl Kreucher family, mentioned in my first chapter. The older sons born in Germany soon became Americanized. Charles and Philip went to Beatrice, Nebraska. A son of the latter is now noted surgeon in the Mercy Hospital in Chicago. Other descendents are prosperous residents of Nebraska. Peter was wounded at the battle of Gettysburg and died from the effects of delay in his rescue. John, a younger brother, Philopena, known as “Penie,” and Maggie went to the school in District No. 5.
Carl Kreucher prospered. He was a devoted Lutheran and in the late sixties gave the land for a church of that denomination. The location was the northeast corner of the farm he bought from my father in 1854. A church and parsonage were built there and are in use today. West of this property in a pasture can be seen the depression in the ground marking the place of the cellar of the Davison frame
The settlers on the east side of the road opposite the first farm were named McHuron, who sold out to a new arrival from Holland named Van der Meuhlen,—now shortened to Vandermoon. The latter are remembered as a somewhat superior family in education and refinement. The father, William Van der Meuhlen, is recalled by the paintings of Dutch artists; the mother was a descendant of a French Huguenot. They had one son, Albert, who married and lived on the old place. Their only daughter, Henrietta, married Henry Middlecamp, who settled on a farm adjoining that on the Vandermoon;s on the south. Henry Middlecamp, also a Dutch immigrant, is remembered as an honest, good hearted, although rather uncultured man,—a good neighbor and faithful friend. One of the sons, William, now deceased, attended the Kenosha High School and the Oshkosh Normal School, and was for a number of years the county superintendent of schools of Kenosha County. The other children were Ida, Annie, Etta, Andrew, and Albert. The somewhat unusual name appears in the telephone directory of Kenosha, these being probably the descendants of Henry and Henrietta Middlecamp.
In this connection I will relate an incident that seems to have some historical interest. When gold was discovered in Colorado on the banks of the Platte River in 1858, the rush to that place was almost as great at that to California had been ten years before, or that to the Klondike in 1897. Then in 1859, Pike's Peak, near Denver, had a gold excitement all its own, and “Pike's Peak or Bust” was painted on many a prairie schooner westward bound to the new Eldorado. Neighbor Middlecamp caught the “gold fever,” and decided to go West to make his fortune. His companion in this venture
To make the trip, they bought a light wagon of the Mitchell wagon makers of Racine. It was equipped with a canvas cover in regular prairie schooner style. It had a comfortable spring seat which promised easier riding on the trek of upwards of a thousand miles to their Colorado destination. Whether or not it, too, was labeled “Pike's Peak or Bust” I cannot say; but with necessary supplies and a good team of horses, the two hopeful men started West sometime in 1859.
After a lapse of time the neighborhood was surprised by the return of the adventurers. They related that after having travelled for weeks and finally having crossed the boundary of Colorado, they began to meet many people coming back. These disillusioned and discouraged gold seekers told such dismal tales of their experiences at Pike's Peak that Middlecamp and Meyers decided not to go farther, and turned back toward Wisconsin and home. Although they may not have advertised their financial condition by decorating the side of their wagon as many similarly situated did, with the word “Busted,” that word expressed the condition of our neighbors, and the wagon was immediately offered for sale. My father was the purchaser.
At a time when heavy lumber wagons were the usual vehicle of travel, this lighter wagon, horse drawn, was quite an acquisition,—as great as that of an automobile for a farmer a half-century later. This vehicle, on account of its history, was called the “Pike's Peak wagon,” or simply the “Pike's Peak.” It became a common neighborhood utility. Although too young to remember the event of its purchase, I recall distinctly how some adult or child would come to the
Just as a little child, in the perception stage of its development, familiar with a dog called Fido, calls other similar dogs by this name, so I, in my early years called all wagons of similar appearance “Pike's Peak,” especially if they were painted light green, and was about to exclaim, so I am told, “O, see that Pike's Peak!” greatly to the amusement of my elders.
How many baskets of eggs and jars of butter and crates of chickens that wagon brought to Kenosha over the Burlington Road, or to Racine, if that market were preferred! How many loads it brought back to our own or to neighbors’ homes, of groceries and other household necessities! Later I will tell of an educational event in which it figured.
Other families in the district living on the road one mile to the east,—the Town Line Road between Paris and Somers,—were those of Elisha Baker, and Norman Bailey, a brother-in-law of the former. They came from Cayuga County, New York. A bond existed between my father and Elisha Baker since they were the only Whigs in the Town of Paris before the Republican Party was formed. A son of Elisha Baker born in “York” state was Myron A. Baker, well remembered in Kenosha as Judge Baker. He served in the Civil War in 1861 being one of the first volunteers in Wisconsin. One of his sons, Norman L. Baker, is now assistant council for the Northwestern Mutual Life of Milwaukee,
On the east side of the district lived Joseph Huck and Henry Biehn, Germans, who bought out the first settlers, and whose large families got their schooling in District No. 5. In their vicinity lived the Heidersdorfs and Snells. To the south in the district lived Jacob Kreucher, a nephew of Carl, who came in 1857. To the west, back of other farms, not reached by the road, were the Lucas family, Welsh, and two Irish families named Martin and Maroney. Their farms bordered on the “big marsh” and were not all arable. I have often wondered if we had in these, other instances of the “Martin Chuzzlewit” sort. All these last mentioned succeeded the first settlers on their respective farms.
Of this great variety of nationalities and of social and educational background, consisted at an earlier or later period, the patrons of the school of District No. 5, Paris, which as I have already said, was opened in the fall of 1851.
The usual plan followed in the first decade of the school's history was to have a man teacher for the winter term, when the big boys attended, and a woman for the summer term. The district system of supervision had been superseded in Wisconsin in 1848 by that of a town superintendent. While this was a great improvement over the previous arrangement, the effectiveness of it depended, of course, upon the man who was elected to that office at the town meeting. Paris was very fortunate in having as its superintendent of schools, Dr.
The teacher engaged for the winter of 1851-52 was Woolsey Washburn, who opened the school in the new building. Cordillo Davison attended regularly, and Ida, aged five, went during the fall and in winter when weather permitted.
In the summer of 1852, the teacher was Frances Bennett. She was one of the older children of a family of sixteen, and the account of how she was discovered and became the teacher in District No. 5 was thus given by father, then the clerk of the district. Father was one day on his way to Kenosha, when he saw a lot of children of different sizes coming out of a farmhouse door. He remarked to the man beside him, who had gladly accepted an invitation to ride, that there must be a school in that house, and was informed that all the children belonged to one family, but that they did constitute a school. It was necessary under the Wisconsin law for children to go to school, and since there was no schoolhouse, and no other pupils in the district, the Bennett home became the schoolhouse and the district paid the teacher.
A teacher was needed for District No. 5. Father, thinking that the experience of an older sister in this large family was a good preparation for handling other people's children, and finding Frances an intelligent, well-mannered girl, offered her the school. She was examined by the town superintendent and, according to the standard of the time, found satisfactory equipped for the work of teaching little children.
In the following winter, that of 1852-53, the teacher was Henry Pettit of Kenosha. He was the son of Judge J. J. Pettit, one of Kenosha's early settlers, and is remembered as a good teacher,—a young man of interesting personality
Mr. Pettit was an artist of exceptional ability and served as a cartoonist during the Civil War. I remember that when I attended the Kenosha High School in the seventies, his two young daughters were my schoolmates. Their father had died and they lived with the grandfather, Judge Pettit.
For the summer term of 1853, Sarah Spades, a high school girl from Kenosha, was the teacher in District No. 5. Her immaturity, and perhaps her character, are revealed by an incident which adds a touch to the picture of that school period. Water for drinking had to be brought in a wooden pail either from the Downey well to the west or the Biehn well to the east. To “go after the water” was an eagerly sought privilege, and since the distance to the Biehn place was the greater, that well was favored. It took two pupils to bring the pailful, and no one ever complained of the arduousness of the task, even though the pail was large and the way hot and dusty. The pail, full to the brim at the well curb, was not always borne with steadiness and it often happened that when it reached the school house, half of it had slopped out, and the rest was warm. It is remembered by Ida, who was a thirsty onlooker, that Miss Spaded would fill a pitcher for her own use, leaving scarcely enough to wet the parched throats of the children. As they watched her drink from her private supply, their thirst waxed greater, as did their hatred when she firmly forbade the fetching of another pail of water.
“The evil that men do lives after them”; her “bones” may be “interred” in a deep, soft bed of good deeds, but Miss
In the winter of 1853–54, the teacher for the four–months’ school was George Milligan, a medical student who was earning money to go on with his professional preparation. As he knew something about medicine, the neighbors would sometimes send for him in emergencies. He would go, leaving Mary Vaughn, an older pupil, in charge of the school. Mr. Milligan was of gentlemanly appearance, of slender build, but trained and alert. There were forty pupils in the attendance that winter. A story is told illustrating the difficulties in the way of discipline facing teachers in the winter terms of those days, and also showing that school–teachers of the “Hoosier School Master” type were not confirmed to Indians.
Two big boys named Gus Vaughn and Grove Willis, aged fifteen or sixteen, entered school after the fall work was done. They were not interested in school and seemed bent on making trouble. Since “to throw the schoolmaster out” was considered by the hoodlum element as something to boast of, these boys proceeded deliberately to provoke the teacher to some act of authority, when they would immediately precipitate a fight. Weighing Mr. Milligan’s small, slight stature against the brawn, the boys felt confident of the outcome.
One day, for an especially offensive act, the teacher reprimanded the Willis boy and told him to leave the room. His confederate, Gus Vaughn, immediately jumped from his seat, seized the “dry bone” stick used for a stove poker, and
Mr. Milligan immediately began legal action against the disturbers. My father and the two other members of the district school board were called the next morning to Squire Hale‘s for the hearing of the case. Some of the older pupils who had seen the fight were called in as witnesses. The boys were expelled, and the winter term of 1853–1854 in District No. 5, Town of Paris, continued peacefully and successfully to its close. How about the boy disturbers? “They became the toughs of the neighborhood” so my narrator says. She, then seven years of age, recalls these as attending that term: three Fleming boys, —Homer, Tom and Burdett. Tom won a reputation for great daring in the Civil War, became a captain and was killed “under the guns at Fort Hudson.” Among the girls remembered were Addie Baker, Mary and Phoebe Vaughn, Katherine McNeil, Harriet and Ophelia Gregory and Martha Lease. The first named, Frances Adelaide Baker, had already been mentioned in the paragraph about the family of Elisha Baker.
In the summer of 1854, Carrie Rector taught the school. She was considered so excellent a teacher that at the end of the term she was offered the school for the next summer.
In the summer of 1855, the teacher was Marcia Holbrook, a country girl of little experience. Her term is remembered, and the date established by three things: Hannah, aged four years, began school, and encountered great difficulties in learning her letters, the letter “u” being an especial stumbling block. The teacher, pointing to the letter said “that's u.” When the child was called upon to repeat its name, she persisted in saying “me” The second thing remembered is the severe whipping of William, aged seven, for a childish offense which would be passed over today. The third thing was that mother made trip to Chautauqua County, New York, to visit her parents, leaving an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Judd, in charge of her family.
When mother went East, she took the state from Kenosha to Chicago. The Chicago and Northwestern Railway was under construction, but an unfinished section somewhere between Chicago and Milwaukee prevented its use for through traffic. Since, according to the history of railroad expansion, Chicago had been reached by rail from the east since 1852, she undoubtedly proceeded on her journey from Chicago over the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern route. By the time she returned trains were running from Chicago to Milwaukee or farther, and the older children of the family were looking forward to an opportunity to see this new and
A man named Eliphalet Pope was the teacher during the winter term of 1855-56. As far as scholarship went, he qualified for the work, but he had on several occasions displayed an ungovernable temper, and must have been an emotionally unbalanced man. However, he created a favorable impression at the close of the term by putting on a great “Exhibition.” There was a stage in the little school room, and curtains—mother's bed curtains,—and a Spanish play,
Retribution,
was given. It made such a deep impression of Ida that she can remember the actors and recall some of the dialogue. This was probably the first dramatic performance witnessed by this girl of nine years of age. It pleased the district so much that Mr. Pope was then and there hired for the next winter,—an act with which my father was not entirely in accord.
The summer of 1856 brought Ann Jordan as teacher, who left a reputation for success. Then Eliphalet Pope returned. There occurred that winter a school event which i will relate in detail, because it illustrates what children were
One winter's day during Mr. Pope's second term, father and mother were away on business. It was the last day of December, 1856, and the last day before the holiday vacation. Ida staid away from school to look after Carrie and the baby (myself) and to have general charge of things. Father had told Cordillo, my elder brother, then about twelve years old, to go home from school at noon to feed the cattle and to open the water holes in the ice in the pond so that they might drink. But that noon a battle was fought in and about a snow fort in the school yard, and the boy, completely absorbed in the sport, forgot about duty at home until school was called. Mr. Pope then refused him permission to go, but at the afternoon recess Cordillo left for home, by that time thoroughly worried about his neglect. An older boy was immediately sent after him. Cordillo who, when the boy arrived, had not yet had time to do the chores assigned him, refused to return to school, and the threat was conveyed to him that “teacher said he would be whipped if he didn't.” Irritated by the important air of the messenger, an impudent remark was made by Cordillo, which with some embellishments, was of course carried back to Mr. Pope. Soon the children in the home were scared to see the angry teacher approaching. Hannah, a child of five, climbed in a chair and bolted the door; but it was unbolted by Cordillo when the teacher arrived, the boy saying to his frightened brother and sisters that the teacher could not touch him when he was in his home. But while he protested to the teacher that he must do the work assigned him by his father, he was forcibly seized and dragged away by the angry man. On the way back to
Upon reaching school, he stripped off the boy's coat and vest and beat him until his dark blue woolen shirt was in tatters, and the blood oozed from the holes in the skin made by the sharp stubs, and ran down his back. Pale and suffering he came home, with only a little sister to do for him what she could.
Upon the return of the parents, they found a sad situation,—Cordillo bent over beside the kitchen stove, bleeding and sore, his brother and younger sisters sobbing in sympathy, and Ida in the act of bathing the wounds. The effect upon the mother exemplifies what has been said about the “female of the species” and probably had she been allowed to reach Mr. Pope at his boarding place about a mile away, as she declared she would do, his plight would have been even worse than that of his pupil. But the calm judgment of father prevailed. He knew that a serious offense had been committed and that recourse to law was the only procedure. Quieting mother with this explanation, he went immediately to Squire Hale's, got a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Pope and rode on a short distance to the home of the constable, Albert Stover. He directed the officer to serve the warrant at once, as it was known that the teacher expected to leave that night for his home in Pleasant Prairie. The young constable was not at all loathe to exercise his authority and in a very short time was galloping off to Mr. Pope's boarding house, where he made the arrest, and forbade him to leave the district.
There was great excitement throughout the neighborhood. Men gathered on that New Year's morning at the home of Squire Hale to hear the trial. There the teacher was brought to realize that by entering a home and forcibly taking away a child for punishment, he had committed a state
The two following winters brought a school condition that somewhat balanced up the previous disastrous one. The teacher was Joseph Geary, a young man of exceptional ability and high character. He was earning his way through Oberlin College and he brought to that district a never-to-be-forgotten educational experience. The district board, my father again clerk, had the good judgment to secure his services for the following winter. The winter terms of 1857-58 and 1858-59 seem to have been the crowning achievement of the district. The reputation of the teacher brought to the school several serious minded, ambitious, older students.
It may be stated here that Joseph Geary after his graduation from Oberlin became a member of the faculty of Ripon College, where he served many years, loved and respected by succeeding classes of students, who profited from contact with this exceptional personality. A lasting friendship with my father dated from those terms of teaching in District No. 5, and I well remember Professor Geary's occasional visits to our home.
It was in the summer between these two winter terms that I started to go to school. I was two years old in January of that year and was Ida's special charge. Mother, unable to get help, had all she could do to attend to the necessary household duties; and since I needed care, Ida had the choice of either staying at home and losing school or of taking me to school with her. I was referred to as “Ida's baby.” Various stories are told of the happenings. When I got sleepy, a bed of cloaks was made for me on a rear bench. When I awakened from my nap, I would quietly slip into a seat beside a favorite boy or girl who accepted this attention without seeming objection. Fortunately for me, the windows were open, it being summer. In this day when psychiatrists attach so much importance to early impressions and experiences in their efforts to explain adult peculiarities, I often wonder in what way I would now be different in my personality if I hadn't gone to that infant school, or, better, had not been an infant in a school. From all I can learn, I was quite a regular attendant at school from that time on. This was not because my parents, as is sometimes the case, were ambitious to demonstrate possible precocity in a child, but for the simple reason that home conditions made it necessary if Ida were to receive the schooling she so much desired.
An opportunity for schooling in Chicago now came to Ida, and on October 1, 1859, she went there to live in the family of Uncle Frank Davison,—the Captain B. F. Davison already mentioned, who had ceased “following the Lake” and was engaged in Chicago in a very lucrative business on South Water Street, that of ship chandler. Ida had a hard time in that Chicago “grammar school.” Although ambitious, bright and willing, the irregularity of her country schooling counted against her; she became discouraged, and came home at the end of the term. At the opening of the
All the teachers in District No. 5 in the decade of the fifties have not been mentioned. Esther Shepherd, a summer term teacher, is remembered; also Mary Harris, and Katherine McNeil, a friend of the family, who was probably in charge in the summer of 1858 when the infant started in.
In the next chapter, the story of the decade of the sixties will be told, when changes in school administration became operative, and when reminiscences of great national events show how the neighborhood of District No. 5, Paris, reacted to new conditions.
IN
a previous chapter, the history of the school in District No. 5, Paris, has been carried through the decade of the fifties. Until the fall of 1868 the Davison family remained on the farm, and the children attended that school.
In the summer of 1860 an event occurred which left an impression on my memory, I being then in my fifth year. It was a Fourth of July celebration at Kellogg's Corners. Beyond the bare recollection of this event, all details have been supplied by Ida Davison, my eldest sister, then nearly fourteen years old. In previous accounts I have mentioned my obligation to her for much that has been told of these early years.
Into the relating of this event was usually brought an associated experience which my parents frequently recalled. The Fourth that year, 1860, fell on Sunday. On the night before, there was a severe frost. In the morning, when father looked out upon his field of growing corn, there were no green rows to be seen; there were only limp, blackened leaves. Thinking his crop destroyed, he immediaely set himself to the task of getting seed ready for replanting. Mother's occupation that day, despite its being Sunday, was the completion of three dresses for her girls, Ida, Hannah, and Carrie, who were anticipating the coming celebration, and were far more interested in mother's work than in the crop disaster. This sewing had to be done by hand, for as yet a sewing machine was not a part of the household equipment.
Before leaving this incident of the frost and proceeding with the story announced, let me say that the sprouting corn had not been killed, the terminal buds were safe; and before father was ready to do the replanting, green sprouts began to appear in the rows, and his worry on that score ended. Moreover, as if to make amends for the weather behavior in the spring, the frost held off that fall, and the crop was unusually large.
The Fourth of July celebration, which I started to tell about, occurred on Monday, the fifth. It will be remembered that 1860 was a time when the entire country was stirred up over the slavery question. In this prevailing excitement and interest, political and patriotic, the people of Racine and Kenosha counties were, of course, deeply involved. So it was planned that the four contiguous townships of Mount Pleasant and Yorkville in Racine County, and Paris and Somers in Kenosha County should come together at Kellogg's Corners, a centrally located place, for a great patriotic demonstration.
All the schools of the four towns had been invited, and an assemblage estimated at 5,000 men, women and children resulted. The Davison family wagon, the “Pike's Peak” described in a previous article, is said to have conveyed twenty-one to that celebration. Besides the entire family, there were crowded into it as many children of the neighborhood as it would possibly hold. The grown-ups occupied the seats, and the children sat on laps and on boards across the wagon-box, while those who could not find a seat stood up. Somewhere in the crowd was the writer, then four and one-half years old.
With the same spirit shown on similar occasions today, the school groups came, many of them in especially decorated wagons and bearing their own banners. A prize had been offered for the best banner, and there was consequently
There was a picnic dinner, and singing and oratory. Nothing is remembered about a brass band. The subjects of the speeches are not remembered, but can be conjectured with a fair degree of probability. A brief review of the political situation shows us that at that time the Democratic party had been split in two, the North and the South each having its presidential candidate. The Republicans had nominated Lincoln at their Chicago Convention in May. The great battle of the ballots would come off on November 6. It is remembered by those old enough to recall it, that on this occasion there was manifested intense patriotic feeling. While, without doubt, there mingled in this crowd those with personal political aspirations, centered on a local or a state office, the chief topic of conversation pertained to national affairs. The people realized that the agitation over slavery had reached a dangerous stage, and the strong northern sectional attitude on this question found free expression. The Kansas troubles, the Dred Scott decision, the John Brown tragedy were recent occurrences. Some believed that Lincoln, others that Douglas, was the man to save the Union.
While younger children were having a happy time in the grove, the men and women about the speakers’ stand looked very grave. War between the North and South was mentioned and their listeners knew what war would mean. In that company were many young men who responded to Lincoln's first call made on April 15, 1861, and boys who went later on. Among the former were Peter Kreucher, who was
Men school teachers were scarce in 1861. For the first time in the history of the district, a woman was hired for the winter term of 1861-62. She was Helen Perkins, well educated, and a teacher of experience. It was said that there was only one of superior scholastic attainment in Kenosha County, and that was Hosea Barnes, prominent in educational work. Miss Perkins was a graduate of Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio. Dr. Merrick, a relative on her mother's side, was then the president of that university. Her father, Ephriam Perkins, lived in Paris on the Burlington Road. He was a brother of Pliny M. Perkins, the founder of Burlington, Racine County, who built, owned, and operated the flour mill and the woolen mill in Burlington. To be near her father, who was aging, Helen came to Kenosha County and taught a country school.
She was a progressive teacher, always studying new methods. When she came to District No. 5, her latest interest was centered in a new method of teaching beginning reading—the phonetic method. Although, as previously stated, I had at this time been “going to school” since I was two and a
She went from Paris to the Fisk Institute for colored students in Nashville, Tennessee, where she helped in its organization and taught for many years. She was instrumental in starting the troupe of singers from Fisk Institute—who as the “Tennesseeans,” besides bringing it financial help, made that school famous throughout the country by their inimitable rendering of negro melodies. They, it is said, were the first company of colored singers to reveal the beauty and the charm of what are now called spirituals.
When Miss Perkins came north for her summer vacations, she always visited my parents, and it was from her that I got the account of her efforts to teach me to read. She told many of her experiences as teacher in Fisk Institute and as a resident of that community, where a northern woman thus engaged was considered an intruder and made to feel it in many ways. Miss Perkins died about ten years ago in a home for the aged in Cincinnati. Fred M. Perkins, who is a cousin of Helen, and who formerly lived in Burlington, resides now in Kenosha. His son, A. Walker Perkins, was with the Byrd Antarctic Expedition.
The chronology of the successive teachers in District No. 5, Paris, Kenosha County, is more uncertain and broken than that for the decade of the fifties. There are several causes for this. The war was absorbing attention and bringing new and distracting duties to those upon whose assistance I have relied in my account of early days. Besides this, a terrible disaster came to the Davison family in the fall of 1861. My father was crippled for life by being thrown out of a wagon in a run-away accident. His experiences had about run the gamut of those disasters that nature brings upon farmers—drought, chinch bugs, grasshoppers, and the army-worm. These meant increased labor, and the impairment of resources; but while they were a terrible trial, they were not utterly discouraging. There was always the hope that nature's balance would soon be restored, so with courage he cheerfully worked on. But this disaster was different.
All the consequences to the family of the sad event are hardly relevant in this history, in which an effort has been made to keep out such biographical incidents as may have no general historic interest. But it does seem relevant to give the story of the cause of accident to my father. Had it not been for a saloon, the accident would not have occurred,
On the thirteenth day of November, 1861, father had taken a load of wheat to the market in Racine, and mother and Cordillo, my older brother, had accompanied him. Late in the afternoon, their business finished, they drove westward out of the city along the road which is now Washington Street. Just outside the city limits they passed a saloon, which had once been within the city limits, but which on account of its notorious character had been declared a public nuisance. The proprietor had been deprived of his license and had been obliged to leave. He had established himself on the main road, and with gambling in full operation was getting a considerable part of the money of farmers returning home after sales of grain or other produce—a typical “spider and fly” situation. When my parents passed this place, they noticed six or eight teams hitched to convenient posts in front of the saloon. Across the road was a team of gray horses not tied. The carelessness of their owner was commented upon. The weather was cold, and the horses—many of them doubtless having waited a long time for their masters—were restless.
My parents had proceeded about eight miles and were approaching Kellogg's Corners when they heard behind them the rumble of a wagon on the hard frozen turnpike. Thinking it might be one of the saloon visiting farmers, father, whose horses were young, but well-broken and tractable, turned out to the side of the road, stopped his team and gave the full right-of-way to the on-coming outfit. When it came
At the home in Paris the children had been waiting for the return of the parents and brother. The hour was late, and the older ones were anxious. Suddenly the dog sprang up, barked and ran at full speed up the road, for his ear had caught the familiar rumble of the wagon. It approached very slowly, Cordillo driving. They knew at once that something was wrong and very soon learned that father had been nearly killed. Cordillo snatched the harness off one of the horses and mounting him started for the doctor at Union Grove, six miles away. With the help of the children, mother got father into the house.
I, then a child of five years, had been put to bed downstairs to await the homecoming. Among my distinct early recollections is that of being aroused and of being told what
The doctor found no broken bones, but a terribly bruised spine. He was not a surgeon, but a successful practitioner of the old school. There was no X-ray then to enable him to locate the injury. What he could do he did, and was honest in his advice, differing in this respect from another later advisor, who promised a cure by an outside application, which caused excruciating pain, but brought no benefit. The anxiety of mother to leave nothing untried that might bring relief gave to quackery other opportunities, with the sure result of big hills.
This sort of experimentation stopped when the patient became the inmate of the Kenosha Water Cure, a sanitarium that had been opened in 1857 by Edgar Pennoyer, where skillful physicians were employed. There my father spent most of the time for seven years in a vain effort to recover from his injury, mother being with him as nurse much of the time. The responsibilities of the home, and the direction of younger brothers and sisters devolved in mother's absence upon Ida, the eldest daughter, who in 1861 was only fifteen years old. As soon as father felt a little better, he would insist upon returning to the farm, and there, attempting to do work sorely needing attention, would suffer a setback. Thus, through no fault of his own, was this useful,
Neighbors were kind, and two instances of such a manifestation I especially want to relate. On that November day in 1861 when A. J. Davison was hurt, plans had already been made, and invitations issued for a husking-bee at our home. He wanted to have the plans carried out. On the evening of the party, seventy-five boys and girls, women and middle-aged men responded. I well remember the scene in the moonlight—the laughter, the singing, the hustle and excitement, the cry set up when loosened husks revealed a red ear and the chase which this piece of good luck always precipitated; and the anxiety of my mother, since more had come than were expected, lest the food prepared with the help of women neighbors would not hold out. When the worker-guests departed, several hundred bushels of corn lay in piles among the heaps of husks and stalks. The fall husking was finished.
The second neighborly act occurred the next spring, 1862. It was late, and the corn on the Davison farm had not been planted. The seed was ready, for father was able to use his hands, and the carefully selected ears had all been shelled and awaited planting. One morning late in June, according to some preconcerted plan, the neighbors surprised the family by calling for the seed and announcing a planting-bee. The women came in the afternoon. There had been organized in the neighborhood a Soldiers’ Aid Society, and since my mother now had a new Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine, the first in the neighborhood, our home was frequently a meeting place. On this afternoon their special project was the making of a flag for a private company
At other times the Soldiers’ Aid met to make bandages or to scrape lint for use in soldiers’ hospitals. Scraps of linen of all sorts were carefully saved for this latter purpose, such as old table cloths, towels, shirt bosoms, and old linen sheets, of which most families were possessed by inheritance. With steel table knives, the pieces of linen, laid on a board or over the knee, were scraped, and the fine lint of fiber resulting from the process was collected. We children were brought into this form of service, and many times were assigned to scraping linen as soon as we got home from school. Small hands kept at work until fingers and wrists ached. Every month a box of hospital supplies was sent away. Besides the articles named, delicacies like jams and jellies were sent for the sick soldiers.
The war entailed upon women and children much harder tasks than this one. Men for farm work could not be found. With father disabled, the brunt of the field work fell upon the shoulders of my brothers—boys in their teens; the milking had to be done by the female members of the family. My sisters when as young as seven or eight years were engaged in this task. The strain on young muscles and tendons was not conducive to the development of shapely hands, but the work had to be done.
But milking cows was not the severest labor that women and girls in such circumstances as ours were obliged to perform. They worked in the hayfield, driving the mower, raking (with a hand rake), a piling, pitching, loading, and unloading. They worked in the harvest field, a girl of eleven years driving the reaper, and her sister a little older,
It was the witnessing of this hard work being done by those whom he would have spared, which caused my father, upon his return from the sanitarium one summer, to insist upon being allowed to drive the reaper. With the help of others and by painful effort, he was mounted upon the seat. The experience was disastrous to him, for the jarring undid all that rest and treatment had done for the injured spine, and he was left even worse off than before—worse in body and with hope seriously impaired.
I was too young to share much in the hard labors which circumstances imposed on the family, but certain tasks were assigned to me, and are today not only pleasant memories, but are appreciated for their character-education effect—the unfailing effect upon a child of adapted work, regularly performed, and of coöperative effort, rewarded by loving appreciation and deserved praise. As soon as I was old enough, a special piece of work was assigned me to do; Carrie, my next older sister and pal, had hers, as probably those who preceded us had had. It was Carrie's duty to see that potatoes in some form were ready to prepare for breakfast. Breakfast for farm hands had to be a substantial meal. The responsibility named was hers. She could advise with mother
There were other duties such as pulling mustard from the growing fields of wheat and oats, the sight of which weed was very disturbing to my father. The feeling to my bare feet of the soft, warm soil in the fields of green grain, and the pungent odor of the yellow-blossomed weed are not unpleasant memories. There was also the lugging of baskets of food and pots of hot coffee to the workers in the haying and harvest fields, and helping with the churning of the butter. But I was not overworked, as were my older sisters and brothers by the general conditions imposed by the war, plus those resulting from the misfortune in the home. I never learned to milk, and was too timid to ride on horseback alone, differing greatly in this respect from my older sisters, especially Carrie, who was agile and daring.
I shared in many experiences that were just play. I watched the pitching of the bay in the dusky twilight of the
It was fun also to ride on the hay loads as they jolted in from the fragrant meadows; but once something happened that was not so pleasant. Cordillo was driving, I was sitting with brother William on the top of the high load. As it approached the door, the driver called to the younger brother to lower the pitch fork, which was standing upright. This was immediately done, but in the act of driving the tines in slant-wise, one of them encountered my foot buried in the hay. It pierced the leather of my shoe and penetrated my foot in the metatarsal region. Of course, I shrieked; my frightened brother jerked out the sharp, bright steel point, and, I still shrieking, was lowered to the ground. Mother in the house had heard the outcry, and hurried to the scene; blood was oozing from the hole in the leather, and the hurt was severe. My mother knew what to do in such emergencies, and with the care she promptly gave, any bad effect that might have resulted was obviated. For many years a small scar showed where the cruel tine had penetrated.
But there were many pleasant experiences to counter-balance those of the opposite sort. Our new psychology tells us of the “conditioning” of children by certain experiences, and thus passing on into adult life peculiar likes and dislikes
In the fall the children anticipated the coming of the “thrashers” with greater pleasure than did the women of the household. To the latter it meant two or more days of hard work in preparation for that coming. A large company of hearty men would have to be fed, most of them two, a few of them three meals a day. I remember that in preparation a large boiled or baked ham and other meats, loaves of bread, pans of pork and beans, rows of apple pies, and dozens of doughnuts were made ready. But to us younger children
We saw the great red machine drawn in by several spans of horses. First, a strong, heavy contraption was staked down, with much swinging of sledge hammers—this some distance from the stacks of grain. Into this, several long sweeps or wooden bars were fixed to which horses would be hitched, to be driven round and round in a circle. We saw the little platform where the driver would sit. The tumbling rod was pointed out to us, and we were especially charged never to get near it when it was moving. Other contrivances for the transmission of power were probably explained to us. The huge thing, called, for some reason unknown to us, the “separator,” was put in place, with its straw-carrier pointed in the direction desired. A long ladder was placed up against one of the high conical stacks, and a man mounted it to the top. He removed its grass thatch and threw it down, then pitched off a few bundles of grain until he could find a foot-hold on that lofty pile. Men to stack the straw, those to feed the bundles into the machine, and others to take care of the grain were in their places. When everything was ready, the horses were started, the tumbling rod began to revolve, belts moved wheels, and a grinding, rattling noise came from the big machine. A man up in front of the machine caught a bundle pitched to him, cut its band, passed it on to another man who spread it out and shoved it headfirst into the toothed maw of the machine. Out of a spout flowed the grain, up the long sloping carrier moved the despoiled straw. It poured out on the roof of the long cattle shed, covered it deep and flowed over into the cattle yard beyond. The great straw stack, extended as needed by pitching and repitching, reached from the barn as far eastward as its barrier service was needed. Snugly walled in by depths of straw against CARRIE AND MARY
Aged twelve and ten years, respectively. (Taken from small tintype)
Today, on a western farm, a little girl watching harvesting operations would see a great machine, engine drawn, eliminating all these operations between reaping and threshing, and adding to the latter the bagging of the grain which, dropped along its course, awaited transportation to store house or market. For little girls “with reserved seats” on the corncrib steps, this phase of farming seems to have lost some of its interest.
And besides this, the machine age has deprived her of many other joys, for which, perhaps, other have been substituted. But what could be so interesting as the excursions into the field with lunches for the harvesters, or the rides on loads of grain bundles, or watching the building of the stacks with their beautifully curved outline,—for which my father and his sons after him were noted,—or watching the roofing of these stacks with long slough grass, which was securely moored to the stack tops by ropes of the same placed criss-cross, with heavy sticks of wood dangling at their ends, or circular tracks made by the feet of the horses at threshing time which made an appropriate ring later for cavorting circus horses and other sports, or straw stacks on which to slide down, or play hide-and-seek in and about! A loss of joy chargeable to a progressive age.
As to the women concerned with the culinary accompaniments of threshing time, their task of filling hungry stomachs
Apologies are, perhaps, due my readers for this long detour into the field of personal and family experiences. But now we return to school, and to education, not incidental, but purposed.
As the war progressed, the scarcity of well-qualified men teachers increased and “In 1864 no attempt was made by the Wisconsin State Teachers’ Association to hold its annual summer meeting because so many of its members were absent in the army fighting to preserve the Union.”
One winter during the war William Emmett taught in District No. 5. He was unable to control the school, and used methods of discipline against which the parents revolted—an encouraging evidence that the educational right hand was coming to question what the educational left hand was doing. An illustration of what he did is cited just for purposes of comparison with the more enlightened treatment of children now. It is remembered by my younger sister, a member of the primer class, that for inability to spell “does” she and two other little children were punished by being put in different corners of the school room, faces to wall, and ordered to keep their eyes on their books—to study the word “does,” probably, which they could not see through their tears. When one was caught looking off the book, the big man bumped her head into the corner. The fact that there was a protruding nail in one of the corners tended to increase the impression of this experience. For this and other evidences of inefficiency this teacher soon gave place to another.
One winter term was taught by John Downey, whose family was mentioned in the second chapter, and who was not drafted for the war, because he was the mainstay of the family.
On the back flyleaf is this: “Present. This is to certify that Miss Mary Davison for deportment and attention to studies merits the approbation of her teacher. John Downey, Teacher. Paris, Wisconsin, March 27th, 1865.”
This little book seems to me to be worthy of brief comment, since it was a forerunner of really interesting children's books. It was copyrighted in 1842, and is of 16mo size; it bears the title
Scripture Stories for Children and Youth
by the author of
American Popular Lessons, Tales from American History,
and others. It is illustrated with wood engravings.
The preface, after setting forth the author's purposes, very sound according to modern ideals, closes with this apologetic sentence: “It is hoped that no offense is given in these pages to any Christian, and that they will prove useful to children of all denominations.”—Signed “Author” (name not given).
Other teachers of District No. 5 between 1860 and 1868 did not leave with me such a durable, tangible evidence of their services, although every one of them must have made
In the summer of 1864, a housekeeper was found to take charge of the farm home in the periodical absences of my mother, and Ida again went to Chicago to live at the home of Uncle B. F. Davison. While this was a change for her, it did not mean rest or leisure. Besides being expected to help with the house work, she had partial change of the rather difficult youngest child of the family, a boy of five or six years, who, today, as Dr. John Thorne Davison is a well known physician in Stockton, California. In the fall she entered the eighth grade of the Washington School on Indiana Street, the principal at that time being R. B. Cutter. Her age was above that of most of the pupils; but she was ambitious to improved this opportunity for schooling, and since time after school was used for other studies, midnight often found her at her lessons.
The relating of this bit of family history would be in doubtful taste, except the fact that she was in Chicago in April, 1865, when the closing events of the Civil War were taking place. Her account of happenings in a Chicago school during those stirring days,—of how news was obtained and spread before there were telephones, of how distant errands were performed before the time of speedy bicycles, and automobiles, and when street car facilities were limited,—all these seem to warrant the inclusion of her recital as a part of this narrative, although it is only indirectly connected with the main subject. She recalls two very exciting days, about a week apart, in early April, 1865. I wish IDA A. DAVISON, 1846-1931
The main-stay of the family, as she looked in 1883.
On Monday morning, April 3, flags were observed flying from public buildings, but when school had opened the cause of this was not known.
The principal, Mr. Cutter, referring to the flags, said, “Something very important must have happened. I want three of the fastest runners in this school to go down town to get the news!”
There were many boys who thought themselves qualified and eagerly exclaimed, “Let me go!”
Three were picked, and orders given with military precision, “You, John, to the
Times!
You, Tom, to the
Tribune!
You, Charles, to the
Journal!”
Then they were off.
After whispered directions to a boy to go to all lower grade rooms and tell the teachers to dismiss their schools and come upstairs, the principal said, “Now, let's sing while we wait.” Instantly the school pianist, a little Jewish boy, Julius Hyman, was in his place.
“What shall we sing?” asked Mr. Cutter.
When in response a boy shouted, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again,” an unrestrained shout went up, and Julius’ prelude was followed by spirited singing. This was followed by other songs: “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching,” “Rally Round the Flag, Boys,” “Three
In twenty minutes the first panting messenger was back with the news that Petersburg had been captured the previous day. In thirty minutes the others came with the same news. Briefly Mr. Cutter, deeply moved, explained the significance of the event reported. With Petersburg, the stronghold to the south of Richmond captured, the capital of the Confederacy would soon be in the possession of the Union Army.
Then he said, “This is a great event. I cannot keep school at such a time. You are dismissed for the day!”
Even as he spoke, so history tells us, the Union Army was entering Richmond, where Lincoln himself followed the next day.
Just a week from that day, Monday, April 10, signal flags were again flying. The evening before something had happened in Chicago that had caused great alarm throughout the city. Lights went out; the gas supply had been cut off at its source. There were near Chicago at that time at Camp Douglas, a large number of Confederate prisoners, and fear existed in the public mind of an outbreak there. Rumors were abroad of the possible delivery of these prisoners with the aid of sympathizers secretly operating in Chicago. It was understood that if such an event should occur, the city would be immediately plunged into darkness. At the city gas works on Sunday evening, April 9, excitement among the people being observed, it was thought that the time had come, and hence, the darkness. In the home of B. F. Davison on North Carpenter Street, as in others throughout the city, candles and kerosene lamps were lit. At bedtime it was not known what happened, but by midnight
But this news does not seem to have reached Mr. Cutter, and seeing the flags, he again sent runners and the program of the Monday previous was carried out. When the first messenger burst into the room with the news that Lee had surrendered, and the other panting runners followed close with the same report, pupils shouted and teachers wept for joy. This was the news long awaited; it meant the end for the terrible war. Boys and girls were told to hurry home to tell their parents that the war was over, and to wait the newspapers for the details of the great event.
The news of Lee's surrender reached our farm neighborhood in the early evening of April 10, and a great bonfire was built by my brothers in the road to celebrate it. Attracted by the shouting and the blaze, a crowd of neighboring young people soon gathered. There was no wise counsel to check and guide their enthusiasm, and I recall that travelers along the road were obliged to rein out and guide their frightened horses by the fire. Stopping to complain or chide, they got the news and, forgetting their ire, hurried on to carry to other neighborhoods the joyful tidings that the war was over!
Just by way of contrast, and as a reminder of the privileges of our time, I cite a recent occurrence of national interest, namely, the arrival of the Byrd Antartic Expedition in New York harbor on June 18, 1930, and their landing on the following day, when the doings of every moment were instantaneously made known to radio listeners all over the country.
The week of April 10 that brought such rejoicing throughout the North, included at its end the fatal fourteenth and fifteenth which brought world-wide mourning. On Saturday morning, the fifteenth, it was observed that
Suddenly, while the family was at breakfast, a neighbor appeared at the door with: “Captain Davison, have you heard the news?” His white face foretold the tragedy. In an intense, low voice came the words: “They got our president last night—shot him!”
There were other white faces, and a more seriously alarming effect upon the devoted admirer of Lincoln, who sat at the head of the table. Millions of citizens received at their breakfast tables this awful intelligence from Washington, “which fell with the crushing and stunning effect of an unspeakable calamity.”
This week ended the school term in Chicago, and Ida was ready to go home for the spring vacation of one week. Amid scenes of great excitement, she finally reached the depot and was put aboard the train for Kenosha. There she was met by another, who had heard the rumor that had rapidly spread throughout the city and into the country, but who still hoped that it might be unfounded. As they drove along the Burlington Road, people came out to ask for later news, and to learn, if possible, some details of the strategy, the newspapers having not yet reached them. Among them was Mrs. Gray, whose son John, one of the first to enlist, had died, and whose personal grief now seemed to suffer an overwhelming accession.
When vacation closed, Ida went back to Chicago to resume school, expecting then to complete the eighth grade at the close of the spring term. She was there when, on May 1 and 2, that city participated in the funeral obsequies of Lincoln. Before giving an account of her impression of that
The funeral services in Washington had occurred on Wednesday, April 19. It was finally arranged that the funeral cortege should follow, in a reversed order of procedure, substantially the same route over which Lincoln had come to Washington in 1861, “to take possession of the office to which he had given a new dignity and value for all time.”
.... the Nation he had led,
With ashes on her head,
Wept with the passion of an angry grief:
Multitudes had gathered and had waited through long hours for an opportunity to join processions, which sometimes for twenty-four hours in unbroken line streamed by the open coffin. The body arrived in Chicago on the morning of May 1.
In that city, all high school, and seventh and eighth grade pupils were included in the public demonstration of respect. Those of the Washington School located on Indiana Street assembled early on that morning, each with a badge of black and white ribbon made into a rosette. Difficulty had been experienced in getting the needed material, as the demand throughout the city had completely exhausted the supply.
I will close this account indirectly connected with my theme, with another historical reference, the reading of which has always impressed me deeply and of which my readers may be glad to be reminded. At the ceremonies of the Lincoln burial at Springfield on May 4, there were read over his grave the words of the Second Inaugural Address, which reading has been likened to the choice by the friends of Raphael of the incomparable canvas of the “Transfiguration” as the chief ornament of his funeral.”
After this long disgression, my story of School District No. 5 is now resumed. Mention will be made of two more teachers of this decade. My sister, Ida, had gained enough in scholarship in that Chicago eighth grade to enable her to pass, in the spring of 1866, the examination for a teacher's certificate in Kenosha County, and she taught the home school that summer.
A later teacher well remembered was Ellen Barter of Pleasant Prairie, Kenosha County, a graduate of the Kenosha high school, class of 1865. She taught our school for two terms, the winter of 1867-68, and the following summer. The former term brought to the school some large boys whom she was especially skillful in managing. She introduced the singing of new and popular songs, and displayed a sympathetic
In the fall of 1866 a great grief came to our home. This was the death on September 4, of Cordillo, the elder son and brother. In Racine, where after the summer farm work was done, he had gone to learn a trade, he contracted typhoid fever, and died a few days after coming home. In the fall of 1868 the farm was sold, and we moved to Kenosha.
My account of nearly two decades in School District No. 5, so far as it has dealt with the school itself, is but a corroboration of the old maxim, “As is the teacher, so is the school.” In the next chapter. I will tell of other factors affecting school efficiency and of educational influences other than the school.
THERE
are three factors that chiefly affect the successful functioning of public schools. While the teacher is, no doubt, the most important of these, two others are very important; indeed, many believe that these to a considerable degree condition the success of even excellent teachers. I refer to supervision and the course of study.
The community about which I have been writing was not much involved in the system of district supervision established by the territorial law of 1839. This farcical arrangement might well be passed over except for its use in tracing the evolution of that important phase of educational development—supervision. Under the law referred to, there was certainly no lack of supervision—on paper. The three school officials of every district were required by the law to visit the schools in their district. Besides these, there were elected at the town meeting each year five other persons to be inspectors of all the school districts of the town. Thus a school might be visited by eight officials. “But since these men knew little or nothing about the technicalities of the work of teaching, this inspection even when carried out, as it rarely was, was nothing short of farcical.”
The next step in the evolution of supervision came about in 1848, when the office of town superintendent was created. This official was elected for a term of one year at the annual town meeting. The duties of the office were important. “He apportioned the school moneys, collected school statistics
But important as his duties were, there were no specifications in the law as to the qualifications of the person—a man, of course, at that time—who should be elected to this office of town superintendent. Perhaps had a proper standard of qualifications been specified, it would have been difficult to find in each town a candidate for the office who would have met the requirements. The duties were considered as not needing much time, and the pay was suited to this view. According to the law, the town superintendent was allowed “one dollar a day for every day actually and necessarily devoted by him in his official capacity to the service of the town.”
I will quote statements from two who experienced the operation of this law. The first is by Morris D. Dodge, who on December 12, 1929, wrote me from his home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Mr. Dodge was born at Salem Center, Kenosha County, in 1846; he went to school there and afterwards taught in the county. He says: “Until the early ‘60's the township system was in force, whereby each township had a superintendent of schools, elected, I think, for one year. It was rather amusing to think of some old farmer, who had never had the advantages even of a country school education, sitting down to examine a prospective teacher as to his or her qualifications to instruct the boys and girls of those early days in things far beyond what the superintendent had ever attained.”
Mrs. Harriet Northway Burgess of Bristol, Kenosha County, began her teaching under the township system of supervision. She says that these superintendents had queer ideas of what should indicate proper qualifications to teach, and gives this instance: “I was asked to draw a map of the counties of Ireland. I wasn't able to do it, but somehow passed muster”—an instance of commendable magnanimity on the part of the examiner! or were candidates scarce at the time, who were able to reach this superintendent's standard of proper qualifications to “train the young idea how to shoot?”
The town of Paris was fortunate in having as its superintendent Dr. Ammon P. Adams, a physician and surgeon residing in Union Grove, Racine County—the family physician of the Davisons. He served as town superintendent most, if not all, of the time this law was in operation. He was an educated man, a native of Vermont, who came to Racine County in 1846. Interested in schools, he did much for the upbuilding of educational ideals in Paris. Being a very popular physician, he went to all parts of the town, and never failed to visit the schools in the vicinity of his patients, even if his stay there must be short. He sometimes held evening meetings attended by parents and older pupils when he would discuss some topic of educational interest and demonstrate methods of instruction. One such meeting I remember, or, perhaps, it was a regular school visit; anyway, I must have been very young since county superintendents superseded the town superintendents on January 1, 1862. At the time referred to, Dr. Adams, whose specialty seemed to have been geography, gave a model exercise on Italy at the blackboard. It was probably not announced as such. As he talked, the map grew under his hand, and soon there stood
Something more about this exceptional man may be permitted. Dr. Adams was also a good teacher of Sunday School music. Our religious privileges out in the country were rather limited, but Elder Reuben Deming, one of the pioneer settlers of Kenosha, would occasionally come out to Paris and preach in the schoolhouse in a neighboring district to the south of ours. Elder Deming was a Methodist of liberal views and broad sympathies. His sermons were always appreciated by the country folks who gathered to hear him, and our whole family went, baby and all. To quiet the restlessness of her little brood, my mother always carried a supply of cookies in her reticule. At the proper time these were slipped to us, and as we quietly nibbled and absorbed, a very favorable impression of church going and sermons was created in our young minds—a wise procedure, since children, as well as adults are not apt to fall in love either with people or with experiences that bore them. After the church program came the Sunday School, and Dr. Adams was there to lead the music. He would sometimes conduct a song service, which the congregation gladly attended. It was long after noon when the family reached home.
Benoni L. Dodge,
B. L. Dodge was later superintendent of schools of Palatine, Illinois, then of Winnetka, and finally of Oak Park, where he held that position for many years. He still lives there, and on December 7, 1929, passed his ninety-third birthday, at which time the event was notably celebrated by that city.
Following Mr. Dodge as superintendent of Kenosha County was Lyden W. Briggs, also a native of Kenosha County. He was, for many years, a member of the faculty of the Oshkosh Normal School, his death occurring in Oshkosh, September 21, 1921, after forty-three years of service in that school, and a total of sixty years as a teacher. Work in the schools of Sheboygan and Green Bay preceded his going to Oshkosh.
This seems an appropriate place to introduce something about school sanitation in those early times; again I quote from the letter of Mrs. Burgess. She began her country school teaching in 1861, and tells of conditions which my experiences in my first school, eleven years later, closely paralleled.
“Eleven years later!” said a young woman who read this, “I taught a country school more than fifty years later and had the same experience.”
Mrs. Burgess says: “The teachers were expected to do all necessary labor in caring for the house, and were expected to clean the woodwork, desks, and floor, if it were ever done. They built the fire and were criticised as being very particular when wash basin and towels, and other articles seemingly necessary to sanitation were asked for.”
Again I am to contrast conditions in District No. 5 with this picture. It is remembered that there the cleaning of the schoolhouse was regularly done, and was a sort of
The unsanitary methods of water supply were mentioned in a previous chapter. To one who many remark, “Well, what of it? Weren't you all as well as children are now?” I would say, that twice our family nearly lost one of its members from typhoid fever, a sister being very ill for a long time one summer, and an older sister at another time. Since each time no other member of the family was affected, the sickness seems traceable to an outside cause, probably the school.
The cause of study has been mentioned as another factor influencing school efficiency. The subjects to be taught in the district schools were specially named for the first time in the school code of 1849. They were orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic. The district board was authorized to include, as it might deem necessary and advisable, “other branches of study.”
There was no grading which would afford parents and teachers a standard or proper measure of progress. At the time considered right for doing so, pupils started a particular study, and went ahead as fast as they could. Progress made was reported to the next teacher, who, either doubting the ability of his predecessor, or realizing the devastating effect on a child's memory of a long intervening vacation, would often put the child back in the work, to do it all over again. With interest thus arrested, he moped along, or, for self-preservation from complete boredom, impressed himself upon the teacher and school in some other way and gained a reputation for being troublesome. And here I will mention what I consider one redeeming condition of the one-room, mixed-grade school. It afforded the opportunity for younger pupils, when unoccupied, to listen to the recitations of the older ones—to listen, wonder, admire, and catch a vision of similar future achievement for themselves; also to pick up information which they were apperceptively prepared for.
Reading
was the first study undertaken. In the previous chapter I have told of my experiences in being taught by Helen Perkins. The primer then alluded to was of the Sander's series. It had a glossy green paper cover, worn off at the corners, with brown pasteboard showing beneath. It was inherited from my next older sister. I knew it by heart, and, given the cue, I could have repeated the words of any page, standing on my head or in any other disconcerting attitude. At the beginning of the book was printed the alphabet—capitals and small letters. The reading matter started with words of two letters and progressed to those of three and more. There were pictures! With the first lesson was that of an ax learning against a log, and accompanying it such stimulating sentences as, “Is it an ax? It is an ax. An
Spelling,
or
orthography,
as it was named in the law, and
or-tho-gra´ phy
as it was sometimes designated in dignified speech, was considered a very important subject of the course of study. Spelling books were compiled, not with the idea of today, of helping pupils in the mastery of word-forms commonly needed in written expression of thought at succeeding stages of development, but to furnish a comprehensive list, graded according to difficulty, monosyllabic words being followed by words of two, three, four, and more
Oral spelling dominated in early times and still and holds a place in school exercises, although written spelling and writing of sentences from dictation did partially supersede it. Last year when communities all over the state were swept into an oral spelling epidemic by a competitive contagion started by a Milwaukee newspaper, I was interested in attending the finals in a county contest. I came away disturbed in mind, for a syllabication was almost entirely ignored by these representatives of schools throughout a county. It is not my purpose here to discuss the reasons for continuing the practice of oral spelling, but in the case of polysyllabic words, the teaching of right syllabication seems to me to be one of these reasons. Right syllabication helps pronunciation, and, therefore, aids in oral reading—about the only justification for the mastery of long difficult words, which the ordinary person never uses in his written expression.
In that old-fashioned oral spelling there
was
syllabication. To make sure of it, polysyllabic word were not only spelled a syllable at a time, but each syllable was pronounced after the letters in it were given; when the second syllable was spelled, it was hitched to the first and the two pronounced together; with still longer words, this moving forward and hitching up continued until the word came out completed.
Here is a classical illustration: “Constantinople.”
Pupil: “C-o-n, Con: s-t-a-n, stan, Constan; t-i, ti, Constanti; n-o, no, Constantino; p-l-e, pl, Constantinople.”
While now we think that pausing at the end of each syllable accomplishes the same purpose in word-form mastery
Here are some samples heard and taken down at the time, the dash indicating the place of pause: “kn-ow-led-ge, go-vern-ment, br-ea-the, aw-kw-ard, ce-ll-ar, sc-hol-ar, happ-in-ess.
The list of words which was compiled at the office of the state superintendent was a sensible one, a marked improvement over those which long ago were used to stimulate the orthographic efforts of children. But why divorce right letter sequence from pronunciation and etymology?
There is an old saying that what you would put into the thought of the nation, you must first put into the schools. I am moved to add that what you would put into the schools you must have put into the teacher-training schools. Especially is this true in its application to pedagogical technics.
An exercise in spelling in the older days involved practice in self-control as well as memory. Toes must be kept on a crack, or if the boards ran the other way, on a chalk line; and woe to the one who became so interested in spelling as to forget this important requirement. He might lose his place! The goal of ambition was to pass to the head of the class by spelling a word or words which some one in the line above had missed, and passing up to the place the one missing had occupied. Careful record was kept of those who “left off at the head,” and a reward was sometimes given to the one with the best score. It was a sort of a game—simulated by certain social games today, except that in the oral-spelling game consolation prizes were not awarded those with the
The proper time to begin to teach
writing
was when the child was old enough and had, in some way, acquired skill enough to use a pen without the danger of mussing himself with ink. Then he was provided with a copy book and was taught to write. Previous to this stage, when I was seized with the desire to express myself, I printed the words. Practice in doing that had been afforded by the regular requirement of filling my slate with the printed copy of an assigned page in the reader.
Older pupils attended evening writing schools in the schoolhouse. They took with them candles, and either a candlestick or a bottle to hold the light; or they stuck the candle to the desk by letting melted tallow drip until a proper puddle was formed into which the candle was stuck and held until it was fast. So there were not only candlesticks but candles stuck. Kerosene lamps later took the place of candles. When the pupils arrived, the writing master was, perhaps, in the act of placing upon the blackboard a most wonderful display of shaded flourishes, which finally developed into an eagle with wings spread and with fierce beak and talons, or into a dove of peace—all this without removing the chalk! This exhibition seemed to be the regularly required evidence of ability to teach boys and girls to write. I believe that the eagle was considered superior to the dove as evidence. His credentials thus presented, he collected his fees and proceeded with his work. A synthetic method was followed of requiring practice, first on strokes called “principles,” and then combining these into letters.
The next subject named in the law was
English grammar.
The text book in our school was Clark's. It taught an interesting system of diagraming—not simple lines as in the
One could speak with utter disregard of grammatical usage, and still rank as excellent in grammar, as did the girl, who was the crack parser of the class inn which Pope's “An Essay on Man” was furnishing material for advanced practice, and who announced to the teacher, upon entering the school one morning: “Them sentences in today's lesson is the hardest we've had, but I can analyze and parse ‘em all.”
It is unnecessary to comment on the change from then to now, when stress is first laid on right practice in habit forming and theory deferred until later.
The next subject named in the law was
geography.
The study usually began with the use of a small-sized book, which bore about the same relation to the large-sized book as a mature dwarf bears to a normal man.
There was the same formal approach with question and answer: “What is the earth?”
Answer, “The earth is a planet on which we live.”
“What is the shape of the earth?”
Answer, “The earth is round, like a ball,” and so on for several pages.
It is recalled that a certain teacher, following the customary practice of displaying the thoroughness of her teaching by putting her children through their geographical paces without a hitch, was entirely disconcerted and the children seemingly overwhelmed by the difficulty of a visitor's question, “Has anyone in this class ever seen the earth?”
The same dead formality here, the same memory work as in grammar!
In higher classes locational geography was stressed, and teachers’ examinations seemed to indicate its importance. The ready association of places and names on the world map is a valuable acquisition, but geography as a study then was not vital, was not a “social study” although the teacher with real insight might have made it so. Child life in other lands, customs of distant peoples were not featured then. Lists of products of other lands were memorized without learning what all this had to do with us.
Arithmetic
was usually the dominating subject of the program, and my correspondent in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Mr. Dodge, thinks that arithmetic was better taught in the old days than now. He says: “Then education was practical, such as was needed in our every-day life. Now, very much of the school work is very superficial. ... In those early days any boy of twelve or fourteen could take a ten-foot pole and measure a pile of wood, the capacity of a crib, a granary, or a cistern. Today many college students hardly know what a ten-foot pole or a yard stick is, much less how to use them. Many great men and women have come out from those country schools well equipped to tackle the problems of life, because of that early training by those teachers, whom we remember with love and respect.”
He is probably right about the practicableness of the arithmetic taught. It differed in that respect from the other subjects mentioned, when memorized “information” was mistaken for “knowledge.” As to its practical application now, he would no doubt, agree that in this subject, as in the broader field of life,
New occasions teach new duties; Time
makes ancient good uncouth
and that the placement of emphasis in the school course for
The praise of the “Little Red School House” as an institution essential to safety and progress in a government by the people, and the extolling of it for the democratic opportunities it has afforded, cannot be too great. But in giving country schools credit for the great men and women who got their start in education in them, we must not lose sight of the fact that heredity sent into those schools good stuff. This they helped to shape, or rather, it shaped itself by exercise with, and sometimes against, the opportunities and conditions found in those schools—ability and genius so potentially strong, that even stupid treatment could not spoil it. And if in that country school a person with inherent ability chanced to come in contact with a teacher of inspiring personality, he had the prescience to appreciate the opportunity and to reshape ideals.
Thus endeth, for the time being, my comment on the district school as it is remembered to have been run in District No. 5 in the decades of the fifties and sixties.
Now, I will tell something about educational work going on outside of the school.
Thoreau is quoted as having said when engaged in reminiscence, “I would not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else I knew so well.” It is because I know the Davison family better than any other, by hearsay and by my own recollection, that the following is given.
There were few books in our home. Father was fond of Dickens and bought a number of his stories in pamphlet form. These were read in the family circle, and frequent allusions to the characters he liked, and frequent quotations suggested by some circumstance of the moment, made Dickens a familiar author. There was also an old copy of
The Wisconsin library law, by which in any district there could be appropriated annually for the purchase of books 10 per cent of all moneys received, went into operation in 1848, when school laws were codified. Since the district clerk was made the librarian of the district, the books came to our home for care during vacation when my father held that office, which seems to have been a considerable portion of the time. Among these was one that is well remembered, and must have been popular, as it was “read to pieces.” It was a
History of the Black Hawk War
and contained gloriously colored pictures of Indian chiefs and scenes of Indian life. Another was a set of books not especially well adapted to youth of the public schools. It was Merle d'Aubigné's
History of the Reformation,
in five volumes, printed in Geneva, Switzerland, between 1848 and 1853. When my family left the district in 1868, the board gave this set to my father, since he, so it was said, was the only person in the district who had read it through. The set, bound in black cloth, old and faded and somewhat frayed, is now in my possession. What other district library books the family shared in, I do not know, but it is very probable that, if any, they were not especially adapted to young readers, since at that time the interest of children had not, as now, received the special attention of able writers of books.
Through magazines and newspapers the literary appetite of the family was stimulated and developed. The list given to me by Ida, my oldest sister, so often quoted, was a great surprise to me. She remembered that at one period or another, and often concurrently, there came to that home the following newspapers and periodicals: the Buffalo
“HE KNEW THE SCRIPTURES FROM HIS YOUTH”Weekly Express,
bringing belated news, but regarded,
The treasured picture from the old farm homeIndependent,
when
Norwood
by Henry Ward Beecher was running as a serial; the Cincinnati
Dollar Times
of which Parson Brownlow was either editor or a prominent contributor, and which had one page devoted to household stories and verse. Ida committed to memory some of the latter and repeated several of them. Then there was
Ballou's Pictorial
which mother had had bound. This large volume, filled with interesting pictures, was a great source of entertainment for us children, who, at appropriate times, could have it brought out from the big chest where it was safely kept—a wise provision for continued interest. During the war father took the Milwaukee
Weekly Democrat
which was not of the political complexion suggested by the title. An English neighbor, a family from Liverpool named Bell, loaned us quite regularly the Manchester
Guardian
and had one of ours in exchange. The New York
Ledger
with which the name Bonner is associated was taken for a while, a story paper of a somewhat sensational sort. To counterbalance this, the
Atlantic Monthly
was taken during the sixties. For its home and family interests
Arthur's Magazine
was taken and exchanged with Mrs. Hale for
Peterson's
which she took. It was
Arthur's Magazine
that brought as a premium a steel engraving of a beautiful boy. His hand is resting on a scroll while he gazes thoughtfully upward. The title is “He Knew the Scripture from his Youth.” It portrays Timothy of Biblical fame. (See Second Timothy, Ch. III, verse 15.) This picture was for years the only one on the walls of our sitting room—an uplifting “silent influence,” positive in its suggestiveness, as all pictures in whose presence children live should be. A member of the family treasures it today, streaked and marred though it be.
Of greatest interest to me was a magazine sent to the farm home in my name by my Chautauqua County grandparents. It was Oliver Optic's
Boys and Girls
and was a forerunner of numerous others issued today, for which, let it be said, this early magazine set a good pace. While some of the matter it contained was well adapted to my reading ability, much was beyond it, and to see my older brothers and sisters enjoy to its fullest extent “my magazine” served as an excellent stimulus to effort.
By what sort of light was all this reading done, so much of which on a busy farm had to be done after nightfall? It was done for years by candlelight—real, not metaphorical candlelight. These candles were homemade, our mold being of the six-candle sort. The process of candle making, when the stock of candles had to be replenished, was almost as interesting for children to watch as that of cheese making. Mother put some mutton tallow with the beef tallow to harden the candles. The candle-wicking was cut in appropriate lengths, doubled back and slightly twisted. The mold was brought out and into its six tubes, three and three side by side, the pieces of prepared wicking were let down, and the ends pulled out through the holes in the bottom of the pointed tubes. Then a small pencil-sized stick was put through the three loops of the wicking on each side of the mold, and brought tight across the rim of its depressed top by pulling out the protruding wick ends. Then came a very careful adjustment of these sticks and wicking so that each of the latter would be exactly in the middle of the candle. The mold thus made ready for filling was put in a shallow tin dish and the melted tallow poured into the tubes until they were filled. All was then set aside to cool; when the hardening process was complete, each stick was lifted and six beautiful candles came forth. Superfluous wicking was trimmed off from the THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS
My Mother's candle mould, all ready for business and
with extinguisher, suffers and tray; and the tin lantern that
“sprinkled spots of light.”
An imaged picture of the family circle in the evening shows mother sewing, darning, or mending at one end of the table, by the light of her individual candle, the older children with their own candle engaged with some kind of hand work, and father holding his with one hand in front of his paper, book, or magazine, to illumine the page from which he is reading aloud to the listening group.
After the candles, or supplementing them, came a fluid lamp called a camphine lamp. There was a broad based metal container, having a handle on one side. Two round wicks conveyed the camphine through tubes, and these when lit, produced a light several degree better than a candle. But the reputation of the fluid for explosiveness was damaging to its popularity in mother's family.
In 1859 an uncle of my mother, John Camp, came from the East to visit us, and brought interesting accounts of a new illuminating oil that had just been discovered in the rocks of Pennsylvania. It could not have been long after this when father brought from Kenosha a new Kerosene lamp. It was a beautiful object! It had for its base a block of marble three or four inches square, and one inch thick; there was a polished brass standard fastened to this, and it supported the glass globe which would contain about a pint of oil. I had a half- or three-quarter-inch wick, which shared at its lower and company in the glass globe with a piece of red flannel placed three to screen out some of the dirt in the oil, and thus save the wick from becoming clogged with these impurities, and from consequent effects upon its proper functioning. Agents are remembered to have sold gullible neighbors, who did not understand the real function of the
The thought occurs to me that had certain of our honorable congressmen, who recently refused to learn to use the automatic phone system, lived then, they would have said, “Oh, bother, give me a candle!”
But this new light was much better than the old, for when placed in the middle of the table, several could work or read by its help. Improvements in kerosene lamps, as many will remember, came on space.
Here I will close this account, covering nearly thirteen years of my life,—years that laid the foundation for all that I am,—years in which for me, as for all children, were started those habits of thinking, feeling, and doing, which determine one's personality, and one's influence.
For a child on a farm these years are especially replete with possibilities; for the learning of the names of trees, flowers, birds, and insects—if one is blessed with parents who know these; for opportunities to observe nature in all of its forms, thus furnishing one's mind with those basic ideas that
To this education, schooling in District No. 5 made a considerable contribution; but much that I have written gives emphasis to this truth, the operation of which in all human experiences is very apt to be lost sight of, that what we do not call education is more precious than what we call so.
The next chapter will take us into the Kenosha public schools.
My
life in Kenosha began when I was twelve years old. It was understood from family conversation, heard both before and after leaving the farm, that a great educational opportunity would now be offered those of us of school age; for Kenosha was reputed to have excellent schools. With me, however, the dread of meeting strangers overshadowed then any feeling of joy over my good fortune.
The first home of the Davison family in Kenosha was the parsonage of the Congregational Church, then experiencing a change of pastors. To this house father had been referred by Mr. F. W. Lyman, his old friend. It was located on Market, now Fifty-Sixth Street,—site obliterated by civic centre project. The fact that on this same street, about two blocks away, lived some old Paris neighbors, may have caused my parents to favor this place. They have all been mentioned in previous chapters. Mr. and Mrs. O. P. Hale had preceded us in migration to town, as had the family of Courtland A. Dewey and Delina Hale Dewey, the latter a beloved friend of mother. In passing, I will add that the only son of the latter, C. Ernest Dewey, who served as assemblyman from Kenosha in 1929, was then seven years old. Mr. Dewey had started in the hardware business in Kenosha.
My father, still crippled as previously related, was able to get about with the aid of two canes. Leaning upon these, he could move his feet slowly and painfully, and thus make progress forward, but the movement could hardly be called THE FIRST HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING IN WISCONSIN COMPLETED IN 1849
The school building was only a block away from our first home. That historic old structure,
As soon as we were settled, mother began getting us ready to go to school. But these preparations were not elaborate—one dress apiece for four of us, those for the younger girls being “made over” ones inherited from older sisters. We listened to the school bell sounding from its belfry, and rather dreaded the time when we, too, like the children trooping by, must go when the “first bell” would ring for us.
That the time came on a January morning in 1869, and mother went with us. Hannah, Carrie, and I were all enrolled a scholars in the classes of Grammar Room No. 2; Isabel, my youngest sister, became a scholar in the primary grade in the “new building” whose erection has been previously mentioned.
When the Davison girls entered the old brick building, it had done service for twenty years, and deserved the epithet
It was not, however, the big building, or the resounding bell, that impressed me most on that memorable morning—it was the teacher. The crowds of staring children through which we had passed (and no doubt we were somewhat of a sight!) had embarrassed and scared me, but in the presence of Anna E. Gillett, I was awed. In charge of that roomful of boys and girls was a little woman very pale and frail looking, who spoke in a low voice, through dry, almost immobile lips. She wore a purple dress of soft wool fabric, and according to the fashion of the day, it was full-skirted and moderately well-crinolined. It had a white collar, and white lace showed beyond the edges of the wide sleeves. About her neck was a heavy, gold rope chain to which a small gold watch was attached. She wore a plain gold ring, also heavy,
When my mother returned home and was asked by father how things had gone at the school, her reply was that she had never before seen such a white, sickly looking person trying to teach school; and she wondered whether it was really right for children to be taught by her. To the young Davisons, Miss Gillett was awful—in the literal and not in the colloquial sense of that word and this feeling was evidently shared by the other pupils. Hers was a very orderly school according to the strict standards of the day. When in a low tense voice she said “Joseph!” or “Thomas!” or “William!” Joe, Tom, and Bill immediately stopped the performance that had elicited the warning—usually the very serious school offense of whispering—and became intent upon their books, not even venturing a side glance or the return of a cautiously administered kick.
The methods used in recitations and the direction of our studies were not exceptional, and practices similar to those
In school we had mental arithmetic—an excellent training in concentration. We also had to write out in full sentences the explanation of problems in arithmetic—statement, solution, conclusion, with “if,” “since,” and “therefore,” in their proper places. I think now that the mental arithmetic and the written explanations were about the best things I got out of that term. Although at first the written solutions were copied, there finally developed an understanding of the thought back of this logical language, and thus it was conducive to independent arithmetic thinking. Exact word-for-word from may have been unduly stressed, but there can be no question about the value and the need of training in exact expression of thought. A child had made some advancement in thinking when he can see why it is wrong to say “If there are three feet in a yard,” and permissible to say “If a man sells his wheat for a dollar a bushel.” Whether or not Miss Gillett realized that through insistence upon truthfullness of expression, arithmetic becomes a means to character-training, I do not know; and if she did not, she was, in this lack of knowledge and consequent carelessness
But this was composition, and the fault I have to find with it, is that it was not considered composition of an argumentative sort. Had it been so considered, much good would have resulted to both arithmetic and composition. Besides that, I would have been saved much tribulation of spirit. But written composition, according to the standards of that time, was a very different thing. It did not pertain to practical affairs. Children then had to write “essays”—erudite stuff beyond and outside of their natural interest and abilities. While near at hand boys and girls had a world of familiar objects about which they might have expressed their own thoughts, they were expected to write on a general subject like “The Beauties of Nature,” or on an abstract subject such as “Kindness.” When daily they played games, did or watched work, and saw many happenings, the narration or description of which would have stimulated real effort and developed genuine self-expression, they were required to write on “The Battle of Bunker Hill,” or some allied subject.
I well remember my first real essay writing experience. I have the product still, which my mother evidently considered
The school had Friday afternoon exercises, consisting chiefly of the reading of essays and “speaking of pieces.” These rhetorical exercises were not left to the discretion of the teacher, but were required by a ruling of the school board to take place after recess on Friday afternoon. They were regarded as important, but they were not to interfere too much with the regular work.
In the course of events it became my turn to produce an essay. A command, today, for me to write a poem in Latin would hardly seem more appalling. The two weeks allowed me for its production were spent in unsuccessful attempts and in worry. The idea that a child might be encouraged to write about something in his experience, as I have already said, was “away in the offing”; while the still more modern idea that it is the duty of the teacher to help him find that something and, in preparation for writing, express orally his thoughts upon it, had not yet touched the pedagogy of composition work. I recall that my parents, who towards the end of my allotted time became involved in my misery, although the word “pedagogy” had probably never been heard by them, did very sensibly say, “Write about the first train of cars you ever saw, or about your visit to Chicago,” but their suggestions were tearfully and somewhat scornfully rejected. Hadn't I heard, at school, what essays were! Finally, on a certain Friday afternoon, Miss Gillett told me that the essay due without fail on the following Monday morning. Saturday was joyless; Saturday night almost sleepless; Sunday a day of ceaseless worry by
We had that Sunday, as a guest a young woman who seemed to have some idea of what sort of a composition a child like me might be expected to produce. She was Miss Josephine Furman, a sister of Mrs. N. A. Pennoyer, and a beloved friend of the family. My parents had known her at the Pennoyer Water Cure. She was a woman of unusually attractive personality, of versatile talent, including readiness with her pen. Incidentally, I will add, she was charming in conversation, and for many years, although a semi-invalid, was a source of entertainment at the great new, north-side Pennoyer Sanitarium, where she resided until her death in 1916. In connection with that place she will be remembered by many who knew that popular and very excellent health resort.
She had known me for rotund, pink-calicoed childhood. Her first glimpse of me, when she visited our farm some years before, she often told me, had left that color-form impression. On that Sunday in the spring of 1869, she took pity on me and came to the rescue; or perhaps she wanted to get rid of my dejected presence. So after dinner she offered to help me and said she would write a composition just to show me that an easy thing it was to do.
In an astonishingly short time the wonderful feat was performed! She handed the paper to me, and I retired with it to the kitchen. It covered one page of common-sized note paper and was entitled “My First Ripe Cherries.” It was a story, somewhat flowery in spots, about a child who had been watching some cherries ripen for several days. She planned to surprise her mother with them. It told how “One morning just as old Sol was peeping over the hills,” she rose and hastened to the orchard only to see a “saucy robin flying away with the last of her ripe cherries.” I pondered over this
My good friend had probably not anticipated the use I decided to make of her sample composition. If I had only had the sense to take my cue from it and had written about a real experience, I would have escaped an act disastrous to my self-respect. But Monday morning was very near, and I dared not face Miss Gillett without an essay. So I copied the little story, naturally misspelling several words (this and some extra “ands” being the only original features), modified a little a clause about my “sick mother,” which didn't seem to fit, but kept “old Sol,” also something about the “refreshing dew” and the “night fairies” and handled the paper in, properly folded according to directions.
On Tuesday afternoon Mary Davison was asked to stay after school. In fear and trembling she did so, knowing intuitively that the essay was the cause. Holding out my little paper, she said, “Mary, did you write this?” And Mary answered, “Yes, ma'am.” There was a pause. Mary glanced up to catch a penetrating look from Miss Gillett and a peculiar expression (could it have been a smile?) about her mouth, as she said in a low voice, “It is very good. See to it that your work of this sort in the future is as good.” On the back of the paper is the mark the teacher placed there over sixty years ago, “100”—a compliment to Josephine Furman, but not contributing then much to my happiness. Did she really think I had told the truth, or did she know I had not? If the latter, it was certainly kind of her to spare me further questioning.
I tried to balm my conscience by thinking that my answer would have been different had Miss Gillett asked me if I had “composed” the essay. The suggestion of this quibbling to my father caused him to shake his head—no comfort there!
When I became a pupil in the Kenosha public schools, the superintendent
2 “Shortly after the system of graded schools at Kenosha was established, one person was designated as the Superintendent of the place. ... Racine, Milwaukee, Beloit, Janesville, Madison, Sheboygan, and Waukesha soon followed this example of Kenosha.” Lyman C. Draper (State Supt. 1858-1860) Wisconsin Historical Collections, v, 804.
Besides visiting schools and examining teachers, the superintendent served as clerk of the board.
Among the duties of the superintendent was that of examining all pupils for promotion. In this he was sometimes assisted by the principal of the high school. The old records occasionally give the names of the pupils examined for promotion to the high school. And so in my quest for other facts, I chanced upon a bit of personal history. It was in the report of a special meeting of the board held September 14, 1869. The lateness of the date seems to indicate that after the opening of the schools, it was found desirable to have more pupils in the high school than those added by the regular June promotion, which had put my older sister, Hannah, and her class there. The record says that the superintendent
I remember nothing about the examination but recall that I needed some consolation after results were made known. But it was a lucky day for me when I got that 67 2/4 and was destined by it to continue in the grammar school, where another teacher succeeded Miss Gillett, she having been promoted to the high school.
This seems the appropriate place for comment on the latter. She was, I think now, a rather unusual woman. Keen in intellect, ambitious, and of indomitable will, she forged ahead in spite of the handicap of poor health. A graduate of the Kenosha high school in 1862, her name appears in 1864 upon the pay roll of the Kenosha school board, as receiving $225 for forty weeks, the regular pay then and for many years after for primary teachers. In 1865 in the regular annual examination given teachers by a committee of the school board, Anna Gillett won the highest standing and got
She came of educated parents. Her father, Gurdin Gillett, came to Kenosha in the early fifties and held different public offices for many years. The “Gillett School” on the north side commemorates his service on the school board. In Anna's work as teacher, she undoubtedly had been obliged to handle large schools.
Her reputation as a successful teacher rested largely on her ability to keep an orderly school; she had the ability to put on in the school room a presence that inspired fear in her pupils. This was probably one of the chief causes of her successive promotions. When she came to deal with older pupils, sarcasm was a ready and frequently used weapon, and incidents of cutting ridicule are remembered. She seemed to like me, and she certainly favored me; but candor moves me to say that as a pupil under her I never thought of her as a real human being, but as a distinct and different someone to be obeyed, feared, and avoided as much as possible. Of course, her pupils learned, but they were not left in love with learning, which is the real measure of success in a teacher. Those of independent spirit rebelled against this martinetism and brought their school days to a close as soon as possible. There were no compulsory attendance laws in those days to oblige them to attend school; only the clear vision of some future good held them voluntarily, or the authority of the home held them involuntarily in
Now what justification can I present for this long dissertation on one teacher? My chief reason for singling her out for special comment is that she represents one of the two types under which teachers may be classified. She represented the formal, Procrustean type, who may be briefly described as “Purveyors of Information.” They are “knowledge-centered.” This type was doubtless more frequently found in the days of which I am writing than now, forced into it, perhaps, by the mass teaching they had to do. I regret to say, however, that the species is not extinct. They are more likely to be found in secondary than in elementary schools. Institutions higher than secondary schools are known to harbor this type, who there, as sometimes in secondary schools, not only wield the weapon of sarcasm, but use the sharper, more deadly one of ridicule—the mutilating implements of the Procrustean process. As these memoirs proceed, readers may find me alluding to this sort of teacher, and to the other one about whom I will now tell you.
I have previously said somewhere in this chapter, that it was a lucky thing for me to get that mark of 67 2/4. It gave me the opportunity to come under the influence of a teacher of the other type. She was not a martinet, her eyes were not fixed on the matter of instruction, with the dominating aim of making children indiscriminately take that course—she was not a mere “Purveyor of Information”; but she was one whose eyes were on the children, who thought of studies as a means to an end, and whose aim, therefore, was to cause the course of study, by adaptation and method of teaching, to minister to individual needs, or to find matter of instruction that would do so. Her type may be designated as “Developers of Souls.” Her work was “child-centered.”
The teacher of this second type, whom I had in the Kenosha grammar school in 1869-1870, was Millie S. Norton. Where Superintendent Anthony Van Wyck discovered her is not known. I find that the board voted, probably in anticipation of difficulty in school control, to employ a man to succeed Miss Gillett, but a man did not appear—the salary, doubtless, not being attractive to men. Anyway, when school opened in the fall of 1869, Miss Norton was there, a real human being, who treated her boys and girls as such. I do not recall that there was any difficulty with discipline. We immediately recognized her as a friend, instead of “a natural enemy” and acted accordingly. I imagine how completely she would have sympathized with James Whitcomb Riley's hired man, who is made to say:
I believe all children's good,
Ef they're only
understood,
Even
bad
ones, ‘pears to me,
‘S jes’ as good as they kin be!
She evidently had an appreciation of real educational values and brought to us children a memorable educational experience outside the regular routine of studies. It seems worth telling about. My gratitude to her for it has grown with the years. She taught us some great poems and by repetition fixed them indelibly in my memory and, I trust, in the memory of all of my schoolmates. One of these was the “Nineteenth Psalm.” This was before the time when the reading of such great literature, a part of everybody's spiritual heritage, was decided by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin to be a violation of a part of Article X, Section 3, of the State Constitution, which prohibited sectarian instruction. The whole school of boys and girls standing would repeat in concert the sonorous words from “The
So, also, Miss Norton, an excellent reader, taught us Gray's “Elegy in a Country Churchyard,” all of it—thirty-two quatrain stanzas. Morning after morning we would stand and repeat as far as we had learned, then have explained and interpreted to us the next stanza, and proceed to incorporate that. Of course, it was not all understood then, but experience took care of that lack, as it alone can do. I wonder if to others of Miss Norton's pupils of that long ago time, this great poem has meant as much as it has to me, and has helpfully served them as often when the trials and duties of life beset them. Let me tell how far, on my pathway, “that little candle” threw its beams.
It was the appreciation of the value of such school exercises that influenced my own teaching of literature in high school classes for which, as former pupils have repeatedly told me, I am best remembered. An finally, my belief in the highly cultural and character-making effects of having some appropriate memorization work as an accompaniment of literature study, developed into a sort of pedagogic doctrine, which for sixteen years was promulgated in teacher training schools and in teachers’ institutes in Wisconsin. But it must be considered now much outdated—at least I do not hear of its being done. While the light of modern psychology has revealed to me better ways of doing things than I then knew, and while I sometimes groan under the huge pack of my past pedagogical sins, the belief and practice in literature teaching I have just described, are not in that pack.
Other memories recalled by thoughts of Miss Norton are those of a party arranged by her. It took me, with my
The other memory is that of a class play, given at the Kimball Opera House. This play must have represented nationalities, for my part in it was that of a little Dutch girl for which part I was probably considered well adapted. Well do I recall the many skirts, the cap, and the wooden shoes. Graceful, golden haired Hattie Brande, in Scotch costume, sang with appropriate action “The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee” and made a great success of it. She is the only one I distinctly recall as participating in this little drama although I am sure many others took part. Trivial things these may seem, but each made its contribution to my education. Moreover, the play had decidedly practical results. The school board minutes say that it netted Miss Norton $58.50, which with $56.50 voted by the board, purchased an organ for the grammar school. That is the only mention made of this teacher except that of her resignation. Why she was moved to leave I do not know. There is a suspicion in my mind that by being ahead of her time, she may have shocked some conservative school official or patron.
I take out of its place on a special bookshelf a small, well-worn, fine print copy of Burns’
Poems,
Diamond Edition. On the flyleaf is the date “January 5, 1870,” and the name “Millie S. Norton,” with a brief note of presentation that caused my young heart to swell with pride and gratitude. She must have reciprocated my liking for her. On another flyleaf are the words “see p. 69.” There is found the poem entitled “Epistle to a Young Friend,” with the penciled words, “My favorite.” You who are familiar with
I lang hae thought, my youthfu’ friend,
A something to have sent you,
Though it should serve nae ither end
Than just a kind memento;
But how the subject-theme may gang,
Let time and chance determine;
Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
Perhaps, turn out a sermon.
I read it and it became
It had become necessary for two months or more before the close of this school year for us to walk a mile to get to school. Father, with the urge upon him as strong as ever to work, to be busy at something, had bought a place just within the city limits on the west side of Kenosha, and the family had moved there in the spring. The new property consisted of three acres of land, with a pasture for his horse and cow; and orchard, and a garden. There was a barn and an old house. My mother seemed destined to make a home for her family out of a poor, old, inconvenient house, as she had done before in the country. But father found the desired occupation, always with much needed assistance from her, and he was happier than before. The owner of land adjoining us and just outside the city was Samuel T. Rice, a former resident of Paris. It was during the long summer vacation of 1870 or 1871 that I earned my first money by picking strawberries for a neighbor across the way, and picking raspberries for Mr. Rice, in which enterprises Carrie participated. We spent this money for a pretty white fabric, of which mother made us dresses. The experience was a good one, even though it did involve sunburn and scratches,
Here I will say, that soon after settling in town my family affiliated with the Unitarian Church, being attracted there not only by its liberal religious teachings, with which my parents sympathized, but because old friends from Paris had already found there a congenial church home—the Bakers, Deweys, and Hales. Father was not able to go, but the others of us became very regular church attendants, and the children interested members of the Sunday School.
Now comes the next step in my advancement as a “scholar” in the Kenosha public schools. Here I will let the old record book of school board proceedings introduce the story. Under date of June 30, 1870, it says: “Scholars examined and promoted to the upper room from Grammar Room, [signed] J. B. Jilson, Supt.” Standings are this time omitted (thanks due probably to the good judgment of the superintendent). There follows in separate columns headed “South Side” and “North Side,” a total of thirty names; ten boys and eight girls from the former school, and ten girls and two boys from the latter. All but three of the names in this list recall distinctly these classmates, and this with a very mixed emotional reaction, as personal peculiarities, and miscellaneous incidents are imaged and come across the memory stretch of sixty years. According to present knowledge, all but four besides myself have experienced that final goal promotion to the great school beyond, which goal some reached early, others later, a few but recently. Yet I am not sad at the thought of it—not sad for them, but a little sorry for myself. It seems strange indeed, that it should have fallen to me to tell of those days—as strange, as it is at times difficult for me to believe that what I am telling about those old times will be interesting to readers today.
Nearly all of those named by Superintendent Jilson entered the high school in the fall of 1870. Since we found ourselves in that historic room, being the
first free public high school assembly room in Wisconsin,
I will tell something about it as it was in 1870. At the time of which I am now writing, 1870, the platform in the front end had been the rostrum from which at least twelve principals in succession had ruled the school, some for a short time, others for a period of years; on it had stood school orators of such great promise as Chauncy Baldwin, and of as distinguished achievement as Joseph V. Quarles, of whom Mrs. Addie Winslow Stewart
Along the sides of this room on a raised platform extending its whole length, next the windows and blackboards, were benches for visitors. Once, so it is said, they were filled with members of the County Board of Supervisors, and of the Grand Jury, who came at the invitation of Principal Thomas J. Conatti to witness some special programs. Mrs. Jessie Nelson Luther of Madison, who was a “scholar” in the Kenosha high school at that time, and who wrote about it in 1891, says: “Think of it! 748 visitors during the first four weeks of a term, 211 visitors in one week!” And these, she says not for special exercises, but to observe school work. How teachers were able to do their work under these circumstances is difficult to understand.
THE ASSEMBLY ROOM OF FIRST HIGH SCHOOL
The walls were decorated with busts and pictures—one of the former over every window, and of the latter, most of them steel engravings of historic events, in the spaces between, and on the front wall. And, a remarkable thing to observe in a school room, these pictures were hung low, as if it were really believed that they should be seen as nearly face to face as possible, and the names of them clearly visible without a step ladder or a spyglass! It interested me to know who did all this. I searched and found that in 1858 the school board voted to “loan the young men of the High School fifteen dollars to be expended, under the direction of the Superintendent and Principal in purchasing busts for the adornment of the High School room.” The superintendent at that time was Michael Frank, and the principal, Thomas J. Conatti. Things out of the ordinary seem to have been happening! As to how the pictures came to be there, I cannot say, but I find that when Mr. Conatti left in 1862 to become a soldier in the Civil War, there was some discussion in the school board meeting about paying him for the pictures belonging to him in the high school room. Although the bill “was laid over,” the pictures remained.
It was a beautiful room that the thoughtfulness of those early school officials, teachers, and pupils had created for the benefit and enjoyment of many, many successive classes in that high school. The room impressed me deeply and deserves mention in these memoirs, not only on account of its historic significance, but for its influence on young people. What if the busts were only plaster of Paris? Washington and Franklin (the only ones I recognized when I first gazed about the room), Milton, Shakespeare, Byron, Plato, Virgil were there, as true likenesses as if cut in marble; and there was also the bust of a woman, showing a strong, attractive countenance, not less interesting because no one seemed sure whom it protrayed—some thinking her Sappho, others Mrs.
The principal of the high school was H. O. Durkee, then in his second year in that position, he having succeeded the unfortunate Mr. Hicks in the fall of 1869—“unfortunate” because he, Mr. Hicks, had succeeded George S. Albee, who was principal from 1865 to 1868. Mr. Albee had built up in the public mind an ideal of efficiency very difficult for his successor to attain. Mr. Hicks had performed the very kind of service which many very worthy public officials have done, of letting down that ideal a little. He, as it were, “reduced the grade” and so caused Mr. Durkee's course to be somewhat easier, smoother and more secure.
There were two assistant teachers in the high school then, and one of these was Anna E. Gillett. At that time the principal had quite a full teaching program, as his supervising duties outside of high school were limited. The impression remains with me that I liked Mr. Durkee's classes. He was a quiet-voiced, scholarly man, an Easterner, I think. He had some peculiarities of phraseology, soon caught up and imitated by the pupils in their private comments, and of course, his initials immediately suggested his cognomen, “Hod.” I had Miss Gillett as teacher in history again, and her methods had not changed. I was successfully “conditioned”—to use a Behaviorist term—against United States history.
Had I studied Latin, I would have had this teacher at her best; in that branch she was regarded as a great success. Her repute as a teacher of Latin finally won for her a place in one of Chicago's great high schools, where she taught this subject many years. She commuted week ends from there to her home in Kenosha while her aged parents lived.
Now, going back to my high school days, there are two practices I desire to tell about. At the opening exercises in the morning Mr. Durkee always read a brief passage from the Bible and delivered a short extemporaneous prayer, to both of which pupils gave respectful attention. This had been the practice from the first, and it continued in this school and probably in many other Wisconsin schools until 1888.
At the end of the school day there were closing exercises. The roll was called, from A to Z, and each pupil was expected to respond by saying “perfect” or imperfect.” By the former response the pupils declared, that during the school hours of that day, they had not communicated; by the latter word, “imperfect,” that they had been guilty of doing that forbidden thing. Whether or not the term “communicated” connoted conversing with eyes, nudges, and kicks, as well as whispering and passing notes, I do not know. But I remember that frequently when “perfect” was the response of a boy or girl, there would be heard a very audible drawing in of breath in their respective vicinity, and that the perfect ones would advertise their joke to their neighbors by winks and sly looks. If this roll call were designed as a disciplinary measure, it certainly was a failure. Instead of making for self-control, it encouraged lawlessness and untruthfulness. The whole emphasis placed at that time on the seriousness of whispering as a school offense, seems so foolish to us today. Boys and girls knew that the act itself was not wrong, and there seemed to be no one to make it clear to them that it was the disturbance of right study conditions in the school room that was wrong and should stop—
Another practice which, however, was not left to the discretion of the principal, but which had been a school board regulation from early times, and seemed to be a highly prized prerogative, was that of having public examinations in the high school at the close of the term, which custom has already been mentioned. The examiners were members of the school board assisted by others invited in to participate in the performance , “scholarly laymen joining with the teachers in questioning classes.” Ministers seemed to have been considered especially well qualified for the committee on classical languages, and doctors for that on the natural sciences. How the pupils dreaded those examinations! There on the front platform sat the dignified examiners, and on the side lines the relatives and friends to witness the ordeal. Such an examination in physical geography is still clear in my memory. Scared out of my wits, to a degree that rendered doubtful my ability to tell my own name if asked, I blundered on the questions asked me, with the consequent harrowing effects.
In my second year in the Kenosha high school there was a change of teachers. Miss Gillett failed of reëlection, and in her place came Mrs. Kate Deming Wheeler. The second assistant was a young man named V. V. Barnes.
Since I have previously described and named the two classes into which teachers may be divided—types they were called—and since I have taken some space to illustrate these types, especially the first one, the “knowledge-centered,” it seems to me appropriate that Mrs. Wheeler and Mr. Barnes, who like Miss Norton were of the other, the “child-centered” type, should received more than mere mention.
Mrs. Wheeler, born in 1839, was a daughter of one of the most distinguished and most loved of the early settlers in Southport, Rev. Reuben H. Deming. He was a Methodist lay minister with a strong missionary spirit. My first church-going in a schoolhouse in Paris, mentioned in a previous chapter, was occasioned by Elder Deming's coming into the country to preach. “Father Deming” as he was affectionately and familiarly called, was an abolitionist, and his home in Kenosha was a station on the “underground railroad” as was that of Deacon Quarles just across the park. The National Hotel on the north side was another station.
In passing I will say that both the Deming and Quarles homes, which were the scene of such thrilling events in the days of the anti-slavery agitation, are still standing in Kenosha, although removed from their original sites. Kenosha has not yet got around to the appreciation of these historic buildings. Kate Deming undoubtedly witnessed what was recently related to me by her niece, Mrs. Mary Martin Strong, who remembers the stories told by her mother, a stepdaughter of Elder Deming. This was the opening of a trap door covered by a rug in the sitting room, and seeing emerge from there a negro, who had come by the secret “underground” in the night, had been safely kept out of sight in the cellar and now came out, at some risk of being detected, to participate in the family devotions. The next night, or the next, there might come into the harbor a vessel whose captain was a trusted member of this secret organization, into whose care the negro would be put by Elder Deming, Deacon Quarles, or Mr. Bullen, whose hotel was nearest the harbor, and by this captain the escaping slave would be duly landed at a Canadian port.
Reuben H. Deming was from the first a friend of public education and after the arrival of Colonel Frank in 1840, was his strong supporter. His identity with the cause of the
Kate Deming was ten years old when the “new brick edifice” was completed, and became a scholar in the lower room. In the winter of 1851 she passed with others to the upper room, where John M. Coe was principal, and was there when John G. McMynn had charge from 1851 to 1853, and later. When she attended, the school was considered as consisting of individuals instead of classes. “There was nothing in the organization that prevented the development of the individuality of the pupil. Classification was subordinated to the ability and progress of the members,” a plan of operation that is being recognized today in higher institutions and some school systems which have broken loose from the lock step, mass teaching plan long followed, notably Winnetka, Illinois.
We have no record as to when Kate Deming left the high school as a pupil, but find her teaching in that school in the fall of 1856. After two or more years she resigned to marry Jerome Wheeler, a druggist of the city. When she left, the following very significant resolution was passed by the school board. It is dated February 5, 1860,
Resolved,
that the faithfulness and devotion of Mrs. Wheeler to the best interests of this school since her connection with it, and the good influences she has imparted to the pupils with whom she has been associated, will be held in grateful remembrance by parents and scholars. [Signed] M. Frank, Clerk.”
Mr. Wheeler died in 1866, leaving his widow with two small sons. While attending to their rearing, she opened a
The other assistant, V.V. Barnes, was a native of Kenosha County. He had made a reputation in the country schools, and the board was fortunate to secure his service as second assistant. His salary was $450 a year, the same as successful young women teachers in his place had received. I will say in passing that that school board seem to be deserving of special praise for paying Mrs. Wheeler what she demanded, the traditional belief then being that it is worth much more to have grammar, arithmetic, science, etc., taught in a bass voice than in a soprano voice. If, also, the importance of rare personality counted with them, greater be the praise!
Mr. Barnes was a man of fine character, and a good teacher. Under his treatment grammar took on a new aspect for me, and a right start in algebra was made. He did not
Before passing to my next topic, I desire t say that both of Mrs. Wheeler's sons, now deceased, became distinguished men. The elder one, Arthur D., was a prominent lawyer in Chicago, and president of the Chicago Telephone Company. The younger, Jerome Winthrop Wheeler, called in Kenosha “Win Wheeler,” was a successful banker in St. Paul, Minnesota.
I did not have a full year's benefit of such excellent teaching as that of Mrs. Wheeler and Mr. Barnes, for in the spring of 1872 it was necessary for me to start out to earn my living. It seems to have always been a settled thing in the minds of my parents and of myself, that I would be a teacher. So in the spring of my second year in high school, it was decided that I should write for a teacher's certificate. The examination was held in Woodworth, the first station west of Kenosha on the Rockford branch of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway. Hannah and Carrie, my older sisters, also planned to take the examination. It was April and the roads were impassable with mud and mire, so on Sunday we walked the six miles to Woodworth on the railroad track, and spent the night with the Barters, old friends of the family. The examination took place in the district school house. The subjects I wrote on were those prescribed by the law for a third grade certificate, namely, orthoepy, orthography, reading, penmanship, mental and written arithmetic, primary grammar, geography, United States history, civil government, theory and practice of teaching. My certificate bears the date of April 12, 1872, and is signed by T. V. Maguire. Properly qualified teachers must have been scarce, or superintendent would never have granted even a third grade—the lowest grade—certificate on such standings as are thereon recorded.
The story of this first experience as a school teacher will be postponed and given with that of the two following springs.
The fall of 1872 found me back in high school matured by the teaching experience, and with a new dress or two, which helped greatly. Mrs. Wheeler was still teaching, with Mr. Spence in the place of Mrs. Barnes. It took hard work to overcome the handicap caused by the loss of the spring term. But teachers and principal were patient and kind, and by dint of hard study I got pretty well caught up. Then the spring 1873 came, and I had to leave to take another examination and get another certificate and find another school.
When I returned in the fall of this, my last or senior year in high school, it was with the plan of remaining the entire year. With difficult new senior studies, catching up was a very discouraging experience, and when among the new books I had to buy, I encountered a thick black-covered one labeled
Mental Philosophy,
and found that my class was ready for solid geometry when my knowledge of plane geometry was very shaky, I was about ready to give up. But Mr. Durkee encouraged me to keep on and I did.
It was during that fall that I came to know another teacher, who I desire to mention, Miss Marie Bacot, niece of the rector of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church. She was very different from any I had as yet known. Well educated, cultured, vivacious, her French blood showing here, perhaps, with the manners and speech inflections of the South, she was a captivating person to me. She had none of the mannerisms that teachers unconsciously acquire; she had traveled, she was interesting. She had, I think, taught before, although not in a public school, and I recall how my ire rose when troublesome boys disturbed her by their conduct. I studied rhetoric under her with great enjoyment and profit.
The fall term ended, the holidays were over, and I had just started on my last lap when father was taken ill, as was also my sister Hannah. The doctor diagnosed the sickness as varioloid. The family was, of course, quarantined and my schooling was cut off. The disease was traced to a vacation occurrence. A woman with smallpox in its most contagious stage had escaped from a Chicago hospital, had arrived at the depot in Kenosha early in the morning, and there waited for an afternoon train to take her West. With her head covered by a thick veil, her condition was not detected. My father and sister were at the depot. The victims of this woman's terrible deed were many, for the germs of this dread disease in a virulent form were scattered all along the way from Chicago to Harvard, Illinois. Several deaths resulted, and many were left disfigured for life. Our cases, due to vaccination, were very light, and by care in isolating them, no other members of the family were affected, although rumor had us all in a fatal condition. When, after a lapse of six weeks or more I was free, it was impossible to catch up in school.
And so it came to pass that I never graduated from the Kenosha high school, never had a high school diploma, the lack of which proved a real handicap to me. I took another country school, this time with a second grade certificate. When the time came for the graduation of my class, I secured a substitute and went to the exercises, which were held in the old assembly room already described. It was not an especially happy occasion for me. My good friend and pastor, the Rev. Henry M. Simmons, had then been elected the superintendent of schools, and gave the commencement address.
The class consisted of five girls. Although five is a small number, I am moved to say in defense of it that this was the largest class that had graduated from that old school
The names of my classmates who
did
graduate in 1874 are as follows: Sarah Adamson, Jennie Tarbell, Fannie Whitaker, Emma Thiers, and Louise Wood. The last two have been previously mentioned in another connection and they are still living. Sarah Adamson, a rare student and a zealous soul, joined the Dominican Sisterhood of the Roman Catholic Church, and for many years was a teacher at Sinsinawa College, where she was known as Sister Mary George. She became a linguist of superior ability. Occasionally one of her classmates would get a letter from her. One summer when in that part of Wisconsin, I called at the college to see her, but learned that she was in Europe pursuing her studies, a quite regular vacation custom with her. She will be remembered by many as an inspiring teacher. Jennie Tarbell became a teacher in Kenosha, married Alfred Curtiss, and died in 1914, leaving one son. Fannie Whitaker, also a teacher, married Cephas H. Leach, principal of the Kenosha high school, 1880-1888. He left for Chicago where he served as principal of several schools in succession, in which service he continued until 1926. His death occurred in October 1927, and hers in the previous April. They left a grown up family of two daughters and a son.
Mr. Durkee closed his five years of work in Kenosha in 1874, and left the city for another field. I respect his memory, and have come to realize more clearly his trials.
Thus is brought to a close, after many digressions, the recital of my experiences as a “scholar” in the Kenosha public schools; but my experience as a
learner
in these schools, and through those schools did not stop there.
What
was stated in the previous chapter about my being obliged to start out at sixteen years of age to earn my own living was not told for the purpose of eliciting sympathy. I am glad it so happened. My only regret about this period is that I did not graduate from the high school and have that valuable piece of paper, a diploma; not to possess it was a distinct handicap, but after a while the lack of it ceased to bob up and embarrass me.
Burbank, in one of his latest books, says something about the “hardships of youth” with which I am in perfect accord. He says, “I learned through them, and got experience out of them, and was made better and stronger and more self-reliant by them;—they were milestones on my road, and not mill stones around my poor bowed neck at all.”
My “first milestone” on the long road traveled as a teacher was a country school, then described as District No. 2, Towns of Paris and Yorkville, a joint district in Kenosha and Racine counties. On the same site now stands the Jefferson School. As was related in Chapter V, my professional qualifications for this work consisted of a poor, third grade certificate the result of an examination held by the county superintendent, Tom Maguire, at the village of Woodworth in Pleasant Prairie.
One subject named in this certificate was Theory and Practice of Teaching in which I received a standing of seventy.
No better measure of general educational progress can be found than that resulting from the comparison of what preparation is required today before a girl is allowed to try to teach, and what I have just described as my own. My chief qualifications then were those fundamental ones that now and ever will be needed for success as a teacher: good health, love of children, ambition to succeed, willingness to work, a small degree, then of what George Herbert Palmer calls “vicariousness” (ability to put myself in the child's place, and sense his point of view), and mental honesty,—that is, freedom from pretense of knowing what I did not know, coupled with the desire to really know,—these creditable chiefly to my home environment, as fundamental things in character always are. My inheritance from my father of a sense of humor—“the ability to see others as they fail to see themselves,” has always been an angel of consolation in this work-a-day world. Teachers especially need it, for they last longer and their influence is enhanced by it.
How the school was secured for me I do not know, but probably through my father's acquaintance in that district, since our old Paris home was but four miles from it. The school began sometime in April and continued for three months. The salary was twenty-five dollars a month, a very poor salary, but I was a very poor teacher.
On sunday afternoon preceding the opening day, my father and mother drove me in our two-seated, one-horse
There was in this household an unfortunate sister, who made a deeper impression on me than any of the others. She was probably the victim of infantile paralysis—not named then—which had come upon her in early childhood. She was almost helpless and incapable of articulate speech. I was deeply affected by the sight of her bent body, bowed head and twisted neck, and was very conscious of the fixed gaze of her bright appealing eyes.
After a brief visit, the time came for the departure of my parents. I watched the somewhat difficult feat of getting my crippled father into the buggy, which my mother from long experience knew just how to do. Then with a unusually brief adieu to me, they drove away. They probably sensed the condition and knew that I was struggling with an emotional disturbance which had better not be rendered worse by any demonstration on their part. With an acute feeling of grief I watched them until they disappeared down the road; then, knowing that they would turn a corner and go southward, I stood until they re-appeared beyond a grove of trees, and again I watched them with bursting heart until they finally passed from my sight beyond a hill. I was experiencing my first homesickness. Realizing that my watching was being watched, I struggled for control, and as soon as possible, disappeared from sight within the little parlor bedroom where, I was told, my things had been put, and there gave vent to my feelings.
When the call to supper came, I responded with appetite completely gone. The invalid daughter seemed more interested than ever in me, and I discovered one thing that diverted all
children!
After the lights were lit, Mr. Baker brought out the old school register, a large, flat, black book, and explained to me how to keep it; a small school bell and a big iron key were also produced. Then I was told that it would be necessary for me to sign a contract, and the paper was placed before me. I immediately signed “on the dotted line” pointed out to me. I timidly raised the question as to where I would live and was somewhat relieved to learn that it could not be there, even though at the same time it raised a troublesome problem. I would have to find a boarding place and was told of different people in the district who had kept the teachers. As I knew none of these, nor where they lived, I retired with an added reason for wishing I was at home.
It was not necessary to call me the next morning. I put on the pretty, clean, brown and white striped calico dress designed for this occasion, and had a white apron wrapped in a paper to take to school with my other school equipment. The clerk kindly loaned me a big silver watch until I could get a timepiece of my own. I was furnished with a lunch in a tin dinner pail. The early farm breakfast permitted a prompt
On the way I passed a house on the north side of the road; a woman with several children was at the gate, and I was surprised to hear her call name. I immediately recognized her as Sarah, who as a young woman had worked for my mother on the farm. Sarah! whom we had all liked for her warm Irish heart, pleasant smile, musical voice, and interesting stories. I felt better at once. I was no longer totally friendless. When she asked me where I was going to board, and I replied that I did not know, she evidently detected how I felt, and said soothingly, “You can come here. We are poor, my husband is sick, and there are four children; but if you can put up with it all, and want to come, we'll make room for you, somehow.” I accepted forthwith, and went on somewhat lighter hearted. Sarah was a member of the Henderson family, North-of-Ireland emigrants, of excellent repute, who had settled in Paris not far from our old home, The parents with the eldest daughter, Sarah, and four younger children, Willie, George, Alex, and Johnnie had come to America the year of the famine, leaving three others to follow later. Mr. Henderson, a very kind, tender-hearted man, had told my father that he had left not because they were in danger of starvation, but that he could not bear to see the faces of starving people, and of hungry children looking through the windows of his cottage when his family were eating. He died in a year or two, unable to adjust himself to the new life. Sarah had much innate refinement and was a good woman.
The school building stood close to the road, and was a dirty, forlorn looking place, not much like the one I had known so well in District No. 5, told about in previous chapters. When I got to it, I discovered that the doorstep was broken down. There was lacking in me the poetic insight of
Not “always,” as I saw as soon as the door, after some urging had yielded, and the interior of the room was revealed. The sight that met my eyes will never be forgotten. A deserted old cabin, never again intended to be used as a habitation, could not have been much worse than that school room—“the temple of learning” for the children of Joint District No. 2, Paris and Yorkville!
The first object I saw was a large, oblong box-stove which stood on a raised platform made of brick laid edgewise, and kept in place by a frame of narrow boards. The boards extended a little above the brick, and had evidently served as a scraper for men's muddy boots. Chunks of dried mud bordered the brick platform, and more of it was on the floor all about. The platform itself was dotted with tobacco quids; another product of the chewing process had left abundant traces on platform, stove sides, hearth, and floor. Ashes crowded out of the stove upon the hearth; some sticks of wood and accompanying litter were on the floor near the stove. Strewn about the room were innumerable pieces of paper. A thick coat of dust, the accumulation since the winter term had closed two months or more ago, was over window sills, seats, desks and chair, except that the last named article had been more recently dusted, as had some of the pupils’ desks, by the clothes of those who had used them as seats.
Before I had fully taken in the situation, one of the older boys arrived and in reply to my inquiry as to what had happened here, said, “They held the spring caucus here.”
“When?”
“Oh, several weeks ago.”
He did not seem surprised at conditions, and had probably seen the same on previous opening days. Other children were now arriving happy, eager, bright, all with slates, some with books—every one ready to begin school.
When I asked if anybody knew where a broom could be found, several dashed to a corner of the room, where I, for the first time, observed a door opening into small closet. A boy brought forth what had once been a broom. Had he found there, instead of this object, a hoe, it could have been put to effective service. When I said to the children that we could not begin school until the room was cleaned up a little, everybody wanted to help. Two boys set to work with the old stub of a broom to clean up around the stove, using an old geography cover in lieu of a dustpan. Another boy volunteered to borrow a broom and dustpan from the woman living across the road. A girl said she would run home and get some dust cloths. Since it was evident that the old wooden pail found in the closet would not hold water, it was suggested by someone, where a pail could be borrowed, so he and a companion set forth gleefully to fetch it, with the suggestion added by the teacher to borrow also a tin cup or dipper. My request to have a windows raised as high as possible sent several scurrying to the yard to find sticks to prop up the windows. Very soon a draft was carrying out into the sunlight a cloud of dust arising from a vigorously used broom. Dusting duly followed, some of the older girls insisting upon helping in this work.
When it was all over, alas for my clean dress and apron,
With my self-respect somewhat restored, I rang the bell with considerable dignity, and about sixteen boys and girls took their seats. Names and ages were taken down, later to be transferred to the register with pen and ink. I remember having a peculiar sensation when a big girl who had kept aloof during the janitorial performance gave her age as nineteen. She was Sarah Slater and among other things she wanted to study algebra. Algebra! i had only begun to study it in high school that year. I was a little scared but tried not to let her know it. She had brought a textbook, and Oh Joy! it was the one I knew. Another pupil was a nine-year-old girl named Julia Meyers, daughter of Philip J. Meyers of that district.
This is a true story of my first day as a teacher. When it was over, I wended my way to Sarah's house, accompanied proudly by three of her children, Esther, Jane, and Willie, two of whom went gladly to fetch my things from Mr. Baker's. All day I had been too busy to think of home, but now the cloud settled down upon my spirits. Sarah noticed my dejected appearance, and wise as she was, knew the cause and asked me to sew up a rip in Jane's dress, which I gladly did, and felt the restorative effect which occupation brings.
The domestic economy made it necessary for Esther to be my bed-fellow, but this was not objectionable; she was a well-behaved, interesting child, and besides, what else was there to do? I could not leave Sarah now, even if another place had offered, after she had worked all day changing things to accommodate me. She was worried because I did not eat, but the difference between her food and mother's was not the real cause of my lack of appetite. At night I felt that I could walk that fourteen miles to Kenosha and that I must do it. It is pretty hard when emancipation of youth from the home, an absolutely necessary thing to normal manhood and womanhood, has to be brought about at one fell stroke! in the morning the sight of Sarah's children and of what was expected of me brought me to my senses, and I did not run away from duty.
One day I found a new broom beside the school door. On another day, about the middle of the forenoon, when everything was moving quietly, and all were intent upon their work, the door was suddenly pushed open, and an article tossed in upon the floor with a startling clatter. A rough voice bellowed, “Dares yer doostpon!” and the door slammed before I could possibly make acknowledgment.
At the end of two weeks, two of my sisters drove from town to take me home “for the week-end,” but instead of that handy phrase, “for over Saturday” was used. I was very happy to see them and interested, as we drove along, to learn what had happened during the past two weeks. When I got home, my mother exclaimed upon her first sight of me, “What is the matter? Have you been sick?” Rather hollow-eyed and pale, and about ten pounds lighter than when I left home, my appearance was startling to her. But the worst discovery had not yet been made. After supper when my experiences were being related, mother said, “Mary, why do you scratch your head?”
My answer was the very natural one, “Because it itches.”
An investigation of causes was immediately started and more exclamations from mother were heard. This is what had happened—a grand migratory movement had taken place from the land of Esther to the newly discovered land of Mary. Entirely satisfied with the change, the migrating tribes had settled down and had already abundantly prospered. There was no limiting quota system in operation. That evening the work of extermination began, and the following day may engagements with my mother were rather frequent, my heavy curly hair making the accomplishment of her purpose rather difficult.
On Sunday afternoon, as two weeks before, father and mother drove me back to my school district. I sat alone on the back seat, my face covered by a thick green beige veil, the chief use of which was not to keep off the dust or even to preserve my complexion, but rather to conceal my state of mind, in which there was a mingling now of self-pity, caused by comparison of my experience with the good times my sisters were having in Kenosha. My parents sensed the situation, and finally mother could stand it no longer, and I heard her say, “Andrew, I don't think we should take her back. She'll be sick.”
Then father answered quietly, “Kate, that wouldn't do. I know it's hard, but if she gives up this job, because she is homesick, it will affect her whole life. It is best for her to go through with it. Besides, Kate, you know that she has already been through the worst of this spell, and that it will never be quite so bad again.” Then over his shoulder he said, “Daughter, I've got a surprise for you,” and mother handed me a box in which was a small silver watch, with a black silk cord attached, ready to put around my neck. This evidence of father's tender thoughtfulness and the significance of what I had overheard him say to mother, checked my self-pity, made me ashamed of myself, and helped greatly to restore my self-control. Let me add that the watch was not my only new acquisition. Among my clean clothes and other belongings was a fine-tooth comb!
When we arrived at Sarah's, mother found occasion to take her aside for a friendly interchange on a very timely subject. And it surely was friendly, for mother had said, “Poor Sarah, with a sick husband and her family of little children trying to run a farm with the help of one hired man!” One effect of the interview was that Esther was withdrawn from my company for a few nights. By my faithful performance of what mother directed me to do, a normal
As the days went by, my interest in my work grew and my energy increased. One Monday morning the children came to school to find the desks, seats, and window sills scrubbed clean and the window panes admitting more light. But the floor I did not attempt to scrub, although had I even proposed it in the presence of the pupils, a riot would have precipitated among the boys eager to help. This had happened when it was suggested that the school yard should be cleaned up, and the outhouses made a little more decent. Such willing youngsters, they!
There was one piece of school equipment that defied improvement—the blackboard. It covered about two-thirds of the rear wall of the room, the remainder of the space containing a window in front of which was the teacher's desk and chair. This blackboard began about two feet above a narrow platform and extended to the ceiling. At the top, which could only be reached by a ladder, there were fully two feet of well preserved surface; but the lower part was as smooth as a window pane, and about as suitable for writing purposes, even with very soft chalk. By wetting the chalk, figures and letters could be made readable, but then there was the aftermath of erasing. A boy whose father was a carpenter brought some sandpaper one day, and an abrasive surface was created, on which legible writing and “figuring” could be done. One Saturday, Jim, Sarah's hired man, took a short ladder to school, and mounting that, I was able to write on that perfectly good stretch of previously unused blackboard. The result was a permanent exhibit, consisting of four
I am not going to continue the details of my story throughout that term. I made several trips to Kenosha, and my family were not always obliged to come after me. Among the mistakes one is remembered always with keen regret. I punished a boy because I thought him stubborn, when the real cause of his irresponsiveness was nearsightedness, which I afterward discovered. I recall no difficulty with the problem of “keeping order.” Although I knew little about teaching, the children made some advancement, and we had a rather happy time together. My nineteen-year-old pupil made satisfactory progress in algebra, with a wonderfully reciprocal effect upon the teacher, who, being unable to bluff, had to study to a state of clearness in order to teach her. The same was true of grammar, which involved difficult back pages, Sarah being desirous of “finishing” this subject. I did the best I could and “muddled through.”
When the last day finally came in sight, we began making preparations for it. A program of songs and “pieces to speak” was prepared. When in town for the last time preceding the close, I had bought some pretty “Reward of Merit” cards, and had prepared for the anticipated happy occasion another little surprise of candy for each.
On the Thursday afternoon preceding, when rehearsals were in progress, the clerk, Mr. Baker, entered the schoolroom. He said, “I hear that you are planning on closing school tomorrow.”
“Yes,” I replied, “this is the twelfth week, and the term is ended.”
“You're mistaken, there are six days more due from you. The contract you signed specified twenty-two days a month.”
The paper was taken from his pocket and the specification pointed out, which I read for the first time. I was dumb
“Of course, I will fulfill the contract, but why didn't you tell me earlier and thus have spared the children and myself this disappointment?”
He replied, “Why didn't you know? That's your signature!”
I was silent, and then, knowing that I was effectively squelched, he grew magnanimous and said, “You may keep school this Saturday and the five days of next week, closing a week from tomorrow.”
The children dispersed to carry the news home. “Keeping school” was an appropriate phrase for those six days. Interest and zest were gone. Several of the older boys and girls had to leave for it was now about the middle of July, and their help was needed at home. They had done well to come to school as long as they had. About all of the sixteen came together on the postponed last day and helped in the program as planned, but nothing could restore the festive spirit that would have animated that other lost “last day of school.”
I realize that I was the one chiefly to blame for this unhappy turn of affairs. At the same time, it seemed to me that a perfectly honest man, knowing my greenness, would have called my attention to the “twenty-two days.” Out of this experience came a very practical lesson, which I have passed on to hundreds of young teachers in training; know what a contract says before you sign it. Burbank was right when he said that the hardships of life teach us.
A few years ago, I had occasion to examine an old file of the Kenosha
Telegraph
covering the early seventies, and there under date of June 13, 1872, I found among a number
District No. 2, Towns of Paris and Yorkville. Whole number enrolled 16, Present 15, Percent of attendance 88. Number cases of tardiness 21, Number of recitations 9, Communications 6, Number of days taught this month, 20, Number of visits from Board, 0, others, 4. Perfect in deportment, Eunice Seymore. [signed] Mary L. Davison, Teacher. V. V. Barnes, County Superintendent.
I had known Mr. Barnes as a teacher in the Kenosha high school, but do not recall feeling at all grieved or slighted because he did not visit my school. That item “communications,” as you see, was again prominent, as in the high school already described. The teacher's ability as a disciplinarian was evidently judged by his or her success in repressing the natural social propensities of the pupils. How absurd for me to have reported that during twenty school days, a dozen or more bright, active children with the normal urge of social beings had communicated, that is, openly “whispered,” but six times! I wish that I might believe that at early stage of my career I was wise enough to notice only
disturbing
things, which mere “communications” among pupils may or may not be. But I did have the sense then and later to stop a custom seemingly quite well established, of a child's raising his hand, and eagerly exclaiming: “Johnny whispered”—a custom not only with serious ethical implications not needing to be pointed out, but showing that the real offense was the whispering and not the disturbance of conditions necessary for study. I have long wished that some pedagogic relic-hunter would dig up the origin of that idea. It is one that has always puzzled me since I began to think about the “why's” of existing school customs.
About the extreme indifference which existed in that school district, I will say in closing that it must have been exceptional, although Mrs. Hattie Northway Burgess, whom I quoted in a previous chapter, and who began her teaching a decade before I did, once told me when we were swapping stories about early experiences as country school teachers, that she could match this one of mine, and add a few items to it. However, the remembrance of our home school district in Paris, and of others, causes me to believe that the prevailing conditions in Kenosha County were much better than I have described both as to school property and school administration—although in the former of these conditions I was destined later, in another town, to find something nearly as bad as that described in District No. 2, Paris.
School District No. 2 lacked interested leadership. This prerogative expected to be exercised by the school board, which in those days was usually composed of native Americans. When these were indifferent or decadent, or chiefly concerned with the question of cost, the school suffered. There were then no meetings at the county seat, of all school board members of the county, called by the State Department of Public Instruction, at which meetings the duties of these district officers were made known, and desirable improvements discussed by educational leaders of state and county.
The average intelligence and education of the people of District No. 2 was probably not below that of many other districts. I recall several fine German families. They had not been brought to a sense of their responsibilities as is being done today, and they trusted too much to others. Moreover, that was a time when the rights of children were not regarded as they are today. There was not a farmer of any repute in that district, or of any other similarly neglected one, who, if obliged by circumstances to find with a neighbor
But a new force is operating today which renders less and less possible the old-time neglect. This is the Association of Parents and Teachers, which is doing a great piece of educational work by quickening the sense of responsibility in school patrons. Throughout this organization the significance of a great democratic principle is coming to be realized, to-wit,
that the management of and the conditions existing in any school situation are never any worse than the people allow them to become; and will never be any better than the people demand that they shall be.
This principle cannot, it seems to me, be reiterated, expounded, and illustrated too forcefully. When its application not alone to schools but to other public institutions is clearly seen, we will move rapidly toward the better day.
I taught two other country school “milestones” in the Burbankian sense, but my new hardships were comparatively few, and I had learned how to cope with other ones. So the story of each of these will be brief.
I came to this second school in the spring of 1873. I was better prepared for it by a full year of maturing experience. First in influence stand the excellent high school teachers to
In 1872, Rev. H. M. Simmons having done the selecting of about one thousand books, and Z. G. Simmons having footed the bills for books and cases, a public library, the first in Kenosha, was installed in the Unitarian Church. It was open to the public for an hour on Sunday, at first from twelve to one o'clock, and later before church. It was immediately patronized by all those who did not consider the movement a desecration of the Sabbath, and, let me say, some who did so aver were willing to risk damaging the soul of another by privately engaging some one to draw books for them. This library of the best books of varied interests attracted many readers, as the old record book now in the custody of the Kenosha County Historical Society shows. I well remember watching the people come in for books; the procession of fashionably dressed ladies especially interested me. H. M. Simmons left Kenosha in 1879 to take charge of the Unitarian Church in Madison, but the library continued to be opened as usual for a number of years.
It is not uncommon today for patrons of the beautiful Gilbert M. Simmons Memorial Library to find a book bearing REV. HENRY MARTIN SIMMONS
Minister of First Unitarian Society of Kenosha 1871-1879. Superintendent of
Schools, 1874-1879
But it was for its relation to my education that this historical reminiscence is inserted. The church library afforded the opportunity to supplement my school work by books on history, suggested by Mrs. Wheeler, my high school teacher. In fiction she recommended some of Scott's novels, besides a few others, at the best age for such a cultural undertaking. Mr. Simmons sometimes helped me select books suited to my understanding, which he thought profitable reading for me. To my house-bound father this library was a godsend.
Another important educational privilege came to me that winter and is well remembered, probably because it was a unique experience for me. This was nothing more than a course of Sunday evening lectures given by Henry M. Simmons in the church. I say “nothing more” because it expresses what some may think in this day when the air is ready to render up lectures on all sorts of subjects: strange they may think that special educational importance should be attached simply to one course. But such lectures were rare then. It was on astronomy, with special emphasis upon the solar system, and was illustrated by the use of homemade apparatus and lantern slides. Everything informative, broadening, or cultural, is or should be, “grist” to a teacher's mill, and these lectures, although considerably beyond my full comprehension, were apperceptively valuable.
So this year of my life, including as it did what I learned from the hardships and other experiences of my “first milestone,” my high school study under unusually inspiring teachers, and the privileges just described, was for me a
This second school was at Liberty Corners, Town of Salem. In the re-naming of schools throughout the country, this old designation has very sensibly been retained. My pay at Liberty Corners was thirty-five dollars a month. I had been obliged that spring to get another third grade certificate, but recall nothing about the examination. My next older sister, Caroline, taught her first school that summer at Salem Centre, two and a half miles to the north of Liberty Corners—a very convenient arrangement, allowing as it did for week-end visits back and forth. There were railroad connections to Kenosha at Salem Station on the Rockford Division.
My induction into my new environment was made easier and pleasanter by the friendly aid of a Kenosha schoolmate, Ella Stewart, now Mrs. Bliss of Flint, Michigan, whose family were residents of the district. Her father, David Stewart, engaged in the live stock business, was well known throughout southeastern Wisconsin. The home under the efficient management of Mrs. Stewart was noted for its hospitality, in which the teachers of their school were always included. I went out on Saturday by train and spent my first night in Salem at the Stewart home. On Sunday we all went to church at the “Corners” where were located also the schoolhouse and several residences. Liberty Corners was almost a village.
While to a certain degree my self-consciousness had been overcome, I was not entirely at ease among strangers and was quite aware on that Sunday of being “sized up” by the fathers and mothers of my future pupils, as word was passed along that this was the new teacher. My own earnings, with LIBERTY CORNERS SCHOOL HOUSE
The second “mile-stone” on my teaching road.
After church I was introduced to a number of people, among them a Mrs. Robbins, who was desirous of having me live with her. There was pointed out to me the home of Mrs. Robbins just across the road, a large, white house in a pleasant setting of trees, with well-conditioned barns and out-buildings. No danger there from parasitic migrations! The view of the schoolhouse and its surroundings was also reassuring. I felt myself to be, indeed, fortunate. I have mentioned all this just by way contrast with what I found in the Town of Paris the year before. How lucky it was for me that the order of these experiences was not reversed! In passing I will mention a fact that may be interesting to some readers. The Robbins’ place is now owned by a Chicago Country Club. The commodious house become the club house, and an expensively laid out golf course covers this fine old farm.
Transferred from Ella's home to Mrs. Robbins’ little parlor bedroom, and without a touch of homesickness. I was the next morning ready for work. The children gathered in a schoolhouse which was as ready as recent thorough cleaning could make it—another contrast. The room was larger, and the seats ad desks comfortable. I was gladdened by the sight of a decent dictionary, some maps still on their rollers, a globe, and a reading chart. There were more pupils than in my first school, and most of them came from American homes. Of the following names which I recall some suggest that nationality: Munson, Kingman, Smith, Brown, Stewart,
From the Stewart home came Maud, Sam, and a little curly-headed girl nicknamed “Topsy.” There were Ida and Ada Kingman, identical twins, who seemed to look and act exactly alike, and whom I could not tell apart until by an agreement with their mother they wore hair ribbons of different colors. Had pink Ada and blue Ida chosen to exchange hair ribbons, the joke would never have been detected by me, although their young schoolmates with keener observation and longer acquaintance would have known it. They were the children of Michael and Hannah Kingman. Not to be forgotten in this partial enumeration were several very bright promising children from the Gaggin family of Irish origin, whose later success fulfilled the promise of their childhood. At the Corners was the home of Clarence of M. Smith, then a well-known teacher in the county who, going West, became a prominent and wealthy business man of San Francisco. His younger sisters, Mary and Nellie, went to my school.
I recall no difficulty with discipline that term, and think I could be credited with an orderly school, even though there was greater freedom among the pupils than the old standards might have thought proper. Plain common-sense, everyday obedience had been built into the conduct of these children by their parents, and they, thee parents, having done their important part, the school was better able to perform its function, which is primarily that of teaching and not disciplining—at least not that of laying the foundations of right conduct. So “hardships” in the direction of keeping order were light in the Liberty Corners School. The principle, “Order, but not for order's sake alone” was unconsciously beginning to actuate me.
But I did have some hardships that term, not of the physical sort as in the preceding year, but in carrying out the school program. A state law, passed in 1871, had provided for the teaching of the constitution of the United States and of Wisconsin in the common schools of the state. I knew nothing then about the causes operating to bring this about, but have interested to find that it was the result of an agitation started by teachers who had been “boys in blue.” At the first meeting of the State Teachers’ Association after their return from the Civil War the discussion waxed warm upon political education, and a resolution was passed declaring that “It is the serious duty of every true teacher to instruct his pupils in the political history and civil government of our state and nation, so that the people may preserve their own rights and liberties and have just regard for those of others, and make the state in fact, as it is in theory, an organization for the highest good of the people.”
It is amusing in the light of later numerous additions to the common school course to learn that the delay of possibly three or four years in passing a law to accord with the resolution given above was due to the position taken by the legislature “that the curriculum was already overcrowded and that to introduce history and civics into the course of study would result in consuming time which should be devoted to
To every one-room district school in Wisconsin six copies of this book were sent. The Liberty Corners school had received its quota. There were several boys and girls nearing the end of their schooling and class in civil government was wanted. What was I to do? Somehow I had got through the county examination, but was not prepared to handle this subject. It worried me, but I started in doing the best I knew. I succeeded as well, probably, as the city-bred girls did with “agriculture’ when it was added to the district school curriculum. Country school children bore an immense amount of imposition before public opinion demanded adequate preparation of teachers for that work, and legislation requiring it was passed. But it is a far cry from the present situation to the remote time when I essayed to teach civil government in 1873. There was one thing done that I am sure was right—the “preamble” was committed to memory. But even after such discussion and elucidation as I was capable of, it was to a greater or lesser degree according to the capability of the pupil, just “words, words, words,.”
An incident is well remembered in this connection that was not so amusing at the time as it seemed later. An important visitor was present when the class in civil government was called. He asked to have the preamble recited, and was told to call on any pupil for it. A little girl was selected. She began bravely, “We, the people of the United States,
I suppose that the teaching of this important subject is much better handled today when all teachers must have been trained for their work. Other incidents come to mind, but the need of curtailing these reminiscences allows for but one more.
This, also, may be called a “hardship.” Mrs. Robbins’ only son, Herbert, a boy of fourteen or fifteen, was my most advanced pupil in arithmetic. His mother wanted him to “finish” the textbook, “Robinson's Complete.” There were certain topics at the end of the book, and pages upon pages of miscellaneous problems yet to be studied, and she seemed to want him to make a thorough job of it. Since most of these topics no longer appear in arithmetics, and the review problems have a more practical bearing, I will describe as
But the real trouble came with the miscellaneous problems. These were mostly invented puzzles, which would have no practical value in any life condition that one could conceive. There was, for example, one about a spherical ball of yarn of given diameter. One-third of the volume was owned by each of three women, Mrs. A, Mrs. B, and Mrs. C. Mrs. A had the first chance of unwinding her share, then came Mrs. B, for her share, and Mrs. C had what was left—the other third, provided all had gone properly. The problem was to determine at what point on the radius measured from the surface Mrs. A must stop, to take no more than her share; a similar question was asked about Mrs. B's handling of this yarn-merger.
There were many, many additional arithmetical topics of various sorts. I would surely have lost my reputation with Mrs. Robbins as a teacher qualified for my job, and perhaps my standing in the district would have been seriously impaired if I had been discovered lacking in ability to show Bert how to work those problems. And that would surely have been my fate had not a friend loaned me his key to those
Early in this part my story I mentioned the fact that Carrie and I exchanged visits at week-ends. Sometimes we walked the two and a half miles to get to respective destinations. I am sure that I had a more interesting time when I visited her than she had when she visited me. She lived at Salem village with the family of Daniel Maynard. He had been a schoolmate of my mother back in Chautauqua County, New York, and this was an association that counted towards the home-likeness of the situation for both of us. The Maynard home was on the west bank of Hooker Lake and near it was the cheese factory which Mr. Maynard owned and operated. The back porch of the house almost overhung the lake border, then thick with bullrushes. At the present date its border has receded considerably which is the fate of all such small bodies of water.
Before our schools closed, it became evident to me that a young man of Salem village, named Eugene M. Bailey, who had been showing my sister considerable attention, had deeply engaged her interest. He was the son of Alexander Bailey, an early settler of Salem, from New York state, an old time teacher and prosperous farmer, who had later taken up his residence in the village, and was serving as station agent there for the Chicago and Northwestern Railway. After that first term of teaching in Salem, my sister's interest in further schooling or in teaching suddenly waned.
In closing I will say that this summer when the date of the “last day of school” was figured out, made known, and planned for, I was sure it was right.
The fall of 1873 found me again in the high school, with the settled purpose of going on without interruption to graduation. I have previously told how these plans were spoiled by circumstances beyond my control.
It was during this winter that I had the benefit of another course of lectures that left as deep an impression as did those on astronomy of the previous winter. These privileges illustrate what was said in an earlier chapter, that what we do not call education is more precious that what we call so. This time Rev. Henry M. Simmons gave a series of carefully prepared lectures on the burning topic of the time, Darwinism. In 1859 Darwin had published his first noted book, the
Origin of Species,
in which his discovery of one of the great laws of nature was made known. Greater than the profound effect of this book upon scientific thought was that of his second, published in 1871, the
Descent of Man.
It was probably the publication of the latter book that occasioned this course of lectures in Kenosha. A untruthful and mischievous interpretation of the discovery of Darwin as applied to mankind, on that was readily caught up by the ignorant and those willing to let others do their thinking, was being spread by those who feared its damaging effect upon what they regarded as fundamental in religion. Mr. Simmons desired by his lectures to help correct this misunderstanding and as fully as possible to let people know what Darwinism really meant.
It has been said that the
Descent of Man
shook the world like an earthquake. This is an appropriate smile to express the effect upon the Kenosha of H.M. Simmons’ lectures in the winter of 1873-74 in the Unitarian Church. Every pulpit in the city assailed him and his supporters. In an old Kenosha newspaper I once found a sermon preached at that time from a local pulpit. Congregations were warned against the dangerous heresy, and it surely did not add to one's popularity to be identified with it, as l well remember. But how I rejoice now that this came into my experience!
Although I make no pretense to having gained through these lectures anything like a comprehensive idea of the scientific principles of evolution advanced by Darwin, which are now universally accepted by biologist and all thinking laymen, it has meant much to me to have been introduced to this thought at an early age—to have been at least exposed to it, and to have caught enough of it to escape having a closed mind on this whole subject, and in having a well-established interest for further study along that line in later life. We know it to be true that adolescence or early maturity is the best time to fix ideas, and that with the overwhelming majority of persons ideas are fixed then, whether passed on to them by parents or teachers, or gained by casual contact with the minds of their fellows. I am glad to have known all through years that Darwin never taught that man descended from the monkey any more than he taught that the dog descended
from,
instead of with the wolf ( that is, in accordance, with the same laws) from a remote common ancestor, or that the cat descended
from
instead of
with
the tiger or other members of the cat family, from a remote common ancestor. I feel that it has been no small advantage to me, to have been helped in my youth to think straight on this much disputed question. Was my character in any way
Right here, before resuming the theme of my early country school teaching, I am going to take my readers in thought ahead of 1925—a little more than a half century after the experiences of my youth just related, when again the theory of evolution rose up to engage my attention and, this time, to arouse feelings with patriotic implications. I beg the indulgence of my readers, while as briefly as possible, I tell about it.
That summer I was in Edinburgh, Scotland, to attend the First Biennial meeting of the World Federation of Educational Associations. I arrived there at the end of a world cruise that had for five months cut me off from news of current happenings in America. On the first evening of that convention, before a great audience composed of delegates from every civilized nation on the face of the earth and having in it a large contingent of Scotch and English, I heard a noted speaker say, “We will still believe that the law of evolution operates here, notwithstanding the decision of Tennessee,”—and that great audience laughed aloud! What did it mean? The next morning my eye caught this heading in the
Scotsman,
the leading paper of Edinburgh: “Monkey Trial, Dayton, Tennessee.” I appealed to American friends just arrived, and got details of the Scopes case. Morning after morning we saw reports similarly headed which were being read by Presbyterian Scotland with very evident amusement. Several allusions by speakers to Dayton, Tennessee, always with the same effect upon their audience, were heard during the meeting. This “rubbing in” of the news about the doings at the Scopes trial began to develop a different reaction with some of us.
From Edinburgh, in company with Katherine D. Blake of New York City, I went to Oxford to see this famous educational center. Some very interesting courses that seemed adapted to my degree of understanding were offered that summer, one of which was by Gilbert Murray on the Greek drama. So to sight-seeing was added this other purpose. In pursuit of the Murray course I happened to run upon another on “The Bible and Modern Thought” by W. B. Selbie, principal of Mansfield College, an orthodox institution of Oxford. What was being said there also captured my interest. In one of his lectures Dr. Selbie alluded to traces of primitive religion in the church today and said that this persistence of ancestral traces was greater in America than in England. “The soil of America,” he said “seems to foster that sort of thing, as was recently shown by the Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee.” Here it was again, and again my resentment rose!
We know that among foreign people, visited as they are today by multitudes of American travelers, the act of one of these travelers may cause a million of his fellow countrymen to be misjudged; and here was an instance of our country being judged as to its educational advancement by a condition of thought known to exist in only a small section of it. It disturbed me, and further, I deplored the failure of education in our country during the passage of sixty years to remove in some measure at least the ignorance and the bigotry, which when played upon by an eloquent political leader, with this streak of religious fanaticism in him, had caused all this trouble, and had influenced the legislation that restricted the rights of youth to know scientific truth. Perhaps I took too seriously this English criticism. When one morning I expressed to an English woman sitting next me my feeling about it, she smiled and replied, “ Well, we know you had a
Out of the entire experience came an expansion and a deepening of my appreciation of the opportunities of my youth which have been related here, and which by association were the reasons for this digression. Now comes a return to my regular theme.
Since the previous summer I had stepped up a little in my professional qualifications and now possessed a second grade certificate, good for two years. This I had obtained after an examination in which I remember to have seen for the first time James Cavanaugh, of Kenosha County, then a teacher who was assisting in the examinations. Mr. Cavanaugh left teaching to study law and for many years practiced in Kenosha, where he was prominent in the civic life of the community.
Still using my opening Burbank quotation, I proceed to say that my “third milestone” was the school at Salem Centre, taught in the summer of 1874. My sister Carrie, who had taught here the summer before, had married Eugene Bailey the November following and was settled in her home on the Bailey homestead to the north of the village. It was planned that I would live with her. The schoolhouse was three quarters of a mile to the south. It was just a nice walk when the road was good, but after a rain rather bad in a spots. In one of these, where the road run through a swampy place, I was obliged sometimes to take the board fence to get across. By standing on the lower board and clinging to the top one, I side stepped along until past the wet place. Rubber boots would have helped greatly. Not long ago when riding along that same road, I met a group of children and their teacher walking homeward to the village along the side of a good cement road. Of course it reminded me of long ago,
But fifty-seven years ago, what did I find there? A schoolhouse that must have been of about the same vintage as the one already described in District No. 2, Paris. It had, however, been cleaned. Here is what I said about it, twenty years after. I find this in a clipping from a Kenosha newspaper reporting in full a talk or essay read by me at a Farmers’ Institute held at Salem in 1893:
The first Salem Centre audience I ever addressed consisted of some twenty bright boys and girls of various ages in that little old schoolhouse to the south. I well remember those pupils, and that old schoolhouse, with its dingy, cracked walls, out desks and worn floor—so worn that when the good old minister visited my school, I failed to find four places in it where the four legs of his chair could stably rest, with consequences somewhat embarrassing to me, exciting for the children, and disturbing to his dignity.
The school had some usable equipment, a dictionary, maps, and so on, but there was one piece of expensive equipment which could very well have been dispensed with. It was a set of beautiful black walnut blocks illustrating the process of extracting cube root. This was the first time, but by no means the last, when I have found in country or in other schools, evidence of good salesmanship. Someone had made clear to the school official or officials some arithmetical or other notion never perhaps understood by them before, and this had made such an impression that they were an easy mark for the salesman; or he had convinced them that this thing was needed by this school and as usual, a teacher had not been conferred with. A big price had been paid out of the public funds for an almost useless piece of apparatus, one that could benefit but very few, when the expenditure of the same amount for well-selected, adapted books would have been to the whole school as water to a desert place.
Those pupils are not recalled today with the clearness I professed in the speech quoted, but the names of some of them have stayed by. My oldest and largest pupil was Mary Curtis, agreeable, kind, and exercising a helpful influence in the school. She was one of the unfortunate victims of that terrible smallpox epidemic, spread in the way I have previously related—the same that affected somewhat the course of my own life. Another victim was Alexander Bailey, already mentioned, who suffered a serious illness. Mary was keenly sensitive to the disfigurement of face, which she had suffered; but her interesting personality soon caused all that to be forgotten by those who knew her. She married, and one of her sons is a business man and valued citizen of Kenosha today. It was a pleasure to me to help all I could with her studies. Her pretty, blond little sister Grace, is also remembered, and by the law of opposites in association, there comes to mind a little black-eyed, dark-complexioned boy, named Homer Hollister.
These and others were from old Salem families. But there were several pupils who came from a newly-arrived family of different extraction and of very different history—a history involving varied experiences in distant lands. The head of this family was Christopher Browne. The children were Christopher, Della, William, Sarah, and John, and all but the first named attended my school. The name was pronounced in two syllables—“Browne-e,” to distinguish this family from the Yankee “Browns” in that vicinity. Both parents were well educated and their refined speech and manners indicated social experiences of a very different sort from that afforded by a western country neighborhood. Mrs. Browne was an accomplished musician. They were of Irish origin, and had lived in Australia, where the children were born, and where, it was said, a fortune had been made and lost. Finally coming to America, Mr. Browne had been inveigled
My troubles must have been few in passing this milestone of my teaching road, and what there were could not be called hardships. I was coming to love teaching. There seems to be but one thing more to tell about: the celebration at the close of the term. Just how it was carried out in the little room I do not know; but we had a play, with a raised stage and a curtain! The name and character of the play are forgotten, but not the thrilling it had for the performers. As was customary, the pupils on that “last day” all came in the morning dressed in their very best. That of itself was a distracting show. In the afternoon, visitors came until the room was crowded. The program included not only the dramatic performance, but singing and “speaking pieces,” and no one was left out of it.
After it was all over, there happened something very thrilling, especially to the children. For several days I had been conscious of much suppressed excitement, and secret whisperings. This afternoon I felt that “something was in the air.” Wise smiles were being exchanged that plainly said, dénouement
of this important, mysterious plotting came. All eyes were centered on a girl, who rose and came forward bearing an object concealed under paper. She rattled off a little formal, carefully coached speech, and then with both hands thrust the object towards me. It was an album! I trust that my words of acceptance did justice to the lovely act of those children and their parents.
But I was not quite through. It was proposed by one of the visitors that the show be repeated on Saturday evening so that the men folks could attend. I recall a very busy Saturday, adding new features to the program, and borrowing kerosene lamps. Such was the dearth of entertainment of any sort in the country that this poor little school exhibition brought a crowd.
A city grade occupied me next, and since it was distinctly different in several ways from my country schools, it appropriately begins the next chapter.
My
next teaching venture was in the third grade in the “new building” of the Kenosha public schools in the year 1874-75.
Just to know what the school situation was at that time, I examined again the old record for the names of those serving on the school board in 1874. The list found impressed me deeply. It included several of the most prominent citizens, who thus evinced their interest in the public schools and their willingness to sacrifice time and energy for them.
From the first ward were Emory L. Grant and Frederick Robinson; from the second (North Side) John Meyers and Conrad Muentzenberger; from the third, Henry M. Rogers and Volney French; from the fourth (also North Side) Gurdin Gillett and Nathan R. Allen.
Mr. Grant was a member of the class of 1861, Kenosha high school and attended Ann Arbor University. He was always an active friend of the public schools. Mr. Robinson was the leading druggist of the city. Volney French was a practicing attorney for many years during the early history of Kenosha, and was judge of the Probate Court at the time of his death in 1881. Mr. Allen was the head of a tannery business that afterward developed into a dominant industry of Kenosha. Mr. French was the president of the board in 1874, and the man elected by this board to serve as superintendent of schools was Henry M. Simmons. Mr. Grant was chairman of the teachers’ committee. It was a fortunate thing to begin one's teaching under such favorable official auspices.
There was a new principal in the high school, George Bannon. He succeeded H. O. Durkee, who had served five years. Mr. Bannon was principal for two years, 1874-76, and then went to Chicago, where he held for many years (until his death) the principalship of one of the large schools.
According to the old custom, the examination of all the teachers in the old force had to be gone through with every year. At the same time new candidates were examined for any vacancy that had developed.
The election of teachers was very late that year. There are evidences that the board was being stirred by the idea of improving the teaching force, for at a meeting in July they resolved as follows: “That in order to insure that the best teachers for these rooms (higher intermediate grades) we allow any teacher engaged in the school to complete at an examination to be held the week before the fall term commences,” the late day being set, probably to allow teachers time to prepare for the ordeal. Late in August it was reported by the superintendent that these teachers “did not choose to complete” for the rooms designated—a use of the verb “choose” that considerably antedated it use under somewhat analogous, but more famous circumstances.
Although the board had voted to begin school Monday, September 7, it was not until the Saturday before that the annual examination of teachers was held. By that time a vacancy in a primary grade had developed, and I became one of the candidates for the place. It could not have been a very thorough examination, for it was all over by noon. At a special meeting of the board that same Saturday evening, the report was made by the committee on teachers. My standing in the examination warranted appointing me to the school already mentioned, the salary for which was $300. With only Sunday intervening before the opening day, there
According to the usual standards in city school systems then, that third grade of forty pupils or thereabout, was not large, probably considerably under the average in size; but in comparison with my previous experience, it was huge. Besides that, I had yet to learn that there are found among city-bred boys a species quite different from those I had dealt with in my country schools.
Since this third grade seems to illustrate well the very mixed constituency often found in that most democratic of our institutions, the public school, and since it also illustrates the potentialities existing among children in such an ordinary situation, I will, for the two reasons just stated, tell about a few of the children that I remember in that primary grade.
Psychologists say that it is the emotional accompaniment of an experience that determines the readiness and clearness of its recall—a fact that any one can verify by only a casual introspection, and one that I am now verifying. The “emotional accompaniment” aroused in me by experiences with those pupils varied from those caused by the most troublesome ones to those caused by the best of my flock—from worry and discouragement on the one hand, to pleasure and hope on the other. I will take the worrisome ones first.
I had several boys from what modern social workers would call a “gang.” They came from “The Patch,” a section of the city across the railroad tracks, inhabited chiefly by Irish families of different grades of social status and repute.
In that vicinity was the house in which had lived a man distinguished as being the only person who was ever hung in Wisconsin. One of the effects of this horrible public event
The truth of my statement about mixed constituency is carried out by mention of another member of that third grade, a rather trival mention, but excusable, I trust, since it illustrates another phase of the “emotional accompaniment” idea. Moreover, it recalls an item in the social history of the city. There were in Kenosha at that time two colored families, one living in the down-town region, and the other in
In contrast with Alex, I will name next a beautiful little boy from a wealthy home, whose parents had moved to Kenosha from a large city. Johnnie had had kindergarten training, and had been used to considerably more freedom than was customary then in an orderly primary grade of a public school; but he was amenable to private suggestion, and we got on well. He was picked upon considerably because of his small size and his attractive clothes, but he astonished his
But the gamut of emotional association which I mentioned—including, as it does, those that were pleasant, brings to mind several children of a different sort from any named thus far, and these illustrate
potentiality fulfilled
. In my group was a girl and her younger brother from one of the best families in the district. I recall the tender solicitude of the sister for her timid little brother—just the same that she as Mrs. Emmett Wilson of Oshkosh gave her own boys and is now giving to her grandchildren—a genuine mother always. Their home had not failed in laying the foundation in these children for right school citizenship. By their ready compliance with regulations, they helped counterbalance the effect upon the school of those children whose homes had not given them the right start. Had there come to their honest, outspoken father the need, as it once came to Dallas Lore Sharp, of defending his sending these carefully reared children to a public school, his reply would undoubtedly have conveyed the purport of Mr. Sharp's reply: “My children may not need the public school, but the public school needs my children.” George D. Head believed in the public school, as was demonstrated also, by his nine years of membership on the Kenosha school board between 1879 and 1895.
Little I thought then, that that boy, Eugene Head, grow to useful successful manhood, would render me invaluable
One more “potentiality” I will tell about, one of the greatest as to services rendered that it was ever my privilege to influence as a teacher. There was among those children a boy remembered for being a good little school citizen like those just named. We called him Charlie. His father was a captain on the Great Lakes, Captain Robert Symmonds. I feel honored to be able to give here this brief account of the career of Charles J. Symmonds. Having graduated from West Point, he had charge of different army posts, two of them being Fort Bliss and Fort Riley. He also served in the Philippines for a time. It was in the World War that he won highest renown.
I have at hand some leaves out of the
Quarter Masters’ Review.
They contain an article headed “Gièvres, the Largest General Storage Depot in France.” It is a report of absorbing interest by C. J. Symmonds, Colonel General Staff. An editorial comment accompanying it says: “During all those busy, trying days, before the Armistice brought some surcease from care and labor, Headquarters S. O. S. came to recognize the slogan, ‘Gièvres Never Failed!’ Such commendation was sufficient reward for the 80,000 officers and men who served there at one time or another. Here is the story of Gieèvres. It is set down by Colonel Symmonds, who so efficiently commanded the vast storage depot from February 14, 1918 to July 1, 1919.”
Those who followed General Pershing's account of his “Experiences in the World War,” which appeared recently a.m.
and 6:15
p.m.
of a “colossal requisition which required 457 cars for transport,” and getting it on its way to the front, General Pershing says:
“No other place gave such an impression of the tremendous task of supplying our armies and the perfection of organization necessary to do it efficiently.”
A French officer, Colonel de Chambrun, thus pays tribute to the achievement directed by Colonel Symmonds: “Of all these installations in the Intermediate Sector, of all those that have been established by any army at any time and at any place in the course of the war, the most important from every point of view was the General Intermediate Storage Depot at Gièvres.” One can hardly conceive of a stronger statement of commendation!
And this man was the “Charlie” of the incongruous bunch I am describing. A primary teacher never knows in what tremendous undertakings some boy may put to use the simple facts of numbers which she teaches him!
After the war he was promoted to the position of brigadier general. At the ninth Armistice Day Celebration on November 11, 1927, he was the recipient of as great honors as Kenosha could extend him, and at the time of that visit
In the low-voiced, modest man it was difficult to realize that he was a military officer, had commanded thousands of men, and had made such a great, such a vital contribution to the winning of the World War. I felt myself to be in the presence of a personality whom soldiers would love and respect and delight in obeying.
The relief of Brigadier General Charles J. Symmonds from active service took effect October 22, 1930.
After these reminiscences and associated history of my pupils, what do I remember about the educational material afforded them through the course of study? There was the usual emphasis on the “three R's”; and besides these, geography was stressed in a way that has long been abandoned for children of that age. I remember distinctly the achievement of this third grade in locational geography during the fall term. On a map of the world—Mercator projection, they could point out the great natural features of the continents when called for by the teacher, and name them as she pointed them out. They seemed to revel in such names as Yenisei, Yangtse Kiang, Himalaya, Mediterranean. They were avid to learn, and the finding and naming of places on the map was an interesting performance.
I was very proud of the skill the class displayed in this work, and so when the superintendent of schools called upon me, I showed them off. At the end of the session this kind friend and wise teacher talked to me about my work and
He handed me a book, which would be my textbook in a new study to take place of geography. Here was suddenly opened up to me a new field, and I joyfully began work in it. How useful to me now was the knowledged and experience gained as a country child! This innovation, this disturbance of the order that had been in unquestioned operation for many many years, was not received by all teachers with feelings of joy.
The school board was back of it, and they had taken the following action, under date of September 1, 1874:
The superintendent stated that he wished to make some changes in the Course of Study in the lower rooms, so that children would not be required to study geography to such tedious and useless extent, but might learn more of themselves, and of the animal and vegetable life and common phenomena about them; that he wished to introduce into the lower rooms come primary textbooks on science and a course of drawing.
Moved by Commissioner Robinson that the subject of textbooks he referred to the president of the board and the superintendent with power to act. The motion was amended by Com. Rogers so that the principal of the high school was added to the committee, and then carried.
It was later on in life that I came to appreciate the full significance of this action. It was a distinct break with tradition! There was in it the recognition of that important principal
Some significant effects of the new course are clearly remembered. After the study in the spring of sprouting seeds (a previously unheard of school activity), there came the study of leaves. And here is where the interest of my Frank and Dinnie became especially involved. “Oh, teacher, see here, we found a leaf with a crenate edge!” or “a leaf with stipules!” and the family almanac would be opened up to display their collection pressed between its pages. They ranged the woods and fields with a motive other than that of finding birds’ nests to rob and snakes to kill. There was much free-hand drawing of leaves by the children, and at the top of the blackboard in a carefully ruled off space, were drawings of leaf parts, of margins, venations, and other characteristics, all properly labeled, as they were successively introduced. Perhaps the technical names were more in evidence than may be approved today for such young children, but I have a notion that if more names were taught today of specific characteristics of plants, and names of plants themselves, of trees, shrubs, and flowers, children's minds would feel no strain, and their pleasure in nature study would suffer no decrease.
This had been a year of growth for me. I was rehired at a salary of $325. But a new purpose had come into my mind. I began to hear of the Oshkosh Normal School, which then had completed the fourth year of its history. Several Kenosha County teachers had attended that school. Among them was a young man who was our next door neighbor on the west side in Kenosha. In vacation time he told me much about the teachers, the studies, and the students there, and
My next chapter will tell of the Oshkosh Normal School as I found it in 1875-76.
When
the Oshkosh Normal School opened one morning early in September, 1875, for its fifth year, I was there.
In this latest “adventure in education,” or
for
education, there had already come to me several new experiences—these new experiences and many others to follow, constituting, as they always do, thee “adventure.” The railroad trip of one hundred and fifteen miles from kenosha to Oshkosh was the longest journey of any sort that I had ever taken. Arriving the previous evening, I had written my name in a hotel register for the first time; I had spent my first night in a hotel; I had eaten my breakfast in a large dining room which had been entered with uncertainty. Breakfast over, I started out to find the normal school, walking west, or westerly, on Algoma Street, as directed.
Right here, let me say, that I was then and am still doubtful about directions in Oshkosh. The roads in Kenosha County and the streets of Kenosha, almost without exception, are laid out on north and south, or east and west lines, in accord with the original government survey. Having been brought up on such “cardinal principles” it was difficult to orient myself in a city planned “on the bias.” It is still with considerable hesitancy that I mention directions in Oshkosh; “westerly” or “easterly” is the nearest I can come to it.
It was near the end of my walk that a man stepped up beside me and asked if I were going to the normal school. A glance showed me that this middle-aged man was Robert Graham, whom I had seen before, and of whose work in
Upon entering thee building, he took me directly to President George S. Albee, who also seemed glad to know that I was from Kenosha. To him I presented my credentials. A printed form was used by superintendents in nominating candidates for admission to state normal schools. I preserved this interesting old paper, the autograph;h signature of which is especially valued. It reads: “I nominate the bearer, Miss Mary Davison of the City of Kenosha, County of Kenosha, as a candidate for admission to the State Normal School of Oshkosh and certify that she is 19 years of age, is in sound health, and possesses a good moral character, [Signed] H. M. Simmons, City Superintendent of Schools.”
Before continuing my recital of further personal experiences, I will tell briefly of the associations with Kenosha of the two men just mentioned. George S. Albee was the principal of the Kenosha high school for three years, 1865-68, and is remembered for his vigorous administration and very severe discipline. He also supervised the lower grades, and instances of the severe punishment meted out by him to boys who had caused a teacher trouble have been told me by men who, as children in the lower grades, had witnessed these shocking scenes. In this he was not exceptional, for corporal punishment of pupils seems to have been a regular practice. But that he changed his ideas on this subject, warned teachers in training against corporal punishment, and advised a different sort treatment of children, I have abundant reason to know.
GEORGE SUMNER ALBEE
President of State Normal School, Oshkosh, Wis. 1871 to 1898
President Albee was a native of the state of New York and was graduated from Ann Arbor in 1864; so the responsibility of the Kenosha position came quite early in his career. He left Kenosha to go to Racine, where he was superintendent of the public schools from 1869 to 1871. At that time “superintendent” in Racine meant more than it did in Kenosha, the work requiring all of a man's time. From Racine he went to Oshkosh and became the first president of the third state normal of Wisconsin, which opened there in the fall of 1871. He held that position twenty-seven years.
Robert Graham was remembered in Kenosha as a successful teacher, his association with District No. 2, Somers, being that of which I most often heard. This large country school located on the Burlington Road, not far from town, won a notable reputation under his charge. Mrs. Dwight Burgess of Bristol, one of his early pupils, said to me, “I tell you, we learned! Discipline was severe when compared with modern standards, but he taught!” He was principal of Grammar School No. 2, Kenosha, in the early sixties. This was located in the old high school building of 1849. The records at Madison state that Robert Graham was the superintendent of schools of Kenosha County in 1865. This was the same year in which Mr. Albee began his work at Kenosha. Their probable acquaintanceship may account for Mr. Graham being a member of the first faculty of the Oshkosh Normal School, where he held the position of institute conductor, the place next in rank and salary to that of president. He was, in 1871, president of the State Teachers’ Association, which gives evidence of his professional standing in the state at that time.
The reputation of these two men in our county probably accounted for the greater popularity in its early years of the Oshkosh Normal School over that of Whitewater, even though the latter was nearer Kenosha.
A physical peculiarity of President Albee was strabismus in one eye, which caused it to turn outward. It seems to have been a cause of special worry to those who were inclined to do irregular things when they thought they were not seen. The common complaint was, “I could never tell when he was looking at me,” or “I didn't know he saw me and so was caught.”
If I were to name any peculiarity of Mr. Graham, it would be best expressed in these words:
Seldom he smiled, and smiled in such a sort
As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit
That could be moved to smile at anything
However, this comparison, aside from seriousness of countenance is not altogether apt; for certainly there was nothing like “a lean and hungry look,” and his intimate friends said that he had a sense of humor.
Mr. Graham was state superintendent from 1882 to 1887. In a recent letter Charles L. Harper, of the State Department of Public Instruction, says, “I think he was one of the most serious-minded men that ever held the office. I knew Mr. Graham very well when he was State Superintendent.”
My first ordeal was the entrance examination, which seems to have left no impression on my memory, and was probably not a severe one. There was also the troublesome question of a place to live. Fortunately a pleasant, good-looking young woman invited me to dinner at her boarding house that first noon, and afterward asked me to be her room mate. She was Helen Sizer of Fond du Lac County. I accepted her proposal and so before my first day closed, another important problem was settled. Miss Sizer had attended the normal previously, and had returned after a teaching
We had in the same boarding house a young woman named Kate Kane who afterwards became rather famous as a lawyer, at a time when that profession was unique for a woman. That she was entirely independent and untrammeled by ordinary conventions, is shown by the fact that she wore her hair cut short. This was regarded then as showing very unfeminine tendencies, to which her success is extemporaneous debate gave added evidence. After years of study, she was admitted to the bar in Wisconsin. She suffered, not always with meekness of spirit, many of the trials that women entering a new profession are apt to encounter. After some experience in Washington, D. C., she followed the practice of law in Chicago for many years.
The normal school building in 1875 was a conspicuous structure for that time. It was located on a slight elevation and loomed up over a high basement, for three full stories and an attic. It was surmounted by a tall turreted tower and a lofty weather vane. In 1870 it was completed at a cost of $70,000 to which the citizens of Oshkosh contributed $30,000, raised by a special tax levy. After completion, its opening was postponed a year on account of lack of state funds.
The lower floor was used by the “Model School,” as the school for observation and practice was then called. On the second floor was the assembly room, the office of the president, and several classrooms. The third floor was used entirely for classrooms. “On the northeast side there was a two-story extension containing recitation rooms, two on each
I recall distinctly the assembly room entered from the south side by a wide central door, with the seats facing the entrance. Although it would accommodate less than 800, the room seemed enormous to me. It was the study room of the school since there was no library. There was a platform on each side of the entrance, with the piano on one side and a desk and chairs for the faculty on the other. From this platform the opening exercises were conducted. As handled by President Albee, they were an energizing, guiding influence in the life of the school. At a quarter of nine the faculty were all seated. Mr. Albee, with head bent a little forward and eyes looking down, rose and quietly took his place at the desk. The assembly felt the presence of a strong personality. He always spoke deliberately, in a conversational tone; his voice of fine carrying quality was easily heard throughout the room.
The program opened with a song, after which, according to the custom of the time, a passage from the Bible was read, followed by a short prayer. Then came notices and a brief talk on some question of school policy, or on a topic of general educational interest. Later on, after the Supreme Court decision in the Edgerton Bible case, there was substituted for the Bible reading, so I am told, the reading of a selection from some noted author, or from current literature. I could hardly conceive of starting the day without these enjoyable exercises, which reminded me of those I had known THE FIRST OSHKOSH NORMAL SCHOOL, 1870.Alma Mater,
and with undoubtedly beneficial effects.
The faculty of 1875 consisted of nine regular teachers, including the president, who was scheduled for the teaching of school management, and mental and social science. The others were Robert Graham, vocal music, reading, and conductor of institutes; William A. Kellerman, natural sciences; Mortimer T. Park, bookkeeping and calisthenics; Miss Anna W. Moody, history, rhetoric, and English literature; Miss Mary H. Ladd, mathematics; Mrs. Helen E. Bateman, English grammar and composition; Miss Rose C. Swart, geography and penmanship; Miss Emily T. Webster, Latin. There was a special teacher of German, Henry Marin, and one of drawing, Frances Taylor.
Very early in its history, the Oshkosh Normal School because distinguished for its progressive policies. It led in certain movements for the adaptation of the training school for teachers to the demands of changing social order. While President Albee was reasonably conservative in his general attitude and could never be accused of anything like a sensational educational pose, he was open-minded and alert; he had the courage and ability to work against indifference and opposition for what he believed to be the best for his beloved institution. These new features and functions did not come at one stroke. President Albee moved towards his ideals just as rapidly as the Board of Regents
For instance, he wanted music to be a part of the course offered to teachers in training. The board demurred at once, but they did not forbid it, and he was left to get it if he could through “moral suasion” exercised upon some member of the faculty. The first catalog of the school had music in the course of study. Throughout the first years Robert Graham, although engaged for other duties, was the first to teach music as a regular branch of study offered in a normal school in Wisconsin.
Of this work in music President Albee is quoted as saying: “Mr. Graham's teaching of music was marked by successful results warranting [its] admission to [the] curriculum of all normal schools, and ultimate employment of special teachers.”
Through Mr. Albee's efforts, drawing, too, was early included in the curriculum of this school. The first catalog listed it with Miss Martha E. Hazard as the first teacher. An old examination paper of mine shows a very different conception of the purposes of that study from that held today. It tested my ability to draw plane geometrical figures and to write definitions of them, but this may have been merely one phase of the work.
Physical training was an especial hobby of Mrs. Albee, but unable to get what he wanted at first, he put calisthenics in the program. While this did not meet Mr. Albee's ideals for physical training, it was better than nothing. His maxim seems to have been: “The way to start a thing is to begin it, and not wait for ideal conditions.”
Finally, after continued unsuccessful efforts to interest the board in the need of better physical training, it was agreed by the students and the president to assume the entire salary of a trained teacher of gymnastics, which arrangement was followed for five years. The board then added physical training to the curriculum of all the normal schools, appropriating for each $250 for that purpose. But as this was not enough to secure the sort of teachers they wanted, the Oshkosh students continued to add a like sum to the appropriation named.
Another innovation of the Oshkosh Normal School, even more important than music, drawing, and calisthenics, was that of putting professional work at the very beginning in stead of leaving it for the later years of the course, as was usual in the normal schools of that time. School management and the art of teaching are listed in the early catalogs as first year branches. So those attending for only a year were given something more than academic work, badly as that may have been needed. They learned to think of the problems which every teacher must face; they were imbued, or at least touched, with the spirit of teaching, and were instructed in the fundamentals of pedagogy.
In 1875 I was just in time to benefit by the introduction of laboratory work in science. About the development of this very important work President Albee says:
When the Oshkosh [Normal] school was established every school was guiltless of any working laboratory. ... In 1872 a request for a small appropriation for establishing of laboratory work in connection
Just when Mr. Albee wrote this, I do not know, but I detect a note of weariness in it.
When a complete history of the normal schools of Wisconsin is written, it will be found that many of the educational features of the curriculum, changed and adapted of course, had their origin in the Oshkosh Normal School and were initiated by George S. Albee. In all this work of advancement, Mr. Albee had the hearty coöperation of the faculty.
I have included in these memoirs this account of the beginnings, thinking that thus I might help to revive remembrance and appreciation of those professional men and women who in Oshkosh and elsewhere fought the battles for educational advancement in our state, while public opinion was slowly, slowly development a more enlighted attitude.
That every essential part of a teacher-training institution, the school for observation and for practice, was from the first in most capable hands. It shared with the normal department
The primary department from December, 1871 had as its critic teacher, Miss Rose C. Swart, and it was under her immediate direction that the first practice teaching was done. This vital part of teacher-training was soon taken up by the intermediate and grammar departments. When I became a student at Oshkosh, Miss Swart was required to teach geography, penmanship, and German. The primary department was then in charge of Miss Lucy A. Noyes. A temporary absence of Miss Noyes, on account of illness, brought to me an exceptional opportunity. I was asked by Mr. Albee to take charge of the department, probably because I had taught in a city primary grade. I gained much from the experience.
It was as the teacher of geography that I first knew Miss Swart. This exceptional teacher left on me a lasting impression by her careful, incisive speech and her skill as a questioner. The highest compliment that I remember ever to have received as a teacher was that from a visitor in one of my classes, who told me that I reminded him of Miss Swart.
In 1883 Miss Swart was made assistant to President Albee in the supervision of practice teaching, and finally the entire responsibility of the department was hers. In conjunction with this work she became recognized as “the main spoke in the wheel” of that normal school, and through this service she immeasurably influenced the teaching in our state and
Something about the evolution of this course, so far as subjects are concerned, has already been given. The evolution of the time element, and the leadership of Oshkosh in that respect, is also interesting bit of history.
The course of study at the Oshkosh Normal was, at first, three years in length, as were those at Platteville and Whitewater, but the first graduating class from Oshkosh completed a four-year course. To Mr. Albee it seemed evident from the start that an extension of time was necessary for more thorough preparation. Here is his account of the way in which a year was added to the curriculum:
When the Oshkosh school was founded, the maximum course of study prescribed was one of three years, in which space of time a very wide range of subjects was attempted to be covered, resulting in superficial knowledge for all but the ablest minds. Early in the history of this school the faculty moved for an extension in time, in behalf of more thorough scholarship rather than for any further extension of curriculum. This move was begun with the students as well as with the Board of Regents, and in the third year every member of the highest class cordially consented and the first class of the Oshkosh Normal completed a four years’ course, the first in any school in the state to do so....
It was after this action by the class and the report upon it made by the president that the board in 1874 authorized ROSE C. SWART
Teacher and Supervisor in the Oshkosh Normal School and State Teachers College
for 50 years. 1871-1921.
Not only because they were members of the
first
class from the Oshkosh Normal School, but also because of the professional attitude displayed, and the consequences to other normal of the example set by them, this class of eight men and women deserves especial mention: Graduates from Advanced Course, 1875, John F. Burke, Armstrong Corners; William M. Graham, Oshkosh (only son of Robert Graham); Edward McLoughlin, Eldorado Mills; Harriet E. Clark, Margaret Hosford, Hudson; Mary Knisely, Oshkosh; Rachel L. Sutton, Columbus, and Emily F. Webster, Winneconne.
Of the class named, three are living today. Of the five others, the directory of graduates of 1912, Oshkosh, indicates the decease of John F. Burke and William Graham; Rachel Sutton who became Mrs. Young, died in Longbeach, California; Harriet E. Clark, after filling high school positions at La Crosse and Sheboygan, became teacher of elocution in the Oshkosh Normal School and died in 1926; Margaret Hosford taught in the Eau Claire high school and the normal school of River Falls and Whitewater.
Edward McLoughlin, M. D., lived for many years in Fond du Lac, being in turn country superintendent, editor and proprietor of the Fond du Lac
Journal,
principal of the high school, superintendent of school of Fond du Lac, and major of that city. After that he was principal of the Dewey School in Chicago where he still resides.
Mary Knisely and Emily Webster live in Oshkosh. After her graduation, Miss Webster immediately joined the faculty of the school as teacher of Latin. Besides that branch, she taught English and mathematics, the last being her chief subject. She remained in the school continuously for fifty years, her resignation having taken effect July 1, 1925. The following is copied from the report of
Proceedings
of the Board of Regents of Normal Schools:
Therefore, in recognition of this conspicuous and distinguished career, the Board of Regents of Normal Schools hereby tenders to Miss Webster on behalf of the people of the State of Wisconsin its sincere thanks and appreciation, and creates the position of Teacher of Arithmetic emerita at the Oshkosh Normal School, and request Miss Webster to accept said position and to continue to discharge the duties thereof at her pleasure.
It was not until the end of the first semester 1927-28 that Miss Webster closed her work as teacher. Residing in Oshkosh since 1871, when she came there as a pupil, she has taken an active part in the development of what is now the State Teachers College of that city. I am indebted to her for the facts here given about the class of 1875.
Some of those who attended the normal from Kenosha County in early years were: James Cavanaugh of Bristol, well remembered as a successful lawyer and prominent citizen of Kenosha, who was graduated from the elementary course in 1875; also Hattie M. Spence of Somers, and Frank E. Stephens of Bristol, who later served that community as a physician. Martin L. Smith came from Sylvania, Racine County. He died recently at Racine, where for forty-eight years he had been the principal of the Franklin School. Clarence M. Smith of Salem was at Oshkosh a year earlier than I,, as was also William Goffe, a near neighbor of my family in Kenosha. It was the enthusiastic account of the school by the latter that undoubtedly influenced my decision
My personal reminiscences of experiences in classes conducted by some of the teachers named above, will begin with Mr. Graham, in the subject orthoepy and oral reading. Orthoepy was then a very new addition to the list of required subjects in the course of study for the common schools, since the legislature in 1875 has passed a law authorizing that addition. The work consisted of drill on the accurate articulation of the elementary sounds of speech, spelling of words by sound, study of the treatise on orthoepy in the front of Webster's
Unabridged Dictionary,
drill on the accurate pronunciation of marked lists, and the reverse process of writing upon the board and marking from memory lists of words assigned us for study. The subject seemed to be very difficult for some of the adult members of the class. Mr. Graham's patience, never very great with awkward or backward pupils, would sometimes give way entirely, resulting in very unpleasant scenes, which are a part of my association with this work.
But, like the pupil previously quoted. “We learned,” and for me was started an interest in pronunciation that developed
As to phonetics, I still cling to the belief that if children are to be helped in the formation of right habits of speech, and, as beginning readers, to be trained for self-help in wordgetting, teachers themselves should have the knowledge and the skill which the study of phonetics affords. So, according to my motion, the Oshkosh Normal School scored, again, through emphasizing oral reading on the orthoepic side of that important subject.
Somewhat allied to orthoepy, since it also centered upon words, was the study of word analysis. Like orthoepy, it is also obsolete now. At Oshkosh an option was offered between words analysis and Latin. I feel sure that it had value for teachers, although other studies, believed to be more essential to changed conditions and demands have been substituted for it. This suggests the following quotation and comment: “Fitness means adaptation. Progress is best defined in terms of adaptation. Any change that makes a better adaptation to environment that teachers should feel an interest in words and be able to pass this interest on to pupils. What I mean is that opportunities should be used as they occur in teaching to impress the significance of root, prefix, or suffix or their combination in some English word, or to impress
There was on the faculty in 1875-76, a woman who produced an effect upon my future teaching, although not in so general a way as that produced by Miss Swart. She was Mary H. Ladd, teacher of mathematics. She was exceedingly nervous in manner, excitable, somewhat impatient, speaking with a rather high-pitched voice, firing questions with startling rapidity, designating the one to answer by pointing her long slim finger at him and saying “you!” Sometimes she judged the answer herself with the one word “right” or “wrong,” “true” or “false.” Sometimes she held the class responsible for the decision by saying “Right or wrong class!” Those differing were expected to justify the judgment expressed. Sometimes, woe to the inattentive, she attached a name, “True or false, Mr. Johnson?” or “Agree, Mr Johnson?” Mr. Johnson did not escape by saying “true” or “yes,” but then followed, “What do you think is true?” or “What do you agree with?”
These were the characteristics of Miss Ladd's teaching. There was no chance for the bluffer, or the lazy-minded in her classroom. With such expenditure of nervous force, it is readily understood why Miss Ladd wore out before her time. She was needed to impress upon teachers the thing that remained with me as the real asset of my work with her, the vital relation of clearness of expression at every step in the logical of mathematical problems, to the development of clear, logical thinking.
My schooling at the Oshkosh Normal was just in time to include the benefits of the teaching of science in an objective way. I had botany under Professor Kellerman. This study was a great revelation to me. There was the new interest created by the microscope; the new knowledge of the physiology of plant life; the facts of sex in flowers; and the phenomena
It was evident in the class in school management taught by Mr. Albee that he has entirely changed his ideas on the question of corporal punishment since his early experience in the Kenosha schools. In that class he was heard to relate some cases of punishment handled by an anonymously mentioned young man in the early years of his career as a teacher, and how the remembrance of them had been a source of deep regret to that man. He advised the members of his class to try other ways of management, other says of punishment, when punishment was needed. Some of the incidents were very much like those I had heard related about him in Kenosha. I could not but conclude that he was the young man referred to.
In recalling these incidents about Mr. Albee as a disciplinarian, I trust that I many not charged with unkind motives. To me the evident change in ideals of school control adds to, rather than detracts from his character. For some reason, a new light seems to have dawned upon him, and he responded to that light. But this was before the development of sociology and before psychology had branched out into the varied fields that bear upon human conduct, especially child conduct. Mr. Albee was really ahead of his time, for there are still found in administrative and teaching work those who regard troublesome children as naturally bad, and who resort to punitive measures, instead of looking for evidences of maladjustment, and treating the child as the victim of conditions that are not right, and for which he is not responsible. So far as his advice to teachers went,
It was in the ideals of an orderly school more than in the teaching that the normal schools of half a century ago differed from those of today. The freedom allowed today was then not tolerated, and there were many restrictions that would now be considered unreasonable. No conversation, even of a quite undisturbing sort, was allowed in halls or cloak rooms. Students, most of them grown men and women, were expected to restrain all the impulses of social beings, when within the walls of the school, especially after school began. Passing to and from classes was very formal. We descended from third floor, two by two, each couple joining another at the foot of the stairs and entering the large assembly room four abreast, dispersing to our seats only after reaching the back of the room. Ideals of order had then rather a militaristic tinge.
Students were expected to be in their rooms at 7:30 for the keeping of regular study hours during the five school days. An exception was made when there was an educational lecture; but if they wanted to go elsewhere than to a lecture, permission had to be secured from President Albee. Since they did not live in dormitories, this was a rather difficult rule to enforce.
Dancing was forbidden. President Albee seems to have held unchanging prejudice against it, as the following excerpt indicates:
Dancing was tabooed during the first thirty-five years of the school's existence. President Albee was severe on either teachers or students who went to dances, characterizing them as “light in toe and head.” But attendance at dances grew, especially with the growth of the high school graduate element in the student body. ... President Halsey [the successor
Like dancing, card playing was also disapproved. This also may have been question affected by the personal prejudice of the man at the head.
In an entirely different category from the two practices just mentioned is a third forbidden thing, namely smoking—different because the fundamental objections to it are as valid today as then, and because these objections are scientifically based, and not a matter of personal prejudice, or rather opinion. President Albee and his faculty believed then, as many experienced educators do today, that not only is the habit of using tobacco a handicap to a greater or less degree upon a person, and that with undeveloped youth it results in physical, mental, and moral damage, but that teachers should realize an especial responsibility to refrain because of the duty resting upon them not to set a bad example for the young growing up under their influence. General public opinion then supported that standard.
This restriction at that time affected only men students, and it is said that in 1876 at Oshkosh a young man who had completed the full course was refused a diploma because he smoked and, therefore, could not set a good example for the young. There was then no need of including women in the prohibition, for smoking was quite unheard of in the ranks from which school teachers were drawn. It is a “far cry” from then to now on this practice of teachers smoking! Although further comment is hardly called for here. I will say in regard to the tremendous change in public sentiment upon this question, that we have here an illustration of what skillful,
What we know today as extra-curricular activities were not very numerous in the normal schools in 1875. In the line of athletics, football was unknown, but the spring season brought baseball.
There were two debating societies, to which both men and women were admitted. There was the Lyceum which was said to have been organized the first year of the school, and a newer one, the Phoenix. I was an active member of the former. The literary field seemed best adapted to the interests of the women members, while questions of politics and public affairs were left to the men.
Eighteen hundred seventy-six was the year of the great Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. As will be remembered by many, the educational exhibit there was one of the most prominent features, to which the Oshkosh Normal School students contributed their share.
Life was very simple back in 1875, and living expenses were correspondingly low, otherwise I would never have been able to live on the small amount of money I had. At the end of the year unexpected expenses were met by a loan from my brother. It was a year of hard study for me,
The beneficial results of this schooling are shown by the fact that I was immediately offered the second assistantship in the Kenosha high school, which position I held for two years, 1876-78. This opportunity would not have come to me except for my normal school study.
In these days of advanced standards of preparation for high school work, it seems presumptuous that a young woman, approaching twenty-one years of age, with only one year of special preparation for it, and with a rather meager academic background, should have been thought qualified to do high school teaching. But it must be remembered that at that time those who had even one year of normal school training were rather few.
In
the fall of 1876, as already stated, I went back to the Kenosha high school as a teacher. I had been a
learner
there for several years, and this relationship was not discontinued or crowded out by the new one, but instead, was quickened and strengthened; for the great teacher, experience, was now taking a hand in the process, and she did not neglect her job; but my lessons were not chiefly from textboooks.
The principal of the Kenosha high school was Thomas P. Maryatt, who had succeeded George Bannon in the preceding January, when the latter was released to accept a position in the Chicago school system. Mr. Maryatt had completed, by a year at Dartmouth, a college course begun in Chicago University. He was a scholarship man, of kindly nature and even disposition, who had high leads of using the school—its work, its discipline, its exercises—as an agency for character education, not however thought of then as that, but in effect just that, as I see it now. He belonged to that rare class of teachers described in a previous chapter as “Developers of Souls.” Although I did not fully appreciate him then, I know now that it was a fortunate thing for me to have had my first experience as a high school teacher under the guidance of such a fine man. His wife and I became fast friends.
My position was that of second assistant, and my salary was $400. I was elected “subject to the condition heretofore
The president of the board was Emory L. Grant a business man, mentioned in the previous chapter as a member of the first graduating class of the Kenosha high school in 1861, who out of clear, undoubted interest in the public school cause, and that alone, responded time after time to the call for service on the board of education, and who, in his quiet, refined way, helped to guide and guard that cause on its course of slow improvement.
I had a rather difficult time that first year. I was twenty years old. There were in the upper classes girls and boys who were in the high school two years before when I was a senior, and who, in spite of my dignified pose, remembered the fact, and were somewhat lacking in respect for my authority as a teacher. There was, naturally enough, on account of my promotion, considerable jealousy felt by a few of my former teacher associates and their families, some of whom predicted failure and seemed rather anxious to prove themselves true prophets. Of course, I did not know enough to teach youth as well as they should be taught, but some people seemed to forget that I had made an effort—rather exceptional at that time—to improve my qualifications and that I deserved a little credit for that.
My sensitiveness to the attitude of pupils towards me was barometric in revealing to me the atmospheres of homes, and I remember telling my invalid father, to whom I turned for council after weary, troubled days, that I was sure that
There was another cause that unfavorably affected the order in my classes. It was whose operation is illustrated, if not explained, by a law of physics, that action and reaction are the same and in opposite directions. In the recitation room adjoining mine (see the door at the right in the picture of the old assembly room) the strictest order prevailed. Miss Gillett still awed all pupils who came into her presence. When the repression experienced there was removed, and they came into my classes, the effect on youthful spirits was like that following the removal of a cork from a bottle of an effervescing substance. I remember asking a boy, whom I knew to be kindly disposed towards me, why he behaved so badly in my classes. His reply was: “I just have to do something, or I'd bust, after being afraid for an hour to breathe in Miss Gillett's room.” When a recess intervened, and pupils could get relief by yelling cavorting about the playground, they settled down to work more
The school was not large, the total attendance being under one hundred. The first year class was then as now, much the largest and the higher grades dwindled away to a senior class of ten or less. Three teachers—the principal who taught most of the time, and his two assistants—did the work required to carry out a four-year course of study. Some grade supervision was also expected of the principal. Specialization existed to this extent—the first assistant taught the languages, Latin and German, and the principal most of the sciences. Such an adjunct as a laboratory had not yet been introduced. Mr. Maryatt, I remember, taught each high school grade in at least one subject, thus very wisely “contacting” (to use a modern, high-caste pedagogic term) every pupil in the school. A half-century ago, a high school assistant teacher's daily program contained no such thing as a “free period,” free in the sense that no class appeared for regular recitation, and that he or she (usually the latter) had time then to consult with pupils, prepare work, and perform other necessary school duties. On the contrary, a school board rule is remembered to have existed for a while, forbidding a teacher to read test or examination papers during school hours.
To the second assistant came first year subjects with those from other grades when necessary or expedient. When estimating a teacher's load the size of classes and consequent quantity of written work for her or his reading and correction, must be reckoned in. I carried a heavy load. As ideals developed, and my experience at the Oshkosh Normal School had encouraged that, the conscientious planning and preparation for seven classes in different subjects, and the entailed written exercises in some of them, meant regular evening and often night work after my busy days.
These facts are only mentioned for comparison with conditions today when a high school to preserve its academic reputation and have its graduates accredited in higher institutions must not overburden teachers in the way just described. And this change has come about not primarily from consideration of the teacher's rights, but the pupils rights, to be spared from the consequences of exhausted or depleted nervous energy in those who essay to teach them. Too little recreation and extreme weariness are recalled as shading these and later years of high school teaching; but, fortunately for the boys and girls, and for myself, I was possessed of abundant health, and came through in spite of it all without breaking, but not, after these first experiences, greatly in love with teaching.
Mr. Simmons and Mr. Maryatt became close friends and coöperated in an important and much needed piece of work, a new course of study for the high school. Mr. Simmons reported to the board that the last printed course of study had come out in 1864 and that “none of the late graduating classes had exactly followed or been able to follow it.”
Here I will record an event in the school progress of Kenosha which, although affecting high school affairs, was a matter of interest to me at the time. In 1878 the need of a new ward school became pressing. After casting about for a suitable site for it, a lot in the third ward on Ann Street, now Sheridan Road, was purchased for that purpose. The money used for the erection of the building has some historical associations worth recording.
One of the most distinguished of the early citizens of Kenosha was Hon. Charles Durkee. For two terms, 1849-58, he served at Washington as a member of the House of Representatives from the first district of Wisconsin, and in 1855 became senator from our state. He was a pioneer abolitionist, and a friend of Charles Sumner. After the Civil
The minutes of the school board of that year show that the getting of the money for the school was an easy task compared with that of getting the building honestly and properly constructed, another instance of the lowest bidder not turning out to be the highest economy, and the Durkee School was not the last instance of this at Kenosha. My reason for mentioning this is simply to make comparison between then and now in the way the school board problem of schoolhouse construction is handled.
While this Durkee School building problem was being worked out, I was teaching my second year in the high school,
An incident in connection with the commencement exercises of that year always comes to mind at this point in my reminiscences, my sense of the ridiculous seeming to give such experiences a very ready associational recall. This incident also illustrates the incongruous combination that a popular election sometimes brings together in a public board from wards differently populated and differently motivated. There had been elected that spring, from the second ward, a man named Michael Gorman. He was short statured, of Irish extraction, genial, fluent of speech, not always grammatical or elegant; but of greater consequence, he was reputed as honest. He was known by everybody in town, for he was the driver of the American Express wagon. Although that occupation was of itself a guarantee of at least some education, his qualifications for school board membership seemed somewhat questionable—a rather common situation, however, and one that as time went on, Kenosha became accustomed to, and one that may have been observed elsewhere—real qualifications for an office being not always determining factors
There were that year eight nice girl graduates, and the exercises were held in the Methodist Church. A crowded house saw the eight girls in their best array, sitting on the pulpit platform, each with bouquets—the gifts of proud relatives and admiring friends—piled about her feet. They presented a display, individually variable as to amount and quality, according to family position and conditions—a showing-off performance now relegated, thanks be! Then, in filed the members of the school board. Mr. Gorman evidently well primed for his first commencement was happy and beamed approval of everything and everybody. Each man wore a rather conspicuous
boutonniere
which a member of a special committee of girls had pinned on him as he passed through the entry. With great dignity, the men took their seats at the near of the platform.
There was a song and then the pastor of the church was called upon for the prayer. The impressive silence that followed the “Amen” was broken by a loud clapping from the school board line—such a vigorous expression as only “the horny hand of toil” and masculine muscles could produce. It was not prolonged, to be sure, but it produced a moment of surprised reaction.
Since the master of ceremonies, Mr. Maryatt, was immediately at the front announcing the next number, the audience made less audible its amused feelings, and the embarrassed girls regained their composure. In closing this trivial account, I will say that Mr. Gorman had abundant opportunity to learn the proprieties, since he represented the second ward for ten successive years on the board of education. He served on that annually changing board of eight men with Joseph V. Quarles, A. C. Sinclair, J. B.
There may be some among my readers who knew Mr. Maryatt as teacher or friend, and will be interested to know something of his later history. After completing his law course at Northwestern University, he went West, and settled at Weiser, Washington County, Idaho, where he became active in the promotion of all the best interests of that pioneer community. He worked in and for the schools and was one of the founders of the Idaho Industrial Institute at Weiser. He was judge of the Probate Court of Washington County, and was noted for “his conscientious discharge of public duty in behalf of the bereaved and needy.” Other testimonials to his good life and to the esteem in which he was held by the public of all classes, creeds and callings, were sent me by his wife after his untimely death from typhoid fever in 1903.
As
I have previously said, 1878 brought a change in my life. I will in this chapter review briefly the few intervening years between that date and the time when I was again doing what evidently was my destined life work—teaching. Those years, although of great personal significance, do not include much of general interest, but to preserve continuity in my story, a few facts of a very personal character will be related, with some added comment that seems relevant.
I was married on December 8, 1878, to William Rolvin Bradford, of Kenosha. The wedding was a very simple affair in the humble home of my parents, with only relatives present and with our friend and pastor Henry M. Simmons officiating. Mr. Bradford was a widower with a seven-year-old son, Chester T. Bradford,
Mr. Bradford took me on a wedding trip to Maine, his native state, to see his relatives and I thus began my observations of New England life. At Peak's Islands in Casco Bay, I had my first seashore experience, although winter was a rather unfavorable time for it. It was a favorite joke of my husband's to tell how my first act at the seashore was to go as near as possible to the water's edge, dip my finger in an advancing ripple, taste the water, and exclaim “Yes, it is salty!” Next, the strange objects on the beach absorbed my interest. Our kind hostess, who had been watching these performances, was greatly puzzled—no attention to the view! No gasping exclamation at the vast expanse of water! What manner of person was this? At the first opportunity my husband was questioned. When she was told that I had lived all my life near a body of water apparently as large as the ocean, she was incredulous. Several times during the evening, when lapses in the conversation occurred, her rumination would be heard, “And so Lake Michigan is so broad that you can't see across it! Well never!”—giving evidence of the difficulty being experienced in assimilating this new bit of information.
In my husband's native town, Turner, Androscoggin County, I met Bradfords at every turn, and got all tangled up trying to keep relationships clear; the problem being more complicated by the fact that my husband was a Bradford by two lines of descent, that of this father, Hartson Bradford, and that of his mother, Asenath Bradford, merging away back in their common great grandfather who was removed in the same degree from the renowned Pilgrim ancestor, Governor William of Plymouth colony.
To many of these numerous relatives, the western girl was a curiosity. In the first place, her speech was peculiar, she “ground out” her “r's” and gave certain vowels a quality that made her pronunciation quite different from that heard there. “Why do say box!” (using western pronunciation “books”) exclaimed an irritated, critical old uncle.
“How do you say it?” she questioned, and the reply was, of course, what may be spelled “bawks.”
An amusing story related for her benefit on a certain family occasion illustrates what were considered the chief orthoepic sins in western speech.
It was about an Illinois girl who came East to teach in a Maine district school. In a spelling down exercise this western school ma'am had given out the word “shop.” She naturally gave the “o” the characteristic western quality, like that of “a” in “what.” The boy, moved with the desire to keep his place in the contest, showed true Yankee caution by saying to the teacher, “If you mean ‘shop’ [pronouncing it “shawp”] it is s-h-o-p; but if you mean ‘shop’[pronouncing it “shahp”] it is s-h-a-r-p,” using of course the New England vowelized “r.”
She recalls a church social where she became aware after several repetitions of the occurrence, that, when she began talking, all other conservation stopped, greatly to her embarrassment. Her husband's explanation was that people liked to hear her queer pronunciation. Queer, was it? Had she been inclined to retaliate, she might have mentioned the leaving off of “g” in the suffix “ing,” those all about her, most of them refined, educated people, saying “readin’,” “sewin’,” “stockin’,” or she might have commented on the phrase “riz bread,” that article prepared especially for company to the place of common, everyday biscuit—a queer reversal, she taught, of western custom.
THE WESTERN GIRL
With the “Quee-uh” Speech
Her critical thoughts about speech were not then, however, given other than private expression. But in this and subsequent visits there developed an interest in the identifying characteristics of Maine speech (and it has some peculiarities different from other New England variations), and a mild aversion to the attempted imitations of these,especially the “r,” by Westerners, whose speech
ensemble
always betrays them and reveals the fact that they were not “to the manor born.”
Now, dropping the third person, and dismissing other digression about New England characteristics that come to mind, my story goes back to Kenosha.
Mr. Bradford was a member of a firm at Kenosha that was engaged in the manufacture of fanning mills. The factory occupied a part of the site of the present great Simmon's bed factory and was a sort of ancestral form from which by adaption to changing demands, the latter has evolved, like the horse from its diminutive ancestor of a remote geological age.
I find information about this position in that firm in a printed circular letter, evidently designed for agents, and which, besides this information, is interesting since it deals with a business situation—a time of depression—similar to the one that we are going through in 1930-31. The letter reads:
Office of Kenosha Fanning Mill Company
Dear Sir:
On account of the failure of the wheat crop in a large of the northwest in 1878, and the low prices of farm products that have prevailed, we have carried over a very large amount of notes that we had expected to realize on this Fall. We now wish judicious measures taken to secure the payment of as many as possible of these claims in the Fall of 1879.
Then follow suggestions in regard to what agents may do, and closes with:
Your active interest in these matters is earnestly solicited.
Yours respectfully,
Kenosha Fanning Mill Company
Zalmon G. Simmons,
James H. Howe,
Joseph H. Carleton,
Wm. R. Bradford,
Co-partners.
Colonel Carleton acted as the traveling agent and Mr. Bradford as secretary and office manager, Simmons and Howe being the moneyed partners.
We lived at Kenosha at the Pennoyer Water Cure, having rooms in a smaller building, known as the “Cottage,” where Dr. N. A. Pennoyer and his family resided, and some others who enjoyed hotel privileges at this popular place. Our second floor windows looked out upon the harbor and beautiful Lake Michigan with its ever changing color, varying moods, and different craft, those interesting ones of the sailing sort being still frequently seen, although being fast crowded off the scene by steamboats.
After my busy youth, I found hotel life rather irksome, and soon tired of porch and parlor gossip, and of listening to the detailed account of the ailments of a semi-invalid company who ever patients in the adjacent “cure” My husband, realizing, this, had the good sense to have me on with him to his office certain mornings, where he found work for me to do of a clerical sort, introducing me thus to business practices, an experience that later proved very advantageous.
Besides this, I took lessons in painting of a man of high artistic talent. Lessons from a copyist in landscapes taken a few years before had introduced me to the use of colors, and had produced some results that seemed, to my husband, to indicate ability in that line. My new teacher taught me
The busy, carefree, happy summer soon passed. In the fall it was observed that Mr. Bradford was not well. his business cares seemed to oppress and worry him; a hacking cough that had for some time greatly disturbed my experienced mother was more in evidence. To any remark for her about it, the reply always was the there was nothing to be disturbed about, his family had never had any lung trouble. It was finally decided that a vacation was needed, and we left Kenosha for the East, he confidently assuring friends that rest in the quiet old home neighborhood near his beloved brother and other relatives would soon restore his health. We arrived in Maine in November. The stage ride from Auburn to Turner was taken in the face of the first hard snowstorm of the season. At the home of his favorite aunt, a sister of his mother, he was stricken with something called by the country doctor congestion of the lungs. His illness continued through the winter, but he seemed to believe and made others that it was only the effects of the bad cold from which he was suffering.
Here again the use of the third personal pronoun seems more appropriate; for as events are viewed down the long retrospect of a half century, the young woman taking part in them seems someone other than the person now telling about them.
When spring came, her husband was not able to return to Kenosha, but would be, he was sure, when the warm weather came. It was, however, decided to be best for her to return, and the journey to Kenosha was made alone in early April. A House was rented close to that of her own people and this was furnished and prepared for the expected return of her
Then one September day, Colonel Carleton came to tell her that she must go to Maine. For the first time she realized that her husband had tuberculosis and could never return. It seems strange that she could have been so influenced by her husband's repeated assertion that he could not have that disease it was not in his blood; no member of his family had ever died of it. Her mother left for awhile the invalid father, and went with the daughter and the ten-week-old baby on the long journey. Shut in by a severe Maine winter, the months went by, another winter more trying that the former for now was gone. Her mother needed by the sufferer at home at Kenosha felt obliged to leave Maine of early holiday time. A consequent sense of responsibility settled heavily upon the young wife and mother.
During that winter, 1880-81, an incident of general interest occurred that seems worth recording. One day as she sat by his bedside, her husband handed her a newspaper he had been reading and pointed significantly and without comment to a paragraph he had just noticed. It conveyed the astounding information that consumption was believed by scientists to be a germ disease, transmissible, but not inherited; and told of the laboratory study then being carried on by Koch.
On March 20, 1881, William Rolvin Bradford died. For the first time, she had looked upon death face to face. The old pastor of the Universalist Church, wherein W. R. Bradford had been reared, conducted at the aunt's home the simple funeral services, participated in by members of the Nazinscott Lodge of Masons from the nearby village, from which lodge her husband had never transferred his membership. The burial was at Kenosha, where the Rev. Henry M. Simmons, his beloved friend and former pastor, performed burial rites. The young wife was not present, the condition of the Maine country roads at that season making the long ride to Auburn and to the railroad too difficult to be undertaken. The first of April found her back in Kenosha, with her ten-month-old son. The deserted, long-vacant house was again occupied.
It is Emerson who said that every man's task is his life-preserver. Her task was teaching, and she donned the “life preserver” as soon as possible, and managed to keep her head above the troubled waters of life.
In the fall of 1882, the resignation of Dora Dodge caused a vacancy in the lower department of the second ward, north-side school, of which C. A. Anderson was principal and teacher of the upper grades. In the three grades downstairs there were more than sixty children, but the work was interesting. Her boy was cared for during the day by her mother and sisters in the old home. The next year she was elected to fill a mid-year vacancy in the first ward grammar school where Miss Etta Hannahs was principal—and in the fall of 1884 she went back in the high school in the same old place.
From now on, the story is that of her long, hard climb up the hill of professional advancement, year after year, without cessation for a period of thirty-seven years. The story of that climb will be told in succeeding chapters.
Emerson's
Essays
were not as familiar to me then as later, and the one on “Self-Reliance” had not yet become for me a help and inspiration; but I think I may crib from it a few phrases and say that I was not one of the “parlor soldiers” and did not shun the “rugged battle of fate, where strength is born.” This claim, the story of these years, or such portions of it as seem appropriate for these memoirs will, I trust, justify. As the same philosopher declared would happen, “with the exercise of self-trust” new powers
did
appear.
Since a statement of the succession of high school principals may have an interest for somebody, I will say that Mr. Maryatt mentioned in Chapter IX, was succeeded for the year 1878-79 by James R. Goffe,
After Mr. Goffe came Thomas W. Hubbard of Toledo, Ohio, another one-year man. Then in 1880, Cephas H. Leach became principal and staid eight years. He was a native of Kenosha Country and a recent graduate of the Oshkosh Normal School. Under his administration the school prospered. The salary paid Kenosha principals had not
My first act of a really professional sort was to attend the meeting of the National Educational Association, held that summer at Madison. It was a new experience and one that left a deep impression. The four-year-old son was separated from me for the first time, and instructions were left for letting me hear every day how he was faring at home. When the first letter came from my mother saving that he was perfectly happy and was not seeming to miss me at all, it was received with rather mixed feelings; which all goes to show that I was just as unreasonable and just as foolish as other mothers. But the reminiscences of the great meeting are of most interest here.
The speakers best remembered are Booker T. Washington, and Frances E. Willard. The former left the general impression of a devoted worker for his race, able and tactful in argument, reasonable in his pleas for their right to education, and convincing in his account of progress already made. From Miss Willard I gained an ideal of a woman orator, and recall how she held spellbound by her presence and her utterances the large audience.
Although I did not realize it at the time, that Madison meeting was a notable one: for the first time in the history of the organization, women received signal recognition. The program included a woman's evening, a “symposium” of women speakers on the general topic: “Woman's Work in Education.” The other two speakers, not clearly recalled, were Mrs. May Wright Sewall,
It was Mrs. Sewall who wittily called attention to the fact that though fans and ribbons were much in evidence and women composed the major portion of the audience, they had not been discovered, since speakers always addressed the audience as “gentlemen.” The president that year was Thomas W. Bicknell, LL.D. One has but to note the program which this man from New England planned for the National Educational Association meeting at Madison in 1884
In the six years that had elapsed since my first attempts at high school teaching, Kenosha had not grown much in population,
My salary at the start was $500, and I mention it, not because salary was a first consideration with me, but for purposes of comparison with present conditions. However, my parental responsibilities made income a matter of greater concern to me, as is, or should be, the case always.
In his pre-school years my son was cared for during my absence, in the home of my parents, “Willie” being a special source of pleasure and entertainment to his crippled grandfather, whose irksome, enforced inactivity found some respite in reading or telling stories to the boy, or whittling for him playthings of various sorts out of pine wood. I recall the scene of returning from school to find the sitting room floor covered with shavings; but such conditions disturbed no one, since the eager, interested watcher and the busy whittler were both happy. When the boy attained the age of six years, we walked together to the Central School, about a mile away, and he entered the old building adjacent to the high school. There he began his schooling and had his first encounter with real life.
The four years of association with Mr. Leach went by rapidly. I managed to have time and energy to indulge the urge for self-improvement by taking a course of lessons at Chicago in public speaking—not then called that, but known by a much more high-sounding name, “elocution,” that has since for some reason fallen into disrepute. I learned something which seems to me to be fundamental for a teacher to acquire, both in the interests of health and efficiency, namely, how to breath, and how to use breath in speaking.
These were not entirely contented years, however. In 1886 the experience of some of my friends who had gone to Chicago, and who reported much easier work and much better pay, influenced me to look in that direction. I passed the examination there, and was ready to accept a call, when my brother, a practicing physician at Chicago, strongly advised against it.
“You doubtless are overworked,” he said, “but at Kenosha you are independent and have a chance for initiative. Here you would be only a cog in the wheel of a great machine.” I remained at Kenosha. Public appreciation came that year in my promotion to the position of first assistant with a small increase in salary. In 1887 Bessie E. Wells became second assistant and held that position until I left, and after that worked on as first assistant. So much were we in accord that excellent team work between us resulted. From the first she cheerfully did her share in the heavy program of work in a school that had started to grow. There were hundreds to whom she endeared herself, and many men and women today respect her memory. Her influence on pupils was always right. I valued her friendship.
My lack of advanced legal qualifications bothered me. It was probably a sense of the inadequate education with which this work was begun that forced me into such laborious, painstaking, conscientious efforts. I was holding my WILLIAM MILLER WAGONER DAVISON, M.D. 1848-1901
There must have been some appreciation of my effort, for I received the high salary of $600 from 1887-90, and then came an unprecedented boost to $1,000. I recall the sensation created in some quarters by the news of this action of the school board. “A thousand dollars to a high school assistant and to a woman! Did you ever hear of such a thing?” No, never at Kenosha before that time!
But this work for higher qualifications brought compensation away beyond that of a material sort and developed an objective other than that of passing an examination—important and necessary as that purpose was. This struggle to make up for the lack of a college training in my younger days took me summer after summer to Madison. There I came to know some great teachers, Freeman, Coulter, Snow, Birge, Stearns, and one summer, an authority on physical geography from Harvard, whose name I think was Davis. The classroom presence of each of these is more or less distinctly recalled. Besides increasing my knowledge, I absorbed
In literature under Professor J. C. Freeman, I spent an inspiring and rather intense hour listening to his natural, easy interpretive reading of a play, to which rendition was added his running commentary on meaning, form, or purposed effect. This was varied by an occasional call on Mr. This or Miss That to go on with reading—a plan of operation that accounts for the intenseness mentioned. But it was all interesting, and resulted in those pleasant associations which the teaching of literature must result in to be really successful.
Botany was studied under John M. Coulter. His method, observed since in other good teachers of science, was to have upon the blackboard an outline in tabulated form of the lecture to be delivered, thus enabling students to get a visual impression of the organization of the topic.
With Professor “Bennie” Snow in physics, I did not have so enjoyable a time. It was the laboratory work that completely baffled me. My high school study of physics had consisted in memorized recitations from a textbook, and so even the A B C's of laboratory practice were unknown to me. But the lectures were interesting, and I was able to get considerable in the way of preparation for the State Board examination which I was soon to face. Clearly I recall climbing to my elevated seat, notebook in hand, and there awaiting the precipitate entrance from a side door of the lecturer, this always with dramatic effect upon the student audience. I observed and noted the carefulness of his planning to the minutest detail for any demonstration carried out before the class.
With Dr. E. A. Birge there were courses in physiology and, later, biology, the latter with laboratory work which I could do, the microscope being the only instrument used;
While those teacher I have mentioned were classed with the “Academics” and I got from them considerably more than the subjects taught—namely, that of a pedagogic sort, as I have already described—I found in Dr. Stearns a real “Pedagogic.” His courses in psychology and the theory and art of teaching gave me the scientific foundation, and the principles of good teaching, which were an immediate help in my work. Besides this, they were necessary in preparation for the examination.
I recall the following incident about Professor Davis of Harvard. Although the author of a textbook on physical geography, he had never seen the unglaciated region located in contiguous corners of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota. Dr. Chamberlin, then the president at Wisconsin, an authority on that subject, met the visitor at the depot and so impatient was the latter to see the interesting region named that the two men dropped thought of everything, including that of eating, and drove westward from Madison, as if on
Later on, in the fall and winter of 1892-93, I took a Saturday course at Chicago University in geology under Professor Rollin D. Salisbury. This was at a time when the discoveries made about glacial action by Dr. T. C. Chamberlin, then connected with Chicago University, and with whom Professor Salisbury collaborated, had not yet been put in textbook form for student use. The lectures were the chief source of information and such reference reading of source material as was available. I had to qualify on that subject for examination, but beyond that end what an illuminating experience and how far-reaching its effect has been upon the understanding, to a limited degree at least, of commonly seen physiographic features, and of how they came to be!
Just to add weight to a previous assertion about difficulties encountered on the road to my goal, and not to suggest appeal to sympathy, I will say that the taking of his last-named course meant a fifty mile ride in the early morning by rail to Chicago; a long confused journey of about two hours through the city to my destination, the University; a two-hour lecture period; the return to Kenosha; and then, before the regular duties of the week absorbed my energies, the work on my notebook, with the drawing features of which I took great pains. My certificate for this course bears the date of January 22, 1893. The cost of this experience in energy, time, and money was, however, a sure investment that brought the larger returns already mentioned.
The needed qualifications in economies were helped greatly by a course in economic problems of the present day, a university extension course given by Dr. Scott. The certificate for this furnished me with the autograph of “C. K. Adams, Pres.”
MYSELF, WHEN A HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER
Two simple facts will close this account, which I fear has already tried the patience of my readers. My limited state certificate signed by J. B. Thayer, state superintendent, bears the date of January 2, 1891, and my life certificate signed by Oliver E. Wells, is dated December 31, 1894, the latter a little too late to be of any practical value to me as a mere credential, but involving causes, as will be revealed later, that produced very unexpected results.
I now return to events of a public character that happened at Kenosha during these years, events that concerned the high school and consequently affected me.
In 1889 when Mr. Pollock was principal, a movement for a new high school building began. The old “brick structure” which has served Kenosha for forty years, which I had attended as a pupil, and where I was now teaching, was not only outgrown but was declared unsafe. It shook when pupils had marching exercises, so marching had to stop, pupils simply “went” to and from the room. Some parents became alarmed by the reports and withdrew their children. There was a public demand for a new building.
Kenosha had begun to grow, the census for 1890 showing an increase of nearly 30 per cent over that of 1880, whereas previous decades since 1850 had shown no higher than 17 per cent. This was a time when vision on the part of the school board was of vital importance; when, as always, only the clear purpose to serve the public need both immediate and prospective should actuate these representatives of the people. There were doubtless some among them who had that vision and that purpose; there were others who manifested a spirit, which if not of greed, was closely allied to it. These latter were men of influence and dominated the course of events. The doings of school boards were not then made public as they are today, but the records are there showing the
While we in the old building were anxiously awaiting progress, the following sequence of steps, not always ahead, occupied the fall and winter months: there was, as was customary then, an invitation to architects to compete; the presentation of their plans by four of these to the board; the rejection of all of them as unsatisfactory; the action to choose an architect, and J. G. Chandler of Racine selected. Hope came here, for the report had reached us on the outside that Mr. Chandler's were the best plans, that they incorporated up-to-date features and really provided for future growth. But opposing influences evidently became active, and out went Mr. Chandler and his plans. A cheaper architect, one of the original competitors, was selected, and his plans adopted. Then came bids from competing contractors, but all were rejected as being too high. Immediately all withdrew from competition except a local contractor, who got the job.
Lest blame may be attached to the wrong person, I will say that the dominating and prevalent influence against the best interests of the public was a professional and business man who departed this life long since. He knew little and cared less about education, his handsome wife having won for him high social position without it; as a citizen he had never patronized the public school. Besides the practice of his profession, his chief interest in life was the collection of water rates, he being the president of the Park City Water Company when Kenosha depended on artesian wells.
Mr. Pollock and I finally decided on a very bold step, more so for me than for him. We attended a session of the school board at the time when the Chandler plans were imperiled. A modest plea from the young principal met with derision from the previously mentioned leader of the had
done a bold thing. Teachers were not expected to mix in such public affairs as the building of schoolhouses, and as to any thought on the part of the board that they might have suggestions to offer about the rooms in which they daily worked, their connection, their adaptation, their arrangement—preposterous!
The resulting building had on the first floor four rooms for the lower grades, each with a seating capacity of fifty pupils, herding children then being the ideal of proper economy; on the second floor west side, was the grammar room providing for ninety pupils, with a recitation room seating forty pupils; and, on the east side, the high school room capable of seating one hundred and forty pupils, with two recitation rooms having a capacity of forty pupils each. There was no laboratory. On the third floor was an auditorium, five flights of stairs up from the ground entrance. The only other new features which made it different from its antique predecessor of 1849 were a principal's office and room for a library. But, of course, the architecture was more ornate than that of old and there was a fine bell tower. In the high school assembly room some ornamental colored glass windows above the others, under the sun's glare, caused a beautiful play of light to fall into the room, and incidentally into the eyes of the students facing them! Other senseless features might be enumerated.
But enough has been said to show what the public got in 1891 as a new high school, at a cost of $45,000, when with the addition of a few thousand dollars and the adoption of the better plans available, their interests would have been far better conserved.
The public, I have found, is always ready to pay for advanced school facilities when the need is apparent.
In two years, extensive repairs were needed for reasons which I will not discuss. It was not before
the plans were made, and which they had somehow been beguiled into installing, proved worse than useless, and had to be pulled out. Those wonderful blueprints with their prescient arrows, believed to be conducting bad air from school rooms, through unmentionable regions in the basement and out through the flues to the higher reaches of the atmosphere, did not fulfill promises. That humble human protective agent, the nose, produced evidence against them, and a change was made which proved to be a very expensive proceeding.
In the decade from 1890-1900, the population of Kenosha increased 77 per cent. The new high school was soon inadequate, even after the grades were removed, and a wing had to be added. I will not enumerate other changes which safety as well as greater space requirement made necessary. Some years ago I indulged my proclivity for digging up records and found that then (1915) this piece of architectural patchwork had cost Kenosha nearly $81,000.
We are with respect to these matters living today in better times. Self-interest and short-sightedness must still be reckoned with, of course, and the indifference of the public is by no means overcome. But school superintendents are expected to play an important part in the planning of buildings, and teachers are consulted. The state has stepped in to defend the rights of her children. Today, as Wisconsin readers probably know, not only is expert advice about planning available from the State Department of Education, if needed, but plans and specifications
must
be approved by the State Industrial Commission, and the same made to conform to all the requirements of an up-to-date building code.
In 1890 Mr. Pollock was succeeded by Francis L. Cleary,
“As editor of the Southport Telegraph in the early 40's, he seems to have been the first public man in Wisconsin to advocate a general system of free schools; in the legislative council of 1843-44 he proposed a bill for the more efficient support of common schools, which was the first move for a system of free schools in the territory.”—
Joseph Schafer.
who was principal for four years, the last three of which were spent in the new building. It was in connection with the pulling down of the old building in 1891 that an interesting event occurred. There were many then living who loved that old building, about which clung the happy associations of their youth. It was decided by a few of those living in Kenosha to have a get-together meeting once more within those walls. Frank H. Lyman led the movement and deserves greatest credit for its success.
The meeting was held on the afternoon of Friday, June 19, and about 200 were in attendance. They had come from far and near in response to the invitation. A full report of the occasion is printed in the Kenosha
Daily Gazette
of June 22, 1891, and is before me as I write—treasured pages in an old scrapbook.
With Emory Grant in the chair and Mr. Lyman as secretary, Mr. Cleary who had been an interested promoter of the plan, opened the meeting by calling the “school” to order. I will quote a sentence from his address, which seemed to express the historic significance of the occasion. He said, “Upon your return now, the words of welcome which greet you are uttered by a man growing gray in the service of teaching, who was a babe unborn at the time of your departure.” In the same vein, I can say of myself, that although I had regarded myself as an “old teacher,” I felt comparatively youthful in a company, many of whom were grandparents.
Colonel Michael Frank, then in his eighty-seventh year, was helped to the platform. There were many men and women present who had known this aged man in his prime and with them he was inseparably associated with this building; they had witnessed his work for the cause of public education and they revered him for it; they felt now that his presence was a constant though unuttered benediction on the assemblage and its proceedings. Letters were read from
The Kenosha high school alumni association was organized with Mr. Grant as president and Mr. Lyman as secretary and treasurer. Since that date, regular biennial meetings of that association have been held, the only deviation from that order happening during the Great War, when one three-year period intervened, causing the dates of the meetings since to fall in the even-numbered years. In 1930 was held the twentieth reunion.
Eighteen hundred and ninety-three was the year of the great Columbian Exposition at Chicago—the “World's Fair.” This was a wonderful educational opportunity for the boy, William. Its nearness to Kenosha allowed frequent attendance. After some initial visits together and after getting a general view of the whole, it was decided that it was better for him and easier for me to let him follow his own course. So while he hung over the railing and watched the wheels go round in Machinery Hall, I was undisturbed in my enjoyment of art or other exhibits. With a clear understanding as to the time and place of meeting, the plan worked fairly well. We did, however, do the Midway together.
During these ten years of high school teaching I was the “stand-by” in the school. As the new teachers coming in to fill the place of second assistant and afterwards that of third assistant, usually had preferences, I taught in that time a great variety of subjects, not so well, of course, as one who had specialized; but each of which in consequence of study required, had a beneficial result for me. I have a distinct remembrance of teaching for a longer or shorter time during that period these subjects: arithmetic, algebra, geometry, physiology, physical geography and botany, grammar, composition and rhetoric, literature (English and American), general history (ancient and modern), and drawing. From
In compiling the memoirs of this period, I have brought from its hiding place a choice object, the treasured memento of some of the boys and girls whom I knew as pupils. It is an album containing cabinet sized photographs of those who graduated from the Kenosha high school during these ten years. There are eight unfilled places, but names are all there—a total of sixty-one, nineteen boys and forty-two girls. (This is one of the situations where the striking of a yearly average is unpleasant to contemplate.) In the margin are written the “watchword” and the class motto of each group, and the names of the teachers who composed the faculty. A class of thirteen girls (1891) had as its watchword “diligence,” and the motto, “What God made woman able to do, that the intended she should do.”
The title “Valedictorian” and “Salutatorian” duly appear in each class. Some items of a biographical character are also written in but are not up-to-date. The photographs of the boys show only head and shoulders, while a majority of those of the girls are full length portraits, for which difference feminine reasons may be readily found. In the style of the boys’ dress there is little difference from today, but with the girls, not so! Elaborately made white dresses appear with tight waists boned to smoothness and with long skirts, varying from the length that allowed just a toe to be seen to those touching the floor all round, with a short train, always nicely displayed by the pose assumed for the full length picture. In 1893 to 1894 huge sleeves appear. White kid gloves covering bare arms were generally worn, and another expensive article seemed indispensable—a white fan dangling from wrist or waist. The diploma rolled and tied with ribbon, probably showing the class colors, is the distinguishing mark of the girl graduates.
I turn the pages and count sixteen whom I know to have passed on, graduates from life's school. Thirty taught for a longer or shorter time, three of them men, one of the latter continuing today as principal of a grade school at Oshkosh, and two of the women as principals of grade schools at Kenosha. Two women are teaching in the high school at Kenosha. There are two doctors, two lawyers, one high class farmer, and eight or more business men among the men, and twenty or more home makers among the women, one of whom is the mother of six fine children, four of whom are grown up.
In all the graduating exercises of those groups, class prophecies, always of such absorbing interest to those immediately concerned, were parts of the graduating exercises. But I am quite sure that that of 1887 failed to foretell that one of its brightest members would one day, as wife of the governor of Wisconsin, manifest throughout all the many activities and duties of her high social position, the same charm of manner that characterized her school life; that of 1891 to predict that on a distant island in the Orient where, after the Spanish American War had brought to our country difficult problems of education, this girl would be for many years a teacher in the employ of the government; and that of 1893 to say that this lad with the meditative look, would rise in the United States Navy through successive ranks to that of Captain, which rank he holds today; and that he would see service in two wars, in the latter of which he would command a great battleship of the Pacific fleet; and, finally, that the prophecy of 1894 gave no hint that this girl dressed in a simple white gown and standing with her diploma partly unrolled, would today, as a member of the Sisterhood of Notre Dame, have risen to the principalship of the St. Michael's parochial high school at Chicago and have sixty nun assistants.
MY FATHER AND MOTHER AS THEY LOOKED IN 1888
I found not one in this whole list of graduates who did not “make good” to a smaller or larger degree, according to native ability; that is, there was no signal failure. And when I think of the great majority who did not reach graduation, but who have played their parts successfully in the great drama if business, professional, domestic, or social life, all of whom I had the privilege of helping up the ladder of learning, then it is that I realize how unequaled the teaching profession is in its opportunity for influence.
Twice during this period, death took a member of our family circle. In May, 1890, my sister Caroline, Mrs. Eugene M. Bailey, another victim of tuberculosis, passed away at the age of thirty-seven years, leaving a family of four children, three daughters, and a son. Of these, only the son is living, Alexander Davison Bailey of La Grange, Illinois, now superintendent of distribution of the commonwealth Edison Company of Chicago. Two of the daughters died of the same disease as their mother, which disease she is believed to have contracted in her endeavors to help a neighbor in a time of sickness and death. This sad and disastrous sequence is mentioned as a reminder and in evidence of the progress that forty years have seen in the protection of families and the public in general by the segregation and care in sanitarium of sufferers from this disease.
On December 11, 1890, my father wa relieved from his long suffering. The good life to which all who knew him had been attracted, was ended.
When thinking in terms of their schooling, human beings are divisible into two classes, the educated and the uneducated. But there is another, better classification than that, namely, the learners and those who, greatest of all tragedies, have stopped learning. Andrew Jackson Davison belonged with the learners; he read, thought, and felt much, and was possessed of a wonderful memory. As defined in the following Common Sense in Education,
he was an educated man: “An educated man is one who may safely be trusted with the furtherance of his own education ... he is one who has been helped to something of four understandings: of himself, of his world, of the supernatural reality and purpose men call God; and of the relation of three to one another.”
Opportunities now seemed to be coming my way. In September, 1892, I was made a member of the Board of Visitor for the Milwaukee Normal school for the year ending August 31, 1893. L. D. Harvey was then the president, and whatever else this appointment amounted to, the visits brought “grist to my mill.” I did not, however, like all the things I saw, especially the treatment accorded her classes by a very brilliant, high-strung, young woman teacher who was considered one of the bright lights of the school. It seemed to me that a lesser light, one that did not scorch and burn, and leave scars on souls by the rays of ridicule and sarcasm, would have been more desirable in such a place.
My work for higher certification operated as a cause to bring me a different sort of teaching. I began to receive opportunities from the State Department of Education for institute work. In several of these, Theron B. Pray, who was then institute conductor on the faculty of the Whitewater Normal school, was the head conductor. He had been one of the state Board of Examiners, had discovered me through my papers, and seemed interested in helping me on. I distinctly recollect some experiences in these institutes, but places are not always remembered. One, however, I am sure about because of a humorous association. There came to me one summer day in 1893 a telegram from Madison, which read, “Go help pray at Elkhorn.” This message greatly puzzled my good friend, Billy McDermott, Kenosha's genial telegraph operator, who had never heard of any ability on
And now I have come to the last link in the chain of cause and effect that led me away from Kenosha. With an account of that this chapter will close.
Wisconsin in 1894 was completing its sixth normal school at Stevens Point, and in May of that year Mr. Pray was elected president of it. He immediately set about the selection of the faculty. One day in June, I received a letter from him which greatly surprised me. It asked for an interview in regard to taking a position in the Stevens Point Normal School. At this interview different positions were mentioned; but my ideal of what a normal school teacher should know and be able to do was such that a position as critic teacher in the Model School, as the practice department was then called, seemed about all I was prepared for, with some assurance of success. The position of grammar school critic was accordingly offered me. This was probably the place which Mr. Pray had designed for me, but hesitated to propose it lest I refuse, because I might consider it a step downward and, then too, the salary was $200 less than I had been receiving for several years.
People seemed to want me to stay at Kenosha, and one personal reason for doing so was the fact that I had bought a home near the high school. Mr. Cleary, the principal, had resigned, and I was asked to apply for that place. But the life certificate which I needed for such a position was not yet secured; one or two hard examinations were still facing me, and I knew that that condition would be worrisome.
An old friend, a Kenosha lawyer, who had started his practice at Stevens Point, and who had known it as a lumbering town, painted a rather discouraging picture of the
Nevertheless, I stuck to my decision. A normal school position would be a distinct step in professional advancement; moreover, there would come for my son, then fourteen and in his first year of high school, educational advantages through the normal school that Kenosha did not have for him. There was a third reason, which I had not then so clearly formulated, or which I was not so sure about as I am now,—namely, that it is a good policy when holding a public position, to resign while you are still wanted. I felt sure that it was time that I should be leaving the Kenosha high school position and I have never regretted my decision. There seemed to me to have come a “tide” in my “affairs” and that I had better take it “at the flood.” While it did not lead on to “fortune” exactly, I was spared the fate of being “bound in shallows and in misery”—the misery of discontent.
The
state legislature of 1891 authorized the establishment of an additional normal school, to be located in the central section of the state. This would be number six in the chronological list of such Wisconsin schools, since the one in Oshkosh, which was third, had been succeeded by the River Falls School in 1875, and by Milwaukee in 1885.
In specifying the general location, the legislature recognized the fact that it is the nearness of a school, and the ease with which it can be reached that are determining factors for many young people in the question of further education. In the section specified, those pupils who were able to do so had been obliged to go to Oshkosh or farther south for their desired schooling; but the long distance from home and the expense entailed, cut off many from their only chance for higher education. Placed in northern and central Wisconsin, this institution would furnish an educational stimulus to a large region without infringing on the prerogatives of any other normal school. It was left to the Board of Regents to decide upon the exact location.
Several cities became active competitors for the privilege and the honor of securing one of these very desirable schools. Among them was Stevens Point, and its strongest rival was Wausau. “After a prolonged controversy the Board, in July 1893, selected Stevens Point.”
I am indebted to Judge Park for further interesting information about the building of the school. The state required that any city seeking a school must provide the cost of the building, limited in this case to $50,000, and furnish the location for it. Of the amount named, the city of Stevens Point raised $30,000, and Portage County, $20,000, “and this money in cash was paid to the State Treasurer.” The important duty of transferring that large sum was performed by George L. Rogers, Emmons Burr, G. E. McDill, Andrew Week, and Mr. Park, who “took the money in two satchels from Stevens Point to Madison.”
The site for the building was selected by the board and paid for by the city. The contract was let late in 1893, the cost of heating, lightning, and furnishing being borne by the state.
It is very easy to imagine the interest with which every step in the progress of the building was watched by the people of Stevens Point, and how their interest extended to those who would be engaged to carry on the work therein. Mr. Pray was in Stevens Point most of the next summer, and from the occasional newspaper reports of progress made in the selection of his faculty, our names and something of our personal and professional status were known sometime before we arrived. The opening of the school was advertised for September 17, 1894, and we were all summoned to be there a week before that date.
Acquaintance with Stevens Point for my son and myself began on Monday, September 10, when we arrived from Kenosha and went to the Jacob's House to stay until a living place could be found. He was then fourteen years of age, had had but a half year in high school, and was somewhat worried about where he would be classed in the new school. Among the places open to the teachers was the fine old home of the late Judge Gilbert L. Park, father of the regent, whose younger brother and sister occupied it. Its location with reference to the school was convenient, the three-room suite offered was most desirable, and we considered ourselves very fortunate when we became the favored applicants. That was our home for four years. At the beginning of the Spanish American War, Gilbert Park Jr., familiarly known as “Bert,” enlisted, and went south; Miss Anna, the sister, went on a visit to relatives in the West and the home was closed.
When the men and women whom Mr. Pray had selected to assist in this educational undertaking had all assembled, the list was as follows: C. H. Sylvester, institute conductor, literature and botany Garry E. Culver, physical sciences Joseph V. Collins, mathematics Albert H. Sanford, history, government, political economy Miss Bertha S. Pitman, Latin and German Miss Caroline E. Crawford, physical training, hygiene Miss Mary E. Tanner, drawing Miss Sophia Linton, vocal music Miss Emma J. Haney, director of practice teaching and English Model Department Mrs. Mary D. Bradford, principal, grammar grades Miss M. Frances Quinn, principal, intermediate grades Miss Jennie Rebecca Faddis, principal, primary grades Miss Isabelle Patterson, librarian and clerk Peter Kelly, janitor
Since the character of a school is determined and shaped by those who organize and run it, it seems appropriate here to give a brief account of the men and women named above; for they with others, selected by the president as needed, caused this school during the twelve years covered by my story, to have a distinct individuality among schools of its kind, so it was said. I will give here a brief statement of the professional standing of the president, and a few facts about those whom he chose to assist him in the realization of his aims.
Theron B. Pray was a native of New York,—Wyoming, Monroe County, being his birthplace. The family afterwards moved to Illinois, and later to Owasso, Michigan. After graduation from the old University of Chicago, Mr. Pray taught at Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam. Then followed the principalship of the high school at Tomah, after which he was called back to Beaver Dam to be principal of the high school there. When elected to the presidency of the Stevens Point Normal, he had for twelve years been the institute conductor and teacher of mathematics in the Whitewater Normal School. In those days when the county institutes, held throughout the state, were such an important factor in the preparation and progress of elementary teachers, especially those of rural schools, the position of institute conductor in a state normal school ranked next to that of president; and frequently led to the higher office, when the aspirant to such promotion possessed suitable personality and administrative ability. The work took a man all over the state and made him widely known among teachers and THERON B. PRAY
President of State Normal School, Stevens Point, Wis. 1894-1906.
C. H. Sylvester was the first one chosen by Mr. Pray for his new faculty. He had been the principal of the Whitewater high school, and had there come into close relations with Mr. Pray. Later he held the position of high school inspector in the State Department of Public Instruction at Madison. In that capacity he had visited every high school in the state and was popular with all classes of teachers. He was eminently prepared for this new position. More than that, the interests of the new school, starting as it must with a small faculty would be best served by those who were possessed of broad interests and versatile ability. Besides being an inspiring teacher of his special subject, literature, Mr. Sylvester was able to lead in those outside athletic activities so necessary for the popularity of a school. He was born at Boscobel, Wisconsin, where, as principal of the local high school, the foundation was laid for his fame as an educator.
Garry E. Culver, also a native of Wisconsin, graduated from the Whitewater Normal School in 1873. After that he alternated teaching and further study along the lines of science, especially chemistry and geology. He attended summer schools at Harvard and the University of Wisconsin, and did post-graduate work at the latter place. His teaching experience included common school, principalship of graded and high school, three years at the Whitewater Normal School and eight years in the University of South Dakota. His breadth of experience and innate teaching ability coupled with certain personality traits that won the love and respect of all students who came under his influence, made this choice also a very fortunate one.
Joseph V. Collins was born near Wooster, Ohio. With the preparation afforded by the country school, he entered the college at Wooster at fifteen years of age, and graduated with honors five years later. After a year of teaching he studied at Johns Hopkins majoring in mathematics. Then for five years he held the position of professor of mathematics in Hastings College, Hastings, Nebraska, and for another five years in Miami University at Oxford, Ohio. This was the record with which he came to Stevens Point.
Albert H. Sanford was born at Platteville, Wisconsin and graduated from the normal school there in 1886. After teaching three years in the Dodgeville high school, he entered the University of Wisconsin, graduating in 1891. He next held the position of history teacher in the Wisconsin Academy in Madison, and during 1892-93 did graduate work at the university in history and economics. In 1893-94 he was a student in the Harvard Graduate School, and received his Master's Degree from that university in 1894, just before going to Stevens Point.
Miss Bertha S. Pitman was born in Madison. She graduated in 1885 from the University of Wisconsin, and began that year to teach German and Latin in the Madison high school. Except for a year which was partly spent in a European trip, she continued in the same teaching position until she was called to Stevens Point.
Miss Caroline E. Crawford, a native of Michigan, had prepared for her work in Boston in the Hemenway School of Gymnastics, where she had studied the plan and methods put in operation by Dr. Sargeant of Harvard. She brought to the new school the latest ideas about physical training, that, rather than what generally goes under the head of gymnastics, being Mr. Pray's purpose for this department.
Miss Mary Ella Tanner was born in Berlin, Wisconsin, and graduated from the high school there. At Marinette,
Miss Sophia Linton, engaged for the vocal music, matched in her enthusiasm for her specialty that of the young women just named for their respective callings of physical training and drawing. Miss Linton's home was in Michigan.
Miss Emma J. Haney came from New England. She had a record for success in the field of elementary pedagogy, with the details of which I am unacquainted.
The three women designated as principals of the three rooms of the “Model Department,” and also known as “critic teachers” were Miss Haney’ immediate associates.
Miss Jennie Rebecca Faddis, who had charge of the first, second, and third grades of the Model School was born near Mankato, Minnesota. She graduated from the Mankato Normal School and after teaching for a while entered a training school in Chicago to prepare for kindergarten work. After graduating from that institution she returned to Mankato and established the first kindergarten in that city. She came to Stevens Point from Peru, Nebraska, where she had taught for four years in the state normal school there.
Miss Frank Quinn who had charge of the intermediate room of three grades—fourth, fifth, and sixth—had been a very popular and successful teacher in the schools of Stevens Point. Besides her natural teaching ability and her earnest spirit as a student of education, she brought to the practice school and to her associates in it a knowledge of local conditions
The third critic teacher was myself.
It will be observed from what I have given concerning the faculty members that, with one or two exceptions, not one of them had ever taught before in a normal school, although all had had considerable experience in teaching in private or public schools; and all were well qualified for work in their respective fields of study. Such was the confidence of their leader in them, that all were free to work out their own ideals in this new school.
While President Pray aimed to make this as good a training school as possible, he did not want it to be modeled too closely after others, and this not merely for the purpose of being different. His experience in, and observation of normal schools had convinced him of needed changes. His ambition was to realize as many of such changes as would conduce to the development of a training school of a really progressive character,—one that would turn out for service in the schools of the state, teachers imbued with the same spirit. It was an inspiring opportunity for those whom he selected to work with him, and one that certainly was calculated to stimulate endeavor.
The following quotation taken from Mr. Pray's dedicatory address
Time is short and youth is fleeting; and if by experiment or by utilization of other's labors, this School may add anything to the common
From the same address I quote another paragraph, not only because it was characteristic of the man, but also because it expressed the spirit of the school so far as he was able to influence it. It is a very significant message to all who essay to teach—to the trainers of teachers as well as to those in training, reaching out as it does through them to the children for whom alone, in the final analysis, normal schools exist:
The teacher's calling is a high and noble one, holding as it often does, the keys of destiny for those submitted to his care. An unsympathetic teacher may dull the edge of a sharpening intellectual appetite; or an unskillful one dismay and discourage by his formalism and empty pedantry, the keen minds that would pursue realities and not endure the threshing of chaff. The teacher is given more often than any other the privilege of opening for the child the gates into a new realm. Activities and capacities not infrequently lie dormant until quickened into life by the inspiring breath of a real teacher, whose own soul has been similarly fired by contact with a fresh coal from the altar of knowledge.
The building occupied a site of five acres, which has since been considerably extended. It was located on Main Street in a good residence section of the east side of the city. The cost of equipment raised the original cost of the building to $70,000, and a statement believed to be true, says that the total cost at the end of the second year had reached $90,000. It was oblong in shape, patterned after the newer ideals in school architecture, and there was a rear extension of the middle portion. It was originally designed for additions on the west and east ends, as future developments would necessitate. Black River Falls pressed brick was used in the construction, with sandstone and white terra cotta trimmings
A prominent feature of the building was the gymnasium, which occupied the ground floor of the rear extension, and above which was the main assembly room, each 50 by 70 feet. This assembly room was also used as a study room.
After a week of waiting, we were all glad to have the opening day arrive. There is always a feeling of adventure about a new educational enterprise, and this was experienced not only by the boys and girls and the men and women who swarmed to the new school on that first day, but by the teachers as well.
The registration by Mr. Pray of pupils for the Model School had been going on for sometime. Either because he wanted to be sure that his important part of a training school for teachers should be well supplied with practice material, or because he was desirous of making it as useful as possible to the community, there had been little or no selection exercised in the admission of applicants. The tuition fee was small. The result was that along with excellent material from which might be shaped a “Model School” there was some that gave evidence of not being wanted elsewhere. Just how many came the first morning to my room I do not remember, but the enrollment for the year was 61. The intermediate and primary grades were also filled to capacity, the records giving 165 as the total for the model
Now that we have the educational wheels running and the teacher operatives in place, let us take a look at
My first impressions of the locality were not very favorable, and the question was asked by more than one who came to work in the school, why had the regents settled upon this locality as a site for the sixth normal school of the state.
I recall that at the end of the first or second week a few of the women of the faculty decided to drive about and see the country. Our outfit for the occasion was the best one that the city livery stable afforded—a three seated buggy, drawn by a beautiful team of white horses of which the capable driver was justly proud.
Our vehicle plowed through deep sand, and we were smothered with dust. The country all about was flat and sandy, seeming to me—accustomed as I was to the black-soiled lowlands and rich, rolling uplands of southern Wisconsin—like a veritable desert. Most of the farmhouses we passed were poor-looking, and almost everything seemed terribly down-at-the-heels. Then came Plover, showing all the signs of an abandoned place, similar to those seen in mining regions a few years after the prosperous boom time of some lucky strike.
Had we known more of its history, Plover would have
Plover was an unfortunate choice for that first excursion. If we had only gone in the order direction and had seen the glorious grove of pines north of the city, standing nearly intact near the great river—a sample of the primeval forest in the midst of which Stevens Point had intruded itself in the early days, and which, except for the trees on those few acres, had entirely disappeared. That would have been a sight which one would have to go far, even in New England, to match! Or had we taken the route to the west, crossing the river, and following the more picturesque road south along the west bank, the first impression of our environment would have been more favorable.
There is a story about an old woman, not very clear in her mind about the relation of cause and effect, who once returned thanks to the Lord for making the Mississippi River run by St. Louis. One had only to hear in the quiet of the night the never ceasing roar of water flowing over a
A history of this interesting place is not intended, but for a background of the situation in which the faculty of the new institution found themselves, and as a cause or source of developing interest felt by most of them, a brief statement of the chief industries and its people seems relevant.
The time had been when the vast pine forests of Wisconsin were within easy reach of it on all sides, and with its fine water power Stevens Point had grown to be a great lumber city. In 1894, although these industries, as the forests receded, had waned somewhat, they were still second to none in the state. To the north and to the south of the city, great mills were operating and a smaller one was located across the river. In these, shrieking saws moved irresistably through logs, captured from the river and compelled to meet their fate; then riven to pass the ordeal of another roaring monster, the edger, and then to find a place as lumber in piles covering acres upon acres of land; or to be further riven into lath or shingles or box material. An annual output in these mills respectively, of from six to twelve million feet of lumber meant much shrieking and roaring, veritable music to the ears of owners, and a welcome sound to those hundreds of workmen whose muscular energy, spent in their operation and control, brought food, shelter, and clothing to their families.
Nor was the lumber business all that the mighty Wisconsin promoted the development of, in Stevens Point. There were two flour mills near the center of the city, one of which had a capacity of 150 barrels of flour a day, and a third mill of like capacity a mile or two down the river.
Still farther down, the rapids had again been harnessed to furnish power for great paper mills. In one of these with its six 200-horse-power waterwheels, rags were transformed into print paper, fine writing an super-calendered book paper. For this work, the wonderful river not only yielded up its power, but graciously contributed of its virtues—its soft water being specially adapted to the needs of this industry. Also on the east bank was located the Wisconsin Pulp and Paper Company, with an almost incredible output; its great machines turning out, so it was estimated, enough print paper in a few moments to cover an acre of land.
But the mills mentioned, dependent to so large a degree upon the river, were not the only or the principal business for which Stevens Point was noted in 1894. It was then the center of a railroad system, the Wisconsin Central, and the superintendent of the four divisions of that system had his home there, as did the families of the 550 men employed in the shops of the company, or engaged in some other line of related service. These shops and yards are reported to have covered 50 acres. From them there came completed, and rolled out upon the rails, parlor cars, dining cars, sleepers, passenger and baggage cars, mail and freight cars. “The citizens of the town rated the Wisconsin Central as the back bone of the city and considered it a sure foundation for its continued prosperity”—a “back bone” which, after a few years the wheel of fortune, turned by the self-interest of a new control, broke; and a “foundation” which the same interest transferred to Fond du Lac.
Many great fortunes had been made in Stevens Point through the utilization for private benefit of the natural forest resources of the state. But, as we soon found to be the case, many of those to whom the greatest riches had thus come did not remain in Stevens Point, and perhaps to share their wealth with others through some philanthropic public
As the geology of the region we revealed to us by Mr. Culver; as the virtues of what had seemed to me to be desert soil became known; as beauty spots all around were discovered; as October showered a wealth of color in the landscape not excelled by that seen in the White Mountains, or the Berkshires of Massachusetts; as winter brought its steady cold, and fine sleighing; a spring came with its abundance of arbutus—our physical environment as well as our social environment ingratiated itself into the lives of most of us, and we were content. Even the filtered water of the Wisconsin which we had to drink, having the color of cold tea, of which new arrivals sometimes mistook it, was like for its recognized purity and healthfulness.
After a while we lost, I regret to say, one of the much loved scenes I have already mentioned. It was the bit of “the forest primeval” which in 1894 stood on the bank of the Wisconsin to the north of Stevens Point. This choice natural object brought to my ear for the first time the sound of the wind in the tree tops of the forest, of which poets had told me; and to my feet the feel of soft beds of pine needles. But there was money value in those mighty trees—the growth of centuries. The rumor reached us that they were
Farther up the Wisconsin there is today such a park filled with just such trees. It is a beautiful spot. Known as Bradley Park, it perpetuates the memory of the donor, and is not only the pride of th citizens of Tomahawk, but a pleasure to all who visit it,—a natural object of enduring value and of increasing rareness, which people will travel miles to see.
After this digression about our environment, we will again take up matters of school interest, the first of a personal character.
The important position of supervisor of practice was first filled by Miss Emma J. Haney. Unfortunately, Miss Haney was unable to adjust herself to the new situation. She did not like the West, was apt to draw comparisons between her present and past environment, including in her remarks factors human as well as material. In brief, she was unhappy and discontented. Ill health, either the cause or the effect of this state of mind, obliged her to resign at the end of the first semester of the first year. Mr. Pray asked me to take her place, an entirely unsought and unexpected honor.
It was not without some regret that I gave up the position of critic teacher of grammar grades. I had begun to feel that my room was getting in shape for observation by pupils in training and by visitors of whom we had many; but the new place was a big step upwards professionally and brought a 50 per cent increase in salary. The new duties caused me to realize how fortunate I had been to have had the varied experiences afforded by those hard years in the Kenosha high school, where I had, as previously described, been obliged at one time or another to teach about every subject in the curriculum. That breadth of experience furnished a decidedly valuable preparation for the guidance of those who could practice the art of thing under my supervision and direction. This was especially true of the upper grades.
Of my preparation for such responsibilities in the primary grades, I was not so sure. But I was ready to learn; and Miss Faddis, the critic teacher in those grades, was of superior ability and possessed of advanced ideal. Her training prepared her to carry into that room the spirit of the kindergarten, which we all feel today is most desirable. True it is, that observers with old ideals of order were sometimes shocked by the freedom exercised by the children, but hers was never in the right sense a disorderly school. There was no order for order's sake, but or the school's sake, which motive the children were brought to realize, and willingly complied with. There was no display, nothing just for show; individuality was respected, natural interests skillfully aroused and utilized to some practical end, as when the furnishing of the beautiful playhouse was the absorbing motive,—a very common project now, but then new. It seemed to me that everything she said to those children and every move she made was guided by one purpose, the right effect on character development.
She inducted me into the latest ideals of primary teaching, ideals not commonly realized even today in our schools—and that was upwards of forty years ago. Jennie Rebecca Faddis was ahead of her times. A sense of the importance of the work she did for that school, and for the state through the students who went forth imbued with her spirit, and the appreciation of what she did for me, moves me to this special account of her work. Just what I, and others through me, owe her, my be judged from later developments.
All who years ago attended a normal school in Wisconsin or elsewhere will know something of what my new position involved. For others a brief statement may be a justifiable use of space and to some it may have interest for purposes of comparison. Here is given what a
woman
seemed to be expected to do and did do, at that stage of normal school evolution. There was, I think, a considerable change when women in these positions were superseded by men, as they were soon after my time throughout Wisconsin normal schools, except at Oshkosh.
Preliminary to teaching a group of children in the practice school, students were obliged to take certain preparatory professional subjects, in addition to those of an academic character, such as theory and art of teaching and observation of class exercises as conducted by the critic teachers. When ready for it, they were, after consultation with the supervisor, assigned a group of children to teach for a term of ten weeks. To make conditions for success at the start as favorable as possible, their preferences as to subject were usually considered in their first assignment. The field of work for which they were preparing, primary, intermediate, or grammar grades, was also taken into account, and it was JENNIE REBECCA FADDIS
Primary Critic Teacher, Stevens Point Normal, 1894-1901.
Kindergarten Director, 1904-1906
Interviews with critic teachers in regard to the course of study, and the special needs of the different groups of children followed, and then written plans for a week's work were submitted to the supervisor. In these plans the Herbartian steps of instruction were followed, rather formal and mechanical as sometimes applied, but considered a good guide to the right order of procedure in teaching. Instruction in lesson planning was also expected of me, although it seemed to me that a better correlation of work between departments might have had this attended to in some preparatory professional class.
These plans had to be read, and criticized, and that was one of my duties. Monday was usually devoted to it. I was charged by the student with using considerable red ink. Also, for one hour each day, I gave a course of lectures to the practice teachers and others on elementary methods, a ten-week course, repeated four times a year. I saved myself from the deadening effect of the monotony of this repetition by constant readjustment to newly discovered needs, and by the light of new truth revealed by continuous study.
All the rest of the time I was visiting the classes-of practice teachers, observing, demonstrating when it seemed best, holding advisory consultations after visits, etc. It has been said that a critic's ink may suffer from too strong an infusion of either nutgall or sugar. I most sincerely would have it said of me that if the ink I used showed an unbalanced admixture of these qualities, sugar rather than nutgall predominated; for discouragement and worry are hardly favorable to the right conditioning of men and women towards the calling they have intended to follow, and praise,
When the practice teachers were few, as they were in the first years of the school, visits to individuals wer sufficiently frequent to enable the supervisor to keep in touch with what was being done; but when there were as many as eighty or more of them at work every day, any individual benefit resulting from her necessarily infrequent visits could not have amounted to much. Critic teachers gave valuable help in the directing of the work.
Finally, as the school grew, the model department became too small to meet the demands for practice and to carry out to an honest fulfillment the promise of the advertised course in teacher-training. It was little more than a farce, when two pupil teachers had joint assignment, and alternated in taking charge of a group; and when the classes were so small as to furnish little experience in handling a situation such as a teacher would find in real life. Then, much to my relief, arrangements were made with the school board of Stevens Point to use for Practice purposes the lower grades of a near-by elementary school. Josephine Fitzgerald of Oshkosh was elected as critic teacher of those grades. This extension enabled the school to carry out more fully the promises of its catalogue.
That the practice teaching was not an unpopular requirement seems evidenced by a report of the president which says: “On the whole there is a tendency in the local school to do more than the required amount of practice. The actual amount of practice required for the full course is 30 weeks. The average taken here now is 36½ weeks. For the elementary course, the corresponding items are 20 and 27½ weeks.”
The summer following my promotion found me at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, for a few weeks of study. This school with G. Stanley Hall at its head, and with a strong staff of associates, was then considered the very fountainhead of knowledge and inspiration in matters psychological and pedagogical. To follow up the metaphor, I will say that I was there to get the benefit of its helpful waters for the ills and weaknesses made evident by my new responsibilities, and that this result was realized.
It was not until 1903 that time was found for another summer term of study. That year the National Educational Association met in Boston. It was a very hot season—a state of weather usually found, so I have repeatedly observed, in any city to which the N. E. A. elects to go, in spite of many promises to the contrary of its interested champions. So after the Boston meeting was over, I gladly hurried to Martha's Vineyard, where for a number of years a summer school called the “Agassiz School of Methods” had been held. I had for some time been desirous of attending this much advertised school. On the whole I was disappointed in it, for in most lines of pedagogy the West was fully abreast of what the lectures presented there. However, from two subjects I profited much. Dean Henry L. South-wick of the Emerson School of Oratory in Boston was an inspiring teacher of reading, and likewise Clarence Weed, specialist and author, of another favorite subject of mine, nature study.
From the very beginning, the county and the city that had contributed the $50,000 for the building, got returns on
Statistics about the previous teaching experience of those attending this school indicate that teachers of long experience availed themselves of the opportunities for the improvement which it offered. While more than half of the total students enrolled during the first year had not taught at all, the others had so long a teaching record, ranging to as high as 125 months, that the average experience of all pupils above the reparatory grade, was 14 months. It was probably due to the presence of so large a body of mature men and women that the steadiness and working character of the young school was so largely due. In the succeeding years many of the first-year elementary course students reported over 50 months of teaching, and some of them 100 months.
For comparison with present standards, the following fact may have interest: Of the students that first year (not counting the preparatory classes) only 22½ per cent were graduates of high school. These, when well prepared, might by steady application complete the course and secure the diploma in two years.
President Pray's desire to make the school contribute in every way possible to the educational needs of his territory and not to debar those with worthy aspirations from benefits which they were to any degree prepared for, caused him to admit to a one-year course those who were then teaching or
That the gymnasium was one of the especial interests of President Pray is shown by the following quotation, expressing his views on the subject of physical training:
In all recent well considered educational foundations, provision is made for physical training; not for play alone, nor chiefly, but for growth through play and serious training. Instead of suppressing a natural—that is God-given—instinct, we seek to direct its exercise and make it fruitful of desirable results. ... It is hoped that from this training there may go forth stronger and healthier, and so happier, teachers of our youth; whose thought will be so marked with the idea of physical perfection, and a knowledge of the necessary means to secure it that the many destructive tendencies of school life may be counteracted. ... It does not befit an enlightened civilization that a course of training to fit pupils for the duties that await them should leave those same pupils unequal to their tasks. Hence teachers more than all others should so acquaint themselves with the needs and conditions of growing youth, as to enter with helping guidance and sympathy into their lives. Hence the generous provision here made for physical training may be considered as strictly educational in character, and properly occupying a prominent place in a
Normal
School.
The gymnasium was on the basement level, and the room, reaching up to the second story, was 25 feet in height. Doors opposite the first floor landing opened upon a gallery extending about this large room, and from it exercises, games and drills taking place on the floor below could be viewed. Although the sloping floor of this gallery, which served as the running track of the gymnasium, did not make it an ideal
This interesting room was equipped with abundant apparatus for light and heavy gymnastics. Physical measurements of each student and of all children in the practice school were taken by Miss Crawford, the well-qualified director of all this work, and when necessary, these were made the bases of specially prescribed exercises suited to the needs of each individual. The bathrooms adjacent to the gymnasium were well provided with needed appliances, including dressing rooms and lockers. Mention is made of all these details because this normal school was the first one in the state to be thus equipped, and to carry out the anthropometric measurements and corrective work.
Comparison with the best that President Albee could and did do in the Oshkosh Normal School a quarter of a century before as mentioned in Chapter VIII, affords a measure of the progress made in supplying opportunities for physical training in a state institution.
In writing under this heading, my thought again goes back to the normal school that I knew in 1875 and 1876. I recall the repression; the ideal of proper order; the traditional magnifying of the act of whispering to the size of a school iniquity even when it caused no disturbance of the proper procedure of the school; the strict supervision of men and women old enough to take care of themselves, and who if incapable of doing so, were certainly not deserving of education by the state as future exemplars for its children.
The ideals of school order at Stevens Point were very different. No especial leadership is claimed for the new school in exemplifying a better, more rational ideal, for the
The following quotation from a speech by Mr. Pray in 1894 expressed his views on this subject:
Man is a social creature and the teacher must not forget to contribute his share to the general good. The school is not so different from other gatherings that the usual rules of kindly behavior and courtesy may be forgotten. It is not all of life to live; nor is the accumulation of means more important than the end sought,—culture and human happiness. Hence those social graces which adorn civilized life must claim the attention of the teachers.
As to morals, students were impressed with the belief that though there might not be agreement as to method, there could be no doubt whatever regarding the fundamental necessity that those universal truths and principles of action agreed upon by all thinking men should early be implanted in the hearts and souls of the young. Truth, industry, honesty, independence, brotherly love, patriotism—which he described as “the main spring of most heroic sacrifice for the good of others”—were the aims stressed in conduct guidance. He said:
Every school must teach by example, and may well often add precept; and no school can be worth public support, since it cumbers the ground and hinders a better one, which neglects to teach most emphatically these fundamental principles of conduct.
It was not long after the school started before out-of-door activities were organized, Mr. Sylvester leading in this work. In the spring of the first year there was a field day. Football received attention early, and the full grown men among the students furnished excellent material for the vigorous training that had begun. In the fall of the second
The following spring competition in field days with Oshkosh and Lawrence College took place. I was glad to have my son take part in field competitions, but his participation in football was different matter. I was charged by enthusiasts for this game with being afflicted with what today would be called an ‘anti-football complex.” The desire of my fifteen-year-old son join one of the teams raised for me a very troublesome problem, as such an interest has for many parents.
I did not want him to suffer from the judgment of the crowd, and to have his self-respect impaired by prohibiting his engaging in what was regarded as a manly sport; but I knew that he was not ready for such strenuous effort. No objection was made, however, when the attractions of the training table drew him away from my boarding place. I knew that would not harm him. It helped some in the solution of my problem when a catalog of protective appliances brought to my attention. As many of these as seemed needful were purchased. Among these, I got a pair of silk and rubber, tight-fitting knee caps to protect knee joints not yet well knit; a rather conspicuous green-colored pair of gold hose, designed to help in the identification of legs in which I was especially interested, formed a part of the outfit. Drawn to the games first, so that I could be near at hand when the “green stockings” might be carried prone off the field, my interest in the sport was developed, and as the green stockings always came out of those dreadful
melées
safe and right end up, my “complex” was reduced.
All this was long before the great American game elicited form Nicholas Murray Butler this characterization: “Football is a profession, an academic nuisance and a commercial enterprise” and, it may be added in view of the season just past, a dangerous sport. But in those old days, the brutal, premeditated hard play, stressed today by leading authorities on coaching, was not allowed, much less advocated. On account of all these later phases of the game, my old complex is being stirred to life again.
It was not until the fourth year of the school that dancing was allowed at the social gatherings. Miss Crawford was not supported until then in her efforts to introduce dancing as a feature of these evening entertainments. There was some public sentiment in the town opposed to it, and many students had been reared to regard it as really sinful, or as especially inappropriate for teachers. I clearly recall the faculty meeting and the discussion that ensued when the question of having dancing at a coming social event took place. A compromise measure was finally adopted. It was decided that, provided a program of entertainment for
all
was made the first and principal part of the evening's entertainment, dancing might afterwards be allowed for a short time. After that, objections gradually died out.
Opportunities for participation in the cultural aspects of life characterized this school to a marked degree. I intend to make no comparisons here, for I do not know what was being done in other normal schools of the state. I want simply to set forth what was an evident purpose on the part of the head of this school, and what in a quiet, unostentatious way was accomplished in a few years. He evidently desired and designed to supplement knowledge in its quantitative acquired
but
grows,
under certain environmental influences, one of which is the presence of art in its various forms. He knew that with nearly all of the students who would come to this school, their environment had not furnished them with such privileges and he believed that as teachers they needed these cultural contacts. Literature and music had long been recognized in every well-balance course of study as a part of the spiritual heritage of everybody, as much so as were science and history. Pictures by the great masters had through new processes of reproduction begun to claim recognition, also, as a part of that heritage of the beautiful, and now sculpture through plaster replicas was being made available for all who cared enough for such art to pay the relatively small price asked for them. This was the form of cultural heritage that was particularly stressed for the students at Stevens Point. Small sums of money as they came to his hand from various sources—activities of the school or gifts from classes and others—were expended for the best reproduction of old Greek and later Italian sculpture with an occasional bust of a distinguished modern personage.
The catalog of the school at the end of its sixth year contains a beautiful cut showing the pieces of statuary that had gradually been accumulated through those few years. For this picture, students under the direction of Miss Tanner had arranged a background of foliage on the wall back of the assembly platform on which the pieces of statuary belonging to the school were arranged with fine effect. Among them are good sized reproductions of such classic pieces as the winged “Victory of Samothrace,” Cellini's “Mercury,” Michael Angelo's “David,” and other of that order. I recall a remark by a visitor heard when the pieces first named above was set up, “Why don't Mr. Pray, when he buys those SOME OF THE STATUARY IN STEVENS POINT
NORMAL SCHOOL IN 1899had
stood intact on a distant island in the Mediterranean; and that as she saw it, one hundred and eighteen fragments had been pieced together, and that the long-sought, precious, lost head and arms were not broken off on the route from Boston to Stevens Point!
When one considers the fact that many young men and women, born and reared in the frontier regions of Wisconsin, remote from art galleries, saw for the first time, in the Stevens Point Normal, these forms of beauty, and were taught in the art department their history and meaning, then it will be understood why I consider this a significant characteristic of this school. And it did something for the community too. That great lack of art appreciation existed among some of the patrons of the Model School, and that this new contact was needed not only for cultural uplift but for moral benefit is shown by another incident. It was after the beautiful “Mercury, Messenger of the Gods” had come to us, and had found a place in the assembly room that the mother of one of the girls in the intermediate department of the Model School came to me with a very emphatic protest. If I had any plan for taking the pupils of that department upstairs to the assembly room, she wanted her little girl left out, and she gave her reasons. What was said in the course of that conversation cannot be repeated here. All my efforts to get he thought away from the “stark-naked boy” and move her to a little appreciation of the beauty of the piece were unavailing. It serves to illustrate what I am saying here about the need of opportunities for the development of art appreciation, for an environment with a few of the advantages, so abundant in European cities of old culture, and through art galleries in our larger cities, where to children
In the catalog of the tenth year is shown also a display of twenty-eight additions to the art treasures of the school. More statuary, bas-reliefs, busts of classic and modern people, appear in the picture, arranged by Miss Janette Reitler, who in 1902 became the president genius over this realm of culture. I am glad of the opportunity to pay a brief tribute to this phase of influence of Stevens Point Normal, and to express my sense of appreciation of it, for the personal educational benefit derived from it made a few years later a summer among the art treasures of Italy much more enjoyable and revealing than it would have been without the familiarity gained from living with a few fine reproductions found int the assembly room, halls, classrooms and art exhibit room of that school.
Music
was also from the very first an important educational factor, another of the distinctive cultural influences of the school. Music was something more than learning to read notes or to sing songs. For three years, 1900 to 1903, Mrs. Alice C. Clement was an inspiring leader, and performed an impressive service for the schools and for the community. Highly gifted as she was in her profession, and skilled in training courses, she engaged the talent, vocal and instrumental, of the city of Stevens Point in several successful musical events, one of which stands out in my memory as especially significant. It was the rendering of the “Messiah” by local talent with the aid of able soloists from Chicago. It was a great experience not only for those students and citizens who took part in it, but for all who heard it. After Mrs. Clement came Miss Ella Fink of Milwaukee, under whom the chorus and concert work was ably carried on.
Annual lecture courses
made a third item under this general heading. As a member of the faculty lecture course
What to some may seem more practical affairs, now claim attention, and the topic begins with some personal experiences.
During my twelve years at this normal school, nine of the summers found me in Wisconsin engaged for as many weeks as seemed to be best, in the teaching of county institutes. In this line of work, as has been previously told, I had had some experience before going to Stevens Point. The pay per diem was attractive, and was not so static as my salary, which never rose above $1,500 throughout all the time that I was in the service of the state. Besides that, women were not discriminated against in the institute pay schedules, and that fact my sense of justice approved. But above all, I enjoyed the work. I did not then seem to need complete cessation of teaching in order to rest. Change brought rest, and I enjoyed the association with the many earnest women, and a few men, who came to these institutes, most of them rural school teachers.
Among the county superintendents I found considerable differences as to professional attitudes and ability. It was gratifying to me to be called back again and again by a few
Among institute conductors I observed considerable difference in the treatment of their pupils, in conscientiousness about really earning what they were paid (but, then we all know how hot weather affects one's energies), in judgment as to the best use to make of the time. I came to know among these conductors many excellent teachers who inspired all their hearers, and from whom I learned much. But there were a few men who were regularly engaged in this important form of service for the state who, it seemed to me, were “following after false gods.”
For example, there was one man with whom I was associated in several institutes, one of the regular conductors, whose “pet stunt” in arithmetic was “Least Common Multiple” and “Greatest Common Divisor.” Precious time of those teachers was taken with the display of his wonderful power finding, with astounding alacrity, the L.C.M. and the G.C.D. of any reasonable series of numbers named by the class. These according to my notion, were useless, senseless, misguiding performances, the veritable “threshing of chaff” to use Mr. Pray's words already quoted. What those teachers needed for the sake of the children of their school was, in the first place, to know how children acquire ideas of number, and how to help the process; how to handle in the best way the teaching of fundamental skills, and their application to the common practical affairs of life. Other illustration of what seemed to me to be waste of time, I refrain form even mentioning lest my readers charge me with wasting
their
time with pedagogical dissertations. “Institute
This much I will venture concerning my own work, Faults I undoubtedly had, but I had no “pet stunts” to display to awe the unskilled. Neither did my work aim to help those attending in order to pass the coming examinations, especially along academic, informational lines, and probably that disappointed some; but I was strongly desirous of sharing with those teachers and would-be-teachers what I believed to be true about teaching children. No claim is made to being exceptional in these respects.
It was probably in methods of beginning reading that I met with the greatest success. With groups of children gathered from the village or city where the institute was held, a demonstration was made day after day, of what to do and how to dot it. Nature study was also introduced as often as possible; for it was pitifully true of those earnest teachers that “eyes they had but they saw not,” and being blind they could not “lead the blind” to the enjoyment of the wonders of nature all around them. About other work attempted in literature, home geography, arithmetic, and grammar, limitation of space forbids mention, and good taste says “move on.”
Out of certain institute experiences there grew and interest that later opened the way for winder service to the teachers of the state. I became acquainted with facts about the pay for which these men and women whom I met were working. They were receiving barely a living wage, and many of them could scarcely afford the expense incurred for the two or three weeks f institute attendance. The could save nothing for the future. So when in 1900 the Wisconsin Teachers’ Association appointed me on a committee to study the question of teachers’ pension, I was glad to serve. Superintendent John F. Lamont of Marathon County was chairman. Most of the study fell upon me, but I was glad to do it, and to know what was being done elsewhere in the United States. The report of the committee's findings and recommendations is printed in the 1904 volume of
Proceedings ... of the Wisconsin Teachers’ Association.
My attention has been called to an interesting point in that report that I had entirely forgotten—the advocating of the use of the phrase “Teacher’ Retirement Fund” instead of “Teachers’ Pension.”
There came a time when an ambition was felt to put into print the methods lectures I had been giving. One on
The Teaching of Arithmetic
came on in 1904 or 1905, and I was getting the material in shape for the second on
The Teaching or Reading.
Then something occurred that changed my plans. In the fall of 1905 a request came from State Superintendent Cary for me to write the reading section for the new edition of the
Manual of the Course of Study for Common Schools,
issued by the State Department of Public Instruction. I contributed my projected pamphlet, considerably expanded to meet the needs of teaching of all grades. The first edition of this manual was printed in 1906, the second in 1909, with some revisions of my section, and the third in 1913, when I was too busy to help further. I regard
It was undoubtedly to cause county institutes to perform more uniformly their designed function of furnishing rural and other teachers with instruction about the art of teaching and helping them to a knowledge of really usable sort, and of real cultural value, that there was issued by State Superintendent L. D. Harvey (1899-1903) a new manual for institutes more specific than the old ones, and this manual all conductors were directed to follow. There was some “rattling of dry bones” but that was what Mr. Harvey liked to engage in. My next topic shows how he undertook to do this on a still wider scale.
On Monday morning, December 17, 1900, there assembled for a week's institute, at the centrally located Oshkosh Normal School, the entire faculties of all of the seven Wisconsin State Normal Schools, a total of 160 persons. It was called by the Board of Regents of Normal Schools, and all teachers not disqualified by illness were required to attend. Such attendance—to quote the words of the official notice—“shall be considered a full discharge of contract obligations to the Board for that week.”
It is not my purpose to give anything like an adequate account of this meeting, the official report of which is a volume of 478 pages,Ibid.
Never before in the history of the state nor for that matter, in that of any other state had the entire body of Normal School teachers, heads of departments, supervisors and presidents engaged in the most important work in the entire field of educational activity—namely the training of teachers, been brought together in general and special conferences upon the work they were doing.
Inspection of normal schools had brought to notice the fact that a great divergence in lines of work of the same designation had grown up in the system. Two topics were mentioned and the differences noted described. “What is here said of these two topics,” said Mr. J. Q. Emery, “is true in a greater or less degree of many, if not all of the topics of the course. Such conditions should be, can be, and will be improved.”
In order to have a coördinating factor that would bring about a unity of effort believed to be desirable among the different training schools of Wisconsin and between the academic and professional departments in every school, Mr. Harvey set forth and discussed at length what he maintained to be the Four Fundamentals,Ibid.,
p. 6 ff.
In and of themselves there was nothing new about the Four Fundamentals. They were based upon psychology as the hills, and upon scientific pedagogical principles purposely or intuitively followed by all real teachers; as “Proceed from the known to the related unknown.” But the plan meant readjustment and therefore it is not difficult to understand why the proposal to have the teachers of all subjects make lesson plans, and thus exemplify to students in their respective classrooms what those same students would have to do in the practice school, was not a popular proposal. But I am sure that the meeting re-impressed the purposes of normal schools, and caused every person there to think more than he had before about the need of logical procedure in the teaching exercise. To many the reform proposed by Mr. Harvey was preposterous, and this attitude of mind was not always confined to the “academics” of the faculty.
But there were those in every normal school who probably felt as I did about it—that it was a great step and a brave one. These were the critic teachers and supervisors of the schools for practice. I was glad to abandon the “Herbartian steps” for the “Four Fundamentals”—only another application of the same psychology, and a form that seemed less liable to lead to mechanical procedure. I watched and not in vain for effects in increased coöperation.
I believe that great benefit would have resulted from this brave attempt of Mr. Harvey to unify the work of Wisconsin normal schools had not a turn of the political wheel, greased, perhaps, a little by reaction from the Four Fundamentals, cut short his service to the state as the head of the educational system.
If a graph were drawn to show the attendance from 1894 to 1906 at the Stevens Point Normal School, it would express a rise from 201 the first year to 460 the fourth year and would keep at about that level for four years. Then there came a falling off for three years followed by a slight rise. The decrease in attendance was partly due to the opening of three county training schools within a radius of forty miles of Stevens Point. Besides that, because the capacity of the building had been outgrown, no effort had been made to encourage increased attendance.
But figures on enrollment are not the only evidences of growth. There was an increase in the number of high school graduates, and consequent increase in the upper grades of the normal school, which made possible advanced work in science and the languages. Elective work beyond the requirements of the course was provided for in college Latin, in geology, and chemistry. In 1902, in the ninth year of the school, a domestic science department offering a two-year course was added. Being the first one in a Wisconsin Normal School, it drew students from all parts of the state. An addition to the building had been sorely needed for several years and this was completed in 1900, at a cost to the state of $28,400. It was on the west end of the original building. This important change gave relief to the overcrowded study and classrooms and permitted more suitable offices for the president. There was a secondary assembly room; the art department, always badly cramped, had a large classroom and a display room. The practice department had new quarters, these including an office for the supervisor, the first she had had for many years. The building could now take care of 500 students.
STEVENS POINT NORMAL SCHOOL BUILDING IN 1900
School catalogues are not usually regarded as very interesting things, but for years I kept the first twelve coming out of the Stevens Point Normal. Never imagining that I would ever have need of them and feeling obliged to reduce the amount of such impediments, I let them go. Now, through the kindness of Miss Lulu M. Mansur, the librarian, I have them again, loaned for reference in this time of need. The pictures scattered through these pamphlets suggest events and people, and recall some of the special characteristics of the school, as those of art already mentioned, and of new movements as they developed. The faculty lists stir memories of those who were selected by the president to work with the “aborigines” of that institution, to fill the places vacated by a few of them, to become heads of or assistants on new departments as the growth of the school demanded, or to fill temporary vacancies.
There were in the twelve years when my name appears in the faculty list of the Stevens Point Normal, no less than 42 names of new members—30 women and 12 men—who for a longer or shorter period were called to work with the “Original Thirteen,” or such of them as persisted. They contributed to the progress of the school according to their special experience and interest, drank the tinted water of the Old Wisconsin, rah-rahed for the “Purple and Gold”
An essential qualification for an administrative position, one in which appointive power is exercised, as has been repeatedly demonstrated from the president of the United States down, is ability to read character and to exercise good judgment in the selection of suitable persons for the various positions that must be filled. That President Pray possessed such selective ability seems evident. In support of this statement, attention is first called to the work of the members of the original faculty, whose preparation for their respective positions was described earlier in the chapter; after them I will mention as many as space permits but not s many as I would like to of those who came later.
Collins, Culver, Sanford, and Sylvester were the mainstays in the institution from the first, and let me preface whatever I may tell of their public service by this expression of my personal appreciation; they were fine men for a certain fatherless adolescent boy to know as teachers and as friends. Mr. Collins is still there in this thirty-eight year of service, courageously carrying on in spite of the handicap of poor eyesight, a strong teacher of his favorite subject, mathematics. Thousands of students in that school have benefited by his teaching and many more thousands throughout the country know him as author of textbooks in algebra, the improved teaching of which branch those textbooks have influenced. Joseph V. Collins has attained mention in
Who's Who in America,
1930-1931, where I find other work than that of author of textbooks ascribed to him as follows: articles in magazines on metric system, language, prohibition, educational reform, and a course in Bible reading, 1923.
Garry E. Culver is next to mr. Collins in length of service at Stevens Point. He staid until 1923, a period of twenty-nine years, during which time he was the presiding genius of the laboratories of chemistry and physics in the early days, which were then away up under the roof, a situation
Albert H. Sanford, listed as teacher of history, government and political economy, staid fifteen years, leaving in 1909, when the new normal school at La Crosse was opened, where he became head of the history department of that school, a position he hold today. I am personally indebted to him for a contact he once formed with the practice school. He encouraged me by visiting my methods class, finding out what I was advocating in the teaching of history to children, asked for a class to teach and taught it for a ten-week term, testing the plan (that of “type-study” as we called it then, now known as “project method”) and utilized his experience in certain phases of his own courses. I feel that this is worthy of mention, because it was a signal, and almost single instance in my experience of that cooperation of the pedagogic with the professional which many authorities think should characterize teacher-training institutions.
Charles H. Sylvester, institute conductor and teacher of literature gave up the former work after three years, but staid as a teacher of literature and pedagogy for another
Mention has already been made of several of the women of the first years—of Miss Haney's short stay, of Miss Tanner's work for art appreciation, and of the success of the music department, founded by Miss Linton. Miss Pitman, teacher of Latin and German, made a short but impressive stay with us, resigning at the middle of the second year to marry Professor Frank C. Sharp of the University of Wisconsin. Hew successor was Miss Flora E. Stewart who, for one year after I left the position, had been grammar grade critic. She was a graduate of Wellesley and a teacher of experience. She remained as teacher of Latin for about four years. Hew successor was Katharine Pray, the eldest daughter of the president.
The grammar grade critic position was for the next five years filled by Miss Nannie R. Gray, who after that joined the normal school faculty as teacher of German. She had prepared for this work by studying in Germany. Except by students of the earlier years, she is remembered as the teacher of that branch; for she left Stevens Point only a few years ago, classifying then with Mr. Collins (although he
Miss Crawford's department has already been mentioned in another connection. She did a tremendous piece of work, and I used to wonder how she got through it all so well. For four and a half years she carried on this work, and then was discovered by the Chicago Normal School, where she came to know Colonel Francis Parker. From that place, she stepped into the University of Chicago, where she became acquainted with John Dewey. He must have become convinced of her ability in physical training work, for when Dr. Dewey went to columbia University in New York, Miss Crawford found a still larger field of service opened to her there. She is now retired and is living in New York City as Mrs. J. E. McLean. Her successors, Miss Frances Musselman, Miss Charlotte Gerrish, and Miss Mary G. Allerton were all well qualified and successful and each in turn left Stevens Point for a higher position.
And now this brings me to a point I desire to make. In what I have just told about the men and women selected by Mr. Pray, we either find further evidence of what I have called his selective ability, or we must conclude that the Stevens Point Normal was considered a good “training camp” where men and women had an opportunity to prove themselves. Other instances of such excellence in judgment come to mind. Mr. Sylvester's successor as institute conductor was John W. Livingston, who resigned in 1904 to become the president of the Platteville Normal School. Mr. Livingston's successor was Frank S. Hyer, who became president of the Whitewater Normal School, which position he left recently to go back to the old school as its president. Mr. Virgil E. McCaskill, the first teacher of biology, was at Stevens Point from 1895 to 1902, and then left to become, first the institute conductor and then the president of the
At the opening of the third year of the school, Edgar J. Swift joined the faculty as the teacher of psychology and German. He was a graduate of Amherst in 1886, and had studied at Leipsic and Berlin. His excellence as a teacher of German was equaled by his ability in the other branch named. He had imbibed during his life in Germany certain social and educational ideals that might have shocked a less open-minded man that Mr. Pray. But he was allowed full academic freedom, and the students of his period who were capable of it, were certainly stimulated to independent thinking. He is another instance of one who stepped up higher. He went from Stevens Point to Washington University in St. Louis, where he still holds a prominent position. He is the author of several books, material for the first of which
Mind in the Making
he began collecting before he left Stevens Point. Seven other interesting titles are listed in
Who's Who.
His successor, Frank N. Spindler, has maintained the reputation of that department from 1901 until now, and has given the school unremitting faithful service in times of great stress and in the calmer years of its progress.
With Mr. Swift there comes to mind a unique but very stimulating episode, connected with the name of Dr. Colin A. Scott who for one year was a member of the teaching force of Stevens Point Normal.
One of the most interesting experiments—suggestive of father's rather forward looking educational philosophy was his employment of Colin A. Scott, who then and later pioneered in a free educational method that aroused ridicule at the time, but is now a part of the substantial, progressive education scheme.
Dr. Scott came into the practice school to make a demonstration of his theories, which I watched with great interest but with some misgivings, then, as to its practicability. There came out of it for me, however, a deeper realization of the importance of respecting the individuality of children, of encouraging initiative and of endeavoring to discern, develop and utilize for educational ends their individual interests.
In 1901 there was called to the position of Primary Critic Teacher, a young woman who had won for herself a notable reputation in Nebraska, in the primary education field, Miss Celia M. Burgert. She remained nearly three years, and resigned to marry Justin N. Boyington of Rockford, III. After Mr. Boyington's death she resumed teaching, and Rockford children are being benefitted by her exceptional skill.
At this point I take pleasure in quoting two letters from distinguished graduates of the school in its early years—my pleasure in doing so being greater since I decided to adapt them better for my purposes by omitting most of their very kind references to myself. I regard these letters as valuable additions to this chapter and feel sure that they will be interesting to others besides “Stevens Pointers.” The first is
My memories of the Stevens’ Point Normal School are of the golden age sort. They are perhaps tinted by the colors which glow when a boy is in mid teens; but my reflective judgement confirms my juvenile impression that the Stevens’ Point Normal of the gay nineties was an important seat of learning. The Normal School itself had architectural charm and modernity though set in almost primitive pine land. And it had modernity of spirit. The “new-fangled” card catalogue of the library, the laboratory courses, the imported football coaches, the imported lectures (with wonderful lantern slides!) from foreign parts, the interschool contests, the fresh vigor of the faculty and its young president, all bespoke progressiveness.
The heavy weights of tradition did not press; there were no musty odors; and I think faculty and student body alike felt the stimulus of pioneering conditions. I wish it were possible to call a full roll of all the teachers. Naturally the tall and genial figure of Professor Culver stands out in memory; but also the smaller figure of the active young professor of Psychology, E. J. Swift, who even in those early days was making experimental studies of a new and original character. Then there was the athletic figure of V. E. McCaskill who trained aspirants both to the gridiron and the forensic stage. ... Mr. Sylvester and President Pray exerted their leadership not only in the school but in their homes. Mrs. Pray was charming hostess on student occasions.
The Stevens’ Point Normal School in it golden age was, I am sure, a powerful cultural factor in the development of education in northern Wisconsin and indirectly in the state as a whole. It is a pleasure to contribute this statement of my attachment and to salute the author of these memoirs whose splendid educational and civic work continues through the stretching cycle of years.
Arnold L. Gesell,
Director
The other comes from a woman who has won renown in a different field:
As I look back at my two years at the State College (then State Normal School) at Stevens Point, it seems to me that the institution, young as it was, possessed a strikingly efficient corps of teachers; and that the instruction was of an unusually high type. The President, Theron B. Pray, won the affection of the students by his kindliness and humor. His integrity and Puritan strength of character exerted a steady influence among pupils and faculty. C. H. Sylvester, with his learning and his real love of literature brought a new outlook into the lives of the young men and women in his classes. A quiet, witty man, he
Edgar James Swift, now a celebrated psychologist, taught German, and stimulated thought by his strong individualism. Joseph V. Collins, still at the State College, was an eminent mathematician—perhaps many of the students did (and do) not quite realise how eminent. Then there were G. E. Culver in science, Miss Tanner in art; Albert H. Stanford in history; Miss Linton in music; Caroline Crawford in physical training—all admirable in their departments....
There was in the school, at the time of which I speak, a simplicity of friendliness which promoted a good feeling and a desire to learn; and it made the College a pleasant memory to those who left in behind.
Margaret Ashmun
I wish that my story could end right there, with nothing more needed to complete it except a brief statement of my passing out of the picture. But that cannot be, for this is a story of real life—a story that ends in professional tragedy that caused local and state wide consternation, indignation and regret, that moved the whole student body to acts of protests, and—saddest effect of all—resulted in the breaking up of a home which had furnished a fine ideal of family life and right living to hundreds of young men and women who had enjoyed its hospitality. The cause of this disaster was
It is not my purpose to give a full account of the miserable plot. Honest men are likely to gain the animosity of those that are not so, and the latter sometimes by the turn of the political wheel win positions of power and exercise it for purposes of private revenge. That is not an uncommon thing; what is uncommon in this case is the success of the instigator in winning the coöperation of a respectable board in the execution of his plots.
In early February, 1906, Mr. Pray had attended as usual the meeting of the board, but had to leave before adjournment,
When he was in Madison, he had no intimation form anybody that any action relating to his tenure of office was even under contemplation or that his administration was in any wise seriously criticized. The first information he had about the matter was when he received the official announcement of February 24 from the State Superintendent of Schools, the Chairman of the Teachers’ Committee of the Board.
In an able article by Judge B. B. Park in the Stevens Point
Gazette,
of March 12, 1906, he tells of the public attitude at the time, shows up the weakness of the regent's public defence of the board's action and the falsity as well as the weakness of the charge upon which the dismissal was based—merely that of decreased attendance.
The Whitewater
Register
under date of March 28, 1906 says:
It has been long years since the press of the state has condemned with such unanimity and severity the course of a public board as it has that of the Normal regents in the unprecedented and arbitrary action in dismissing President Pray from the head of the School. Personal spite and hostility furnished the motive and a spirit of weak acquiescence the opportunity.
The Milwaukee
Evening Wisconsin
published an interview from miss Ellen C. Hammond, a graduate of the school, and that is given expression of the general attitude of the student body:
If there has been a president of any Normal School in the State, whose school has been his life, it is Mr. Pray. He has spent twelve
In view of what had happened, I did not want to stay longer at this school. No matter who might succeed Mr. Pray, there could not, with C. D. McFarland as regent, be any other condition than of disharmony; and I shrank from further disagreeable contact with him. He had the temerity, in a special faculty meeting, to attempt to intimidate us by a warning that any criticism of his action would not be permitted or tolerated. This preposterous treatment was resented generally by the faculty but especially by those who had been there the longest.
I was more fortunate than some of my friends who left as I did, for I entirely free and they not. No one was dependent upon me. My son, who had graduated from the S. P. N. in 1899, and from the University of Wisconsin School of Engineering in 1904, was already well settled in his work as n electrical engineer. I was free to go and take my changes, and the I decided to do.
I was not kept long in doubt about where my next field of work would be. Immediately after the news of Mr. Pray's dismissal got abroad, a letter came from L. D. Harvey, then president of the Stout Institute and superintendent of schools of Menomonie, Wisconsin, offering me a position there and I accepted it.
My resignation was soon followed by those of the three critic teachers. Miss Ida m. Densmore of the grammar department went to Kalamazoo, Michigan, as a critic teacher
I could have worked happily with Mr. Pray's successor, John F. Sims, whom I had known in institute work and whom I thoroughly respected. It was not easy for me to break connections with Stevens Point. It was a second home, and many strong ties of friendship existed, binding me to my associates of many years and to citizens whom I had come to know intimately. I loved my work, and had plans for further expansion of it.
Twice during my period of service at Stevens Point I had been called back to Kenosha by death in the family. On March 2, 1901, at the age of fifty-two, my brother, Dr. William M. W. Davison died at the old home in Kenosha, where when sickness came and death threatened, he had sought the solace of his mother's presence. The bond between my brother and myself was strong; we had both experienced the same struggle in gaining professional recognition, but his handicap was greater than mine as his educational background was poorer. He had for years been a successful physician in Chicago, had won honors and was at the time of his death a lecturer in a school of medicine there. Public reference to his work mentioned his practice among the poor of the city.
On May 29, 1906, my mother died at the age of eighty-three years. As I ponder the question of how to characterize
Often when living in the country and after we moved to the city, my mother responded to the calls from neighbors and others for such a service, or for some other which sickness or accident required of her. She may be characterized as one who bore throughout her life “a lantern in her hand.”
I have observed when using my travel guidebooks at great educational centers like Oxford and Cambridge, that after the description of a college there is a paragraph on “Famous Members”; so I presume to follow this illustrious example and tell about some of the graduates of the Stevens Point Normal who belonged to what has been designated the “Golden Age” of the school.
When I closed my service at Stevens Point, the large old register in which I had kept a record of the work done by practice teachers contained just 1,000 names. This is far in excess of the number of graduates during that period, because many were permitted to try their hand at teaching who did not stay on for the completion of the course. Many come to mind who have met with success in the field of teaching, but at this stage of progress of this chapter only a few can be mentioned, and so as my guide in selection I have Who's Who in America,
1930-31.
Following the alphabetical order, the name of Jesse H. Ames, class of 1902, Stevens Point Normal comes first, who since 1917 has been president of State Teachers Colleges at River Falls.
Margaret Ashmun of the class of 1897 is famous as an author. For a number of years she devoted her talent to writing textbooks in English for use in secondary school, the year 1914 being the date of issue of these. Then novel writing engaged and still claims her energies. The letter previously quoted was sent from Waupaca, Wisconsin, her old home, but New York City has been her headquarters for many years.
Joseph D. Beck, class of 1897, after teaching for a while was lured into the by-ways of political adventure. He represented the Seventh District of Wisconsin in Congress from 1921-29.
Dr. Arnold L. Gesell, whose letter about the school I have quoted, belonged to the class of 1899. When only a small boy, he became interested in the institutes conducted by Mr. Sylvester at his native city of Alma, Buffalo County, and while still in his teens followed him to Stevens Point. He brought great honor to Stevens Point by winning first the internormal and then the interstate oratorical contest. A telegram saying “Gesell won” signed “Will” sent me by my son, his classmate at the time of the event just named, gives evidence of our interest in him. He has made a steady climb from that time to the eminent position now held. The
National Cyclopœdia of American Biography
enumerates the steps of Arnold Gesell's ascent. Service to humanity seems to have been the dominating motive all along the way, the form of which service, since I cannot here reproduce the account of it, is revealed, with the evidence of its success,
The volume on
The Mental Growth of the Pre-School Child
was selected as one of the 37 most important books published in America in 1925, in the list compiled by the American Library Association. The volume on
Infancy and Human Growth
received the annual medal award of the
Parent's Magazine
as the outstanding scientific contribution to child development published in 1928.
Edward M. Gilbert of the class of 1901 is a professor of botany at the University of Wisconsin and the author of high school textbooks on that subject.
William C. Ruediger of the class of 1897, a native of the same county as Dr. Gesell, is a lecturer on psychology and pedagogy and has been connected with Washington and other universities. He is the author of books on pedagogy and psychology.
Harvey A. Schofield of the class of 1901, after a successful career as teacher and principal, became the president of the State Teachers College at Eau Claire in 1916.
The successful head of the practice school in what is now the Central Wisconsin State Teachers College is a young man whose name is somewhere in the list referred to—that of the thousand names—Alfred J. Herrick of the class of 1902. One of the old friends who was for many years acquainted with Mr. Herrick's work in that position says: “I don't know but that the tireless efforts of the present incumbent may be a direct inheritance from the strenuous days of Mrs. Bradford's ‘regime.’” In closing this long chapter, I want to express to Alfred Herrick and others who may have influence the matter, my appreciation of the honor shown me by giving my name to the Junior high school, now a part of the practice school.
When
I went to Menomonie, Wisconsin, in the fall of 1906, I was not entirely unacquainted with the place, or with the schools that had made this little city of 5,600 people famous. In October, 1902, I had attended a meeting there of the Northwestern Wisconsin Teacher's Association, when I had taken part in the program, and had met James H. Stout for the first time. My experiences during those convention days had left very favorable impressions, some of which I will enumerate, adding further on information which these experiences interested me in procuring.
The hotels of the town being unable to take care of the teachers who came to the meeting, the residents had opened their homes, and it was my good fortune to be assigned to that of Mrs. Thomas B. Wilson, the widow of a prominent citizen who had died a few years before. It was as beautiful a home as I had ever seen. A bachelor son assisted in the hospitality extended, and Miss Epley, a sister of Mrs. Wilson was a member of the household. Mrs. Wilson was then the loved and respected matriarchal head of the families of several married sons in Menomonie and elsewhere. I didn't know then much more about the Wilsons than that they were connected with the lumbering interests of that part of Wisconsin; but I readily observed that genuine love of the beautiful,
After the dinner, when we were gathered in the library, I experienced an unusual surprise. A door was suddenly opened into an adjoining room and in a brilliant light, against a dark background, appeared a lovely vision. On a pedestal in the center of a small octagonal room was a lifesize figure of a woman, in active pose with extended hand. It was of fine white marble, and the especially arranged lights illuminated it with the effect similar to that felt when one reaches the top of that broad staircase in the Louvre, and catches the first view of the “Venus de Milo” standing alone in her black-lined room in that great gallery. The symbolical or allegorical significance of the beautiful statue is forgotten, but the effect is indelibly fixed in my memory. The surprise manifested many times by guests, so I was told, was an effect that Mr. Wilson, who had imported and installed this work of art, had very much enjoyed witnessing.
I retired with much to think about, and to ponder over. Since morning I had come from Stevens Point through a region where all along the route were seen evidences that the time of the forests and of the pioneer were not very remote. From the level land of Portage Country we had entered the glaciated region with its hills and valleys and more varied scenery. We had gone through cities of considerable size, as Marshfield and Eau Claire, to come to long stretches where only the scattered homes of settlers and occasional villages gave evidence of the backwoods. We had changed cars from the main line to the one car of the short branch that had brought us to Menomonie. Yet here, wealth, because it had been disposed to do so, had brought to this community, so remote from art centers, things of exceptional beauty. This, coupled with perfect hospitality, produced my first impression of Menomonie.
Impression number two came, when in the morning I caught a glimpse of a high square tower on a large school building. It was a striking architectural feature, the beauty of which I felt, while I wondered at its unusualness. It was several years later that I saw its prototype, or something like it, in the fifteenth century tower on the Palace of the Signoria in Florence, Italy. In using the adjective “striking” I had no intention of perpetrating a pun; but this tower
was
literally that, as it held a great clock, which boomed the hours, and was the horologe of thee whole city. This beautiful tower was, and is, the landmark for a large territory.
The superintendent of schools of Menomonie at that time was Judson E. Hoyt, who held that position from 1892 to 1903.
The meetings of the convention were held in the assembly room of the large new high school. This building was connected with the one bearing the tower by a bridge on the second story level. The room mentioned was large, well lighted and ventilated, appropriately decorated, and beautifully adorned with a few good pictures and plaster casts. It came as near to my ideal of what an assembly and study room of a high school should be as any I had seen. It registered as favorable impression number three.
We were conducted across the bridge to the other building of similar appearance and construction. It bore the conspicuous tower, and was introduced to visitors as the Stout Manual Training Building. We were taken through the well-equipped shops where articles were being shaped from wood and from metal, and saw the blacksmithing and forging operations. A visit a few years before, to a vocational school in Chicago where similar work was seen, had prepared me for the appreciation of what I saw here. In another part of this building we saw classes of public school girls having lessons in cooking and sewing. All these evidences of a school at STOUT INSTITUTE
But this building left a fifth impression by an exhibit which made a special appeal to me. On an upper floor we were shown an art museum with several rooms, where, with a large expenditure of time and money rare articles of beauty had been collected and placed on display. There were paintings and tapestries, vases and statuary; large, glass wall cases containing priceless shawls, rare laces, and historic garments; there were glass enclosed floor-cases, filled with fascinating arrays of curios of all sorts—carved ivory from the Orient, choice miniatures, and fans with historic associations. It was a place where one could spend hours and not exhaust the resources of the exhibit. We were told that this collection had been made by Miss Kate Murphy, the head of the art department of the Menomonie schools, in whose art knowledge, judgment, and taste, Mr. Stout placed great confidence. At his expense she had been sent to Japan, and later on a trip around the world, bringing back with her each time beautiful and costly things. In connection with the art museum or gallery, was a room where the visitors were shown a great exhibit of drawings and water color work, that had, under Miss Murphy's direction, come out of the public school of Menomonie.
The route over which we were taken was the same as that followed in personally conducted hours by hundreds of visitors to this little town—some attracted by the novelty of this educational center in the midst of an undeveloped region, others to observe and learn about equipment, practices, and results.
Leaving the manual training building, we were conducted across the street to another of a very different sort—a physical
But this building was also a social center for the men of the town, and in the front building described, we passed through a luxuriously appointed reading room and a rest room, saw a perfectly equipped billiard room and a card room, and heard a familiar roar that told of a bowling alley near at hand. What lucky men and what a fortunate city, I thought, to have provided such means for recreation and enjoyment of the right sort, and obtainable in few cities except those of the larger class. Thus came impression number six—a sort of climacteric progress!
Before my first visit to Menomonie ended, I learned that it had known another public spirited benefactor. On Main Street, diagonally across from the school block, was a beautiful brown stone building, over whose door we read the words, “Mabel Tainter Memorial.” Entering it, we were shown at the right the well equipped public library; then moving to the left we found ourselves in the richly carpeted lobby of a small auditorium—a perfect gem of a theatre—a miniature of the finest of those seen in large cities. We were told that it was not only for entertainments, but THE MABEL TAINTER MEMORIAL CONTAINING THE PUBLIC LIBRARY LORENZO DOW HARVEY
MENOMONIE, WISCONSIN
Superintendent Stout Training Schools, Menomonie, Wis. 1903-1922anti-climax
in the progress of the impressions left by my visit.
It was four years afterwards that I received from Mr. Harvey the offer of a position in Menomonie. As will be remembered by many, Mr. Harvey served from 1899-1903 as State Superintendent of Wisconsin Schools. During those years James H. Stout was a member of the State Senate. As Chairman of the Committee on Education, he was thus intimately associated with the State Superintendent of Schools, and a staunch supporter of him in all of his efforts for educational advancement. It naturally followed that, when in 1903, Mr. Harvey failed of reëlection, he immediately found a field of work in Menomonie. Then began changes in school affairs here—changes that not only affected the Stout-supported schools, but the public schools as well, at least in their administrative relations.
The three forms of educational work, manual training, domestic science, and kindergarten, which Mr. Stout had instituted and maintained, and which were “dedicated to the boys and girls of Menomonie” had been carried forward under the general administration of the public school board. Now their main function was entirely changed. Out of them came in 1903 three training schools for teachers.
I can find no better or briefer statement of the causes and the purposes of this change than that given by Mr. Harvey himself in the
Stout Institute Bulletin
for September, 1908.
The Stout Training Schools were organized in 1903 for the purpose of providing first class instruction and training for the preparation of manual training, domestic science, and kindergarten teachers, and for carrying on experimental work in the field of industrial education as a part of the public school system and as supplementary to that system. The kindergarten training school had been organized in 1899 to meet a local demand. When the other schools were organized in 1903, this school was reorganized and strengthened.
In 1898, Mr. J. H. Stout built and equipped a splendid manual training building to replace the fine building he had provided in 1895, and which was destroyed by fire in 1897. This new building, at the time of its completion, was probably the best designed and equipped building in the United States, if not in the world, devoted to the instruction of public school pupils in art, manual training, and domestic science. The demands of the public school did not fully utilize the splendid equipment thus provided, and this fact, coupled with the rapidly growing demand for teachers of manual training and domestic science, and with Mr. Stout's well-known interest in these lines of educational effort, led him to make provision for the establishment of the two additional training schools.
For administrative purposes during this period necessary to determine whether such schools were needed in this section, and during which the necessary experimental work in perfecting their organization could be carried on, if there should prove to be a demand for them, they were placed under the nominal control of the Board of Education of the city of Menomonie. The Board in no way incurred any financial responsibility for their maintenance, that being assumed by Mr. Stout.
It may be added that to further the interests of this plan, as can readily be seen it would do, Mr. Harvey was made not only the superintendent of these training schools, but also superintendent of the public schools, following in the latter office, Judson E. Hoyt, who had held that office for eleven years.
Such was the situation in 1906, when my professional association with Menomonie began. By that time the need of the training school had been demonstrated. Nearly one ALMA L. BINZEL
Director of Kindergarten Training School, Stout Institute,
Menomonie, Wis., 1906-1910.
Referring to the proposed one-year graduate course, Mr. Harvey in that letter says:
I have consulted with a considerable number of prominent school men in the west and south as to the wisdom of this move, and am confirmed in my judgment by their statements. ... I have secured for the Director of the Kindergarten Training School next year, Miss Alma Binzel, whom you doubtless know as having been in the Kindergarten Training Department at Milwaukee Normal School. She has been East for three years, doing work in Teachers’ College, especially fitting herself for training work in the Kindergarten Training School. The college people assure me that they have no stronger person there than she is, so that side of the work is well provided for. If we offer a third year in our Kindergarten Training Department, I want to make that third-year work largely work looking towards supervision of Primary Schools.
I want a strong woman to take charge of the primary side of this year's work, and to take the supervision of our primary grades. The latter seems almost a necessity, because one must have those primary grades for a practice field and for working out of theories, and experiments.
After explaining that, at the start, the number taking the graduate course would be few, he gives reasons for thinking that “in the near future we shall have a respectable number of advanced students.” He tells how the reputation of the school is rapidly extending and that calls for teachers are coming “from one end of the country to the other.” He tells of his high ambitions, saying, “My aim is to make our
What we were then experiencing at Stevens Point from the unwarranted action of a State Board and from the unbearable tyranny of a local regent caused the following statement by Mr. Harvey to have an especial appeal:
Our work here is in many ways the most delightful I have ever been connected with. We are absolutely our own masters in what we wish to undertake. Our purpose is to do experimental work in certain directions and the course is free for us to do it.
Now I have put before you the situation and I want to know if the position is one that appeals to you. I understand there is likely to be something of a break-up in the situation at Stevens Point. I should like to have you connected with us in this work.
He then expresses his confidence in my ability to do what he wanted done. Having known Mr. Harvey for years, holding him in very high esteem as an educational leader, and moreover, remembering those favorable “first impressions” of Menomonie, my decision to accept was soon reached.
There was a private consideration that gave this event a very happy turn. I had undertaken to help a niece with her education. She was Marjorie Bailey, the motherless daughter of my sister. Majorie had for the past two years been with me at Stevens Point, and now the kindergarten training school in Menomonie offered an opportunity to continue her education along a line of work for which she seemed especially adapted. With my household effects, the chief items of which were a piano, pictures, books and bookcases, we settled down in a so-called “furnished house.” From these very personal reminiscences—the last item of which is not very pleasant to dwell upon—since “things” including furnished houses are not what “they seem”—I proceed to my
Under this heading I shall endeavor to show the major influences that brought the schools of this little Wisconsin city to occupy, before 1903, such an eminent place not only in the state, but in the nation. My purpose is not only to give a résumeé of the work of the great philanthropist, James H. Stout, but also to bring into the account two others to whom credit seems to be due for important assistance rendered. One of these was a man whose high purpose, broad educational outlook, and inspiring personality influenced and supported Mr. Stout in his lofty endeavor; the other was the superintendent of schools during the early developmental years, whose practical knowledge of administrative affairs helped to get things started, and who is believed to have made valuable contributions to the success of the movement.
First, James H. Stout.
It was in St. Louis that the first link in the chain of cause and effect that led to the famous Stout Institute was forged.
The city of St. Louis was the first large city to act in any significant way on this conclusion, and built the Louis Soldan technical high school, said to have been the first real school for manual training and domestic science in America. Mr. Stout was living in St. Louis at that time, and became deeply interested in the type of work done at that school. The following incident points not only to the moment of the awakening of his interest, but shows that the spirit of helpfulness which characterized him was already manifesting itself. It is said that a friend one day remarked in his hearing that he would like to educate his three boys in manual training, but did not have the means. Mr. Stout immediately spoke to this effect: “That need not hinder you, I will furnish the money if you will look after the boys.” The carrying out of this arrangement brought about Mr. Stout's contact with the Louis Soldan high school, and the process and results of the experiment established his confidence in such a form of education.
In 1889 he moved to Menomonie, which had for some years been the headquarters of Knapp, Stout & Company. Soon after that, he brought about the incorporation of the courses of study brought from St. Louis into the public schools of Menomonie. To carry out this work, he constructed
The popularity of the work soon caused the facilities furnished by this building to be entirely inadequate, so a much larger one was constructed in 1893. A picture of this one shows it to have been three stories high, with a tall square clock tower arising from one end of the building. About this tower ran what seems to have been an observation platform with a railing. The building is shown to have been connected by a bridge on the second story level, with another, a small two-story structure, which, I am told, was the old city high school. This 1893 building was equipped for a much wider range of work in both the departments of manual training and of domestic science than its small experimental predecessor. In the former line it not only provided for wood work of various kinds, but for forging, foundry and machine shop practice. The opportunities met with immediate appreciation and with increasing popularity.
But Mr. Stout's interest in the common school child was not confined to providing the two branches named. Living in St. Louis as he did, he could not have escaped knowing about kindergartens, and kindergartens for Menomonie soon followed. To carry out these plans he erected two buildings, equipped them and turned them over to the city. Not only that, he provided for the teaching force, and met all expenses until the time came when the kindergartens were taken over as a part of the public school system. It was undoubtedly the early start made by the kindergartens in Menomonie and the popularity of the movement, that cause the kindergarten-training school to be the first of the teacher training institutions of that city. It opened in 1899, with Mrs. Martha Logsdon-Coull in charge, and furnished an opportunity for
A course in drawing which included a great variety of exercises and activities was also introduced in all the schools, and in the new building of 1893 rooms for the art department were provided and equipped. In 1894, Miss Kate Murphy came to Menomonie as director of the art department. As she was a graduate of the St. Louis School of Fine Arts in 1889, it seems probable that she knew the Stouts there. Mr. Stout placed great confidence in her, and as I have told in my introduction, she was provided with all needed facilities for her work.
It is seen from this résumé of his benefactions, how the children of the public schools of Menomonie from the kindergarten to the high school had exceptional privileges in a varied school program, and the benefit coming from rare educational stimuli.
In 1897, fire destroyed both the city high school and the large manual training building. The loss entailed to Mr. Stout was not less than $50,000. But he was not discouraged, and when, “almost before the ruins were cold,” a delegation of citizens came to him, he told them that he would erect another manual training building at the cost of $60,000, provided they would erect a high school costing as much, to match it. This the city of Menomonie did. When Mr. Stout had completed his plans for the other building and had equipped it according to latest ideals, it had cost him $100,000. This expansion in facilities meant expansion in teaching force, and that also was provided, none of the expense falling upon the taxpayers. In it were larger accommodations for the art department, and the added art museum already described as among my first impressions.
These two buildings completed in 1898-99 are the ones that excited my admiration in 1903, and in which I began work in 1906. They are the central buildings today.
In the introduction to the preceding section, I mentioned a second person who influenced and encouraged the educational advancement of Menomonie. This was Henry Doty Maxson who went to Menomonie in 1888, the year before Mr. Stout moved there. In April of that year he organized the Unitarian Society of Menomonie, some thirty persons signing the bond of union.
Henry Doty Maxson was born in New York state of old New England ancestry. “The Maxsons were very conscientious in their religion, and to keep the Sabbath as they believed the Bible to command, many of them became Seventh Day Baptists.” Henry began study for the ministry in that denomination, but fidelity to convictions obliged him to change his field of work. He went to Amherst, graduated from that college in 1877, and became a teacher. His first position in Wisconsin was at Milton College in 1878, and then for four years in Markham Academy, Milwaukee. In 1883, he moved to Whitewater and served as institute conductor and general teacher in the state normal school there for about five years.
It was in connection with this period that I came to know him. The following incident indicates the sort of man he was, and for that and other reasons, seems worthy of mention. It was in the summer of 1886 or 1887 that a week's institute for Kenosha County was held at Salem Station, where my sister, Caroline Bailey lived. Although I was then teaching in the high school in Kenosha, I decided to attend, taking my little boy with me to visit his cousins. On
At that moment a man came forward who had been sitting in the rear of the car. He put a firm hand on the arm of the brakeman and said something to him in a low tone. The manner of the brakeman immediately changed, and then the two lifted the helpless victim and carried him out of the door and into the baggage car. When the “good Samaritan” returned, I caught a glimpse of a face and manner that suited the kind deed—refined, scholarly, dignified—his bearing seemed to rebuke some of the passengers who had been amused by what had happened.
On Monday morning I was at the institute, and to my surprise and delight, found that the man of the beneficent deed was the leading institute conductor—Henry Doty Maxson, from the Whitewater Normal School. That week I got a new idea of institutes and institute conductors. As I have mentioned in a previous chapter, some conductors were not especially considerate of the feelings of those who comprised the institute, and the more sensitive ones really dreaded the experience. But here was a real teacher—clear, exact,
It was the shortest after this that he entered the Unitarian ministry and accepted the call to Menomonie. Then in 1891, came the sad news of his sudden death in Eau Claire, where he had also organized a group of followers. Now in Menomonie in 1906, fifteen years after his death, I came upon the evidences of the wide influence he exercised for the three years of his service there, upon the social, educational, and spiritual life of that city.
There was wealth in Menomonie, and more than that, a few of those monied people possessed a large social consciousness and desired to use their money for community benefit. What seemed to be needed was wise, directive suggestion, and stimulation. Captain Andrew Tainter and his wife, Bertha Lucas Tainter, were two of those people. “They had some years before lost a love daughter, Mabel, in the beauty and bright promise of her youth. Thoughtful of the public needs and of her own feelings, they had decided to erect at some time in the future as her fittest monument, a building for a free library and other beneficent uses.”
During the first summer of his ministry, Mr. Maxson preached a sermon on “The Work of a Liberal Church” in which he pictured the church of his ideal, it costly spire omitted, and described the features which he had dreamed it should possess.
On July 3, 1890, less than two years after Mr. Maxson pictured that ideal in his sermon, it stood realized in stone, and the city gathered to its dedication. There were the spacious auditorium and stage, the well filled library and reading room, club rooms, rooms for every social and educational need, furnished with all conveniences and luxuries, rich with marble and mahogany, with carpets, rugs, and tasteful drapery, the whole having cost some $120,000, and all given for the free service of the public, and of “all classes on equal terms.”
On behalf of the donors, Mr. Maxson made the presentation speech, specifying as one of its uses, that by “the Unitarian Society for charitable and social work, and for lectures, entertainment and services such as will quicken the intellect, strengthen the character, and fill the soul with glimpses of those larger relations which link us to the Infinite and the Eternal.”
For nine years Captain Tainter lived to see the development and influence of the social center he had established. His death occurred in 1899, and that of Mrs. Tainter in 1916.
It is impossible here to tell of Mr. Maxson's work with the young men and boys of Menomonie. He was not only a teacher and preacher but he had pronounced views on education. He was a believer in and an advocate of the kindergarten and manual training school. He found among his friends and parishioners in Menomonie, one who was in full accord with him, James H. Stout, and had he lived, he would have seen another of his ideals realized in the beautiful manual training school, erected by that friend for that city. He is credited by those who knew him with being an inspiration to Mr. Stout.
School buildings, even very fine ones, do not make a school system. There is always needed the help of someone who from experience and study has gained a practical knowledge of needs, who can visualize the operations of the school, and help in adapting the construction of the buildings to those uses. There is also needed someone to plan the work of the children for whose benefit these buildings are designed. Although St. Louis had provided him with the start towards it, Mr. Stout was entirely dependent upon the insight and experience of those who had this specialized knowledge for the development of his great education enterprise. In such a position of responsibility was the superintendent of schools.
In 1889 when Mr. Stout came to Menomonie to live, the superintendent was R. B. Dudgeon, who held that position for a number of years, and was there when the first experiment with manual training and domestic science was made in the little building already mentioned, with the organization and success of which he doubtless had much to do. He was succeeded of 1892 by Judson E. Hoyt, whose training and experience at that time had especially well equipped him for taking over the situation in Menomonie. His widow, Mrs. Edith E. Hoyt, of the Extension Division of the University of Wisconsin, has furnished me with a few facts concerning her husband. She says:
He was brought up in a little town near Milwaukee where, because he had great aptitude for mechanical pursuits, he had an apprenticeship under a highly trained German cabinet maker and completed fully the round of activities there required.
At the University of Wisconsin, besides giving much attention to the classical languages, Mr. Hoyt wa interested in
I well remember how, on an April morning when I came down stairs to prepare breakfast, I found him sitting at his desk, where he had been all night, making those plans, and with what triumph he said to me, “Now I have got it right.”
A student of the Menomonie high school during that period says:
I attended high school when Mr. Hoyt was Superintendent, and feel indeed fortunate in having had Mrs. Hoyt as a teacher all through high school. Hardly a day passed that Mr. Hoyt did not talk to us on the generosity of Mr. Stout. He had a strong purpose to bring the children of Menomonie to a realization of what Mr. Stout was doing for them.
She believes that the two men were very closely associated.
In 1901 Mr. Hoyt read before the Department of Superintendents of the N.E.A. a paper giving some details of the work being done in the Stout Manual Training School. By that time the present building was in operation. This paper not only gives the courses in manual training for boys, and domestic science for girls in grades and through the high school, but includes an account of the course in drawing which afforded a varied program touching different forms of skill and extending in its operation from the kindergarten through the high school. The latter piece of work
A sense of justice to Mr. Hoyt, whose name does not appear in any account of the Stout schools that I have been able to find, impelled me to here mention his service, which must have assisted in no small degree in bringing fame to the Menomonie schools before 1903.
It is my purpose to touch in this section upon other benefactions of Mr. Stout, besides those already dwelt upon, and with which my stay in Menomonie acquainted me. In my introductory section, mention was made of the natatorium and the gymnasium, erected in 1901. It was here that the Commercial Club carried on its manifold activities. Mr. Stout was its first president, in 1905, and served as a director of it from that time until his death. It was his wish that it should be absolutely democratic in spirit. It was said that very respectable resident of the city was eligible to membership in the Commercial Club and that the greater the number who availed themselves of its opportunities, the better released was Mr. Stout. Public socials were held in this building, all during the winter months, and I have pleasant recollections of attending several of them. Under the leadership of Miss Binzel, my immediate fellow-worker, the use of the gymnasium wa obtained for a club of women for weekly meetings. This building was in many ways an immeasurable benefit to the city.
Mr. Stout was just as interested in providing the country boy with proper agricultural training as the town boy with industrial training. In the legislature of 1899, he was chiefly
To promote the good roads idea throughout the state. Mr. Stout caused to be laid near Menomonie, at a personal expense of several thousand dollars, a model road which I remember as an object lesson of progress in that line. In or about 1896, he gave to Dunn County the first county system of traveling libraries in the state, consisting of thirty-five collections, and he maintained these libraries until the time of his death. He was one of the trustees of the Tainter Memorial, with its fine free library.
Elected first in 1894, he served for sixteen years in the State Senate and nearly all of that time was the Chairman of the Committee on Education. It would exceed the limits of this chapter to tell of all of Mr. Stout's good deeds. The ruling motive of his life was service to others, and he accomplished his object not so much by helping individuals, but by carrying out large plans that benefited humanity in a broad sense. Because he worked on a well-conceived plan, his efforts were more potent for good than those of many philanthropists who give much more, but in a less thoughtful manner. His biographer says: “In the educational development
As the domestic science department grew, it became necessary to provide living places for women students. The old Tainter property was purchased for dormitory purposes and the beautiful grounds became a part of the Stout campus. In 1907 the spacious residence overlooking Lake Menomonie became Bertha Tainter Hall. capable of accommodating about thirty young women and providing them with a beautiful home environment. Miss Nellie W. Farnsworth, teacher of physiology and hygiene in the Stout Institute, was placed in charge with the title of preceptress. The next year the Tainter Annex, another dormitory on the same grounds, added accommodations for about fifty more. To look at the dignified structure, with its fine approach, one would scarcely recognize the large, old barn in which Captain Tainter's many fine horses were kept, and which now, at a great expenditure of money, had been adapted to serve the need of this growing school.
In a previous section has been told when and how Mr. Harvey took charge of educational affairs in Menomonie, and the changes effected which created the Stout Training School for teachers. The interest and generosity of Mr. Stout in the expansion and development of educational interests in Menomonie seemed to be equaled by his confidence in Mr. Harvey to know and do what was best, according to the needs and demands of the times.
The next change came in 1908, when the schools were incorporated as the Stout Institute:
For the purpose of carrying on the work of the Stout Training Schools and such other lines of educational work as might seem best.
A well-planned, well- executed program of publicity carried on by Mr. Harvey had given nation-wide information about the “Menomonie Idea”—the importance of vocational studies for the all-round development of the individual, and their general economic and social values. Articles in several popular periodicals, with pictures of buildings, classroom equipment, activities, and of finished products, had a wide-spread effect upon ideas and ideals, and in starting similar institutions in other localities. Mr. Harvey had more calls than he could respond to for lectures on vocational education, and the
Proceedings
of the N.E.A. contain instructive addresses. Hid leadership was nationally recognized. Large numbers of visitors came to see this “Mecca of the New Education” as the Stout Institute was called.
Teachers of the highest qualifications procurable were brought to the institute; graduates went out to take positions of responsibility, Mr. Harvey reporting in 1908 that they were teaching in twenty-one states. The reputation of the school increased and the Mecca of observers and investigators became the Mecca of students seeking the special training offered. All this development Mr. Harvey engineered, and all of its operations he watched. Classroom contact with every student in the manual training department, at least, was had with Mr. Harvey through their study of psychology. The vigorous discipline he gave them in independent thinking and exact expression was an experience not soon to be forgotten.
In 1908 trade schools for plumbing and bricklaying were started. These schools were open to students who were residents of Menomonie, but one of the chief purposes in organizing them was to determine what could be done in these two trades by high school boys while carrying on their regular academic work—to determine the cost and the conditions under which such work might be carried on, so that other communities interested in undertaking it might have some definite data on which to proceed.
The same year another experiment began. This was the home-makers schools, whose purpose was to work out the problem of the practical instruction of young women to fit them for the responsibilities of home life. Founded in the belief that home-making is a serious business, and that specific preparation for it is really worthwhile, it offered courses touching all important phases of a woman's duties in the home.
These two were the developments that I was especially interested in watching during my last year in Menomonie.
Mr. Harvey's letter quoted previously, gave the general idea that two quite distinct pieces of work had been laid out for me. One was to assist him in his capacity as superintendent of the public schools, the lower grades being my especial charge; the other was that of teaching certain subjects in the kindergarten training school, looking forward to the added responsibility of conducting the graduate course when the demand for it should develop.
The kindergarten training school had been in operation for seven years, and kindergartens, as a part of the public school system for a considerably longer period. So Miss Binzel found herself in a well-established situation although
First, the teaching part of my work. The kindergarten training school was located in two rooms on the second floor of the manual training buildings, and it was there I taught the classes assigned to me. The subjects were very acceptable—literature and public speaking, which took me back to the days of my high school teaching; and primary pedagogics—a field of thought familiar from my Stevens Point experience, and here to be taken by a very well prepared and appreciative class of young women in their senior year. In the spring, nature study was taken up, and for this Menomonie and its environs presented ideal conditions.
A ten-minute walk from the school brought us to an almost undisturbed stretch of forest. As one looked northward from the heart of the residence district, the tops of towering pines could be seen, and thee dense foliage of tall hardwood trees. Menomonie had the prescience to preserve intact on the adjacent steep slope of Lake Menomonie, this valuable remnant of the past. The main business street extending eastward ran along the top of the bank, and after passing the library and a few other buildings, one looked off of Main Street into a natural tangle of growths, in the midst of the giants of the old forest—a most enticing place for a nature lover, and filled with interesting objects for study. There the migrating birds in greater variety than I had ever known, swarmed in the spring. These little travellers had followed the silver guide-line of the Mississippi, until the Chippewa had led them to the Red Cedar, and the banks of Lake Menomonie, which evidently covered the flood plain of the river, dammed back for a great log reservoir. I remembered being surprised once when the water was low, to see stumps of great trees come to view at the bottom of Lake Menomonie.
Early morning excursions, with my enthusiastic class of girls, are among my pleasantest memories of Menomonie. Equipped with good field glasses we identified warblers of great variety, and many other transients on their way to the North. The song of the hermit thrush—a rare voice—became familiar. When absorbed in our quest, time sped by, and in all too short a time the boom of the great clock on the tower of the Stout Manual Training Building warned us that we must climb the bank to the street to pass stores and other business houses on our way back to school—the city all this time having been “so near, and yet so far.”
I found in Mrs. Charles F. Niles, wife of the Unitarian minister, a most valuable help and inspiration in this bird study, as she was to others of similar interests. Mrs. Niles had called wide attention to Menomonie by serving as a “station” for the National Audubon Society. She kept track of winter bird visitors, and of migrating activities, reporting them to headquarters, and thus contributing valuable assistance to the studies being carried on by that organization.
There comes to mind in this connection something which it also gives me pleasure to mention. It is an instance of how the coöperation of the youth of Menomonie started the making of this wild bank into a municipal park, and, incidentally, furthered the work of my class in nature study. One spring, that of 1907 or 1908, the high school boys under the direction of the principal, George A. Works, laid out a path along the side of this steep wooded bank, and made a descent to it that was easier and safer than the old one. This path, which ran along at a short distance up from the water's edge, was leveled into the hillside, and, with bridges of logs over narrow ravines, and rustic railings along dangerous spots, there was furnished by this “Trail,” as it was called, a convenient and easy means for walking through this delightful stretch of
Pulling myself away from those delightful memories, and returning to the general topic of my teaching in Menomonie, there does not seem much to say. It was interesting to reorganize my work in the light of new knowledge and needed adaptation. I came in contact with all the students in the kindergarten training school—a fine group of young women, as, almost without exception, those who elect the kindergarten as their field of work, are found to be. A few applicants for the third-year course came the second year, and a few more the last year. Their practice teaching was carried on in the public schools. A special course with these small groups in the Philosophy of Education allowed an intimacy of touch and a freedom of discussion that are pleasant recollections.
Barring some disillusionment in regard to the importance of my position, which was a rather hard blow when first realized, and barring some disappointment and inconvenience in not being provided with something in the way of an office or headquarters—a room, however small, that I could call my own—this part of my work was, on the whole, as viewed now, a rather satisfactory experience, and seems to call for no further comment. I will add, however, in regard to the latter complaint implied above, that the second year, through the kindness of the high school principal, I was assigned for headquarters the teachers’ rest room in the high school building. This arrangement naturally did not increase my popularity with some of them, but my connection with the public schools seemed to justify it.
I desire here to express my appreciation of the young high school principal mentioned, who held that position throughout the three years of my stay in Menomonie. It was during the last year of my work there that a movement,
Mr. Works stayed in Menomonie until 1911. His career in educational work includes thirteen years in Cornell University, New York, besides shorter terms of service elsewhere, one of which was that of Dean of the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago. January 1, 1931, he was appointed Dean of Students and University Examiner at the University of Chicago, an office newly created by act of the University Senate at the request of President R. M. Hutchins.
Another connection that was always agreeable was that with the business woman in Mr. Harvey's office, Miss Francesca Louise Otto, his secretary and general office assistant. After leaving Menomonie and teaching for years in the commercial department of an high school in Oakland, California,
My work as assistant to Mr. Harvey in supervision included the first four grades. The fact that I received from the public school board one-third of my salary seems to indicate the portion of my time and energy that was expected for this work. I found it necessary to visit five different buildings, four of which were in the city proper.
One of these was already familiar, the high school building, which accommodated a kindergarten and all the grades as well as the high school. The kindergarten occupied a beautiful, sunny, south room on the first floor of that building with Miss Binzel in charge. The children of the grades were also very comfortably and beautifully located. All these rooms were under the inspection of the many visitors from far and near, and certainly did not detract from the impression thus made of the “perfection” of the Menomonie school system. This impression I also gained as a visitor, but it was destined to be considerably modified in some respects by the conditions which I found as I made my rounds of the outside elementary schools; for, coupled with these impressions was the troublesome ideal which I held that a really good school
system
was one that afforded as nearly as was possible equally good housing and up-to-date facilities for
all
community's children.
On the east side of the city was the latest city educational project, a new one-story brick building, comfortable and quite well-equipped; but the Menomonie school system also included schools to which no visitors were proudly conducted. This was true of two old buildings that must have dated back to early Menomonie days. They were filled with children from the poorer sections of the city and were far from comfortable, especially in the winter season. It was in their vicinity that Mr. Stout had built and maintained one of the
The fifth school was at North Menomonie, two or three miles away. It was a sort of deserted village, the lumber-mill center of former days, and now populated largely by those of Scandinavian origin. A very distinct recollection connected with my supervisory duties was that of occasionally catching the teachers’ bus in the early morning hours, and going with them to North Menomonie, an experience not unpleasant in some seasons, but rather trying in zero weather. I was always sure of the company of Mary Ehrhard, the faithful kindergarten teacher of the North Menomonie school, another of those given to the city by Mr. Stout.
But here comes the great compensatory thing for the children from the poor environment just described, and of which all others gladly availed themselves. This also was due to the philanthropic interest of Mr. Stout. To the manual training building every boy in the city, when he attained the suitable age, could come for training in the manual arts in wood and metal. If he were able to go on with the high school, he could learn the foundation of several trades—an advantage of which the sons of the professional and business class, appreciating its educational value, availed themselves as generally as did those of the working class. In that building, also, all girls were taught woman's work in the home.
In the natatorium all boys and girls could learn to swim under competent instructors, schedules being arranged which kept the equipment busy much of the time. It was said to have been Mr. Stout's express purpose and desire that every child in Menomonie should be taught how to swim. If I remember correctly, they became eligible for this privilege upon attaining sixth grade. Under the adjoining roof indoor athletics were carried on, but I do not know how extended this privilege was.
My chief duty was to do what I could to improve the teaching of the common branches, and that I endeavored to do, finding most of the teachers ready to receive suggestions.
After resigning at Stevens Point in 1906, I was asked by W. N. Parker, editor of
The Wisconsin Journal of Education,
to take charge of a section of that paper called “In the School Room.” An artistic heading appeared in the issues for 1906-07, containing my name as editor and announcing “Practical Helps and Suggestions for Teachers in Elementary Schools.” I accepted the offer without knowing what my duties at Menomonie would be, and after that, did the best I could, but found it very burdensome at times. The compensation was small, but there was furnished an opportunity to “write myself clear” on certain subjects that seemed to me important. Some of my friends readily agreed to help with the contribution of articles along the line of their thought, and thus I managed to fill from five to ten pages each month.
That summer I went to Lincoln, Nebraska, to visit my son who was there in the employ of the Lincoln Gas and Electric Company. In Lincoln I availed myself of the summer session of the University of Nebraska, and had an interesting The Analytics of Literature
seemed then to dominate the teaching of literature in that state and also influenced the teaching of composition. The atmosphere of Lincoln—not the physical atmosphere, for Lincoln has a very hot climate in summer, but the Sherman atmosphere—moved me to write for
The Wisconsin Journal of Education
a series of lessons on “Composition in the Elementary Schools” using the motivation suggested by the “Nebraska idea.” The result appeared in the issues of that magazine for the years 1906-07. I have recently gone over these articles again, and think still as I did then. In closing the series, I said that however imperfectly the thing was done, these articles in composition were an attempt not only to suggest how composition work might be made to stimulate observation and reflection, but how to stimulate observation and reflection along lines that lead out to and influence conduct. Today, a quarter of a century later, we would say that they aimed at “character education.” Regular work for this school journal continued for two years longer, or until I left Menomonie.
It may be interesting to know that it was during that summer in Lincoln that I had my first ride in an automobile. I came out of the experience tired out, and the next day felt in my muscles the strain of having involuntarily helped the driver of that machine turn corner, climb hills, descend slopes, avoid collisions, and stop.
In the summer of 1907 I went abroad. Some real estate was sold and without hesitation I reinvested the proceeds in a travel enterprise with the Bureau of University Travel of Boston. I sailed from Boston on June 19 with 217 others aboard the White Star liner
Cymric,
a cattle-boat bound for Liverpool. We were told that the selection of this boat
H. H. Powers, art critic and author, was in personal charge of the trip, and along with him, as assistants and group leaders, were several scholarly men of exceptional ability, prepared by previous trips with this bureau for the services to be rendered. Among them were Professor E. W. Clark of Ripon College, Professor O. P. Fairfield of Lawrence College, Appleton, and Professor A. C. Flick of Syracuse University. Professor Theodore Lyman Wright of Beloit College, a man of fine personality, joined the company in Europe.
Among women passengers whom I found congenial was Mrs. Flavia Canfield, mother of Dorothy Canfield Fisher, who eighteen years after, by a strange coincidence, was a member with myself of a larger company aboard the SS.
California,
destined, as she told me when acquaintance was renewed, for a trip, “Around the World at Eighty,” which became the title of a book published in 1926 telling about it.
But one event of the voyage will be mentioned, and that only for the sake of comparison. On the evening of the second day out we were thrilled by the announcement that a “marconigram” would be sent out from the
Cymric
to the
Ryndam
which had sailed from New York on the same day as we, carrying another bureau party to join us in Paris. All were asked to try their hand at composing the message that would be carried on the air, and the one finally selected was this: “The Cymric party greets you and in Paris hopes to meet you.” A lecture ensued and, at its close, the reply was read: “The Ryndam returns the greeting and hopes that all is well.” My diary at this point marvels at the mystery and wonder of it all—my first experience touching the phenomenon of radio—new, a quarter of a century ago!
An admirable feature of the plans of the Bureau of University Travel, as is well known to many, is that the groups for sight-seeing excursions are small. The one I was a member of consisted of seventeen, and we had as leader most of the time, Dr. C. L. Babcock, who joined us in Liverpool.school
is shown by the plan followed. This plan was to call us all together in the evening to listen to a lecture by Dr. Powers on what we would be taken to see the next day. This I recall was regularly done in Rome, Florence, and Venice. For me, with my meager education along art lines this was a highly esteemed privilege.
I cannot take space in this article to give even the itinerary of the trip. I pass to the final days of it, to me a wonderful experience, for which I was a little better prepared. There was offered an optional trip of ten days in Greece, and I took it with fifty or sixty others. We were divided at Naples into two parties, one of which would go to Athens by way of the sea, the trip being made in a yacht owned and operated by the bureau, and especially adapted to the purposes intended. The yacht was named the
Athena.
The other party went across Italy to Brindisi, on the Adriatic Sea, thence by steamer to Patras situated on the northwest shoulder of the southern portion of Greece. From there by rail we traveled eastward near the northern coast line of old Peloponnesus, now Morea, crossed the Isthmus and arrived at Athens.
When, under the guidance of Professor O. P. Fairfield and Professor T. L. Wright, we were through with sightseeing in and about Athens, those who had gone the other way arrived at the old port of Piræus, and we took their places aboard the
Athena.
Our objectives now were certain shrines of Ancient Greece. We traveled from port to port at night, and the days were filled with visits under our competent leadership to places which were the scenes of great events in the history of that wonderful old civilization whose influence has reached down through the ages.
This whole trip somehow took hold of me as nothing else had done, and I vainly wished that an opportunity might
The
Athena
was to carry us to Brindisi, there to take a train for Naples to catch our boat for home. An accident off the coast of Corfu delayed us a whole day. We arrived at Naples in time, but with sight-seeing and shopping necessarily curtailed.
Just seventy-seven days from the time I left Boston I was there again, and as soon as possible was back at my post in Menomonie—poor in purse but rich with memories. I was moved then with the desire to share with others these riches which, as you see, the long lapse of time since then has not entirely destroyed. The kindergarten girls got a reasonable share through a series of travel talks especially gotten up for them. Another consequence of the trip, for the benefit of the children of Menomonie, will be mentioned in my next topic.
At the risk of being considered a little out of balance on the subject of the importance of right aesthetic influences on children, I will again revert to the subject of art instruction observed in Menomonie. Mention has already been made of the fine arts course. It was perfect to a fault, and the ideal expression of it could be seen in Miss Murphy's office. I refrain here from expressing my judgment regarding this wonderful course, which, from the first day of the first week of the first year, to the last day of the last week of the last year of a child's public school progress, had been
With such evidence of her love of the beautiful as was afforded by this course and by the art museum collected, arranged, and guarded by her, in that impressive art museum described earlier, I could not understand her evident disregard of the silent but sure cultural influence of good pictures upon the children for whom her elaborate course had been planned. knowing Mr. Stout's confidence in her, I felt sure that any plans for such school decoration would have been supported by him, in whose generous heart the children of Menomonie had so large a place; but guidance in that direction seemed to have been lacking.
I found in very building evidence of Mr. Stout's generosity in supplying what some one evidently had persuaded him to believe to be a helpful adjunct in the education of the young. These were cases of stuffed birds, beautifully mounted and arranged with naturalistic environment ingeniously supplied—as fine a display of the taxidermist's art as I had ever seen. Almost every elementary school room in the city had one of these cases, and they must have cost a large amount of money. Attention seems to have been given to what some on had thought to be the proper disposition of these gifts: for the cases of beautiful little birds—humming birds, warblers, sparrows, vireos, etc., were in the primary grades, and those displaying large game birds were placed higher up the line. It was a most inclusive collection and could all these cases have been brought together in a museum, a finer display, or one more valuable for bird study along the line of identification could scarcely have been found.
But this seemed to me to be an instance of misdirected generosity. I regarded the cases of stuffed birds as entirely
There had developed in me through the years, and nurtured in the atmosphere of Stevens Point, some persistent theories about the rights of children to their spiritual heritage of art in
all
of its forms—painting and sculpture as well as music and literature. The travel experiences just related had greatly strengthened this belief, and I resolved to get some pictures for the schools. I did not go to Mr. Stout about it; for evidence had been borne in upon me that the public needed to have their sense of responsibility touched in some way. I felt that many had lost that “precious possession of local initiative and responsibility,” which President Hoover mentioned in a recent message.
I had been irritated by the complacent attitude of some who, it seemed to me, took to themselves too large a share of the credit for the celebrity which their city had won largely through the generosity of ne man. While it should not be forgotten that public spiritedness had been shown by the little city in the erection of their high school only a few years ago, yet existing imperfections in other parts of the system did not seem to disturb them. In this connection, just for the purpose of comparing then and now, attention is called to the fact that at that time there was no Parent-Teacher organization to use for the promotion of school benefits, through an aroused sense of responsibility for
their
schools.
At that time the Turner Art Company of Boston was furthering the cause of appreciation of good pictures by
Perhaps, I have emphasized too greatly this episode of my work for the Menomonie public schools; but, as is probably true, it furnished the only tangible, although unrecognized evidence existing to-day, of my service there.
I have mentioned J. W. Crabtree as a member of the Bureau Company. With him and Mrs. Crabtree I had enjoyed very pleasant travel experiences. Through his interest in me, I was invited to speak in Lincoln to the teachers of Nebraska attending the state convention there at holiday time. This I did, taking part in several programs and greatly enjoying the stimulating new contacts. I was happy, too, because circumstances had thus provided me an opportunity to see my son.
A recouping of finances being probably urgent, the summer of 1908 was filled with institute work. Institutes were held at Merrill, with Asa M. Royce of Superior as leader; Horicon, with George Shutts of Whitewater as leader, and a third at Antigo.
The following fall brought a change in my manner of living. My niece had graduated from the kindergarten training school and had responded to a call for a kindergartner made to the school from Santa Barbara, California. I found a pleasant home with the family of James A. Decker. At holiday time that year, I went again to Lincoln, Nebraska, to attend the wedding of my son to Miss Lulu Roth, a kindergartner in the Lincoln schools.
As the year wore on, Miss Binzel became very dissatisfied with the way things were going. Our department had not been advertised by Mr. Harvey, nor its interests pushed in any way, while those of the other two schools, manual training and domestic science, were always in the spot light. She believed the kindergarten training school was destined to extinction, and finally when the year was about half over she learned that her suspicions were true. She resigned and went West, having found a position in Utah. Her place was filled by a woman who gave up a good position in Iowa to take it, attracted by the great national prestige which the Stout schools had won, and evidently believing that she was benefiting herself by the change. We went out together when the school year closed. I did not “choose” to accept the offer of Mr. Harvey to remain as a teacher in the Institute.
It had not happened for a long time that I had not known before quitting one position what my next one would be. Now, I felt that perhaps the time had come for me to quit, for a time at least. It had been steadily at work for twenty-five years, and the thought of leisure to do some of the things that I wanted to do—study for instance along the lines suggested by the European trip—was a rather inviting prospect.
That summer, 1909, Mr. Crabtree had asked me to teach in the summer school at Peru, Nebraska, where he was president. The National Education Association met that year in Denver. So for these professional reasons the West called
After Denver came the engagement at Peru where I enjoyed my work and became acquainted with other species of the
genus homo
that “Badgers.” Everything was delightful but the climate. August found me back in Lincoln, and at the opening of the school year I was in Whitewater.
The causes leading to the dropping of the kindergarten training school as explained by Mr. Harvey are readily understood and were well grounded. In the first place, state normal schools—Milwaukee for the east and Superior for the west and north—had training schools for kindergartners, and another was not needed. In the second place, the demands for teachers of manual training and domestic science were constantly increasing, and room for the expansion of these schools was needed. The only criticism that was attached to the change was Mr. Harvey's lack of frankness with those concerned—his treatment of Miss Binzel's successor being among these.
In any review of Mr. Harvey's characteristics as a man, the first one to come to mind is that a leadership, as his record as the State Superintendent of Schools and at Menomonie shows. Of the two types of leadership, the militaristic and the shepherd type, he was distinctly the former. His followers and adherents recognized in him a bold, purposeful, clear-headed commander and they fell in line even though sometimes rebellious at heart. The logic of his position
This is a woman's view of him, who, while she admired him for his many excellent qualities, was cognizant of his faults. She would in closing add this personal note. She thinks now that she was distinctly benefited by her association with him in spite of what she suffered. She needed more of the militaristic quality in her professional life; and the observation of his manner of handling questions, and the necessity on her art of “doing combat” for self-preservation developed what was useful to her in her future administrative efforts.
Mr. Stout died December 10, 1910. In 1911 the school was taken over by the state, and passed under the control and management of the State Board of Vocational Education. For its early development Mr. Stout was the chief factor; then for seven years he and Mr. Harvey worked together, and when the school became a state institution, it was Mr. Harvey alone who brought about legislation providing for appropriations for its maintenance and for new buildings and equipment. The results of his efforts are seen in the trades building, south of the first manual training building, and in the household arts building across from the gymnasium and natatorium. In 1917 the legislature extended the course to four years and endowed the Stout Institute with degree granting power.
Mr. Harvey's death occurred in June, 1922. Since 1923 Burton E. Nelson has been the president of Stout Institute, for which important post he had demonstrated his preparation by his long experience as superintendent of schools of Racine, and his initiative and success in forwarding the cause of vocational education under the legislation of 1911—the first public vocational school in the Central West having been that in Racine.
ALBERT SALISBURY
President of State Normal School, Whitewater, Wis. 1885-1911
When
my old friend, Mr. Pray, heard that I was to teach under Mr. Salisbury, he, knowing us both, wrote me a letter from which I quote a paragraph. The letter is dated August 30, 1909, and was written at Lewiston, Pennsylvania. It may be remembered that after Mr. Pray suffered the unprecedented injustice of being turned out of the presidency of the Stevens Point Normal School, as told in Chapter XII, he became a traveling salesman for a tea and coffee house, his field being that of educational institutions in eastern states, a business in which the money appreciation, as is often the case, exceeded that accorded his educational endeavor. The paragraph reads:
You and Mr. Salisbury are two of my best and most loyal friends, and I very much want you to like each other. His is a rugged personality, often rough and harsh, never purposely
unkind.
Very direct and to the point, he tramples flower beds, metaphorically, where he would never think of doing so literally. He will never say worse of you than to you. and you don't have to study deeply into his utterances to know what he thinks. He would be more nearly esteemed as he deserves, if he thot more about putting the best foot forward; but his oldest friends are his best and that tells you a good deal. By the end of the year you will have things in better perspective.
[Signed] T. B. Pray
This is a good characterization by one who had worked with Mr. Salisbury for many years, and seems to meet my needs here, better than anything that might be said. I had never known Mr. Salisbury intimately. Everybody in Wisconsin who had attended state conventions had heard his eloquent plea for the cause of the feeble-minded, knew of the long, persistent fight he had set up for these unfortunates; and that the Home for the Feeble-Minded at Chippewa was
I shall never forget the morning of my arrival at Whitewater. Mr. Salisbury had at that time acquired an automobile and met me at the station to convey me to his home, where I would stay until I found a boarding place. The automobile was one of the buggy sort—one in which although the shafts for the horse were lacking, other ancestral traces quite as useless were retained. There was the regular old dashboard, lacking only the socket for the whipstock. I mounted and sat in the regular buggy seat with the driver, who took hold of the handle at the end of an iron rod bending upward from the floor, touched something with his foot and off we started. Mrs. Salisbury proved very congenial, and friendly relations with her were immediately established.
About my work in Whitewater, little need be said. It was the same sort of position as that held at Stevens Point—supervision of the Practice School, with a daily class of students in the subject of elementary methods.
Miss Grace Potter, primary; Miss May Kay, intermediate, and Miss Nettie Sayles, grammar grades, were my immediate associates. I came into very pleasant relations with
I heard frequent comments from the older members of the faculty about the change that had come over Mr. Salisbury. A year or two before, he had been sent on some sort of an educational commission to England. Upon his return he had introduced a surprising innovation into faculty meetings. We assembled at scheduled time—once in two weeks, if I remember rightly, and the program began with the serving of tea and crackers or cakes, different committees of the faculty successively taking charge of this delightful social feature of the occasion. It is easy to imagine what a really nice thing that was. Relaxation came after the strain of the day's teaching, pleasant conversation and social contact dispelled the teachery attitude, and after the rest of a half hour, we were in a better mood to hear the business of the day.
There was another thing that bespoke the liberation of his soul from the formalism of his old ideals, the expression perhaps of a long repressed desire. He learned to manipulate a player piano and to do it with a fine appreciation of the feeling to be expressed, which even a careful following of the interpretative instructions does not alone enable one to do. I remember a social evening at the president's home when he contributed much to our entertainment by his playing of good music.
This was the year in which State Superintendent Cary asked me to revise the reading work of the
Manual of the Course of Study for Common Schools,
written at Stevens Point in 1906. Not an hour of school time was allowed for this piece of service for the state, and again it had to be done evenings after busy days. It cost me needed time for sleep. I got nothing for it—even the privilege of paying for the typing was not denied me—and I should have been allowed
We are under great obligation to you for the work you have put on this outline in reading. I have not yet had an opportunity to look it over, but knowing as I do how successful the first outline was, I am prepared to believe that this will be even more successful.
In the spring of 1910, a letter was received from a member of the school board of Kenosha saying that there would be a vacancy in the superintendency there and asking me to apply for the position. This I did, and received an acknowledgment from G. H. Curtis, president of the school board, dated April 20, 1910. When in Milwaukee that week, Mr. Salisbury heard about it, and called me in or an interview. This is the gist of the talk that ensued: “I heard in Milwaukee yesterday that you are an applicant for the superintendency of the Kenosha schools. Is it true?” I answered that it was. Whereupon his nostrils dilated as was their wont when he became excited, and he told me that I was foolish to think that I could manage such a job. Superintendencies were for men—not women. A woman couldn't do it! He acknowledged that I had made something of a reputation in Wisconsin, and now I would “spoil it all by a failure at the end.” He would try to get my wages raised if I would remain at Whitewater. I recalled that he had promised the same thing in Denver. Then he bluntly asked, “How much will you get at Kenosha?” I said, “Probably $2,000.” He abruptly turned his desk and by an impatient gesture and with an air of utter disgust indicated to me that the interview was at an end.
Let us look for a moment at some of the influences that affected this very unusual act of the Kenosha school board.
A telegram from Kenosha called me for a Sunday interview with the Teachers’ Committee and I went. I well remember the general purport of the conversation and that in the course of it I had reminded the members that times had greatly changed since I had left Kenosha, sixteen years before. That then the school board ran the schools, but that now specialists had come into the field, whom the school boards hired as their executives, while they attended to the administrative end of things; that three important special duties belonged to these executives—the notice of teachers, the selection of textbooks, and the formulation of the course of study, all of which duties a properly qualified superintendent would do, and with only the best interests of the schools in view. Of course, I was not anticipating trouble about the second and third of the prerogatives named, but felt pretty strongly about the first, having heard that my predecessor had not always had his say about the selection of teachers.
Having been “called” to the position, and not being anxious to leave the normal school field, I met the committee, feeling sufficiently independent to lay down the conditions upon which I would accept: (1) That I should receive the same salary that they expected to pay a man. (There were about fifty candidates in the field); (2) That the selection of teachers should be an undisturbed prerogative, for the execution of which my long experience in training school work had qualified me; (3) That Kenosha children should have teachers with normal school training or the equivalent.
There was strong opposition to the last named condition. My argument for it that counted most was this: Kenosha
The official notice came under date of May 11, telling me that I had been unanimously elected the superintendent of schools of Kenosha for one year. The same letter announced the resignation of P. J. Zimmers, to take effect June 1, two weeks before the close of the school. This resignation had been expected, but not his sudden leave-taking. Another resignation at that meeting was a surprise and much regretted. It was that of W. J. Hocking, principal of the high school since 1904, about whose work I had received most favorable reports.
And that's how I came to go back to Kenosha as the superintendent of schools. I regarded it as a great opportunity to do two things which I determined to work for: to improve the school system of my native city, and to demonstrate that a woman could do it. The death of Mr. Salisbury occurred June 2, 1911, when the proof had only begun. How I succeeded is another story. It is sufficient to say now that I was able to ward off or evade the “shafts and arrows of outrageous fortune”—at least fatal ones—for the period of eleven years.
I am glad to make the following correction of a mistake made on page 306 about the architect of the Stout Institute Building, Menomonie, Wisconsin. It is based on information received from Dr. Robt. L. Charles, of Denver, Colorado, under date of Aug. 20, 1932.—M.D.B.
“My father, John Charles .... was the architect of the first manual training building which was destroyed by fire, and of the second (present) one, and also of the present high school building.”
1 Kenosha's population in 1910 was 21,371, an increase of nearly 10,000 in the previous decade. There were eight wards, varying from 1,312 people in the sixth to 5,085 in the third. “Native whites of native parentage,” numbered only 5,311 or approximately one-fourth of the total population. Native whites of foreign or mixed parentage number 6,384; foreign-born whites, 7,642. There were 83 negroes and 1 Indian.
Among the foreign-born elements, Austrians (which here meant Bohemians) numbered 634; Danes, 630; Italians, 881; Russians, 1,610; and Germans, 1,899. There were also 548 Hungarians, 157 Irish, and 247 English, with a dozen other nationalities represented by smaller numbers. In a word, Kenosha was becoming a typical industrial city presenting special problems of education from the standpoint of the need of unifying its population through the influence of the schools. This is the social background of the story Mrs. Bradford is beginning in the present chapter.— Editor
The
first effect for me of the act of the school board of Kenosha on May 10, 1910, was made manifest through the mails. Publicity having been given to the unique event, letters began to pour in upon me. Perhaps “pour” is too strong a word, as I find, when the letters in the old bundle labeled “Congratulatory upon My Election to the Superintendency of the Kenosha Public Schools” are counted, that there are only fifty-five of them. Those who deplored the event of my promotion did not say anything. I am sure there were such, but all of them were not as outspoken as Mr. Salisbury had been.
Certainly, when preserving these letters I did not have any idea that they would be brought to light for reference in such an account as the one I am now writing. They were saved, probably, just as tangible evidence of the beautiful relationship known as friendship. I have enjoyed reading Times
of May 13, 1910, sent me by a clipping bureau of that city, the heading of which is: “New Woman School Head—Kenosha, Wisconsin follows Chicago's Example, and Elects Female Superintendent.”
The first letters to be received bear the Kenosha postmark, several teachers there, former pupils of mine, expressing a warm welcome back to the home city I had left sixteen years before. A dozen letters are from Stevens Point associates, one of whom tells me that there is much rejoicing there at my good fortune. The women were glad about it, not only on my own account but because, as one says, “It is a compliment to women in general.” The men congratulated me on the opportunity to work out my own ideas and “to show what I can do.” “That is,” said one, “if politics doesn't come in to trouble you,” and adds the advice, “You must be careful and appoint the policeman's daughter.” Another of these old friends congratulated me on the “advertising” I am getting “as the second woman superintendent of a big system of schools, which is no small honor.”
Five bookmen sent me most generous words of praise, and approval of what Kenosha had just done, and expressed confidence in my success. I could not believe that these men were acting with an eye on future book orders; they were all old friends, and one of them says such a very unusual thing that I think he deserves special mention. It was L. W. Wood, then agent for D.C. Heath & Company who wrote: “I am sure that your administration will be wisely progressive, and that
your success will lead the way to the placing of
(The italics are mine.) That he was too sanguine the years have proved; it takes more than one demonstration to overcome an age-old prejudice, and there is a cause mentioned by a woman friend who is quoted farther on, that also has had to be reckoned with.
Former associates in institute work hurried to send letters. W. H. Cheever of the Milwaukee Normal School welcomes me as a neighbor, and hopes that “the new field” I am to cultivate “will contain few stones and stumps.” He did not think to include “ sloughs and quagmires” in his metaphorical list of troubles,—sloughs of ignorance and quagmires of corrupt politics and secret opposition, all of which my “field” contained, these being far more dangerous to progress than outstanding obstructions which may be removed or avoided. John F. Sims, then the president of the Stevens Point Normal School thinks my appointment is “a fitting tribute and compliment to my service in the cause of education.” A third letter begins, “Hurrah for Kenosha!” This characteristic exuberance will enable schoolmen of Wisconsin to recognize the writer of this letter before he is named. He was then the institute conductor at the Superior Normal School, and is now the president of the Platteville State Teachers College,—Asa M. Royce. He says, “This will be a great thing for Kenosha. We shall all watch with great interest to see the results.” Charles McKenny, president of the Milwaukee Normal School sent greetings and reminded me that Milwaukee is nearer Kenosha than Whitewater; and that they have teachers to place.
Among the many other friends whose words I read, a former pastor says, “It is not luck, it is justice. ... Kenosha has more good sense than I was inclined to give her credit for.” It was Ellen C. Sabin, then president of Milwaukee
In all the collection are letters from but two school superintendents, S. B. Tobey of Wausau and M. N. McIver of Oshkosh. That there were not more is probably accounted for by the fact that about every superintendent in the state, to whom Kenosha seemed a more desirable place than the one he occupied, had been an applicant at Kenosha, and hence, they very naturally did not feel impelled to congratulate me. Mr. McIver says, “I want to be among the first of the Superintendents of the State to welcome you into our fraternity.” He rather overestimated the congratulatory ardor of his fraternity, but he meant what he said and his final words were, “I hope you will give me any opportunity which may present itself to be of assistance to you.” This offer was one that I availed myself of, especially during the first year; help with questions of business management, and advice concerning other practical affairs receiving his kind attention.
What seemed like a promise of really finding the conditions desired for me by Mr. Tobey, was conveyed by a letter from Albert E. Buckmaster, chairman of the teachers’ committee of the school board of Kenosha, who, under date of May 11, 1910, officially announced my election on the evening previous, and added, “I think I may say that I have never known a better feeling and interest generally, among the members of the Board, and I think you will have the hearty coöperation of every member in your work for the coming year.”
These expressions of confidence tended to antidote whatever lingering traces remained of President Salisbury's prophecy of failure. But they also increased the weight of responsibility: the responsibility of really justifying the congratulations heaped upon Kenosha; the responsibility to womankind to make good; the responsibility of meeting the challenge of men who would be “watching” as one had said, to see what would happen; in short, the responsibility of making this experiment of electing a “female superintendent” a success.
The spring months of my year in Whitewater were saddened by the loss of two intimate and highly esteemed friends. Miss Bessie E. Wells of Kenosha (mention of whom was made in Chapter XI) for many years a teacher in the Kenosha high school and my yoke-fellow there before I went
As might reasonably be expected, the woman's point of view in an executive office was different from a man's; different in method of attack, different in order of procedure, and the placement of emphasis in that procedure. Whether or not these are best can be judged only from results, some of which will be described in this recital. I hope also to convey the idea that in order to preserve a proper balance in decisions, women should share with men the important public responsibilities of school board members,—women of ability and good sense, and men of business integrity, and clear purpose, men with the right interest in and actual knowledge of public schools,—these make the combination best for such an important public board.
In the eleven years covered by this part of my story, much of interest in matters of school administration happened. I did have the opportunity as my friends had wished, to work out some of my ideals and in doing so, there came to me many personal experiences that a man would probably not have enjoyed, and others that he would not have endured.
To give an account including only the most important of these would require the compass of a book, a project urged upon me by prominent women educators before the invitation came to write these
Memoirs.
But now, at the close of this long story, only a few of what seem to be the most interesting
The period naturally resolves itself into certain epochs, each of which was marked by the publishing (except for the last one) of a report, addressed to the school board and designed for the public. These pamphlets, together with the records of that board and with the valued possession of eight scrapbooks, some of them very corpulent with the stuffing of clippings relating to school affairs, afford me now “an embarrassment of riches”; while my diaries, although somewhat spasmodic in character and completeness—as affected probably by the degree of fatigue felt after the work of the day—furnish some material of the nature not always suited to the records previously mentioned, but which the lapse of time has rendered quite innocuous.
The forty-first annual commencement of the Whitewater Normal School occurred on June 22, 1910, after which I moved to Kenosha and settled down to live at the home of Louis M. Thiers. This home was beautifully located across from Library Park, and at a convenient walking distance from down town.
On Monday, June 27, I went to the office of the school board—then a rented, second-floor, back room in a business building on Market Square, the purpose of my visit being to “look about and take account of stock,” as it were. That date marks the beginning of regular work as superintendent of the Kenosha schools. My “place of opportunity,” to use Miss Sabin's phrase, opened up unexpectedly soon.
My predecessor in office, who had served Kenosha since 1904 seemed very glad for some reason to get away from Kenosha, and departed on a trip to the Pacific coast several weeks before the close of the school year. All the important business incidental to closing had been left to the two office assistants, both of whom, in the discharge of their duties, were fortunately experienced and dependable. These assistants were Miss Ella F. Powers, clerk and stenographer, who kept the books and attended to all the business of the office; and Joseph M. Scholey, supervisor of janitors and buildings, and also attendance officer. Of the former, I want to say that her memory of persons, places, events and of innumerable business transactions has always been a marvel to me; while her discretion as to which matters were, and which were not for the ears of “interested inquirers” added greatly to her qualifications for the position she held. Soon I came to regard her as wholly trustworthy. The latter was a regular “good man Friday” for me, the chief objectionable thing about him being that for which he was in no way to blame; namely, he was the brother of the mayor,—an unfortunate relationship especially about election time, for a really conscientious attendance officer. But trouble with this meddling relative was, after a while, reduced by a turn of the political wheel, and finally removed entirely by a “dispensation of Providence.” These two faithful assistants rendered me great help in the initiatory work of getting hold of the situation, and for two years they alone constituted my “office force.”
Since the first school board I worked with Kenosha was a typical one, I will devote a few lines to a description of its
Nearly every day that summer found me busy with school matters of various sorts that needed attention. Had my salary begun on June 27, instead of September 6, I could not have worked harder.
While details of the work done that summer are out of order, a few things will be mentioned. Of course, vacancies in the teaching force had to be filled, and among these was the very important one of high school principal. The young man chosen from among the more than forty applicants for the position was Oliver S. Thompson of Waukegan. His college record as an athlete and the promise of having that attractive high school interest furthered counted with the high school committee of the board.
One of the first innovations which I moved for, was in the interests of manual training,—a trace, probably, of my Menomonie experience. The school board were quite ready for it. Five years before this time, Thomas B. Jeffery, the head of a great automobile industry in Kenosha, had donated the equipment of a manual training shop in the high school building, and younger boys in near-by grade schools had been afforded a taste of such work. It was not, therefore, difficult to convince the board that the time had arrived for the extension of the privilege to all schools, and for the addition of a supervisor of manual training to the teaching force. Frank M. Karnes, a native of Kenosha County, was selected for that position at a salary of $1,200. He was the first full-time special supervisor of the Kenosha schools. He immediately went forward with the equipment of the shops at grade school centers.
The kindergarten early claimed my attention and this cause also required school board action that summer, and involved a lot of work for me. There were kindergartens in only four of the schools, but in the districts where they were more needed they were lacking, namely, those where the foreign-born predominated. Believing the kindergarten to
It was in connection with the kindergartens that I was able to get another part-time supervisor into the school force the first year. Miss Edna E. Hood of Racine, a graduate of the school of education, University of Chicago, who had for five years been in charge of one of the Kenosha kindergartens, was released from afternoon work to act as supervisor of kindergartens and to have general charge of the sewing. Since that time Miss Hood has been an important member of the supervisory force of the Kenosha schools. Her willingness to work, her ambition to qualify by further study, her genius for details, and reliability in matters of organization and planning caused a gravitation of duties in her direction, whenever a pressing need arose, until her load was heavier than it should have been.
This brings me to the most important piece of work accomplished that summer—important in its bearing upon the efficient working of the entire school system and without which it would hardly be entitled to be called a “system.”
When, at the time of my first visit to the school board office, I asked for a copy of the course of study, and a few sheets of paper were handed me containing directions about textbooks and pages to be covered, it seemed to me that teachers, especially those new to the work, needed more guidance than these afforded. So I settled myself to the task of preparing it—not a new undertaking, fortunately, but one requiring an entirely new adaption to conditions existing in Kenosha. Copies were ready for all teachers when school opened. It was not necessary to involve the school board in any way in this piece of work, as no appropriation was needed for it.
In the scrapbook marked No. 1, I find my first signed article, although much publicity in the form of interviews had already appeared in the local paper. In this connection, I desire to say that the support of the Kenosha
evening News,
through its editor, Walter T. Marlatt, was from the first a very important factor in all the measures that were undertaken for the advancement of the public school interests of Kenosha. My articles were always accepted and printed in full, and “interviews” appeared at opportune times. That first article dated August 27, was headed “Superintendent Urges Parents of City to Send Children to the Kindergartens”; “Educational Value of These Schools for the Smaller Children Shown.” Mr. Marlatt was skilled in the writing of headlines, and since he read the articles before designing the headings, these captions fitted, which, as is well known, is not always the case.
Just before school opened, my second article appeared. It reveals the fact that I had found time to study the compulsory school attendance laws of Wisconsin—something that had not especially concerned me before,—and was headed, “Compulsory Education of Children Must be Followed WALTER T. MARLATT
Editor of The Kenosha Evening News and President of the Company.
Died April 3, 1925, aged 51 years
So the busy summer passed, and it was, on the whole, a most satisfactory season. For the first time in my life, I was able to initiate on a large scale and to go ahead without having to wait for a superior officer to lead the way. I was on frank and friendly terms with the school board, and had evidently won their confidence, for at the July meeting they surprised me by voting me a three-year contract. A motion to that effect, made by Dr. Rowell and seconded by Dan O. Head,—respectively, husband of a former pupil and a former pupil,—was not, however, unanimously carried. The president of the board cast one of the two negative votes, and that puzzled and disturbed me. The other negative vote was cast by a German who was opposed on principle to a woman being put in a man's place, and while willing to vote for an experimental year, was unwilling to commit himself on the three-year proposition.
By this extension of my professional lease of life, my courage was greatly strengthened, and I saw my way clear to important changes and reforms that were needed. With everything ready for the September opening, I went for a short vacation to Lincoln, Nebraska, where my son still lived.
The full roll of teachers called at my first meeting contained eighty-eight names. Of these there were in the high school four men, including the principal, and seven women. There were eight elementary school principals, of whom five were teaching-principals, and, in the larger schools, three
In the school board records, the “salary” for the school year is given for principals and high school teachers; and the “wages” per month for elementary teachers. The school year was ten months. When the pay of teachers is quoted as so much a month, it seems more than it really is. The public forgets that teachers have to live the twelve months of the year, and being human and not able to hibernate, they have to live in the open during the summer vacation months, with the cost of living going right on. So the figures given below show the compensation that each class of teachers received, reckoned on the
twelve month basis.
The high school principal received $1,500, and the men teachers from $1,150 to $1,400. This was an average of about $109 a month for these men for the whole, or living year. The salaries of women in the high school ranged from $750 to $1,000, which gave an average for them of $78 a month for twelve months. The pay of elementary teachers ranged from $50 to $75 a month, which was an average for all of this class of about $48 a month for the living year. The salaries of the three supervising principals—two men and one woman—gave an average for the living year of $97 a month. The five teaching principals, all women, had salaries ranging from $700 to $950, according to the size of their schools, and this gave to these important and well-qualified members of the school force a twelve-month wage of from $58 to $79 a month, or an average for their class of $68.
The wages of the ten school janitors, not including Mr. Scholey, ranged from $50 to $80 a month on a twelve payment plan, the average being $63—within $5 of the average for the women principals. In the school where the janitor received $80 a month for twelve months, he got nearly $18 a
School attendance, as reported by me at the September meeting of the board, was 2,797, of which number 300 were in the high school, and 2,497 in the grades and kindergarten. In that report I called the attention of the school board to the large enrollment in the lower grades and the great falling off after the fifth grade, and then say:
This signified that more than one-third of our children are getting in the first four or five grades, all the schooling they will probably ever get, and hence it would be but justice to these children to maintain in these grades the best possible conditions, in order that they may count for as much as possible in the education of the children of these ages.
I had discovered soon after school began that the school census was unreliable, not only in omissions but in additions. The latter did not trouble me so much as the former. I had the idea that the efficiency of a public school system should be judged by its enrollment of every child of school age whose attendance is not otherwise provided for or who is not exempt under the attendance laws. But how could this be if there were not an accurate count of the children? I ran into many troublesome problems, by no means the least of them being child-accounting.
The diary of these first weeks and months is filled with accounts of visits to building after building, interlarded with expressions of impatience and regret when business of some sort interrupted the visiting program of the day. My previous experience surely counted here and put me at a great advantage over superintendents not accustomed to following a daily schedule of supervision. My happiest hours were those spent in the schoolrooms with children and teachers. If Ellwood P. Cubberley of Standford University, an authority in school administration, is right in saying that the success of a school superintendent may be judged by the amount of time he spends in the schools away from his office, then I can lay claim to such a favorable judgment, especially during those early years, before the pressure of duties in a rapidly developing school system crowded out time desired for supervision. But I was in excellent health, did not mind long hours and when daylight did not suffice for completing office work, there were evenings for it. That old document case of mine usually brought home letters and carried back answers in pencil in the morning for Miss Powers to type, thus saving time for getting out to the schools. There were general teachers’ meetings, meetings of teachers according to grade, or subject, principals’ meetings, and evenings meetings with school board committees. For, let it be known that the organization of the board included no less than nine committees, so that all but six members of the board had chairmanships. It was this division of the business of the board among these many committees, in order that each should feel that he had something to do, that entailed so much work for the superintendent during those years,—a duty now obviated
But it was often possible to turn these conferences to account in other and more far-reaching ways. For instance, after the supplies committee had, perhaps, decided on the question of recommending for purchase, a dozen or two more scissors for use in the constructive art course, or an additional sewing machine for the girls, or manual training tools for the boys, I might use the occasion to tell them of the use in schools of paper towels and liquid soap,—or some other future desirable sanitary supplies; or in a meeting of the textbook committee, to lodge in their minds suggestions concerning the economic and educational advantage of free textbooks. These were good opportunities, also, for getting acquainted with new members and for overcoming prejudices. When you understand that the term of office for these school board members was two years, and that the personnel of the board changed every year sometimes to the extent of nearly 50 per cent, and that in the annual reorganization of committees, previous experience of any member on any committee was usually disregarded, it can be readily seen that for the superintendent to get into working relations with these new situations required considerable time, energy and tact. This was especially true when one or more new members had been elected on an anti-Bradford platform—as not infrequently happened in some wards, for the saloon element was always working against me, as did all tobacconists, after two of their number had been fined for selling cigarettes to minors.
It may be mentioned here that a very useful appurtenance of the school board room was a blackboard, upon which facts could be easily and clearly diagramed or tabulated, and
It required a long, slow evolution to get rid of that large school board elected by wards, the expansion of the city adding to it two members for a new ward, thus making the number eighteen. But the change to a smaller board elected at large did not come in my time. When public opinion in Kenosha rose to the level of understanding the advantages of a city council of seven members, a school board of the same size immediately followed—a reform allowing more time for the performance of those professional duties incumbent upon a superintendent.
As a background to this incident some knowledge of the political situation existing in Kenosha in 1910 is needed. The office of mayor was occupied by a man, who as a handsome, promising boy of a good German family, I well remembered. He now was the agent for Miller's High Life Beer of Milwaukee. Besides being the political boss of Kenosha, he represented Kenosha in the State Assembly at Madison. His palatial saloon was a popular place, advantageously located in the factory district of the city, its door diagonally across from the gate of the American Brass Mill, one of our largest industries. It is not an exaggeration to state that at that time the Milwaukee breweries ruled Kenosha through the hundred saloons that then flourished here.
When I first realized this fact, stated to me soon after my return by a prominent citizen, one of my high school boys of old,—I was deeply shocked. My protest that it need not be, that surely there were enough decent people in Kenosha to change conditions, if they really wanted to, was met by an
In the fall of 1910 crowded conditions in the schools made it necessary to take up immediately the problem of more room, and it was finally decided to build an eight-room addition to a small grade building known as the “Michael Frank School.”
The school board stood very low in the estimation of His Honor and his followers on the city council, and when Mr. Curtiss and the finance committee of the school board went before that august body to petition for a bond issue for said addition, the mayor proceeded to “assault the school board past and present.”
The report continued in Mr. Marlatt's best style:
This was the most vehement expression that the Mayor had given to his thoughts in many years. He left his place of honor at the east end of the council room and marched down to the very railing that separates the council from the lobby and poured hot shot into the members of the school board. President Curtiss, Dr. E. F. Rowell and Attorney A. E. Buckmaster were the men who were lashed by the Mayor's tongue, and after they had attempted to get a word in edgewise for the better part of an hour, they retired disgusted from the council chamber, ... at the close of the vehement hours Curtiss simply declared, “I cannot argue this question with you in this manner.”
It was during the discussion of the need of more school room that allusion was made to me. The mayor charged that the school board, led by a woman, was paying teachers $60 a month to take care of babies that ought to be at home with their mothers. He furthermore asserted that he had visited the school buildings and had found vacant spaces where seats could be placed. This was true for there was vacant floor space in buildings where, according to former ideals, sixty or more children in a room had been provided for, but which now held only forty seats. He declared that it was his right to insist upon school economy, and that it was his intention to protect the “dear taxpayers.” Thereupon an alderman proposed that the kindergarten be closed and the rooms used for older pupils.
Very early the next morning, Dr. Rowell reported to me by telephone what had occurred the evening before. I immediately wrote an article which appeared that evening under the four-part heading: ‘Would Save Schools”; “Supt. ... Makes Strong Plea for Education of the Children”; “Must Comply with State Law”; “Mrs. Bradford Answers Attack on the Kindergartens by the Mayor and Members of the Council and Urges Their Retention.” My article, which was written under considerable emotional pressure, began:
The Mayor and some of the Aldermen of Kenosha have suggested that the kindergartens must go. What do the people of Kenosha say about the proposition?
I then proceeded to state how by the law of our state, children who have passed their fourth birthday may claim education at public expense. I explained the purpose of the kindergarten, and its value in a city where there is such a large
Now we are told that we must shut the doors of our schools in the faces of these 600 little ones, and say, “No entrance here!!” What do the voting fathers of these 600 children say to that proposition? I believe that those fathers had rather walk or drive on unpaved streets for a while longer, than to see the thing happen that was proposed in the Common Council last night.
The allusion to paving touched rather close—it being well known that contracts for paving had, for some reason, a comparatively easy time in getting through the council, but the phrase that really hit was “voting fathers.” That was
my
“hot shot” and hotter than I had realized when it was fired.
That evening the mayor called me up, alluded to my article and said that he would like to see me early the following morning. He said that he would be obliged to miss a very important engagement in Madison in order to have the talk with me, at which I was, of course, duly impressed. The time and place being named, I promised to be there. Here I will let my diary continue the story:
Dec. 7. Interview with Mayor, Alderman——was with him. Mayor Scholey wanted me to write a statement for the paper saying that I had been misinformed in regard to the Council proceedings. This I refused to do, saying that the proper thing for him to do was to write his own defense. He became angry and uttered a somewhat carefully veiled threat of possible consequences to me if I refused to comply, whereupon his companion cautioned him with “Your Honor, your Honor!” He then adopted other tactics and said that he did not want to appear in a public quarrel with a “la-ady.” I told him not to mind that at all, but to go ahead and say what he wanted to. After a few words aside with his companion who, by the way, was a very worthy, much respected German resident of the North Side, the interview closed, and the Mayor hurried to catch the train, so that the welfare of the State might not suffer from any neglect of his important legislative duties! O democracy! How many queer things are done in thy name!
The next evening there appeared in the paper an article signed by the Mayor. It is headed: “Scholey in Reply;” “Mayor and Alderman——Answer Statements of Superintendent of Schools;” “Not Opposed to Education;” “City Officials Insist that They Desire Only to Do the Best for the Tax Payers in Taking Care of the School Children.” I quote only the closing paragraph:
Therefore, let me say to the people of this city, .... you need feel no alarm whatever about the doors of the schools being closed in the faces of your children, or anything whatever done by this administration to in any way hinder or hamper higher or better educational
faculties
[faculties] for the children of Kenosha.
It was not until men—some not known by name—stopped me on the street to congratulate me on this affair that I realized that it was considered a brave thing for me to do. But all I had done was to expose the vulnerable spot of a corrupt politician,—fear of public opinion. The fact that this event terminated for me that sort of interference seems to justify this long account of it. It may have helped in other ways. I know that once when a parent reported to me that the mayor's saloon was offering hot chocolate to little boys to attract them within its doors, no complaints of the sort reached me after I had told his brother, my attendance officer, that I had heard of it, and that an investigation would probably be made. An investigation meant more publicity.
The reference in my article to “the law” about four-year-olds brought a visit from the city attorney, who had probably been asked to look the matter up. Believing that I had been bluffing on that point, but too polite to charge me with it, he began the conversation by saying that he was sure I was mistaken, as he had searched the statutes and could find no such law. I told him that he was following Wisconsin Blue Book
to show him Article X, Section 3 of the State Constitution—an article that, by the way, gives evidence of the prescience on educational matters of those pioneers who helped to shape the state.
The bond issue that precipitated the events just recited, was finally secured, and it was in connection with the construction of that addition to the Frank School that an incident occurred which not only illustrates the woman's point of view on such matters, but also the man's point of view towards women.
I was not asked to participate in any of the meetings held for the planning of the building; but it finally dawned on someone that I might be interested. So I was asked to be present when final action on plans would be taken. After Architect Hahn had fully explained the plans, I was asked if I had any suggestions to make. I expressed my disappointment at not finding any provision made for a rest room for teachers, whereupon the chairman bluntly informed me that teachers were not hired to rest. This, of course, required from me an explanation of what such rooms were for and what the minimum equipment should include. Mr. Hahn was asked if a place for such a room could be found, and he pointed out how with a few unimportant changes, it could be done. This adjusted, I was asked, with the patronizing air a little less apparent, if I had any other suggestions. My reply seemed even more preposterous; it was that some provision be made on each floor for a supply of running hot water. Hot water! Why?
My struggle with janitors for cleaner floors had already begun. Among the reasonable excuses give was the difficulty of getting hot water for cleaning purposes. Several had showed me that a single gas plate in the basement was all they had, and another was obliged to heat water in a cauldron over an out-door fire,—in the old pioneer way. Hence, being a woman, it seemed advisable to remove these excuses for dirty floors. Again the architect found a way, and a place for such an installation, which, he said, would not mar the interior appearance of the hall. So a deep sink with running hot and cold water was put in on each floor.
One consequence of this is interesting. With the janitorial work in the Frank School thus rendered easier, all other janitors felt themselves discriminated against, and forthwith petitioned for like conveniences. The petition was granted by the board, although in several buildings, as may now be observed, the installation stands out rather obtrusively in the main hall. I might cite other instances in which the housekeeper's attitude of mind manifested itself in school management and in new developments.
On the first really cold day of the winter the attendance officer said to me, “How can I keep children in school when they have nothing to eat and are without proper clothing?” Then he told me of what he had seen in homes that day. Joe Scholey was a humane man and his sympathies had been frequently touched by such experiences. His report moved me to another appeal to the public.
Now a day goes by that I do not feel the need of a charitable organization to which I may appeal for help in the cause of some child.
I stated what educational work the principals, teachers, school board, and superintendent were trying to do and added:
But a hungry child cannot learn, no matter how ideal these conditions; and the truant officer cannot oblige a ragged and thinly clad child to go through the cold to school. ... Will not some person or persons in Kenosha start a movement for the establishment of .... some organization .... to defend little children in their rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
My diary says, “Friday, Nov. 11. My article came out and created quite a stir. There were responses at once.” The next day Mr. Marlatt printed a strong editorial and announced a “get-together meeting” to be led by Rev. Edgar F. Farrill. There were twenty people present at the meeting and my record of it closed with, “I think a start has been made for an organization here.” The fact is, Kenosha was ready for the movement, and my article simply served to precipitate action. As soon as possible a branch of the Associated Charities was formed here, and a most competent woman, Louise Cotrell, engaged for the work. In the list of names of the twenty-five men and women who composed the first board of directors are those of ten who now have passed on, and of others who are still active in such work—active in community service for twenty years.
In the fall of 1910, Kenosha was building a new city hall. That headquarters for the school board should be included in the plans seemed not to have been thought of; but once the idea was lodged, the board took up the question, and after considerable opposition, three small rooms in the northwest corner of the second floor were granted. One became a business
In the city hall, I was across from the police department, and having learned that one source of outside opposition to the change had come from said department, who “didn't want a woman nosing into their affairs,” it behooved me to make friends with Chief O'Hare, and to allay his fears and prejudices.
In the 1910 sale of Christmas seals, the Wisconsin Anti-Tuberculosis Association offered as one of its prizes “a complete equipment for an open-air school to any city of 15,000 population or above making the highest per capita sale.” Another prize offered was one month's “service of a visiting nurse to the twelve cities of from 10,000 to 55,000 population making the highest per capita sale,” the nurse to serve the cities in the order of the amount of the sale.
Due largely to the active work of Dr. G. A. Windesheim, both of these prizes were won by Kenosha. The public announcement of this fact was immediately followed by the arrival of Miss Sarah West Ryder the nurse, a part of whose assigned work was to find the candidates for the Open Air School.
The precipitateness of this movement took the school board by surprise, but somehow they came to see that upon them developed the duty of finding a place for the Open Air School. The widespread publicity given the news increased their sense of obligation to do something, so they voted a small appropriation for a building and agreed to pay the teacher, leaving it to the superintendent to raise by private contributions and in other ways the money to pay the matron
The building was not ideal, but it was the best that could be provided with the money allowed. It was a plain board building,—a little country school house— with a tent roof and with more than the usual number of windows on the south side. Since this was the first Open Air School in the state, we had no one to turn to for ideas. It was quite centrally located, near the Frank School. A visit to the Open Air School at Hull House, Chicago, brought me needed help about feeding, treatment, and suitable work for the children.
The complete equipment of clothing which had been solicited from merchants by the Anti-Tuberculosis Association and sent to me without previous inspection by the latter, was not all that it promised to be. Much of it was unusable but we got along that spring and before another winter the women of certain churches had helped in making the clothing needed. Miss Ryder reported a number of children as proper candidates for the school of whom twenty were selected. The school was opened in April, 1911, with Mrs. Irene Keating as teacher and Mrs. Clara Whitaker as matron. The children were fed and rested in the way now commonly followed in such schools. It ran nine weeks before the summer vacation.
It was a very satisfactory experiment and produced in that short time some of the results now familiar to all who have watched this kind of treatment for the physically sub-normal and pre-tubercular child: increase of weight, disappearance of temperature, happiness in school work, increased attendance, and the return to the regular school in the fall of healthy children in place of sickly, irregular specimens
It is to indirect effects that much credit is due, namely, changed conditions in the home. The children after their experience in the school refuse to live in the conditions previously endured, windows are opened, and a more wholesome diet furnished.
For twenty years now Kenosha has maintained that sort of a school for children who need it. Its early history was troubled,—as when a gale took off the tent roof, and nearly demolished the first building, and several changes of location followed. But better times came, and finally there was a substantial, especially planned home constructed for it. Now the beautiful orthoepedic building accommodates, also, the Open Air School.
At the accustomed time of year, late February, I attended, in 1911, my first meeting of the Department of Superintendents, which that year was held in Mobile, Alabama, and had the pleasant and helpful experience of going with the Wisconsin company,—helpful because I had an opportunity to talk over my problems with other superintendents. Our tickets were excursion tickets to New Orleans and required validation there. This afforded us the opportunity after the convention of seeing that old city and witnessing the historic pageant for which it had long been famous.
The Mobile convention was a profitable one for me, as were those to follow year after year, not one of which I missed until 1921. From every one of them I returned imbued with new purpose, filled with new ideas to be reported to
My expenses were paid by the board, and I purposed making it a good investment for the benefit of Kenosha school children. Under date of March 6, 1911, there appears in the records of the board my report of the Mobile convention, and I quote the closing paragraph, which did not lack frankness, to say the least:
It enabled me to meet many of the most progressive superintendents of our own and other states and to confer with a number who are in cities the size of Kenosha. While this tended to a clearer realization of the fact that Kenosha is in some respects at a comparatively low level of school progress, it also enabled me to pick up many ideas of practical value, while it strengthened my ideal of what Kenosha should and may become if things are done that need to be done.
In the summer vacation of 1911 I wrote a report. It contained a few statistical tables and an account of the progress made for the school year 1910-11. The printing committee was called to consider the question of having it put in report
to suggest plans for the future. What we expect in a report is a statement of things that have happened.” I tried to defend my position by telling him that the future procedure advised was based upon information which the head of one of the utilities companies had given me, it being the result of their study of the situation and their conclusion as to future city growth and development. But the verdict of the committee to cut out that section prevailed against me, and the only trace to be found of it is an overlooked sentence in the introduction to the report setting forth in a general way my plans and purposes.
Of course, I was disappointed that the result of my volunteer service of that summer vacation should meet with such a reception, but I can say of that plain little booklet of fifty-five pages, that it was the first printed report of the sort that was ever made by a superintendent of schools of Kenosha. It also served to convey some information to the “watchers”
Our city had then started on that period of rapid growth which brought census returns in 1920 double those in 1910. It was some satisfaction to me to observe that when the school board did get ready to think about new properties, my predictions and proffered advice, formerly rejected, had not been far astray; but by that time prices were quite different. Whether or not a man in my place would have met the same experience, I will not venture to say.
This was the Teachers’ Retirement Fund Law, in which I had long been interested, and for the advancement of which I had on several occasions appeared before committees of the legislature. In all that long struggle to get the first law passed, there was one woman, a Madison grade teacher, who worked hardest and most persistently for that end, and whose name should not be forgotten by those who now, or who may in the future enjoy the benefit of that beneficent measure. It was she who on June 8, 1911, sent me a postcard on which was written this message:
The struggle is over, we planted the flag on the battlements last Thursday about 6:30
p.m.
The vote stood 52 to 19. The Governor is O.K. and we feel that Wisconsin will have the best State Retirement Fund Law in the country. Your hearty helpfulness in this work is deeply appreciated.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth M. Herfurth
4 As is well known, this law was later revised and discovered defects remedied.
The papers of Miss Herfurth are on file in the Wisconsin Historical Library.
Since in these annals, there have been included from time to time matters of intimate family concern, this heading suggests the mention of the fact that I had been honored by a new title, that of grandmother. The event occurred in St. Louis, where my son's family now lived, and where on July 19, 1911, William Bradford (in the family genealogical tables marked “X”) was born. But my real purpose in this section is to relate what to some people may seem more important.
In November at the meeting of the State Association in Milwaukee, the teachers of Wisconsin elected me to the presidency of that association. The office was unsought, for I was too busy to attend to the duties which such an honor entailed. But my protests were unavailing.
I wish in this connection to mention especially the magnanimity of John Callahan, then the superintendent of schools of Menasha. A few days before the convention he sent me a telegram asking if I were to be a candidate, and expressing the intention, if such should be the case, of withdrawing from the contest. I answered yes, but aid that I was not a monopolist. He at once announced his withdrawal, which had much to do with the results that followed.
The question of my election was settled in the primary, for after it the other candidates withdrew, and the usual political struggle was obviated. Superintendent C. P. Cary said to me that the election was like those in the olden days before bitterly fought contests were waged. A friendly news report of the affair read:
She was declared the unanimous choice of the Association for the coming year. ... The manner of the election of Mrs. Bradford is as high an honor as could be conferred upon her by the members of the profession to which she has given her life.
The quotation of the last sentence makes me uncomfortable, but a certain consideration has overcome my scruples against doing so; it is that women in general shared with me that high honor. That women did so is shown by such statements as the following taken from one of many letters of congratulation that came to me, “We are proud to know that a
woman
holds the highest office that this important organization has to offer.” That the school board was impressed is shown by a resolution passed at the regular meeting of November 14, 1911, all of which was encouraging and helpful.
Although a year would elapse before the meeting at which I would preside, it was necessary to begin plans for it at once, and find speakers for the program. My sense of responsibility was increased by an article by J. B. Borden in the
Wisconsin Library Bulletin
for December 1911, in which he predicted this: “A program will be prepared under her direction that will not only be optimistic and inspirational, but will contain the best and latest in educational thought and progress.” With such a prediction, there was nothing for me to do but to endeavor with might and main to make good. My rapidly growing reputation was putting me in the plight of Alice in Wonderland when, in the moving forest, she was obliged to run as fast as she could to keep where she relatively was.
My plans to get out another annual report in the summer of 1912 had to be abandoned. When the school closed for the summer vacation, I was quite worn out, and went for a rest to a quiet, cool retreat on Madeline Island in Lake Superior. There at the Old Mission Inn, I wrote my president's address on the subject, “Active Membership in the W.T.A.” which speech I was glad “to get out of my system” and thus be free for the duties of the new school year.
All I will say about that meeting in November, 1912, is that one of the first steps in shaping the program for it was getting as a speaker, a young man whom I had heard in Mobile, and who had impressed me favorably by his progressive views, and clear, forceful style of utterance. He appeared that fall for the first time on a Wisconsin program—Dr. Henry Suzzallo, who later rose to prominence in the educational world, and is now the president of the Carnegie Foundation.
One of these was the opening of the vocational school in the fall of 1912, Kenosha having been one of the twenty-one cities to make levies the first year of the operation of the Wisconsin Continuation School Law. R. W. Tarbell was the first principal, and Laura E. Hahn, previously a member of the high school faculty, had charge of the girls.
The other beginning was that of the Parent-Teacher Associations, of which I find the following mention:
On Thursday afternoon, Sept. 12, a Parent-Teacher Association was organized at the High School. Mrs. Bradford presided at the meeting, telling the purpose of the organization, which is briefly as follows:—Co-operation between home and school, etc. ... Meetings will be held once a month.
From the successful start made in the high school, the movement spread to the elementary schools.
It was again at a national educational meeting, that I was able to get the desired information about the operation of this organization of which I had heard, and becoming convinced that it was a good thing, Kenosha made an early start. Under the able and devoted leadership of Mrs. George N. Tremper, who was willing to undertake the work, our city PLAY FESTIVAL
Library Park, Wis, June 13, 1913. Gilbert M. Simmons Memorial Library in the background
It was in the summer of 1913 that another school report was written covering the two previous years, and published that fall. It is much more pretentious pamphlet than its predecessors, having 181 pages, and containing pictures of new school activities, together with graphs and tables. It is given an historic touch by having a complete list of the graduates of the Kenosha high school from 1861 to 1913.
In the introductory paragraph addressed to the school board, I say:
Much time has been spent compiling data for the tables and statistics, which were needed for a report that purposes to put in form convenient for reference now and later, the chief facts about the public schools of our City, ... and have given accounts of progressive movements recently inaugurated under your guidance and support.
I wonder how many of the sixteen men then in office,—a group picture of whom forms the frontispiece of the booklet, ever read it far enough to find that implied credit or what followed under twelve subject headings, such as “School Hygiene and Sanitation,” Study of Nationality,” “Teachers’ Salaries and Cost of Living,” etc, or read the reports of those who were carrying on the special activities, by that time in operation such as music, cooking, sewing, manual training , drawing, and others; or the report of the principal of the high school, and the principal of the continuation school; and, reading, realized that Kenosha had in three years developed a real school system.
But whatever the interest of the school officials may have been, evidences of appreciation came to me in letters from
I had learned in that three years something about the policies necessary for a woman to pursue, and others good for any superintendent to follow. As to the former, it must be recognized that men, at least a large majority of those I had to deal with, do not like to be dictated to by a woman. Subordination of self was best, and I resolved to practice it in all matters that did not involve principle. The advisability of this policy may be more readily seen when it is known that the members of the council twitted the school board with being “tied to a woman's apron strings” and some of the men were sensitive about it. I therefore early adopted the policy of concealing the “apron strings” and not allowing them to appear in my relationships with these men. In these round the-table conferences, measures that I believed in any that I hoped might be brought about sometimes, would be suggested and discussed as to purpose and probable cost, as tried out in other cities. Then the matter was allowed to rest. It often happened that at some future meeting, some one would propose the consideration of the measure that had been discussed in the privacy of the committee room, and he had the pleasure of having done something of a constructive sort. Memoirs.
But things occurred that struck my pride in achievement rather stiff blows and were rather hard to endure with complacency. One of these came near the close of my third year. Much had been accomplished that year, and the young lawyer who had served as president of the board, close his term of office with a summary of the board's achievements under his leadership. He enumerated twenty-one things that had been accomplished. Among them was the quipping of new domestic science kitchens (for which an old friend of mine had given me $1,500), the installation of the household arts course in the schools, and the addition of another manual training shop in the system, putting an extra kindergarten in a crowded district, equipping of a new chemistry department in the high school, the complete revision of the rules and regulations of the board, the opening of the schools as social centers, and other things that I did not have quite so much to do with. In all of this report nothing was said that would cause a reader to think that there was such a person as a superintendent of school on the job!
Another thing that I had learned, which i good for any superintendent, man or woman, to realize, was the importance of publicity. It was a most fortunate thing for me and for Kenosha, that the daily paper, through it editor, W. T. Marlatt, was ready to coöperate at every turn. Although the scrapbook of the later years how by their diminishing size the lessening of the need for publicity, yet, whenever it seemed best, articles continued to be prepare (evening work, of course), and interviews given. It was interesting to note the change that took place in the attitude of successive school
It may be remembered that one of my friendly advisers referred to “stumps” that might trouble me in my new field of work. There was one little phrase repeated on all possible occasions—in chance interview with citizen, in public addresses and in written articles. It was “your school,” and I think it helped considerably in loosening those “stumps” of indifference that had stood in the way of progress. I cherished the hope that it might awaken and increase a sense of responsibility in the voters for the sort of school board they created to handle the most vital concerns of the community.
One day I ran upon sentence in a lecture by George E. Vincent, and, realizing it truth, preserved it. Here it is, “The joy of living is not in doing our duty, but in losing ourselves in our jobs; in forgetting that it is work, and playing the game like a good sportsman, who spends himself freely and honestly for the game.”
There is an oft-heard saying of origin unknown to me, that “the first hundred years are the hardest.” Reduce the number, and the saving fits my case. In the three-year period, an account of which was given in the previous chapter, needed changes in the Kenosha school system had been pushed forward in rapid succession, because I had thought it probable that my superintendency would not last beyond that first three-year contract. I have called the next three years a period of doubtful tenure because during it I was hired for only one year at a time.
The Spring of 1913 was a crucial one in my career. That some of my friends also were doubtful about my reelection is shown by letters received. One of these was from J. W. Crabtree,
“I must admit that I thought things would go against you, and I began (as I always do when unmerited reverses come to any friend) to think how one could do something for you elsewhere. I do not think that we would have any trouble in seeing that you would do almost as well elsewhere. But I am glad that it is unnecessary at this moment. You have a great name in the State.”
I too, was glad, for I felt that I had only begun my work in Kenosha, and wanted to continue it. As to the last complimentary statement of Mr. Crabtree, my reputation outside
An item in a Milwaukee paper bearing the date of March 11, 1913, and sent in from Kenosha, gives one reason why some members of the School Board, and doubtless, their constituents back of them, considered me an unfit person for the office of head of the schools. After mentioning the fact that I had just been re-elected for a fourth year, the item says: “Mrs. Bradford met with some opposition on account of the strong stand taken on Woman Suffrage.”
Of quite another sort is the following incident,—the same kind of thing that my humerous friend warned me against when he suggested that, for security of tenure, I should remember the policeman's daughter when filling school positions. It was reported to me one spring by Joseph M. Scholey, attendance officer and my good office factotum, that a man was canvassing one of the wards for votes as School Commissioner, and was announcing as a recommendation—which might have had weight in that section of the city—that the chief plank in his platform was getting rid of me. I was totally unable to understand why the man harbored such a state of mind, for his wife was counted among my friends; a daughter was an elementary teacher whose work had won due recognition. So, curious to know the reason for her father's attitude I called the daughter in for an interview. She, weeping, said that she and her mother were worried about it and gave as an explanation that her
The man didn't succeed in getting on the Board, but others did, with similar motives. For example:
A school janitor was elected to the Board and served a term. He had a special “mad on me” because I had criticised the condition of his building and had told him what should be done. He may have had other motives, but one, certainly, was the desire to get even with me. He had easily secured the election in his north side ward, and then for two years proceeded to make all the trouble he could, by opposing anything that I wanted done. These are merely samples of what real democracy in city government affairs sometimes results in especially under the ward system of representation.
Whatever the remote or immediate causes may have been that were operating in the Spring of 1913, the fact is that the School Board, after the expiration of my three-year contract, were not agreed in committing themselves to another such term. My janitor man and the young lawyer then serving as president of the Board were strongly of that opinion. So I was hired for one year. My salary that year, my fourth, was $2400.
Again, in the Spring of 1914, there was a period of doubt; but my friends on the Board evidently prevailed, for again my lease of professional life was extended for another
To complete the three years “period of doubtful tenure,” I will include here the fact that I was elected again for the year 1915-1916 at the same salary.
While I had demonstrated some of the things that a “female superintendent” could do, there were many improvements still needing to be made in the schools of Kenosha, as well as the perfecting of those already undertaken, and the firmer intrenchment of them in public understanding and favor. There were progressive movements that were operating in other cities and there were the ones that I wanted to try out. The first battle for these new educational plans, as is best for all social undertakings, must be fought out in the adult mind of the community. I still had, in the friendly editor of the “Evening News,” an able ally in efforts to bring the public to a fuller realization of their duty to their schools. On the whole, the opportunity offered by Kenosha was becoming a more and more attractive one. The “game” was increasing in interest. I was feeling “the gladness of creative work.”
It was Ella Flagg Young
Some of the administrative problems enumerated had, by this time been attempted, as my printed reports for 1911 and 1913 show. As to the political situation, a change in the mayor in Kenosha brought better cooperation between the City Council and the School Board and more reliable conditions for 1913-1914, when Dan O. Head filled that office. After that, as already mentioned, came the return for one term, 1914-1916, of the old order, and a revival of trouble for the School Board as movements were started to increase the school facilities. To complete the mayoralty history of my time, I will add that from 1916-1918, with Mayor Chas H. Pfennig, a former high school pupil of mine, there was greater sympathy and understanding in “high places” for the
It concerns Mrs. Young, the Superintendent of the great Chicago School system. I desire to say in regard to political interference of which she warned me, and with which I had already had a little experience, that never in Kenosha, even “in miniature” did conditions resemble those that the Superintendent of School had and still has to face in Chicago; where the members of the Schools Board are appointed by the Mayor. There the Mayor could make the School Board over to his suit his purposes, while in Kenosha there was always an independent contingent, sometimes a minority, whose purposes were clear and above doubt, and who knew from experience and were really interested in, the institution they were elected to sponsor—the public schools. There was also such contingent in the Chicago School Board, even when it was at its worst;
In 1913 the politicians of Chicago decided to make it so disagreeable for her that she would resign. She had then held the office for four years, during which time educational interests of all sorts had gone ahead as never before. She had come to the superintendency with a notable record, covering a period of nearly fifty years, which included, besides her work in the public school system as teacher and principal, a professorship in the department of Pedagogy in the
It was claimed at the time of her election to the superintendency that she was the “first $10,000 woman” in public life. She directed the work of some 6,000 teachers, who were guiding the education and shaping the lives of nearly 300,000 children. But her ability and her earnestness of purpose did not count with the politicians, who preferred some other sort of person as head of the schools.
Convinced that a certain element on the School Board, the appointees of Mayor Carter H. Harrison, were bent upon hampering her work, Mrs. Young in 1913, took what she considered the dignified step by asking the Board to release her from her duties. Then public opinion asserted itself, and the Mayor, realizing that he would, by persisting, seriously injure himself politically, called a halt in the operations of his clique. Mrs. Young returned, but when again the heckling was renewed, she threatened to resign permanently unless her enemies on the School Board retired. “The upshot of it was that Mayor Harrison accepted the resignation of five trustees.”
Two years longer, or until 1915, Mrs Young went on with her work, and completed a period of six eventful and stormy years. She then resigned and went to Washington, and there engaged in government work for the Liberty Loans. Her death on Oct. 26, 1918 was hastened by her work for the Fourth Liberty Loan. She was then 73 years of age.
My purpose in this digression is to recall a great name in education, of one whom the teaching profession especially
Although this topic was treated at some length in the preceding chapter, some later observations will be mentioned now, and a change very significant to me, recorded.
I had observed that many men who were not only willing but who wanted to run for the office of “school commissioner” (a more dignified term preferred by some)—seemed to feel that they had performed their full public duty in that line when they had served one term. Had they been disappointed in some way or had they given all the time they could afford? Others did not stay that long, and sometimes their motives in “making the gesture” were easy to detect. Even a short term of such service seemed to be regarded as a sort of guarantee of respectability and proper approach to the public favor, usable when they ran for what they regarded as a higher public office on the City Council, or for some other position. During the three-year period of which I am now writing there were 32 different men on the Board of sixteen and later of eighteen. Upon this condition I was moved to say in a paper read at an N. E. A. convention in 1920, as follows:
“Under such circumstances, a continuity of school policy is about impossible. It sometimes happens that the only element making for continuity of policy in such a situation is the superintendent; and the stronger the superintendent is for consistent and really progressive continuity, the less likely is there to be continuity in the superintendency.”
BOARD OF EDUCATION, KENOSHA, WIS. 1914-1915
Jacob Leuck
Mrs. Beatrice Ives Welles
Wm. J. Threinen
Howard W. Bain
A. B. Celander
Daniel Hahn
F. F. Joerndt
Orman N. Yule
Chas. A. Pofahl
M. J. Sullivan
S. C. Newman
George Wallis
Dr. George E. Thompson
Richard Hawkins
Geo, A. Flad
A. J. Tanck
L. J. Hammond
Wm. Hocking
In Kenosha it was because of that previously mentioned small, reliable, experienced contingent that progress was possible; but progress would have been much faster and less troubled had there not been the drag from the annual shift of members. I came to feel that the former deserved greater appreciation from the public than they received, for the time and energy that they gave to the school cause. Sometimes, however, the shift brought good men and was a desirable change, and finally one of those entrusted by the public with a share in administrating its schools was a woman.
The “Evening News” of Feb. 20, 1914, contained the following item:
“The women of Kenosha may have their first representative on the Board of Education following the coming city election, as petitions have been taken out in the second ward for the nomination of Mrs. Beatrice Ives Welles as a candidate for the office of school commissioner. The petitions are being circulated by the men, and it is certain that Mrs. Welles will have a strong support among the men as among the women. She is one of the most prominent members of Kenosha Clubs and Societies, and has taken a great interest in public questions.”
This prediction was a true one. Mrs. Welles won the distinction of being the first woman to be named to a political office in Kenosha. She won the election by a large majority over her male competitor, and received 171 out of 185 votes cast by the women of her ward. She was a very handsome woman, of brilliant intellect and had the courage of her convictions. She was prominent in the formation of the Kenosha City Club, organized by some young women in June 1914, as a protest against the conservatism on public questions of another organization of women who clung to a purely cultural ideal and purpose in club policies. The purpose of the new group was “to study civic problems, to seek ways of correcting wrongs, and giving proper support to movements along right lines.” Mrs. Welles was an accomplished musician and was making a profession of that line of work. She
Mrs. Welles and I were good friends; she was acquainted with my plans and aspirations for the development of the Kenosha schools, and the prospect of her support was most comforting and encouraging. I was anxious to have her influence felt. Most of the men of the Board were glad to have her as an associate, and she won their admiration and respect by the cheerful and efficient way in which she performed all duties assigned her. But there were a few who were suspicious of her. They were the men who were sensitive to the gibes of certain outsiders about being bossed by a woman, and they were fearful that with another woman as a backer for
her,
their manly pride would suffer even greater trials. “Now you'll see!” these watchful political meddlers were reported as saying. They may have been abetted, as Mrs. Welles thought, by a certain woman in the school force—an enemy of both her and me.
It was evident to me that something had better be done about this thing, for surely Mrs. Welles's influence must not to any degree be nullified by any such foolishness and trickery. The minds of certain of her associates on the Board must be disabused of the idea that she was too closely allied to me.
It was decided to resort to an expedient that has become very familiar in these later years, even in public affairs of national scope—which expedient is now called “changing the psychology of a situation.” If it was “playing politics” then I don't know what that phrase means; and if the criticism is deserved that a man would not have resorted to such
To the committees on which she served, as those on Teachers and on Health and Sanitation, she always brought an intelligent opinion, and the needed woman's point of view. She was personally helpful to me as superintendent in many ways, especially about certain professional phases of my work, such as improvement in teaching technique, about which a lay body of men elected by the people to serve them by carrying on the business of the schools, could not be expected to know. Probably a man in my place would not have valued a woman on the School Board as I did.
I have dwelt on this topic at considerable length because I believe, as I have already said, that women should participate in the direction of school affairs, and that the public should see to it that those most capable of that service are persuaded to undertake it. That many cities are doing this I know, and I deplore the fact that my own city is still indifferent about it. Women are needed for one reason, because the women employed by the School Board greatly exceed the men, and they need and should have a sympathetic representative on the Board; another reason is that women have an insight into questions of child welfare, and an understanding helpful to the advancement of such causes.
It has been said that the troubles of today are due to the mistakes of yesterday. In Kenosha the cause of increased expenditures at this time was the failure on the part of previous School Boards to consider the future needs of a growing city in the way of increased school facilities. It was because of a lack of vision on the part of public officials that the people now had a heavier burden of taxation to bear. For example, in 1895 a four-room school house was built and in 1899 another of like capacity. That the needs of the former district were not anticipated in the building is shown by the fact that in 1896, just one year after the school was opened, a primary teacher in that school petitioned the Board, as the records show, for assistance in handling a room full of 80 children. Then a two-room addition was built at nearly half the cost of the original, and in a few years the building thus expanded was outgrown and another addition was needed.
The same evidence of short-sightedness had been shown in regard to the purchase of land adjacent to new buildings for playground purposes, which at the time could have been bought at a comparatively low price. In several instances the erection within a few years on this adjacent land or large residence, or, as in two instances, of churches, rendered it impossible to acquire adequate out-of-door play space for children.
So, for one thing, regular and deliberately planned educational work had to be carried on in and with the successive School Boards, and with the public, to develop a realization of the unavoidable increase of school facilities and an appreciation of the importance of large school grounds.
This purpose was helped by the well-known magazine published in Milwaukee, “The School Board Journal,” which certainly deserves credit for the educational work it did and
While waiting for the slow movement for larger school accommodations, the pressing need of some sort of school rooms led to the use of the portable type of one room school houses. These were first introduced into Kenosha in 1913, following my observation of those used in St. Louis, where on newly acquired school properties, they served as a sort of advance guarantee of a permanent structure, sometime. In Kenosha they were first used to supplement the old buildings. These little school houses, multiplying as they did, infringed seriously upon the already limited play-grounds.
July, 1914, found me in New York City enrolled in the great summer school of Columbia University. With Professor Frank McMurray, I had a course in Supervision of Instruction with observation of teaching in the practice school connected with Teachers’ College; and I had another course in School Administration with Ellwood P. Cubberley of Leland Stanford, who attracted many Superintendents to Columbia that summer. Both summer were greatly enjoyed. While the writings of the former had long been to me a
That summer in New York is associated with another piece of work that followed me up from Kenosha. It was the reading of the proof of the Course of Study for the Kenosha Schools. It included Kindergarten, Grades and High School and when printed made a book of 173 pages. Credit for the syllabus of the High School courses belongs to the principal and heads of departments. The Principal was George N. Tremper, who entered upon that office in the fall of 1911. The elementary syllabus expressed an evolved result coming from work with and upon that old course of 1910, to the shaping of which result the teachers had, after intelligent trials of the course, made valuable contributions. It was with the elementary schedule that I had the most to do, and although it was outgrown and discarded long ago, that curriculum an attempt to relate the work of the schools to life.
I am sure that tradition did not play too large a part in its formulation, although established fundamentals were by no means neglected. Several features of it were regarded as unique, and one of these expressing a long-cherished idea. I will briefly describe.
It was that strand of the curriculum which, from the Kindergarten to the High School was called “Citizenship.” That it had a strong ethical import will be inferred from my statement of the purpose mentioned of relating as far as possible, the work of the school to life. I did not, however, think it best to label it “Ethics” for that would surely have brought the charge of adding another “frill.” No one could object to the teaching of “Citizenship” and besides, what is known as “Civics” formed a part of it. On the ethical side it aimed definitely and systematically at the inculcation of ideas of certain fundamental virtues, such as honesty, industry, kindness, etc., and the shaping, as far as possible, of conduct in conformity with these ideas. The method followed was that of story and incident, with Cabot's “Ethics for Children” as the guide for teachers. From the Fourth Grade on there were added lessons in civics, beginning with the observation of their home city government.
Whatever success in accomplishing its purposes this part of the curriculum met with depended upon the teachers, and, at that time their previous training had not done much to prepare them in any special way for this line of work. My convictions regarding its importance had, some years before this led me to propose for consideration at a Teachers’ Convention the addition to the usual supervising force for special subjects still another—a trained supervisor of
Citizenship,
whose duties as I imagined them were then described. It didn't make much of an impression—it was just a woman's vagary—but
But I am telling about the summer of 1914, and there is still another experience besides studying, listening to lectures and reading proof that causes the Summer of 1914 in New York City to stand out in my memory. I roomed high up in Whittier Hall on Amsterdam Ave. On the evening of Aug. 1, an unusual uproar came from the noisy street. Excited voices were heard and the cry of “Extra!” Above the din of the traffic arose the startling words: “War in Europe” “War!” The next evening I viewed from the top of a bus the down town excitement of that great city, and hold in my memory the sight of a multitude of men in a public square, silently reading the bulletins that were being thrown on a lofty screen. I see that phalanx of innumerable straw hats that came to view as we passed back of the crowd—straw hats then—exchanged, many of them, for steel helmets later. Depressed as I was by this terrible news, how very little did I, or any one, realize the consequences to us and to the world, of what those bulletin boards were conveying.
While we are feeling those consequences today, a realization of the cost of that war to the world cannot be gained so much from figures as from other bulletin boards which Bruce Barton pictures to us, and with the use of which in “Advertising this Hell!”, I am in entire accord.
It was generally expected that “Reading” would be one of the subjects stressed, and it was; but there came to be two others, one of which was “Health” and the other, as may have been anticipated, was “Citizenship.” Of many reminiscences that crowd my thought on the teaching side of my work, I will relate two that bore upon the third so–called hobby.
The first to be mentioned aimed at helping teachers to do their work in that line more effectively. The following quotations from a published report reveal what was done:
“A notable event in the history of the Kenosha Schools took place in October, 1913, when the city was visited by Dr. Frederick J. Gould, the celebrated English educator, who gave at the High School a series of demonstrations of his method of moral education, before the teachers of the public and parochial schools. The children taught ranged from eleven to thirteen years of age, and were selected from the different schools.” (The schools were closed a half–hour earlier to permit teachers to attend these four o'clock lectures.)
“Mr. Gould’s tour through Wisconsin and other states was arranged by the Extension Division of the University of Wisconsin, and Kenosha was the first place visited in this long tour. The plan worked out in Kenosha for the visitation of schools, the demonstration lessons, and the general method of procedure was followed in Dr. Gould‘s subsequent tour.
The expense of these lectures in Kenosha amount to $120, of this Chas. T. Jeffrey paid $83.00 and the teachers $37.00.”
“During his stay in Kenosha, Dr. Gould was entertained at the home of Chester D. Barnes. The lectures began Monday, October 6 and continued through the week.”
Then follows in that report an account of the method used by Dr. Gould, which I cannot reproduce here. Suffice it to say that the teachers were privileged not only to observe a demonstration of the high and rare art of perfect teaching, which it was hoped would yield a general beneficial effect in the school rooms of Kenosha, but besides that, they had a demonstration of what I regarded as the best way to
With that principle I was in entire accord. Later, I was able to purchase some books on Moral Education, written by Mr. Gould, and these were distributed as desk copies for teachers. This was made possible by another gift of money from a friend, Mrs. Ella F. Allen. In 1912 she had given me $1500 to equip the first kitchens in the schools of Kenosha.
The second undertaking for citizenship, one of which the public took note, was intended to supplement the class room work in Citizenship by affording opportunities to children and youth to demonstrate it. They were child citizens and need not wait to grow up before trying to be good citizens. Again I quote from an old write–up on the subject of patriotic instruction:
“Children take part in the parade on Memorial Day. It has been a regular part of the ceremonial since I took the Superintendency here, to have the children march on Memorial Day from the respective schools in processions with flags and their school banners, and to gather about the Soldiers’ Monument in Library Park, where a short program of songs is carried out. They then line up on either side of the street for several blocks, and salute the old soldiers as they pass by on their way to the cemetary.
“On May 30th last, I stood in Library Park in the midst of children from an Italian ward. When the Boy Scout squad appeared all cheered them lustily, but a hush fell when the old veterans came by, hats came off, and the whispered word passed down the line—“The Old Soldiers” The respect shown was not only encouraging but touching in the extreme and my heart swelled with gratitude to the teachers of Kenosha for this evidence of the success of their work. Memorial Day is an impressive
The training of the young by participation in such memorial and historic celebrations is the best assurance of the perpetuity of such patriotic celebrations.”
My ideas about citizenship training were greatly clarified, my purposes strengthened and plans for it simplified by Dr. John Dewey’s definition of a good citizen. He says:
“A good citizen is one who is socially serviceable. To suppose,” he says “that a good citizen is anything more than a thoroughly efficient and serviceable member of society, one with all his powers of mind and body under control is a hampering superstitution, which it is hoped may soon disappear from educational discussion.”
“Serviceableness” is something that can be analyzed and that even young children can understand, and so if we agree with Dr. Dewey, we can by that analysis get at the qualities that make for good citizenship.
That departure from the established order of school procedure may be fraught with danger is shown by the following incident. It occurred in a sixth grade, when the teacher was leading her pupils in the analysis of the qualifications needed for
serviceableness
in certain city offices. As qualities were named and discussed, they were written upon the blackboard. It happened that the father of a boy in class was a candidate for an office, and he reported at home what the class had discussed. That evening I was called to the phone by a very angry man and told that “politics” was being discussed in schools and that he would report the teacher to the school board unless it was stopped. I told him that he was mistaken in his charge, that what was being done was simply in the line of citizenship training, but that if he wanted to carry the matter to the Board to go ahead. He replied that he sent his children to school to learn, and not
In concluding this topic I will say that I have come to think that about all that is implied in the phrase “character education” as commonly heard today is included in what I have called here “citizenship training.” There is certainly nothing inimical to the former in the pursuit of the latter, and I am rather inclined to think that we would surely advance in the former by this concrete, practical method that makes conduct the test.
It was in the school year 1914–’15 that the question of reorganizing the school system on what was called the “6–3–3 plan” in place of the old inherited “8–4 plan” began to be discussed with the School Board, and with the public through the press, and by talks before various groups. The early introduction of Kenosha to this new idea is another instance of the benefit that resulted from the payment of the expenses of their Superintendent of Schools to the meetings of the Department of Superintendents, as it was from that source of information and professional inspiration that I first learned about this new plan. My long experience furnished immediate evidence of the wisdom of it—for the elementary school of six years, an intermediate school of three years, and a high school of three years. Its advantages from the psychological, the social and the educational viewpoints are now so well understood that comment upon them is unnecessary.
The education of outside adult opinion, my belief in which had increased with experience and observation, went steadily on. I had learned that it isn‘t best to outrun public
In the work of acquainting the public with the new idea in school organization, much assistance was rendered by S.C. Newman, a member of the Board in 1913–’14 who became deeply interested. He read all pamphlets and reports furnished him and did some very effective speaking on the subject.
My interest in the movement, which the School of Education of the University began early to advance, led to my being asked to serve on a state committee with Prof. H.S. Miller of the Wisconsin High School, University of Wisconsin and Supt. F.E. Converse of Beloit. The committee decided to call the intermediate unit “The Junior High School.” The working out of this project in Kenosha will be told in the next chapter. When the time came for it, the people of Kenosha knew a little of what it was all about.
Although the site, and the plans for a twenty–room school building on it, had been waiting since 1912, it was not until 1915 that the public began to really stir itself to have those plans carried out. The City Council was also stirred to activity, as the following news article dated Feb. 2, 1915, shows: It was headed, “City Council seeks to get stronger Control over the Board by an Amendment.” A brief quotation reveals the case:
“The demand of the Council is that the charter be amended by taking from the School Board the power to levy the school tax and putting the Board in an ‘advisory’ capacity. It‘s an old fight in Kenosha,”
Several years before this, the same movement was started and was stopped when more than eight hundred of the voters of the city had signed a petition demanding that the question be submitted to the people for a referendum. When the promoters
It had the effect, however, of stirring up the women of the city, who under th leadership of the Woman’s City Club, already mentioned, began the agitation of the question of a bond issue to raise money for the new school. It was decided to have the question submitted to the electors at the regular spring election. Although the City Council then had the power to isse bonds without a favorable vote of the people, there was little prospect of their doing so without an expression from the people. The bond issue called for $700,000, the largest amount that had ever been spent for a school building.
Mute evidence of the work that had to be done in the way of educating the adult mind, and to “quicken the pace” of public opinion, is furnished by the scrap book relating to that period. The co–operation of the press was ready and generous. Meetings were held to discuss the school problem in order to show the people just what the demand then was for a new school, and in these the women were very active. The ammunition for all this front line activity was prepared in the office of the Superintendent. Considerable execution was done by a graph or diagram, showing certain pertinent facts revealed by the school census—the advancing long lines of young children, soon to be demanding admittance to schools. The newspaper gave a full half page to this graph and its accompanying explanation. It was important that the idea be gotten across that future demands be calculated,
Just before the election, to meet the complaint of what was considered by some a huge expenditure, the paper gave space to a long article in which was set forth what the public would get in the new building. It is interesting to note—as the following quotation from that article shows, that the idea of extending the use of school buildings beyond the hours of school, a rather new idea in 1915, was being advanced in Kenosha at that time:
“The third cause operating to make it desirable to build such a school is the changed conception of the use of school buildings. School buildings are expected to serve the community in more ways than formerly. They are community centres ......... and must be fitted to the needs of the people for a meeting place and for evening study and recreation, as well as suited to the school needs of the children.”
Among other new features to be in this building, I mentioned an auditorium such as no other school in Kenosha has ever possessed—on the ground floor and easily reached from the street. ... A necessary appurtenance to the gymnasium will be shower baths. These also were “first things” to be put into the original plans of any building. The bond issue passed and Kenosha was finally launched on a modern school building project. It was not, however, until the Spring of 1917 that the public received benefit from it. Meanwhile some experiences came to me that I would willingly have avoided—broken promises and disregarded contracts, delays and yet more delays, entailing makeshift devices to furnish even part-time schooling for an ever increasing number of children. The School Board seemed powerless and there seemed to be nothing for me to do, but again to resort to publicity and stir up the people to come to the defense of the rights of their children to proper schooling. This I did by an article in January 1917, and although threatened with
I have included this topic because the building of the Lincoln School, as it was named, was not only my very first experience with a project of that size, but because in inaugurated a new epoch in school house construction in Kenosha, and because the educational work done to gain for it public support did not all need to be repeated for the next one.
This one covered two years, 1913-15, and was the chief thing done in the vacation of 1915—another “labor of love,” or, to use Mr. Vincent's figure, just another inning in “playing the game.”
I had learned by this time to prepare for these reports by collecting and filing data for them, such as special reports, illustrative graphs and diagrams, and by having pictures taken for illustration when the activity to be presented was alive and going on. That greatly facilitated the final work, and accounts for the improvement in these documents—a sort of evolutionary process of adaptation to the appreciation and interest shown by the public and by the profession.
As in the 1913 report, that of 1915 also contained some material of an historical nature rendering access easy to facts about Kenosha educational affairs that otherwise would be hidden in old records. It seemed appropriate to use a frontispiece for this booklet, a picture of Col. Michael Frank, and to place on the title page this quotation from an editorial in the “Southport Telegraph” of Sept. 15, 1840:
“Education is a precursor of happiness and freedom, the best safeguard of the people and the surest means of public defence. Education is a species of public property, the riches and most valuable a nation can possibly possess.”
The picture of Col. Frank appearing herein is the same as that used as the frontispiece. It is his latest photograph, taken when he was about ninety years of age. He was born in 1804.
This “Report of the Public Schools of Kenosha, Wisconsin” for the years 1913-'14 and 1914-'15 contains 195 pages, 30 pictures and several charts or graphs; and in evidence of my belief in the importance of such an adjunct, there is an index covering six pages, needed to list between “A” and “W” the topics treated, beginning with “Academic and Professional Training of Grade Teachers” and ending with “Writing, Standard Tests in.” These are both suggestive of statistical matter treated; but there was much of a different character between these two accidental limits. Under the following heading, suggestions will be found of some things found there.
That summer's work, gratuitious in the sense that this form of reporting was an entirely self-imposed innovation, and that probably no serious complaint would have been made had it been discontinued, was, I am sure, an important service for Kenosha, as similar work would be for any city. It helped put Kenosha on the map educationally and restore the prestige she held in the early years of her history. I was privileged with a great opportunity.
The School Board was generous in its appropriation for the printing of the report, and again copies were sent out to other superintendents and institutions. Appreciation was generous and encouraging. I kept the letters and find them now an interesting and touching reminder of old friends, of distinguished educators of that time, and of institutions that
These expressions did much to compensate me for that “labor of love” during the hot summer vacation days. I trust that my motives will not be misjudged when I make a few quotations from those letters. I have chosen those of different interests just to show the variety of reactions expressed.
John Phelan, Department of Rural Sociology, Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Mass., compliments me by saying—
“The best I have ever seen in the method of setting forth the facts which people should know. Can you send me half a dozen copies? I have a class in social statistics. The underlying idea is to train men to set forth social and economic facts in the most intelligible way.”
Mr. W. E. Larson, Rural School Inspector, Department of Public Instruction, Madison, says:
“It contains exactly the information that I desire and besides there is so much other information that is interesting and instructive.”
Another similar one comes from as far away as Boise, Idaho.
It is the Open Air School with tables of cost, weight increases, attendance, etc., and the diagram showing the relation of health and school attendance, and the discussion of measures for improved school sanitation that please Margaret Salisburry, field worker for the Wisconsin Anti-Tuberculosis Association.
Among letters from publishers, I choose that from Wm. C. Bruce, editor of the School Board Journal. He
The whole gives so clear a view of the school situation in the city that no member of the Board and no intelligent citizen can fail to grasp it.”
Such a citizen as Zalmon G. Simmons, who in his acknowledgement congratulates me and says:
“I believe that it is a good thing for the citizens here to know what is actually going on.”
Of course I was proud of Pres. Chas. Van Hise's comment:
“I have looked it through sufficiently to appreciate how rapidly the school work has grown and expanded in scope in that city in recent years. Also I congratulate you upon the work you have accomplished for that city.”
A book-man friend was most complimentary. He said:
“If yours was a report printed by the government in large editions, I am sure that schools for thee training of teachers could use it to advantage in the methods class. “To advantage’ I say, because it says something and is not a volume of figures, setting out in detail the expenditures for brooms, feather dusters and dust pans. Your report seems to be bristling with ideas.”
I am reminded by this that a request from Dr. O'Shea of the University of Wisconsin for a number of these reports to use in his class was met by sending him 25 copies.
A Normal School friend, Lewis H. Clark of River Falls, was pleased and said:
“I find much that is new and suggestive in educational work. It is not a mere perfunctory piece of work as are some reports I receive, that go into the waste basket unread. I am reading your report through from beginning to end.”
And finally I quote from a letter from a man in public affairs in New York City whom I had known for several years:
“Your annual report has just come. I have just used it as an illustration of an attitude towards the public and a new habit of ‘auto-surveying’ which will mean much for this country. Every time I see a report like this, with the frontispiece and the photograph of Co. Frank—and with the evidence of study and ‘getting under the lead,’ I lament the conception of journalism which gives up most of our magazine space to essays. Later I want to study critically several of your tables.”
One might think from my telling all this about my work that I had something to sell; but I have no such purpose, except it be to sell the idea, about the value of school reports in general, and how to make them readable, these quotations having been selected for the evidence they afforded of what was found helpful or interesting for others in a variety of occupations. If this has been done, then these old letters, packed away for nearly a score of years may have survived to do some good.
The historical features of this report, of more interest to Kenosha people than others, was a condensed resume of the development of the public school system from 1849, as shown by outlays for grounds and buildings. The facts for this had been dug out of old school board records. This prolonged and monotonous task was performed during her leisure moments by an office assistant, Miss Rosalie Lyman, now a third member of my office force, in charge of work-permits, and assistant attendance officer. A chronological summary was mad from this data, and a brief history of each school written. There are pictures of all but one of the buildings, from the historic one of 1849 to the architects’ elevations and floor
Another historic feature of that report is the roster of School Board members from 1849-1915. Both of these have proved of value to those desirous of finding such data. I too, recently have made use of that painstaking work of long ago.
This report also begins an account of a movement which though not immediately connected with the schools was one in which I was much interested and regarded as having decided educational importance, namely, public playgrounds.
The history of that movements is also of greater interest to Kenosha people that to others, for I endeavored in that historical sketch to memorialize in a slight degree the public spirited women who started the movement in 1908, and the men and women who got it on its feet again after it had “stubbed its toe” and had lain prone for a number of years. The mistake, not uncommon, of the first venture had been that of putting the money raised for public playgrounds into attractive apparatus and not enough into the human factors of trained and capable leadership. Too great reliance was placed on assistance by the police for evening and night supervision. During the day groups of happy children under voluntary helpers enjoyed the unusual playground privileges, but in the evening things did not go so well. There was an extreme derth of entertainment for young people who were, of course, attracted to the new swings and slides, which they enjoyed with great hilarity, and further into the night than the neighborhood approved. The consequent reaction of the public against the playgrounds led to the removal of the apparatus, which had already suffered considerable damage. But the damage to apparatus was of little importance compared with the damage to the playground movement.
When I took up my work in Kenosha in 1910, it was very soon discovered that it was best to let the question of
Lack of space her precludes an account of what followed and even the mention of the names of those included in the historical sketch mention, who gave financial aid in getting the movement on its feet again, and supported it until the people assumed that support by passing a referendum, held in April, 1916, three years after the new project was started. That important event is reported as follows:
“The people of Kenosha by a majority vote in approval of the two-tenths of a mill tax, demonstrated their belief in supervised recreation as a safe-guard to Kenosha's children and youth.”
It was not until 1918, two years after the referendum had passed and five years after the initial movement that tax
At this half-way point in my Kenosha work I insert a brief report of progress made in bringing up the salaries of teachers to a level more commensurate with the social service rendered—a compensation more nearly adequate for decent living, for the professional improvement expected of them, and for future benefit and safety. I realized also that one very undesirable characteristics of many teachers was non-advancement mentally after a few years of teaching. So an inter-action of two motives was brought to bear on the Kenosha situation which I will briefly describe.
The salary question had been rendered considerably easier to handle by the operation of a carefully thought-out schedule for the teachers in elementary schools. This schedule now had been in operation since 1912 and removed
As distinct stimulus to the latter class was given by my refusal to hold examinations for the renewal of certificates, and by insisting upon their following the other method of renewal wisely prescribed by law, new at the time, which authorized the City Superintendent of Schools to grant higher certificates upon the presentation by the candidate of certified standings gained by attendance at the summer sessions of one of our State Normal Schools. There were a few who didn't like this regulation, and preferred going elsewhere to teach, which privilege was readily accorded them. The effect is shown by the following facts taken from my report to the School Board in 1915.
Of holders of certificates without any training, the number had decreased from fifteen in 1910, to one in 1915; the number of those who had attended summer sessions of normal schools had increased 83%. Since after 1910 no new teachers had been taken into the elementary school force who were not full graduates of normal schools, or with equivalent training, the number of elementary teachers thus prepared had increased from 53% of all in 1910 to 73% in 1915.
Those who went to school became so interested in further professional study that a momentum was soon acquired that carried them on. Some of them did not stop until they had acquired a normal school diploma or a B.A. degree. Of the improvement I find myself saying in the report named:
“The children of Kenosha, year after year, are reaping a fuller and fuller return from the money paid by our city to the state for the training of teachers in the normal schools, and thus the people are getting more and more from the taxes that go to support those institutions.”
Now what was Kenosha doing for the teachers among whom a real professional spirit was being manifested? While there was some real improvement in salaries, it did not relatively measure up to the spirit manifested. Kindergarten and grade teacher hired in the Spring of 1915 for the following year received an average of $67.72 for ten months, which was $56.42 a month for the living year, a rise of 17 per cent above that of 1910, when it was $48. The four men teachers in the high school received for that year an average as that in 1910; the fifteen women high school teachers received an average of $82 instead of $78 as in 1910.
I gave the public something to think about in that report—the one that received the commendation already quoted—by comparing the wage of teachers and those of workmen in different cities, quoting figures taken from reliable statistics, and find myself saying this:
As will be seen, these cities do not pay their teachers as much as they do the worker who build the school houses in which teacher carry on their duties.
Wages of elementary teachers in Kenosha are also compared with those of firemen and policemen, the figures being $656, $942 and $926, respectively. Wages of principal are compared with those of janitor where I find another statement:
School principals have put time and money into their preparation for such positions. To pay them but one hundred dollar more for a year's work than a responsible janitor gets, is not, to say the least, conducive to making the profession of teaching, with its heavy responsibilities, an attractive calling.”
All of which goes to show that there was work yet to be done in Kenosha on the salary question.
This chapter deals with happenings during the years 1916 to 1919, another three year period in which a sense of greater security of tenure was restored, as will be seen from the following quotation from the printed proceedings of the Board of Education. It is a communication which I made to the Board under date of March 14, 1916, and implies so much about conditions then existing and of plans under way that I give it in full. I observe now that I have addressed it “To the Board of Education, Gentlemen”—(the force of habit probably)—I should have added “and Ladies,” for there were then on the Board two women, Mrs. Welles, mentioned in the preceding chapter, and Mrs. Una Slater White, the daughter of Judge John C. Slater. She had been appointed to fill out of unexpired term of a man who resigned. I regretted the failure of her Ward to keep her there. My communication reads as follows:
“The time for action upon the re-election of incumbent employees of the Board of Education has arrived. I am sending you this statement of my attitude toward the question of my re-election.
“We are approaching certain changes in the organization of the school system of Kenosha which make the coming year a somewhat critical time.
“First, the necessity of providing for the increase in our high school must receive attention, and the proposition of doing so by the establishment of a Junior High School is to be considered. This latter move will, if decided upon, cause the greatest change in the established order of things that Kenosha has known in all its history and careful planning and handling will be needed.
“Second, if the Lincoln School is ready in September, as we hope, there will come the readjustment of school attendance incident to the opening of this new centre.
“Besides these changes, best handled by one familiar with the situation, there are certain causes which I have been trying to further, and have thought considerable about, which may need to be organized and started. One of these is the provision of a special school for the subnormal; another is the school nurse movement.
“In view of these changes and the unfinished work mentioned, I am willing to give further service to Kenosha, provided the School Board desires me to do so, and provided certain conditions are met, which seem to me reasonable and just.
“If my services are wanted further, I ask the Board to consider my re-election upon the basis of a three year contract. A sense of security of tenure is essential to the best efforts of any employee.
“The causes that move me to make this request are these: I know that in consequence of certain changes that have been made, and resulting increase in expenditure, there has sprung up considerable opposition to my administration. Although it should be known that these changes were necessitated by the rapid development of our city and by a rise in educational standards, and although it should be borne in mind that no movement can be carried through without the sanction and support of the Board of Education, still the criticism of those whose opposition has been excited, falls upon me.
“Consequently, for the past two or three years as the time for my re-election has approached, there has been considerable agitation, and my work here has been submitted to the secret and open attacks of those whose opposition has been incurred. I think it is only just, if I stay, that I be spared that disagreeable experience for a year or two.
“I think also, that I am deserving of an increase in salary, in view of the increased efficiency of the service which experience enables me to render, and in view of the constantly increasing responsibility of a growing school system.
“This communication is respectfully submitted for your consideration.
Yours truly,
MARY D. BRADFORD, Superintendent of Schools.”
It was them moved and seconded that an executive session be held for the consideration of this communication after the regular business should be disposed of. All that is recorded of the happenings of that executive session is that “After considerable discussion” I was re-elected for a term of three years by a vote of fourteen for and one against. It is interesting to say the least, at this time, sixteen years from this event, to read the names of those who believed in me at that
With this evidence of support and appreciation, I settled down to my work with renewed courage.
By 1916 the public was pretty well acquainted with the idea of the 6-3-3 plan, the publicity mentioned in the previous chapter having gone steadily on. In Kenosha from the first the name Junior High meant a school of three grades, seventh, eighth and ninth, and was not a new name for a sort of “glorified grammar school” of seventh and eighth grades only. The development of intelligent public opinion was especially important because opposition to the Junior High School project had arisen within the school ranks. The High School principal did not favor it because it would remove the ninth grade from his jurisdiction; and, besides that, he feared that it might not afford to that grade, teachers of required high school qualifications. The grade school principals didn't like it because it would remove the seventh and eighth grades from their jurisdiction, and thus lower, as they feared, the rank of their schools; and the teachers of the seventh and eighth grades were disturbed by the rumored prospects of higher certificate requirements and their possible demotion to a lower grade. The patrons of the parochial schools opposed it because they feared interference with the old custom of not sending their children to the public schools until after the completion of the eighth grade in the parochial schools.
So as careful a job of professional engineering was on my hands as I had ever encountered. It was the usual story of resistance to a change in an old, inherited institution, and
Compromise was necessary. First the fears of the teachers must be allayed. They were all experienced women, most of them were graduates of normal schools and, with one or two exceptions, were very successful in handling boys and girls of the early adolescent age; but some of them lacked the educational qualifications considered adequate for positions in Junior High Schools. The latter lack could be more easily remedied than a lack in the former important requirement. While I did not minimize the value of academic preparation, I decided that the mistake made in Western city that I knew about should not occur in Kenosha—the mistake of turning out experienced teachers and putting into the new Junior High School young inexperienced college graduates. It brought disaster to the cause because degrees were not enough to make successful teachers for those most difficult years, and the lack of experience in class room management and control brought upon the movement public disfavor and damage to the new venture.
What I did was to call each seventh and eight grade teacher in for an interview. My first question was “Which of the several subjects that you now teach do you enjoy most?” Invariably a choice was promptly expressed. They were then told that if they study in a good summer school somewhere, and get all the help they could in the preferred branch and do such other study as they wished on a possible second choice, a position under the departmentalized scheme of instruction in a Junior High School would be assured them. This they did the following summer, and so that matter was for the time being, settled satisfactorily to all concerned.
Compromise with the high school principal was effected by the plan of allowing the June eighth grade graduates to enter the high school as usual, and after that to let the higher grades in the Junior High School “grow on.” It helped some to reconcile the grade principals to the change to be assured that lowering the rank of their schools did not mean a lowering of their salaries. They were assured of having plenty to do.
Two Junior High Schools were organized and opened in September 1916. The new Lincoln School in the construction of which there had been many delays, was not ready when school opened, but by the use of a sort of modified “Gary plan” the two principals, Miss Maude Yule and Edward F. Randall and their respective faculties carried on the work in one centrally located building until the new school was finished.
“On Feb. 1, 1917, Mr. Randall transferred his school there and almost without interruption the work went on in the new environment.”
In February, 1918, the Junior High Schools sent out their first graduating classes. These were the pupils who entered as 8 B's, the highest class when the schools were organized in September, 1916. Of these graduates, 90 per cent immediately entered the Senior High School. Of the June, 1918, class 80 per cent were found in the S. H. S. in September of that year. Under the old 8-4 plan, there was usually a large falling off, in the change from eighth grade to high school, my records showing that in 1910 only 62 per cent and in 1913 only 77 per cent of eighth grade graduates went on. The Junior High School improved that condition.
As these facts about persistency bore out one of the theoretical reasons advanced in favor of the new plan, statistics were carefully kept, and the diagraming of these forms a feature of the report of 1915 to 1918.
What I relate under this heading is something not previously made public, although probably known by a few friends. What the office was is revealed by the following letter, which, so far as I recall, conveys the initial suggestion about it. This letter bears the date of July 17, 1911, and says:
“My dear Mrs. Bradford:—A good many school people are now asking ‘Who will be next State Superintendent?’ Half the voters are women
Yours truly,
S. Y. Gillan.”
Many of my readers will not need any further word about the writer of that letter. He is remembered in Wisconsin as a Normal School teacher, institute conductor, and editor and publisher of “The Western Teacher.” He was a sharp critic of educational affairs and people, both within and outside the state, a hater of shams, a merciless adversary, but a bold and loyal friend of people and causes that he believed in.
I did not “fall” for his suggestion and wrote him to that effect. My one purpose in life at that moment was to make a success of the job I had then had on hand for only one year. More than that, my aspiration did not lie in the direction of
Beside me is a letter file in which have been preserved some old letters classified under various headings. One of these headings reads, “Concerning Candidacy for State Superintendency, 1913 and 1917” which furnishes evidence that the same question bobbed up again and yet again. There are letters from women, unacquainted with the meaning of a political campaign, who urge me for the sake of the woman's cause to become a candidate; there are others from both men and women, friends who knew me well, advising against it. I quote from a letter written by an out-of-the state friend. He says:
“When in Wisconsin, I learned a secret, that your name is under consideration for the State Superintendency. I am heartily glad of it, and should surely congratulate Wisconsin if you accept the nomination and are called to the work. I am wondering, however, if the political mix-up may not be even more serious and disagreeable than the ‘16 to 1’ possibilities in Kenosha. Anyhow, it is a just satisfaction that what you are and what you are doing is recognized in this most significant way, whatever be your decision.”
I certainly agreed with the writer on the “political mix-up” suggestion.
My attitude of mind is shown by what I confided at that time to my diary, and by the copy of my letter in reply to a political friend, who offered advice as to procedure, etc. I quote briefly from the latter:
“Letters like yours have continued to drop in upon my serenity. ... I know nothing about political manœuvring, and hate the thought of it. I do not know of any one who would be my campaign manager ....
More bearing upon the same question might be revealed of what happened in 1917. I was not flattered by attention paid me, for it was readily detected that the main motive of the men who favored my candidacy was the expediency of putting into the contest a woman, who might centralize the vote and enable them to gain their political ends; namely, that of getting a chance in the office of the State Superintendent of Schools. Neither did any argument about duty affect me. My duty was already clearly envisaged—as clearly as were the care and trouble that would come to me if I did as was suggested and urged. To plagiarize a famous utterance—“I did not choose to run”!
As will be remembered, this triennium that included so many important events for me, was in the troubled period of the World War. All of my troubles, however, were not attributable to that cause; a few were self-imposed, as the follow incident shows.
It was at the end of the first years of this period that I made up my mind to tackle a piece of business that had long been bothering me. I assumed the role of reformer of an illegal practice of some of the men on the Board—my superior officers. My three-year contract may have lent strength to my purpose, and the presence on the Board of a woman, Mrs. Welles, in whom I confided, and upon whom I knew I could rely, made this seem to be an suspicious time to bring this matter to a head.
The following communication read on April 17, 1917 at the meeting for organizing the new Board, tells the story:
“Board of Education, Ladies and Gentlemen:
“I take this occasion to call the attention of the Board to a Statute which has evidently been overlooked by certain members in the past, since violations of it have occurred quite frequently.
“Section 45.49 of the Wisconsin laws forbids the selling by any member of the School Board of supplies to that body to an amount exceeding $100.00 in any one year. From 1909 to 1915, a member was liable to arrest for a sale of any amount, however small, of commodities or of service; but at the 1915 session of the legislature a amendment was passed, allowing ‘the sale of printed matter or any other commodity not exceeding one hundred dollars in any one year.’
“It has been one of my duties to examine and sign the vouchers for all bills before they go to the committees for signature and presentation. I have observed bills coming from School Board members, and have already on several occasions called the attention of these and of other members of this Board to the law. As a reply there have usually been cited commonly known practices of former members.
“‘The Courts have repeatedly ruled that it is against right public policy for any official to have any dealings with the municipality of which he is an officer, and it is believed that if a test case were brought before the Court, the hundred dollar amendment which somehow got in in 1915, would be overruled.’
“It is a part of my duty as a teacher to urge upon children and youth respect for law, and to urge other teachers to impress this important civic virtue. I cannot consistently do so, and be party to repeated acts of disrespect for law by allowing this practice to go further without my protest being heard.
“For the sake of respectability of your office, I appeal to this Board to place yourselves on record as opposed to practices which, although insignificant from a financial point of view, are, nevertheless, felonies in the sight of the law of Wisconsin.
Respectfully submitted,
(Signed MARY D. BRADFORD
Supt. of Schools.”
(It occurs to me now that “Sincerely yours” would have been a more appropriate ending than the customary one used, which being inclusive, seems here to be a little incongruous.)
This occured near the close of the seventh year of my unanimous consent of that Body.
Then one day, at a time when especially disturbed about this business, I read the law of George Wallis, a member of undoubted probity, who had since the first been my staunch friend, as he was throughout my entire term of office. But he also seemed convinced that what is now called in high placed “The unit rule” somehow fixed things up. Mrs. Welles had also been talked to and she sympathized with me on the subject.
Finally early in the year 1917, I wrote to the State's Attorney General about it, told him of the practice by the City Council, and the general attitude of mind of men on the School Board. His answer was reassuring. (The portion of my communication read on April 17 that is in quotation marks is taken from the Attorney General's response.) He advised me to confer with the District Attorney and if the latter refused to act or was indifferent about it, to let the writer know. I sought out the District Attorney, a young in the game,
and determined to play it to the end. The worst consequences—the loss of my job, wouldn't be so bad, now that I had held the Superintendency for seven years, and had seen a lot of things done for the Kenosha Schools.
Then came my statement to the Board quoted above. I read it to an absolutely silent company, breathless with astonishment. Amid such silence I left the room. I was told that no sooner had the door closed than an irate member rose and moved that the resignation of the superintendent be immediately demanded. Discussion ensued, which I would like to have heard. In the midst of it, the quiet voice of George Wallis was heard saying with that well-remembered slight British accent, “Gentlemen, we'd better think about this. Mrs. Bradford has only read us the law.” All that the record shows is this: “Commissioners——and——moved that the communication be received and placed on file.”
On file, it was included in the minutes of that meeting, and as the monthly proceedings of the Board were at that time published, it duly appeared in the “Evening News”—a very unsensational form of publicity and effective to the degree in which such proceedings are read by the public.
“What about it all?” one may ask. Well, for one thing,
I am glad that I acted true to my early training. School superintendents, with such varied duties as I had, sometimes have occasions thrust upon them for helping to advance other ideals then academic ones. I used such an occasion, and realize the truth of the classic line:
“Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just.”
Following close upon the event just described, there came under date of April 27, 1917, the following letter, which tells what the honor was:
“My dear Mrs. Bradford:
“It gives me much pleasure to inform you that on April 2, the University faculty recommended you to the regents for the honorary degree of Master of Arts, and that the regents at their meeting April 25, voted that the degree be conferred upon you.
“The degree will be conferred on Commencement Day, June 20. I trust that you may arrange to be here to receive the degree.
“Announcements of honorary degree are not made until Commencement time.
Very Sincerely Yours,
Chas. R. Van Hise, President.”
I felt that this was the greatest honor that had ever come to me, and said so in my reply of acceptance.
At the very beginning of my comment on this important event in my professional career, I want it understood that credit for bringing it about is due to a woman friend. Although
I had had quite a serious illness in the Spring of 1917, and not recovering satisfactorily, was given my choice by the doctor of either entering a hospital or going to my son's in St. Louis. I chose the latter and was there when Pres. Van Hise's letter reached me. I cheered and encouraged me and hastened my return to Kenosha. Then at Commencement time my son came on from St. Louis to accompany me to Madison for the great event.
There were two others who received honorary degrees that year: Paul S. Reinsch, American minister to China, and Dr. Stephen M. Babcock, professor emeritus of Agriculture Chemistry. Such famous associates deepened my sense of the honor conferred. Pres. Van Hise's words to me on that occasion were:
“MARY DAVISON BRADFORD:
“For your indefatigable and effective services in this state as a teacher and a trainer of teachers, as a superintendent of schools, and as a student of educational problems, the University of Wisconsin expresses its high appreciation.
“In token thereof, upon the recommendation of the faculty and by the authority of the regents, I confer upon you the Degree of Master of Arts.”
MYSELF WHEN SUPERINTENDENT OF KENOSHA SCHOOLS
Among letters of congratulation was one, the closing words of which convey an idea that has always added to my pleasure in this event. He said:
“We are all very glad indeed to have you thus honored and
through you to have the work of education in our public schools recognized.
(Signed) H. L. MILLER”
This was an instance where publicity in Kenosha was quite conspicuous by its absence. I had put too strict an interpretation upon the last sentence about announcements in Pres. Van Hise's letter, and left for Madison without telling Mr. Marlatt anything about the matter. As a good newspaper man cheated out of a chance for a special write-up, he never entirely forgave me. I was sorry to have inadvertently offended so good a friend.
After two topics of a very personal nature I proceed to those bearing upon the schools and their work, finding it difficult to decide just what to select out of the many things that might have general interest.
Scouting among boys was started in Kenosha in 1909 and of its progress I will tell later. The beginning of girl scouting was made in the period of which I am now writing and with it I am glad to be able to claim some connection.
At the meeting of the Department of Superintendents at Atlantic City in February, 1918, advocates of this movement were heard on several occasions. Columbia University was then sponsoring the new cause, and offering assistance in the training of Girl Scout leaders. I became very much interested in what I heard about the plans and purposes for the benefit of girls and young women, resolved that something would be attempted in Kenosha, and returned armed with Girl Scout literature.
The first thing to do was to interest women in the forming of a Girl Scout Council and to interest teachers best adapted for it in forming troups of girls. Again, as in the case of the playground movement, expert assistance was called in. Dr. J. C. Elsom of the Department of Physical Education of the University of Wisconsin, was invited to come to Kenosha. On May 4, 1918, a meeting was held in the Assembly room of the high school where Dr. Elsom addressed an audience composed of women who had manifested an interest in the movement, teachers and other young women who were willing to become captains, and girls ready to become Girl Scouts. He gave the advice and help needed, and an organization was immediately formed. Mrs. Tom Barden, who had been a most interested worker for the cause from the first, became the first Kenosha Girl Scout Commissioner.
That was the start in Kenosha of this important ally in the cause of education. After surviving years of precarious infancy and of a weakly supported and poorly nourished childhood, it has, with livelihood assured by the Community Chest, grown in strength and matured in functioning, and under the wise and popular leadership of Mrs. Edith Brown Cavanaugh has attained a notable standing in the State.
There are nearly 800 girls in the many groups belonging in the different public, private and parochial schools of Kenosha, all under increasingly competent leaders, most of whom are public school teachers. Generous friends have brought financial support, and the Girl Scouts of Kenosha now may enjoy during the summer, a week or more of delightful camp life on the shores of Pleasant Lake, Walworth County, near Elkhorn. Mrs. W. H. Alford gave the site of 80 acres, and Mrs. C. W. Nash gave money for the beautiful lodge. Others have helped in the addition to its facilities of sleeping cabins for about eighty girls and councilors, a hospital and wash houses, so that “Pottawatomie Hills Camp”
The history of Boy Scouting in Kenosha from the first and for a number of years is associated with the name of David O. Fogwell, but for whom this activity would not have started at so early a date or have been so wisely guided through it early years. Mr. Fogwell, who was then the physical training director of the local Y. M. C. A. is a native Canadian. In 1909, when visiting his home in Hamilton, Ontario, he came to know about Boy Scouting, which, being English in origin, got an earlier start in Canada than in our country. Equipped with a manual, and with strong belief in the possibilities of Scouting, he returned to Kenosha, and immediately began work to organize troops and find leaders, also to get together a number of interested men to act as a Council. This is believed to have been before there was a National Boy Scout Council in our country; at least it was not until 1911 that Mr. Fogwell got his official credentials as Scout Commissioner for Kenosha.
The movement was then well under way and continued to prosper with variable success, according to the support afforded
“With courage and persistence he has brought Kenosha to the front in Wisconsin in Boy Scout activities. He has built up a system in the city which has endeared him to hundreds of boys and their parents; and given hundreds of boys of the city a new vision of life and its possibilities. As Director of Public Recreation, he has also been singularly successful and it will be extremely difficult for Kenosha to secure a successor for his position.”
It is so easy for people, in the enjoyment of privileges, to forget those who wrought out these privileges, that this brief mention of the work of Mr. Fogwell is included here; and in remembrance of his cheerful, efficient assistance in undertakings, that I regarded as important, it has given me pleasure to do so.
The beneficial movements of a recreational nature—not to mention the economic bearing of one or two of them—which by 1918 had come under the direction of Mr. Fogwell and his assistants were as follows: (1) Playgrounds, which includes the bathing beach supervision of children from the playgrounds. (2) Social centres at school buildings and indoor athletics. A quiet game at a social center. David O. Fogwell, observer (3) The home garden work of children and the school gardens (see picture). (4) The community orchestra. (5) Boy Scouting.
School Gardens, “Bonny Hame” farm, 1917. D. O. Fogwell, supervisor
1.
Upon School Building.
It put a stop to school house construction on any adequate scale. When it is known that the population of Kenosha by 1920 had doubled, then it will be realized what this necessary abeyance in the expanding of school facilities meant to the parents, the children, and the teachers of Kenosha. School rooms were crowded beyond proper limits, basement room, unsanitary as to ventilation and poorly lighted, were brought into use as school rooms, available rooms in stores and churches adjacent to school buildings were rented and portables were increased in number, even the play grounds of the new Lincoln School being already encroached upon by them. In spite of all these makeshifts, the “part-time evil” increased.
2.
Upon the Teaching Force.
The better pay offered by the many and varied activities developed by the war attracted both women and men away from school rooms. Some claimed that it was the call to patriotic duty that they were responding to—perhaps it was—perhaps they mistook the desire for change of experience for that other motive. They wanted to go and in vain was my appeal to them to stay—in vain my argument that no higher form of patriotic service could be given than that of standing by the schools and serving faithfully in that “line of defense.” I was put to it to find teachers, especially for the grades, and those schools would have suffered badly had not the married women of the community who had once taught, come to the rescue and filled the places of the deserters.
3.
Upon the School Activities.
These effects were, according to my notion, generally beneficial, even though regularity in routine was disturbed, and strict attention to academic requirements lessened. A marked interest and enthusiasm prevailed throughout the system. Miss Edna E. Cameron, the first Supervisor of Music, spread the gospel of patriotic song; other special teachers co-operated in their respective lines.
During the war period, some of the talks which I gave at the regular teachers’ meetings bore upon the practical questions of the day, such as the adaptation of ourselves and out work in the schools to the conditions that war had brought upon us. I find a clipping of the opening meeting in September, 1917, to which Mr. Marlatt gives a rather sensational heading: “Loyalty first in City Schools.” “Teaching the Rudiments Must Give Way to the Teaching of Patriotism and Instillation of Loyalty.” What I am reported as saying then is evidence of the extent to which war propaganda was affecting our thought and action. The years 1917 and 1918 were the intensest of the war years. The spirit of exaltation and idealism actuated the general public; the schools caught that spirit and contributed their share to the various forms of service that were set in operation.
What was accomplished by the schools is graphically shown by an ingeniously conceived and carefully prepared chart (the work of Mr. Fogwell) printed in the 1918 school report and labeled “War Activities in the Public Schools.” Under “Finance” it shows sales of second Liberty Loan Bonds by the schools totaling $104,300, of which the elementary schools are credited with $44,600. In this sale the Boy Scouts took a very active part. It gives the number of W. S. S. buyers and the amount sold them by the children. The first great work of public service performed by the Girl Scouts was to assist in the War Saving Stamp sale, for which
Under “activities,” mention is made in his chart of many things done in all grades of school—such as Game Tables in the S.H.S. manual training shop,
Enough has been said here to justify my statement about the beneficial effects upon school activities of the new motivation, and to remind readers of what was happening quite generally during those years throughout the country.
From many other forms of helpfulness that teachers rendered, I select one for brief description. Mothers had to earn, while fathers were at war, and babies sometimes suffered neglect in consequence. So under the direction of the school nurse, a day nursery of children from one to six years was opened at a school near a great tannery where many of
During the war period and later, bread and milk lunches were served to the children in the schools. In “the official proceedings” of Sept. 9, 1919, I make a report to the Board on this subject. I commend the School Board for their support of this very important hygienic measure, and say that their support of it for the past three years has set a notable example for other communities in regard to right treatment of the under-nourished child. The total cost for the previous year of $2,281 is reported, of which amount $417 came back from the children who paid. Free tickets were issued to deserving children who otherwise would have gone without. Teachers reported general improvement on the part of many children, both in mental work and behavior after hungry stomachs regularly had their fill of bread and milk.
It is impossible here to tell of many war-inspired things done, that impinged upon the schools or were linked to them in some way. One of these was the presentation, in November, 1917, to the High School, of a service flag from the Parent Teachers’ Association of that School by Mr. Lynn Hannahs, the P. T. A. President. The flag, which was made by Mrs. Geo. N. Tremper and Mrs. W. W. Vincent, contained at first fewer stars, but at the close of the war had 258. Of these there were 6 gold stars that had taken the places of the original white ones.
Kenosha's second Open Air School. Movement started in 1911
The morning milk lunch for under-nourished school children, in an elementary
school kitchen. Movement started in 1916
The above heading suggests a formidable something! It is simply the abbreviated title of an organization in which I became interested in 1917—“The National Council of Administrative Women in Education.” It had been started in California in 1914 by group of women holding executive positions who felt that something needed to be done to further the recognition of women in the affairs of the National Education Association, and to bring those women together for mutual acquaintance and conference. It was early in the year named that I accepted the chairmanship of the organization named of a special committee called the Program Committee. The purpose for which this committee was created was to devise and propose a timely program for women in executive positions to carry out in their respectively localities through the schools of which they had charge. My associates on this committee were Jennie Rebecca Faddis, my old Stevens Point friend, who was responsible for getting me into this business, and Abby Louise Day, an energetic, brilliant young woman in the East.
Following a very famous classic example, we proceeded to divide the United States “into three parts,” each member of the committee undertaking to find out who were the women holding executive or administrative positions in her region. It was quite an undertaking, but a most interesting one. On March 1st, 1918, at the meeting of the Department of Superintendents of Atlantic City, this committee made its first report and of the occasion a clipping says:
“Two hundred members of the Council of Executive Women breakfasted in the Submarine Room of the Traymore yesterday morning. Miss Adelaide Steele Bayler of Indianapolis, presided as toast mistress. Superintendent Mary D. Bradford of the Kenosha, Wis., school, on behalf of the program committee, recommended (1) that a definite creed embodying true ideals of American citizenship should be taught to every
“The report was unanimously approved.” Yes, of course, but what of it afterwards? The last named ambitious scheme was Utopian in the extreme. As to the other two suggestions of a more practical nature, something may have been effected. I recall in Kenosha at one time every child in the J. H. S. and above the second grade in the elementary schools was expected to know by heart the “American's Creed.” This was surely one of “the best” of the patriotic activities prompted by the war, and one that should have been “continued after war”; but, like temperance instruction in the schools after the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, this item of instruction in citizenship was allowed to lapse.
I believe that the recommendation of our committee a year later, when a program for health education was reported and urged as the thing to be especially stressed by executive women in education, was more effective. Later this ambitious scheme for stressing, by a united effort some important national cause, was abandoned.
The secretaryship and after that the presidency of the N. C. A. W. E. came to me. In the former capacity, I worked with miss Ada Van Stone Harris, then Assistant Superintendent of schools at Pittsburgh who, as president, labored to build up state organizations of administrative women—an undertaking involving extensive correspondence and causing an encroachment upon needed rest time that resulted disastrously to her health, and undoubtedly, hastened the death of that able, devoted woman.
In the latter office, that of president, which I held for three years, 1920-21 and 1922-24, I endeavored to carry on
The women eligible to membership are State Superintendents of Public Instruction—of which class at one time there were eight in the council—and assistant in that office; city superintendents and country superintendents, of which latter office in some Western states women seem to have a monopoly; college presidents and deans of women in colleges; high school principals; heads of departments in colleges and high schools; supervisors of special subjects, and others.
The acquaintanceships formed with women who had reached, or, to use a more appropriate word,
struggled
up to these high positions, is one of the treasured results of those years of work that I gave to the promotion of the N. C. A. W. E.
This National Council meets twice annually, in summer at the time of the annual meeting of the N. E. A., and in late February or March at the time of the Annual Session of the Department of Superintendents. The latter is the time of the annual business meeting of the N. C. A. W. E., and both are social occasions of increasing prominence. It has come to be the custom at the “Breakfast” or “Dinner” to have, as guests, the officers of the N. E. A., prominent speakers on the program, and local celebrities. At the summer meeting when the new N. E. A. president is elected—men and women now alternating in that office—the candidates are invited to sit at the speaker’ table and are afforded a polite opportunity to impress themselves upon the
Active branches exist in twelve states, and these follow the example of the parent organization in meeting at the time of the State Educational Convention. In states where there are no central organizations, large cities like Denver, Gary, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Pittsburg, Portland, Oregon, have branches of the N. C. A. W. E. The latest Directory gives a list of 1573 members. The N. C. A. W. E. is more than “just another organization”—it has found its place in national and state and local educational affairs, and I count it an honor and a privilege that the opportunity came my way to help it on its way.
Had I followed the precedent indicated by my two previous reports, those issued in 1913 and 1915, each covering a period of two years, another such document would have been due in 1917. But I was called that summer to read a paper at the N. E. A. meeting in Portland, Oregon, and staid to visit friends and to see something of the West, this being my first opportunity for doing so. Hence the postponement for a year of the report-making task.
About this production, the work of the summer of 1918, I will let the reviewers tell. It may seem in poor taste for me to quote such very laudatory expressions, but I beg the indulgence of readers for doing so, and plead the natural desire of making known the final judgment upon the work of “a female superintendent.” Circumstances kept me from making another such report for my three following years. Had a fifth one been attempted it could hardly have equaled this one—my
magnum opus
in the report line.
The first review quoted from appeared in the Kenosha “Evening News” of January 11, 1919. It says in part:
“Kenosha has made an unusually interesting contribution to the school literature of the nation in the report of the schools of the city covering the period from 1915 to 1918, which has just been issued by Mrs. Mary D. Bradford, Superintendent of schools. It is a book of 200 pages and it is certain to attract wide attention to the schools of Kenosha. It has been arranged in such a charming manner that it will attract the attention of every educator who has an opportunity to examine it.
“It tells a most interesting story of the most interesting developments in the school system of Kenosha during the past three years. It shows in well-written special reports, and in wonderful pictures the various activities of the schools of the city. It has charts showing the various nationalities attending the schools in Kenosha, and the advancement made by children of the various nationalities. ... It gets away from dry routine reports and brings out the great work that is being done by the teaching force in Kenosha.
“Mrs. Bradford spent nearly three months—most of it during what was supposed to be her summer vacation, preparing this report. She carefully prepared the figures showing the financial cost of the school system of Kenosha, and just as carefully prepared the data for the other reports showing what the children were receiving from the money spent from the general funds of the city. Of course the report shows steadily increasing school costs, but it also shows steadily increasing benefits for the children.
“One of the most attractive features of the report is its illustrations .... most of the pictures were made by photographers during the regular school sessions and they were not ‘posed’ pictures. The covers of the books are of an unusually happy design and every one of the 1500 of them was made by hand by members of the school families.
“The report is wholly the work of the Superintendent and she is entitled to high credit for it.”
An explanation about the covers seems necessary. Under the direction of the Art Supervisor, Miss Ruth Melville, upper grade art classes completed in the assigned project of making a design for the cover. The one judged to be best and most suitable was printed in outline on the paper selected for the cover. These covers were then distributed to the schools and painted in the school colors of the different schools. When the printing was completed, the covers were all ready for adjustment, hundreds of school children having thus assisted in this project. Also the last sentence quoted seems to need modification, for wherever possible, work was delegated to others, who willingly co-operated.
The other communication is quoted from the “New England Journal of Education of that time and expresses outside opinion. It was written by Dr. A. E. Winship, the Editor of the widely read educational journal.
Mrs. Mary D. Bradford both cares and dares to go the limit in securing educational support from all classes of citizens. ... In her report she shows a complete grasp of the entanglement in the school and tax problems of the city; made a captivating appeal for the assistance of all local agencies; gave an account of what the schools were attempting to do; stated the advancements already in evidence; set before the people fearlessly the cost of an achieving school program. A copy of this remarkable report was sent to the manager of every local large manufacturing establishment, and another to the residence of the president or the secretary of the Corporation. Some managers sent for twenty-five more copies so that each head of a department could have a copy, and then had a conference of all of them for a discussion as two ways and means of having all the working men know of it, and support the program”
As might be expected there followed from Mr. Winship's words of praise many requests from school for copies,
It will be remembered that in October, 1918, a terrible epidemic, known as the Spanish Influenza, swept over our country. Kenosha did not escape. During a period of three weeks the public schools were closed by order of the Board of Health on account of the prevalence and virulence of that dread disease.
After it was over, a report was made to the Board of what was done by the teachers during those weeks of enforced vacation. This report became a part of the published proceedings. In the introductory part of it, I said:
“I take pleasure in making this detailed report although the bare facts scarcely do justice to the spirit shown; but it may help to a fuller appreciation on the part of the public of the men and women working in their schools.
“On the Saturday following the decision of the Health Board, a mass meeting of the teachers was called by the Superintendent at the Administration Building. Among those who failed to respond to roll call at that meeting were twenty-two who were then sick with the influenza. Plans were discussed for rendering service to the city at this time of distress, and a list of the various lines of service whose help would be acceptable was given out to the teachers present. They were asked to express in writing their choice of work.
“On the following Monday, Oct. 13, they were assigned by the Superintendent to the work they were to do. A number who were convalescing were allowed to go to their homes out of the city and the same permission was granted a few others, with whom it seemed best. All of these took home with them work in sewing or knitting given out by the Local Red Cross Society. All the others, a large majority, staid here and (1) Assistance at the Post Office (2) Hospital and nursing service (3) Feeding of the sick and the needy from the school kitchens (4) Health survey of the city (5) Red Cross work (6) Planning future school work.
Assistance of the first sort brought the following:
“Mary D. Bradford, Supt. of Schools.
“Dear Madam—Allow me to assure you of my appreciation of your courtesy in assigning several teachers for duty in the local Post Office, during the month of October. With the ever increasing amount of mail, and especially during October prior to election, it would have been impossible for us to have handled the mail efficiently had it not been for the assistance of these teachers.
“Kindly extend to them my appreciation of the valuable service rendered. The hearty cooperation displayed made it possible, under the most difficult circumstances, to render efficient postal service.
JAMES GORMAN, Postmaster.”
In the hospital and nursing service, 42 teachers gave a total of 243 days, and this included night work on the part of some of them. I quote a published comment on this work:
“A fine spirit of service pervades the entire body of school workers. Most of the teachers have not had experience in nursing, and the scenes of suffering which many of them have witnessed have been entirely new experiences. Several of them have not hesitated to undertake much needed kitchen work, in homes where nothing but disorder and discouragement prevailed.”
The schools became food dispensing centres, under the general direction of Edna E. Hood, who was responsible for the purchase of supplies. The domestic science teachers and groups of helpers were preparing food in the kitchens of the schools; and the principals attended to the distribution too those whom a careful survey of his or her district had shown to be in need, thus feeding hundreds of children whose mothers were stricken and helpless.
Besides the cases found by the schools and teachers, others were reported by Mrs. A. H. Lance, and these were
A total of 237 families, including 714 individuals, were fed for a longer or shorter period through the schools during the period of the epidemic. The bills for the food supplies were paid by the city.
On Nov. 12, 1918, the Board of Education passed the following resolution:
“That this Board hereby expresses its deep appreciation of the fearless, devoted, efficient service rendered by the teachers of the public schools of Kenosha during the recent epidemic, and further, as citizens, extend them their thanks.
I have dwelt to this length upon this topic because such a spirit of sacrifice on the part of teachers should not be forgotten. What was done in Kenosha was, doubtless, duplicated in many other communities. My place during those days was at my office phone, answering questions, giving directions and receiving reports. I occasionally visited a school centre, but saw very little of the actual suffering—in fact, mine seemed a rather easy job compared with what those in the thick of the fight were engaged in.
The survey made by the school force, to which reference was made, yielded some facts that seem to have some historical value. Under date of October 29, 1918, the
News
account of it says:
“The teachers of the public schools have just completed a survey of the entire city with the view of ascertaining for the Health Department the relations between housing conditions and the spread of influenza in the city. The city was divided into eight districts and a house to house canvas made. ... A peg map is being constructed in the office of the Superintendent of Schools, and when it is complete, it will be possible to readily locate the districts where the epidemic was most prevalent.”
Among items given in the summary of results are these:
The homes visited contained 29,259 inmates, of whom
My scrap book covering the late months of 1918 is singularly lacking in clippings about the closing events of the war; and that fact I now regret, although the occurrences of the day of celebration after the great news that the war was over reached us, are so well remembered as to reduce the need of such local clippings. That was a day when the spirit of exultation was abroad. However, I find a copy of a printed circular, probably reproducing a message from Washington, and headed “A Home Message from Uncle Sam.” This message, probably received soon after the Armistice, is followed in the circular by a notice to which my name is attached. It is of a local mass meeting in the interests of food conversation, at which time people will be told “what Uncle Sam wants us to do.” This little sheet was distributed to homes through the schools. I reproduce the message as a reminder of the times, and as evidence that, although the war was over, the spirit of exaltation and idealism was still alive:
“You have been saying ‘Food will win the war’. You planted, you saved, and you shared, until the war was won. And now is your work ended? No, greater work yet remains to be done. Starving Europe must be fed. Millions of hungry women and children reach out their hands to you. Remember their fearful need. Keep on saving, keep on sharing, waste not one morsel of food. It is sacred. You love your country. You have proved it in war; prove it now in peace. America is pledged to fight famine and feed a starving world. Will you do your part?”
Now, fourteen years after, this message expresses the appeal being made for our own countrymen, who have been drawn into the world-wide disaster caused by the terrible waste of that war. Fourteen years after, when disillusion has crowded out the propagandized exaltation of war times, when an understanding of the real causes of the Great War has sobered and rationalized popular feeling, and moved
In spite of war conditions, Kenosha was aroused “to take thought of the morrow” of its school interests. The year 1917 was marked by an especially large enterprise of that sort. This was the purchase of a site for a new high school in the northwestern suburbs. This new site contained 35 acres. On that question the pendulum had swung to the other side of its arc, but no credit for this time special manifestation of vision, or blame, according to some, for this error in judgment, could be attributed to me. The agent for “Bonny Hame,” the old summer residence of the Bain family, when “Bain Wagons” were making Kenosha famous throughout the West, deserves all the credit.
Early in 1918, the Board began in earnest to agitate the question, not of one, but of two new ward school buildings. The Council voted to put the question up to the people. The question on the ballot was:
“Shall the Common Council provide a fund of $280,000, for the building of a school on the north side of the city, and another on the west side of the city, it being understood that $200,000 of this amount is to be secured by the issuance of bonds?”
Again much educational work was needed. From a circular that I wrote addressed to the people and distributed to all public school patrons through the schools the following paragraphs are taken:
We are urged to boost Kenosha. Our boosting will avail little with a reputation for inadequate school facilities. Really desirable new citizens care about the education of their children, and the prospect of their children's being relegated to a stove-heated, cold-floored, one-room school house, or being denied school attendance for more than three hours a day because of lack of room will not help the boosting process with the above mentioned would-be citizens.
Nothing will do more to boost Kenosha than to have good school buildings, planned and equipped according to modern standards. It is an indisputable principle of healthy civic growth,
that a city has no right to grow faster than it can provide properly for the education of its children.
If it disregards this principle the future years will inevitably bring to that city the consequences of its mistake. Those who really have the best interest of Kenosha at heart will vote for the bond issue.”
School bond issue for the north side school carried by a majority of more than 2,000.
A very important change of method in selecting an architect was inaugurated in connection with the great new building project. A special committee was assigned the duty of studying the qualifications of architects who had made school house construction their special line of work. It was in connection with this problem that I was able to assist a little. From the State Department at Madison I got the names of school architects who had recently done successful work in Wisconsin, and knowing as I did, most of the superintendents of schools in those cities, I was able to get their judgment on different men. Especially favorable judgments came in for one man, among these recommendations being that from L. D. Harvey, upon whom I placed especial reliance. This correspondence was placed at the disposal of the special committee. It was gratifying to me, to say the least, to have the Board finally select, on May 8, 1918, as its architect, the man referred to, John D. Chubb of Chicago, widely known as an expert in the designing and building of school houses. His plans were accepted in July, 1918, for a fine building with 23 class rooms, with an auditorium, gymnasium and all that. But as the federal war time ban on all building had not been lifted, we had to wait. But in November, 1918, the desired order came from Washington, plans and specifications were all ready for the contractors, and early in the new year, 1919, the work was under way on the first school. The same plans would be used for the second.
WASHINGTON SCHOOL, KENOSHA, WIS.
Elementary and Junior High School, opened in 1920
But the bond issue for the second new school was to be passed upon at the Spring election of that year. The paper of March 28, 1919, by editorial and article gave strong support. From one of the latter I quote a few sentences:
“The Superintendent of Schools who saw a possibility of the bond issue failing at the Election next Tuesday has inaugurated a whirlwind campaign. ... Mrs. Bradford has furnished sample ballots which will decide the fate of the school bond issue. The children on Monday will copy from blackboards on the backs of these samples the following text: To voting women: Do you want the new school? If you do, go on Tuesday,’ etc.”
Besides this, and again with the co-operation of the school principals, a parade was planned of the eleven hundred children on part time in the schools and others in gloomy basements, or make-shift class rooms. These paraded through the down town section, followed by trucks carrying hundreds of smaller children from the kindergartens who would next year be on half-time if the bond issue failed. Placarded in impressive style, these children demonstrated the need of more school room and silently pled the cause of the bond issue for the west side school, which duly passed.
I am now at the end of this eventful period of my superintendency and have only to relate that in the Spring of 1919 when employees of the Board for the ensuing year were considered, there was more than usual “consideration” of my case, a very trying experience to me. Some thought it to be an effect of that law-breaking-reform episode. Others regarded it simply as a manifestation of an overwhelming desire to exercise authority on the part of an inexperienced young school official.
My re-election was postponed and at an adjourned meeting I was “tried” for certain remarks that had inadvertently
“When it had all passed away, and the net results had been counted, Mrs. Mary D. Bradford had been re-elected by a vote of 14 to 3, superintendent of schools of the city for her tenth year. ... Mrs. Bradford's salary as superintendent to be placed at $3,500 for the new year.”
That certainly was evidence of appreciation. I had at the close of the epidemic experience been touched and encourage by this recorded statement: “That her salary is not in keeping with the work demanded of her is fully recognized by all people in any way acquainted with the present day demand upon an educational leader.” Now that was a fine thing for somebody in that Board to say, but I certainly did not imagine it to mean a seven hundred dollar rise!
I finished the busy year. The teachers of Wisconsin were fortunate in having the meeting of the National Education Association brought to Milwaukee in the summer of 1919.
These last two years and the one or two preceding ones were characterized by better working conditions. In the first place, the cramped, inconvenient quarters in City Hall had, in 1918, been exchanged for a School Administration Building conveniently located, where all the varied administrative and educational activities of the school system could be centralized, an important change. There had come to be an improvement in the personnel of the school board, as a whole; and there was a very observable awakening of general educational interest.
Credit for the last changes named is traceable to several causes, of which one was the publicity that school interests had received. Another was the influence of the Parent Teacher Associations, which were coming to realized their intended functions. The evolution of his social force had been very interesting to watch. On the parent side, the P. T. A. besides involving many women of social prominence and quickening their interest in educational questions, came to include many members of the social whole, who had been untouched by other organizations or movements; it was bringing out previously undiscovered ability and developing a more intelligent general public opinion; it was spreading enlightenment on health and sanitation, and on the purposes, methods, and ideals of modern education.
As might be expected, this fine enthusiasm and energy had at first sometimes needed direction to get it running in
I mention this just to show how far the P. T. A. has advanced since then, through the help of local, state and national leadership, in the realization of its great possibilities for individual culture and social uplift, and the betterment of general school conditions. Much credit for P. T. A. progress in Kenosha is due Mrs. Geo. N. Tremper, wife of the principal of the high school, who as president of the local P. T. A. Council, composed of the officers of the organization, had since the Council was formed, guided the thought
At the time of which I am writing, 1929, the P. T. A. had been of great help in strengthening the support of some large public measures, such as those of new school buildings. Since that time, the question of better child understanding has engaged its interest, and also the importance to the child of a right start, and the great social need of intelligent parenthood.
Although since 1910, through the co-operation in some instances and the initiation in others, of public spirited citizens serving as school commissioners much had been accomplished for the advancement of the school systems of Kenosha, enough remained to be done to motivate these last two years of my work. Of prime concern was
better pay for teachers,
which from the first had been one of my purposes, as previous pages in these Memoirs have evidenced. Now, due to poor pay and to the demand for workers created by the war, there was a scarcity of teachers.
That this subject immediately after the war was one of wide-spread concern is shown by part of my report read to the School Board on March 12, 1918. I quote it as follows:
“Two questions of importance in the administration of the schools were emphasized at the Atlantic City meeting. One was the shortage of teachers, which seems to be a general condition. Several of the speakers, noted the fact that the Government itself is competing with the schools by paying more for inexperienced workers than college graduates professionally trained can earn at teaching after several years of teaching experience.
That this shortage had caused general alarm among educational leaders is shown by the following message which was sent in 1918 by P. P. Claxton, United States Commissioner
“I cannot say too strongly,” said Mr. Claxton, “that no one should take advantage of the present opportunity to weaken the schools in any way. As commissioner of education, I have repeatedly pointed out that while school officers and school teachers are intensely patriotic, they must not have their work interfered with by those whose vision is not broad enough to see that the best patriotism consists in the best education for all the children now as never before. The schools should, and I know, will enter into any plans for economical use of educational facilities, but if we are to learn from the example of the other nations at war, we will see to it that there is no interruption whatsoever in the provision for education.”
At the N. E. A. meeting of 1919, which that year was held in Milwaukee, the same question of teacher scarcity was discussed and the Convention went on record as favoring a minimum of at least $1,000 for any and all qualified teachers.
The year 1919 brought into the school cause in Kenosha a Board of containing a very progressive majority. This Board elected one of its members, Jay B. Glerum, for the second time to be their president. Mr. Glerum was a graduate of the class of 1907, Kenosha High School. In his recorded speech of acceptance made on June 10, Mr. Glerum took a very pronounced and encouraging stand on the question of teacher's salaries, saying as follows:
“I wish to recommend to you a few important things which I feel that this Board should attend to at the earliest possible moment. First, is the question of teachers’ salaries. We cannot get good teachers unless we are willing to pay them a living wage. Although our teachers ranked fourth in the State the past year in regard to salaries, it does not go to say that they have been paid enough. We must wake up to the fact that if our teachers are underpaid their work will deteriorate. ... I would recommend that the entire salary schedule be raised without exception, and that we pay our teachers on the twelve payment plan.”
Here was certainly an encouraging assurance to me of official backing for much denied and long contemplated
By 1920 the condition of teacher shortage had not yet righted itself. Under date of June 13 of that year an article by me in the Kenosha paper is headed (Mr. Marlatt's art again) “S O S call for Teachers” in which article I say: “Correspondence shows that no teachers are available now from Normal Schools at the beginning salaries that Kenosha now offers.”
At the N. E. A. meeting in Salt Lake City in the Summer of 1920, one of the topics assigned to a number of four-minutes speakers was—“What must be Done to Keep First Class Superintendents in the Schools.” As one of those
“Since the conclusions reached by the Commission on the
Emergency in Education
are that the present educational emergency is traceable in practically all of its aspects to the insufficient salaries paid throughout the country to those engaged in educational work, it seems clear that the first thing to be done is to campaign for better salaries all along the line. The elimination of able men from educational work as a profession will to a large degree cease, when they can see the same opportunities for reward in the educational field as in the industrial, commercial and other professional fields. ... But the elimination will not entirely cease until other conditions also are changed.”
Incidently, I will say that in the enumeration that follows of those “other conditions” I spoke from experience.
Action in that direction in Kenosha began with a meeting of all the public school teachers early in December, 1919. It is reported that in opening that meeting, I used the following quotation from a prominent educational leader to express the thought back of this movement and to show the standards set for the Kenosha organization:
“The war,” says Dean James E. Russell of Teachers College, Columbia University, “has made some kind of organization inevitable, in that it has given to teaching a new objective and to teachers a new consciousness of kind. The new patriotism, founded in justice and devoted to freedom, must be imprinted on the coming generations. It is this sense of overwhelming responsibility that is forcing our ablest leaders to devise ways and means of unifying the latent strength of a half-million teachers of the country.”
This shows that the projected movement was nation wide. The Kenosha School force proceeded with a local organization. In due time a constitution was drafted and adopted. Whether or not Dean Russell had in mind anything more than affiliation with the National Education Association to which 67 per cent of the Kenosha teachers already belonged,
“Teachers in the city schools bombarded the Board of Education at its regular meeting on Tuesday evening, and with a thorough organization backing them, made a demand on the Board for increased pay. The teachers showed that an increase in pay was necessary if the teachers in the city schools are to remain in Kenosha and pay the living costs that are demanded here. ... They demanded an increase of thirty-five per cent for all teachers in the schools over the scale fixed at the beginning of the new year in September, 1919, with the understanding that the new scale would be in effect immediately.”
Although I favored the movement, I became somewhat disturbed at the “left wing” attitude taken by some of the teachers, and the manifest reaction of the Board to that attitude. I feared for the fate of a salary schedule upon which I had been working for some time and which I hoped would meet all just claims. It seemed best to give an interview on the subject and I am reported as having said in part:
“No intelligent person questions today the statement that teachers as a class are underpaid for the important public service which they perform. A recent movement in Kenosha on the part of some of the teachers to have wages increased immediately is only a local manifestation of what is transpiring in many localities of this and other states. ... The general public is in sympathy with this movement. ... The School Board of Kenosha has not only attempted recently to meet the situation by special raises, already in effect, but a plan for a future schedule of salaries of teachers, which is believed to be unexcelled in the state from both the standpoint of liberality and rational adjustment upon the merit basis, is being planned, the same to take effect in September, 1920. ... Things are moving in the right direction, but there are those who want them to move faster, and there is a question whether or not these will help or hinder the program of the cause in which all right-minded people are interested.”
I then criticised a disposition manifested by some of the young inexperienced teachers “those of unproved merit, to
“I want it understood that I believe in the advancement of teachers’ salaries, and my efforts in that direction for the past ten years on behalf of Kenosha teachers is evidence of that belief. I believe that a good teacher .... is worth at least one hundred dollars a month for twelve months. I believe it is true, as the teachers claim, that expenses are higher in Kenosha than in most other places and that therefore the need of advancement of salaries is especially pressing here. But fundamental principles are not altered by these conditions.”
I then proceed to state these
fundamental principles
and since the statement expresses as well as I can do it, the convictions that had developed through the years, I will quote what was said and let it stand as my final judgment on that subject in these “Memoirs”:
“It is true now, as always, that
merit,
although it may not be the quickest way, is the surest way to reward; that
those workers, whether in industry or in the public service, who are always hesitating to take hold and do because they are afraid of doing more than they are being paid for,
are pretty sure to be the
ones who do not soon get to the place where they are paid for more than they do;
that there are those who are so interested in agitating for more wages that they forget to earn the wages they already have.
“Finally, I believe that since there is no work that offers larger opportunity than the teaching profession does for the gratification of the desire for service (which desire should animate every one who enters upon that profession)
teachers must always find in such gratification a portion of their reward.”
An article in the “News” on Monday, March 4, 1920, brought the new salary schedule to the attention of the public, in which article my newspaper friend, Mr. Marlatt, sets
“It takes into consideration the question of the preparation of the teacher for her work—her invested capital; it takes into consideration the practical knowledge which she has gained by experience. It looks at the teacher as she is equipped for work, and pays her for the equipment as well as the work. It does not overlook the fact that teachers who have had long experience may have gained something that they never could have gained at an educational institution....
“It offers definite rewards for the proper professional preparation for work. It offers definite increase in salary for faithful service. It does not leave the way open for continual dickering as to what the pay shall be in some future years. It gives to the teacher a direct expectancy for her future. She knows just what group of teachers she is in, and she knows just what pay is going to be given them, this years, next year and for the future. She knows that if there must be a general revision of the wage schedule, that she is going to be fairly treated and that her case is one that must be settled in keeping with the provisions of the schedule and not in keeping with the whims of some principal or unthinking school board.
“Teachers who have grievances must not be too quick to assert them. ... We believe that the teachers of Kenosha will find that the Superintendent of Schools has been their best friend in making up this new schedule, and we believe that the people of the city who must pay the bills of the schools will find that she has worked out a fair system of pay which the tax payers will find not burdensome, because it is just.”
Would that every school superintendent had in his or her work for the advancement of the cause of public education such an interested, intelligent and faithful friend as was Walter T. Marlatt! Because he was also such a good newspaper man, his sensational headlines sometimes tried my patience, but I could depend upon him.
Then came a meeting of the special committee in charge of this matter at which every feature of the schedule was discussed.
Among the details that this committee had to consider was a carefully thought out system of
credits,
according to which, as intimated in Mr. Marlatt's editorial, each teacher's place in the salary schedule would be determined and the salary for the coming year fixed. The factors and conditions affecting placement were: (1) Professional preparation: (a) Academic and special training before teaching in Kenosha; (b) Further professional study and training since entering the service of Kenosha; (2) Teaching experience before coming to Kenosha, the results of which Kenosha profited from; (3) Length of service in Kenosha and the quality of that service. In the last item “quality” that very important thing called
personality
figured—a readily recognizable characteristic but one very difficult to describe and something the lack of which in a person is very apt to cause some trouble for the one who attempts to convince that person of such lack. My long experience in teacher training had demonstrated that.
Under (1)-(b) above, summer school attendance was taken into account and to encourage continued renewal of that sort—that is in modern phraseology, to prevent educational assets from becoming “frozen”—it was provided by the credit scheme that, if certain conditions were complied with, teachers attending summer school would be advanced
two
steps in the schedule instead of one, when the time for
It was a joint committee of Teachers and Finance that had this work to do, and they deserve being remembered. The chairman of the former committee was John I. Chester, the Superintendent of a large industry, a clear-headed, broad-minded man, and of the latter Wm. J. Threinen, an old member of the Board with the longest experience record.
Another thing that this committee had to consider was the important one of finance—to determine the minimum salary, to approve or disapprove my proposition for the yearly advance of salary for each class of teachers and to name a maximum. The first was readily fixed at $100 a month for twelve months. The second, yearly advance in salary as finally agreed upon was, for the largest class affected by it, the class room teacher—(space considerations obliging me to omit the facts about other groups—principals, supervisors and special teachers)—as follows: For Senior High School teachers, according to their credit placement, from $72 to $90 a year; for Junior High School teachers and for elementary and Kindergarten teachers from $60 to $78. Not very much to be sure and not so large as I had hoped for, but there were compensating conditions. It offered certainty, so essential to happy working conditions, and gave greater assurance of impartial treatment for all, and the recognition of real professional spirit. The maximum salaries fixed were generous for the times and furnished an encouraging incentive. They could be raised if that were needed or warranted.
Another new plan approved of was to have the annual salary paid in
twelve
installments, instead of
ten.
Each teacher would receive one twelfth of his or her salary on the opening day of school in September—a very welcome thing after an expensive vacation; then would follow, month after month, ten more twelfths; and at the close of school in June, the remaining twelfth with the regular June payment—this also very welcome, in view of vacation. The teachers were not paid for vacation, as was rather stupidly charged by thoughtless critics of the plan; they were simply getting in the extra September and June payments,
that belonged to them.
After the Committee had decided on all these matters, there still remained another job for me by no means a small one, the placement in the schedule of the teaching force, then numbering upwards of two hundred, and the preparation of the list for presentation to the Board. In order that there should be no misunderstanding, each member of the school force desiring re-election was asked to reckon his or her own credits, and to present to the Superintendent a signed statement of their claims. From this the salaries for 1920-21 were reckoned and personal interviews with all held before the list was submitted.
At their meeting on March 9 the Board accepted the report of these committees and that important piece of business was completed. The full account of it covers over ten pages of fine print in the Official Proceedings, and that gives an idea of the extent of the details of the transaction.
I have dwelt upon this topic as I have and have risked being tiresome not because I desire credit for this important achievement—other superintendents were doing similar things—but because, although changes in financial conditions may allow the raising of, or necessitate the lowering of pay standards, the Kenosha schedule (and others of the same merit,
and the principles governing it are just and enduring. It is here for any reader who may be interested, or to be omitted by others.
For comparison with salary conditions in 1910, previously described, and as evidence that one of my aims had been achieved the following facts are given: 93 elementary teachers were elected for the year 1920-21 with salaries ranging from $1,200 to $1,530; 35 Junior High School teachers, with salaries ranging from $ 1,320 to $1,650; 18 Senior High School teachers with salaries from $1,500 to $2,160. Supervisors and special teachers received similar recognition and promise of advancement.
The final report of the Committee on the election of teachers—Geo. Wallis, Geo. W. Anderson, Edward Flug, and J. B. Glerum, Chairman—was as follows: “We recommend that Mary D. Bradford be re-elected as Superintendent of Schools at a salary of $5,000 for the calendar year.” This very generous rise was a great surprise to me.
It may be interesting to know the reaction of the teachers to this encouraging reform measure. Another citation from the paper of June, 1920, under the heading “Teachers to Win Advanced Standing” shows one immediate effect:
“The practical working out of the “Kenosha Plan” for the determination of the wages of school teachers is going to produce better teachers, and teachers better trained for the exact work which they have been called upon to do. Forty-three candidates for advanced standing in the salary schedule in the Kenosha schools have left Kenosha to enter the institutions of the country to better themselves for their work....”
A list of these teachers then follows, and the institutions they had entered for summer work. The University of Chicago claimed the greatest number, but Columbia University in New York City had one, as did the University of Washington at Seattle; while Wisconsin Normal Schools
This is told not because it is claimed that Kenosha teachers manifested an exceptional professional spirit—teacher as a class cannot be outdone by any other professional class for the ambition to improve, a crowded summer schools for teachers show—it is given in evidence of what a little encouragement and appreciation do, and Mr. Marlatt was right when in closing the article referred to, he says about the extra compensation which the next year would bring to the forty-three teachers listed:
“This extra compensation will be far short of meeting the expenditure made by these teachers, but is some appreciation, and the response from the teachers to the encouragement thus given is evidence of their fine professional spirit. The benefits reaped by the children of Kenosha from this great physical and mental renewal will be immeasurably greater than any cost which the public will assume in consequence of it.”
Finally, let me say that the reaction of teachers, as of other human being, to circumstances affecting their livelihood and future prospects, are positive or negative, according as those circumstances conduce to hope and confidence or to discouragement and worry. But although sensitive to and affected by the latter reaction of their teachers, school children are spared from the full effects of it; became of the willingness of teachers usually to sacrifice for the children whom they love, and for the profession which they honor. The truth of this statement has been frequently demonstrated during the period of recent general economic disaster, by the teachers in many localities, notably Chicago. Whether the causes be avoidable or unavoidable, society cannot escape the effects of educational deflation.
It was with great satisfaction that in the Fall of 1920, the following statement was read. It was given out by the publicity committee of the Wisconsin Teachers’ Association after a careful analysis of the teachers’ salary situation in the Badger state. The heading in the “Kenosha Evening News” read—“Kenosha Second in Teacher Wage Scale” and then followed this:
“There is a relation existing between salaries and trained teachers and Kenosha by paying the second highest wages of any city in the State to its teachers has taken advantage of this relation and placed its school system among the leaders of those in the State of Wisconsin. ... The report shows that cities get about what they pay for in the teaching profession as well as in all other lines of endeavor. ... Six typical cities with fair to excellent salary schedules have shown exactly how much professional training their salaries would command in teaching.”
“Madison leads the list with a minimum salary of $12000 and with ninety-five per cent of its teachers who were graduates of Normal School, University or College.”
Kenosha was second, with 87 per cent thus prepared and none without some professional training. Then follow in the order named, Racine with 86 per cent and $1,000 minimum salary; Beloit with 81 per cent and $1,000 minimum salary; Fond du Lac with 82 per cent and salary ranging in the grades from $1,200 to $1,500 and La Crosse with 84 per cent Normal or College graduates and with a minimum of $1,000.
“She's certainly strong on reporting!” was a remark once made about my work by one who had no intention of complimenting me. But I believed in it and even thought that such reports might some time have historical value.
Although that of 1918 was the last report of that character that I got out for Kenosha, the people were informed in the summer of 1919 of what had taken place in the schools during the school year 1918-19 by a series of articles published in the daily paper, each article dealing with one phase of school work. That summer eleven of these appeared, telling, for instance of the Opportunity School, Home Making Course for girls and Manual training for boys, and others.
In the summer of 1920 similar articles appeared in the “Kenosha Evening News” under a uniform caption: “Interesting and Different Work Done in the Schools of Kenosha” (credit for which caption I lay no claim to). These covered the work of the year 1919-20. It is interesting to note that the series started out with the first report of the purchasing agent, Edward Glerum, who had then served for one year and who let the people know in a detailed and interesting way how their money was spent. At the close of my last year an even more complete series was printed thus.
I had taken this method of reporting because I thought there would be a greater likelihood of people's reading and assimilating information dealt out to them in annually small doses, rather than given them in a large quantity accumulated over a period of two or three years, as was done before. The articles furnished the tax payers with answer to many questions that might arise about the what, the why and the how of school practices. Besides this, I was anxious that as complete a history as possible of educational work in Kenosha during my Superintendency should be left, and I was quite uncertain about the getting out of another pamphlet report. But this method lacked the element of permanency, and today I doubt if a trace of it can be found outside the files in the printing office and in my scrap books. As history,
Although I hadn't said much about it, I had come to feel that the time had arrived for me to quit. There were still many things that I had hoped to help in bringing about. In the building line, a new high school, so badly needed, and so long under consideration was still in the offing—a dream not yet come true, or likely to do so for some time. The second of two fine new elementary schools had just been opened and a third one soon would be. The idea of a real Junior High School building by this time a form of construction that school architects were giving attention to, and the School Board Journal was showing pictures of—had already been lodged in the minds of some Kenosha School members. I had even selected the site for one of them, but mention of it was met with—“What's the idea, Mrs. Bradford, in having the new school right across the street from another?” My explanation that it was a different sort of a school from the other, needed, then, further time for assimilation; and it was several years before the advantages of that site were finally realized, but not too late to secure it. Kenosha's first real Junior High School building stands there.
Success had come in the long struggle for better salaries for teachers, and I had realized a fine climax of appreciation in the last salary voted me. To those who wondered and perhaps
Before passing judgment for the fact just stated, either on the School Board for not doing better by me, or on myself for seeming to cheapen the position of Superintendent of Schools of a city of considerable size by working for the salaries paid, let it be remembered in the first place, that salaries of men in that position were much lower in the second decade of the century and until after the war than later; and in the second place, that in my case, a peculiar relation existed between me and the community—peculiar because nobody else, probably, could have held such a relation in Kenosha, and no other community than Kenosha could have been brought into such a relation. I was engaged in a sort of cooperative enterprise with my fellow citizens, and salary was not the chief consideration. The fact, also, that I was trying to demonstrate something for my sex, made this work an opportunity not to be passed by.
In the Emersonian sense my “Compensation” had been satisfactory; and I applied to myself the same philosophy that I had used with the teachers on an occasion previously referred to, when I said, “There is no work that offers larger opportunity for the gratification of the desire for service than teaching does, and teachers must
always
find in such gratification a portion of their reward.” It is however, doubtful if, granted the same relationship of individual to community, any one but a woman would have been satisfied to have quite so large a portion of the reward realized in that intangible way. But I had by inheritance and early training “the will to work,” and the years had for the most part been happy ones. Now, however, on the sunset of life, I felt
The early Fall brought an entirely new experience. An invitation came to me from the U. S. Commissioner of Education to take part in the survey of the schools of an Eastern city, and feeling that everything was running smoothly and that I could be spared, I asked and got a leave of absence for the month of October. The city was Wilmington, Delaware, and to be called to work there seemed a peculiarly fortuitous occurance, because a few month before that, my son had accepted an engineering position in Wilmington and had moved his family from St. Louis to that City.
My assignment in that survey was the was the observation of work in certain subjects in the elementary schools. Three weeks were given to such observation, and a fourth week was devoted to the writing of my report of it for the commission in charge of the survey. My associations with the experts in the survey were inspiring and pleasant.
Early in November I was back in Kenosha at work and entered with zest into the celebration of “Good Schools Week,” December 6 to 11, instituted by the United States Bureau of Education for the first time that year and urged upon all school superintendents. There was another educational interest that also demanded attention about that time: the playgrounds and recreation cause was again menaced.
For two years, 1918 and 1919, the city authorities levied the two-tents of a mill tax as voted by the people; but in the Spring of 1920 it was again “forgotten.” It was necessary to renew the fight, and as usual, the “Kenosha Evening News” was with the school officials.
On December 8, 1920, Mr. Marlatt came out with a large typed, arresting, first-page heading: “Children Defrauded by Council.” “Solons violate Promise, says Mary
The last paragraphs of that article are as follows:
“You will notice in the report of the Committee on Finance, that they voted $150,000 for sewer and playing and $244,000 for the bridge, but ‘in order to keep the tax rate as low as we could,’ they say, ‘we had to cut that sum’ meaning the sum for public recreation.”
I then proceed with some interesting facts:
“The assessed valuation of the city is over $44,000,000. The sum asked by the School Board to carry on that playground and social centre work for one year, and to make up the lack of funds during the current year will add to the taxation two cents (the price of a postage stamp) on every hundred dollars. It would add 20 cents on a thousand dollars. A person owning ten thousand dollars would be obliged to pay $2.00 extra tax (the price of a theatre ticket) on account of the addition to the tax budget for public recreation. The argument made for economy doesn't get far with intelligent people.
Then I rub it in by reference to a past occurrence under a regime similar to the one that since 1918 had existed in the office of Mayor and say:
“Once upon a time the Mayor of Kenosha made in the name of economy an attack on the Kindergartens. His procedure was arrested by an appeal to 600 voting fathers of the Children so affected.
“Thanks be to the progress of social forces for betterment, the appeal for the protection of the rights of children can be made now to the
voting mothers
as well as the voting fathers.
“The appeal goes forth. Shall the rights of the children of Kenosha to supervised play during the months, and the right of the public as well as the children, to the use of school buildings beyond the six hour school day be respected?”
Two days after that, an article followed giving the history of the playground movement in Kenosha. I say at its close:
“I believe that the same people will stand for the defense of this cause who first stood for its promotion. Several of these are the largest tax payers in our city. I believe also that if a canvas were made of the smaller taxpayers, it would be found that there is not a person unwilling to contribute the small proportional share which two-tenths of a
The levy was included n the budget in 1921 and I have heard of no trouble since.
So far as I can recall, this was the last fight of any considerable importance waged by me for a public educational cause in Kenosha.
Then came an enforced, not a voluntary change. Conditions arose that I could not escape. The enemy that laid me low was not of a political sort. Nothing that I done or had failed to do in the execution of my school duties had anything to do with it. Some years before I had met with an accident that had not at the time of the occurrence been considered of much consequence. Now, developments from it made it advisable, unless I would risk and probably entail long suffering and fatal results, to submit to an operation. That happened at the Hannamann Hospital in Chicago on December 18, and Kenosha learned of it through a rather sensational “Extra,” which gave a late telephone communication from my son, who had joined me in Chicago and which said: “The physicians in charge are every hopeful that the operation, which did not disclose any very dangerous complication, will bring her complete and early recovery.”
While these Memoirs ten years after furnish evidence that the first part of the prediction was true, that about the early recovery was not. It was eleven weeks before I was again in Kenosha. But the schools of Kenosha had not for that length of time been without an active head. When it became evident that my return would be delayed, the School Board voted me an assistant, and asked me to select one. A mental canvass was made of suitable, and possibly available school men. Finally one was recalled who had written me in the Fall that he intended returning to school work after a period of other employment. Learning that bee was then in
I returned to kenosha early in March, and in time to have the interesting experience of trying out the salary schedule in making up the list of teachers for the next year, and the satisfaction of finding that the application of it greatly lessened the difficulties of the problem of being sure that all received just and equable treatment. Among those re-elected were many who had been with me all nearly all of the eleven years of may term of office and to whom I was attached by strong bonds of friendship. One of these was the principal of the High School, George N. Tremper, who had been in that position ten years, and had seen the high school grow from about 300 when it was a school of four grades, to over 500 when it was a school of only three grades—the ninth grade, or first year, being now a part of the Junior High School. This increase of 66 per cent was taxing the capacity of the old high school building, and causing problems which only a patient man, and good educational engineer could have handled.
My resignation was presented to the Board on March 21. Remembering the bright hours only—a bit of philosophy which it is well on such occasions to follow—I expressed “my
I found time for the completion of a project upon which I had been working for some time, namely that of putting in pamphlet form the separate parts of the Course of Study, now revised and brought up to date. The printing of these, some of them already completed, was done in the print shop of the Lincoln Junior H. S. by pupils under the direction of Miss Mary A. Moyle, teacher of that subject.
At the final regular meeting, I reviewed some of the purposes and the achievement of the eleven years of my Superintendency, and gave some facts that may appropriately be repeated here. In 1910 Kenosha ranked, according to the census, ninth in population among Wisconsin cities. “But, I said, it has passed Green Bay, Madison, Sheboygan, La Crosse, Oshkosh and Superior and now stands third in Wisconsin.” The increase in the number of school children in the ten years was 6,522, and in the number of teachers for the eleven years, from 89 to 256. The teacher turn-over in that time is shown by the fact that 561 different persons had been members of the school force. All problems, social, educational and otherwise, are found in a city of 40,000 people.” In speaking of the School Boards with which I had dealt, the fact was stated that a total of 76 different persons had served on that important body.
As soon as I conveniently could, I went to Wilmington, Delaware, and took up my residence there as a member of my son's family. I bring this long Autobiography of a Teacher to a close with an extract from an anonymous poem. The present tense of the first verb in it seems to fit in my case:
“I teach because in passing on the living flame
That never dying burns the ages through,
I have done service that is worth the name
Can I but say, “The lamp of knowledge grew
A little brighter in the hands I taught’,”
A decade and more has now gone by since the events written about in the last chapter took place—a decade in which many new experiences have come to me, some of them of considerable personal educational importance. Being an habitual teacher, it quite naturally occurred that from time to time I have passed on to others in lectures or otherwise, something of what those years have brought to me; and now, when the request has come from friend to continue my written narrative a little longer, I have concluded to do so.
When released from regular work in 1921, I was free as I hadn't been for many years—free to use my time as I pleased. I have known people who, after having led a very busy life, dreaded to bring the old routine to a close, dreaded change, dreaded readaptation, and more than that, the settling down upon them of the cloud of inactivity. I once heard the story of a little girl who at bedtime dreaded being left alone in the dark, and cried to have her mother stay nearby. Her mother tried to reason with the child and reminded her of the guardian angel that protected her and hovered over her at night. “Yes, mother,” said the child, “you've told me about the guardian angel, but it scares me to think that it might settle down on me.”
Leisure, freedom to use one's time as one pleases, is a beautiful conception, but we don't want to have it
settle down on us.
It won't do so, if we have by us to ward it off—as the child thought her mother would do—some strong interests, which can be pursued after the regular vocation is ended. Such an interest or diversity of interest are essential to good mental health and are a sort of mental life insurance.
In this chapter I will review the past decade and select some of the happenings that seem worth while to relate, and that may be worth while for others to read. The account will reveal some of the interests of these later years.
It will be remembered that in 1921 the Pilgrim Tercentenary Celebration took place in Plymouth, Mass., and being at my son's home in Wilmington, Del., only a little more than an over-night ride from Boston, I decided to take my grandson, Wm. Bradford, Jr., then ten years of age, to see the old home of his celebrated ancestors, and the site of one of America's great beginnings, or, to use the title of Helen Grace Carlyle's recently published story of the Pilgrims, where “We Began.”
A wonderfully well planned and successfully executed Pageant was, as will be recalled, the great feature of that Celebration. An amphitheatre capable of seating many thousands had been erected surrounding a level tract in the vicinity of the Rock. An array of powerful lights was installed to reveal suddenly out of the silent darkness—silent except for the orchestral music—successive scenes depicting the early history of the Pilgrims and of Plymouth—scenes sometimes involving structures, apparatus, horses and other animals, and hundreds of people, all mysteriously taking position out of an invisible somewhere, he entire pageant moving on with a smoothness that gave evidence of the long weeks of rehearsal, under skilled direction, of the participants, who, so we were told, were mostly Plymouth residents. In the intervals of expectation, came the “Voice from the Rock”—a voice of unusual charm and carrying quality, telling the significance of the scenes. The boy enjoyed it very much—all but the voice of the one who spoke for Gov. Bradford,
We staid long enough to visit all the historic spots in and about Plymouth—an interesting experience for the boy and his grandmother. We visited the church, called a Congregational Church, on the site of the old one, and climbed to the top of Burial Hill close by, where ancient head stones mark the honored 300-year-old graves. To locate places of historic significance, the sites of homes and events, there had been stretched high across the streets of Plymouth broad pieces of white cloth, bearing names in conspicuous, yard-high letters—John Alden, Elder Brewster, Miles Standish, Priscilla Mullens and others. As we turned a certain corner, the boy touched my arm, evidently quite impressed, and pointed to his own name, “William Bradford.”
I believe that it is a good thing for a child to know that he has a family reputation to maintain, but I would have him realize that the word “maintain” is the important one in this consideration.
We turned by the water route from Boston to Philadelphia, and discovered that the route took us out into the broad Atlantic, where full effects of a strong wind were felt, with consequences quite disastrous to the pleasure of both of us, and entirely destructive of my plans for a favorable initiation of the boy into the delights of ocean travel. But the mouth of the Delaware brought calm water and the end of our discomfort; soon Philadelphia furnished us a very welcome breakfasting and Wilmington greeted us before noon.
This refers to what happened when I applied for my annuity from the Wisconsin Teachers’ Retirement Fund for the forty-three years of actual service in Wisconsin with which I was credited. It is not in the spirit of criticism that this is told; I was to blame for what happened; law is law, and “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” It was my confidence that I did know the new law—to the enactment of which, as well as of its predecessor, I had given such support as I was capable of—that caused me not to get advice about the procedure necessary to avail one's self of its benefits. To have been from the first a member under the old law of 1911 was not enough. It was necessary to teach under the new law, and it was decided by the authorities in Madison that I had not done so; and for this reason: my contract with the School Board in Kenosha expired June 30; the bill had passed several days before that date, but the Governor did not get around to signing it until several days after. Although it required a week of hard work after June 30 to get things in shape for leaving, I was not earning public money during that time and had, therefore, not been engaged under the new law.
I went East to join my son's family before knowing that this question had arisen, and the correspondence that ensued was not very satisfactory. It was not made clear to me why I was not eligible! I found out when, in the following Spring, I went to Madison. To get a school became immediately my next purpose. I recall feeling quite a thrill when I thought of what I'd do in a country school if such should be my only opportunity to teach under the new law. But instead of that, the opportunity came to teach in the State Teachers College in Milwaukee, which I did for the
Since then I have realized the benefits of that provision for old teachers—“The Wisconsin Teachers’ Retirement System.” Without that reliable source of additional income, I would not have been able to do many of the things that are recorded in this chapter. A moderate income and “the simple life’ make a very good combination.
Back in Wilmington in the Summer of 1922, work connected with the Presidency of the N. C. A. W. E., described in a previous chapter, which office came to me at the Chicago meeting of the Department of Superintendents, where some left-over duties called me—kept me very busy for two years.
The Summer of 1923 took me to Oakland, California and San Francisco for the two meetings, that of the N. E. A. at the former place and at the latter the first International Education Conference. With interests and duties in both places, it was for me an intensely busy time. Many of us became well acquainted with the ferry between the two cities.
A brief history of the International Education cause named, seems appropriately given here.
The initial step toward the broadening of the interests of the National Education Association was taken in 1920, when Dr. Augustus O. Thomas of Maine was made chairman of the Committee on International Relations. That this was a momentous choice later developments have abundantly and repeatedly proved. The next year, 1921, at the N. E. A. He proposed a movement for international co-operation in education, for the advancement of world understanding.
This was too new an idea and too big an idea to find lodgement then in the minds of the rank and file of the “educators” assembled; and some shook their heads with a wise air of disparagement, and others were seen to indicate smartly by appropriate and suggestive gestures that the speaker had wheels in his head.
But by 1922, when the N. E. A. met in Boston, a great change of attitude toward Dr. Thomas's idea was observable. Support had come to the cause from distinguished Bostonians and Harvard faculty members; a very popular luncheon meeting was held in one of the large hotels, on which occasion notable speeches were heard in support of the plan for an international conference of teachers, and resolutions to call such a conference were passed.
Dr. Thomas immediately set to work to carry out that great, unprecedented project. It was decided that San Francisco would be the place of meeting. I remember that i his first widely distributed circular, universal peace was named as the objective. The immediate reaction of the militarists in opposition to it, threatened to hamper the educational cause; so it was decided to change the name to one less objectionable. It was then advertised as an International Education Conference, and as such the 1923 San Francisco Convention is known. Its purpose was not changed—that of promoting international good feeling and mutual trust. Delaware, through its State Department of Education had honored me by making me its official delegate.
A deep impression was made by that great meeting. It brought together representative from every civilized nation
I was mentally torn assunder by rival interests in different discussions going on at the same time. Shall it be here, where
health
is the theme; or there where the discussion is on the
revision of the text books
used in the schools of different countries, to make them more nearly adequate and truthful in their accounts of other peoples; or shall it be another place, where the removal of illiteracy as a world educational objective is engaging a attention, in which department Mrs. Cora Wilson Stewart of Kentucky was a leader from the first.
The drafting of resolutions on some phase of the subject discussed usually concluded these various department meetings, and then at the plenary session in the afternoon, reports of progress were heard, and further discussion took
“In hearts’ too young for enmity,
There lies the way to make men free,
When children's friendships are world-wide
New ages will be glorified.
Let child love child, and strife will cease,
Disarm the hearts, for that is peace.”
When the teachers of the world fully realize that the basis of permanent peace is a spiritual one in the sense expressed in the verse quoted, and that education alone can establish that basis, then the great hope of the ages may move toward realization. It is that noble objective which the World Federation of Education Association is endeavoring to reach.
As is well known, the organization of the World Federation of Education Association, was the most important outcome of the International Education Conference of 1923. It aimed to band together in one great co-operating body the N. E. A.’s of all nations of the world. Dr. Augustus A. Thomas was its first president. Biennial meetings were planned and these have since been held: that of 1925 being in Edinburgh, Scotland, that of 1927 in Toronto, Canada, that of 1929 in Geneva, Switzerland, and that of 1931 in Denver, Colorado. I have been able to attend all but the third one named, and I may mention those experiences later. No ne can rival the record of one Kenosha teacher. Miss Edna Hood, who with her sister Elizabeth of Racine, have attended thus far all of the meetings of the W. F. E. A.
In the fall of 1924, a great project began to stimulate my imagination. A resolution to carry it out followed—and after that, considerable reckoning on the practical problem of financial adjustments! It was nothing less than a World Cruise—a real experience in internationalism. In November I went to Kenosha to see my folks and to get some essential data for my passport; while there I attended the celebration of an interesting event—the laying of the cornerstone of a new high school.
It was on January 19, 1925, that I left New York on the S. S. “California” under the auspices of the F. C. Clark Company, then making their fifth cruise round the world, this time to the Westward—ever going toward the sunsets. The tourist company numbered 600, and something of the value of the educational opportunity promised and realized may be judged by the fact that the head of the ship's corps of directors was Dr. Wm. S. Barton.
On May 16th we landed in Cherbough, France. We had then traveled about 33,000 miles, and for a period of 117 days; of that time 70 days had been passed on the sea and 47 on land; we had spent 103 nights on the ship and 14 at hotels or on trains. That little room on a lower deck had come to seem much like home to me. My room mate all that time was an interesting young Chicago school teacher. Since our tickets were good for a year, I improved the opportunity for further travel, and spent three months in Great Britain, and one month in France, returning home in late September. Just how much can I tell of the happenings between those dates? I could not be tempted to try here even a brief summary of them, knowing that a satisfactory account of just a single phase of my journey—an account of where and when I found American influence operating (“Glimpses of the
Such a cruise affords an exceptional opportunity for writing up one's observations and experiences. There would be a stop at some interesting place, and then the quiet of one's cabin while steaming to the next place. Two highly valued books in my collection, by two of my traveling companions show the results of such occupation. One of these is by Dr. Lucian L. Knight of Atlanta, entitled “Tracking the Sunset; and one by Mrs. Flavia Camp Canfield, the mother of the noted author Dorothy Canfield Fisher. This remarkable woman, who at the age of eighty-two years made this cruise, wrote about it under the title: “Around the World at Eighty.” Because Mrs. Canfield and I had been traveling companions on the trip to Europe in 1907, and because she was a native of Wisconsin, we became quite intimately associated on this cruise. It is an interesting fact that Flavia Camp entered the University of Wisconsin in 1873, being, it is said, one of the first woman admitted.
It is my purpose here to tell only a few experience that have not been recounted by anyone else because they were, and in their consequences have been, peculiarly mine. Among these are acquaintanceships with two very interesting persons with whom I have been kept in touch from that time to this friendship
may not be too strong a term to express our relations now.
He is a native of Cairo, Egypt, and these are the circumstances that led to our first meeting. One day in Cairo, when no special trip under the direction of the Clark Company was scheduled for our company, I decided to visit the American University of Cairo of which I had heard so much. My companion for the venture, and that word “venture” is not an entirely inappropriate one—was Mrs. Cora L. Rigby of Oak Park, Ill., whose inclinations, like mine, were not in the direction of the Bazaar. The school we wanted to see is supported by American philanthropy, and is conducted as fully as circumstances will permit, in the American way. Here my diary will tell the story in as brief a form as possible:—
“Afternoon of April 30, 1925. (Thursday) With Mrs. Rigby went to the Am. Univ. of Cairo. Had quite a time finding the car—the usual trouble with men wanting to be guides, one came offering to protect us from the guides. While waiting for the car spoke to an Egyptian gentleman in European clothes, wearing a fez. This usually means that the man has been educated in the Uni. or some European school. On car found that the collector of tickets did not speak English. A French girl in the compartment gave him the necessary directions about where to let us off; but we were still anxious and doubtful, and therefore very glad to have come aboard a woman readily recognized as an American. I spoke to her and told her what we wanted. She was Miss Finney who for 42 years had been connected with the American Mission in Cairo.
The Amer. Uni. of Cairo—Chas. Watson, Pres. (Princeton) Rob't McClenahan (Yale) Principal. We were shown about by a teacher of English. Roosevelt spoke in the chapel in 1908. Students, all sorts and nationalities—160; taken them to about the Junior year in College. Building of Letters and Science Dept., the old palace of a Khedive, magnificent stairway the finest thing about it—three languages taught—Arabic, English and French; ample grounds—buildings of old place utilized—stable as dining room, all white, clean and sanitary looking. Guest house of the palace, for the dep't of S. O. S., (School of Oriental Studies) students in latter for the most part missionaries.
Directions rec'd for finding our way of Am. College for Girls. took bus as directed. Conversed about our experience on the street car—hoped we were on the right bus, etc.—were overheard by a man opposite us in European clothes and red fez—he politely assured us that we were on the right bus—conversation with him ensued—card handed me—his name—“F. M. Marsafi, Headmaster, Reformatory, Gizeh”—a teacher! confidence immediately restored. He said that he was greatly interested in getting literature on American methods in reform schools. I promised to send him some—address secured—my name and address given him. He would get off also at the Am. College for Girls—his father's house was opposite it—his sister had been educated there. We saw him enter a fine residence. Visit to the college. Have pamphlet which contains material of great interest—Keep.” (The proceeding illustrates how I used one of the compensating perogatives of age—speaking to strangers, with discrimination, however.)
Thus ended the second episode of our venture—and thus began my acquaintance with Mr. Marsafi. I
did not forget my promise.
Soon after arriving in Wilmington, I sent him some material that I had and wrote to Dr. Hastings Hart
In due time acknowledgments from Mr. Marsafi came. In a letter dated Feb. 3, 1926 he says:
“I received many a report of the best institutions in the United States, which deal with the problems of delinquency of children. I am studying them carefully with great interest. Our future improvement will be indebted to you and Dr. Hart and your institutions in general.”
Enthusiasm for his work is strongly manifest. As a sort of apology for a rather long account of his problem and its sources, he says “If I leave my pen to write, I could not stop it, and I can write pages on that subject, which, perhaps, you are not fond of.” Thus the start was made which resulted in at least a little help from our country in the solution of Egypt's tremendous problem of caring for her neglected children or, to use Mr. Marsafi's phrase “Delinquents and children astray.”
A few words about this interesting man. Mr. Marsafi obtained his education in the Government Schools of Egypt. Of this he say: “When I finished my primary and secondary course in Education, I chose to complete my education in the Training College for Teachers as I love children ad love to teach them. I took my diploma in 1913.”
His English is not always idiomatic, but it is very good. There is never experienced any difficulty in understanding what he means. His purpose is clear; his zeal for his work always evident, as is also his gratitude to America for the help given him. His full name ad title are “Fathallah Mahomet Marsafi, Headmaster Reformatory Schools for Boys and Girls, and Inspector of Department Schools and Adult Education in Prisons.” He is a Moslem but not a polygamist.
I add these intimate details of our correspondence simply to show that my friends in that distant country are, in their family relationships, much like the rest of us. It is only such contacts as this that enable us to form just opinions of the people of other lands, other races, other religions, other customs, and to realize that we have common human characteristics.
My last letter from Mr. Marsafi shows that in addition to his work with unfortunate children, he is greatly interested in the promotion of another cause now engaging the effort of Egyptian social workers—that of the curbing the alarming spread of the use of narcotic drugs.
I would like to let quotations from our correspondence fill out the story, but the limitations of the chapter forbid. However, here is one which expresses his zeal, his optimism and his gratitude:
“I wanted and wished to help and work for my people but was still weak and had no power to speak one word. Why? Because I had nothing to say about Foreign Countries, though I tried to find any work that dealt with my cause, but found none at all. So since my meeting with you—that valuable and historical chance, you remember, at Kasrel Nile Quarter, when you and your friend were going to the American Girls’ College, progress has been made.—God sent you to me as the angel of my success in my work. I will never forget at all your kind favour.”
(Please observe another phrase here for
psychological moment—
“valuable and historic chance.”)
AWATIF MARSAFI
and her American doll
The subject in Arabic of one of her father's lectures, given at the American University of Cairo. Translation: “The Delinquents and Children Astray are Our Children.”
From a letter dated July 13, 1926, I take this: “I am continuing to study all the works gathered on the subject of delinquents and the methods of care and reform so as to be equipped to meet my future.” Through the years the progress of his work has been interesting to note a few steps of that progress I will give, just to show that the phrase “psychological moment” was the right phrase for the incident of our meeting, or better, the moment when my promise was remembered and acted upon; at the time, however, I had no idea of that the consequences would be so far reaching. Soon after Mr. Marsafi began to study, an opportunity came to lecture on his problem of child delinquency before the Royal Academy of Cairo and later he was appointed to membership on a Government Commission in the Department of Prisons “for the discussion of New Reforms of Prisons and Prisoners”—“Our discussion was built on the basis of the best discipline of well known countries,” he says.
The next step of progress for him as a teacher and reformer was to lecture at the American University of Cairo. The opportunity afforded him by the platform of that University (increased in number of 300 students) was much appreciated because, he tells me it draws from the influential levels of society—the Pasha and Bey class, from the professional classes—doctors, lawyers, teachers, ecclesiastics and from military and official circles. Over fifty percent of the students are Moslems. Of that experience he says—“That encouraged me to follow lecturing in the same place till I enlighten the well known people, (probably meaning the intelligent, or the upper classes) say the public, on the problems, the Juveniles and how to reform them as well as (do) the other countries that take care of such troubles years ago.”
He sent me a pamphlet containing one of his lectures printed in Arabic, the back cover of course, being the title page. Paragraphs appear in English, the Arabic that follows new
sense we can say—
“From many an ancient river,
From many a palmy plain,
I would like to tell more about the work of this interesting man, but must hasten to my conclusion of this episode.
In 1925 there appeared an article in “School and Society” written by Dr. Stephen P. Duggan of the College of the City of New York in which he gave an account of his survey of education in the Philippines and then makes a plea for the spread of what he calls “enlightened patriotism.” In that article he says in effect this—“Any one who can by any act—no matter how slight in itself—weave a
new thread in the bond
between our country and another is manifesting
“enlightened patriotism.”
My observation of American travelers has convinced me that this truth needs to be driven right home. I saw many flag-waving “patrioteers” who left behind them by their treatment of foreign people, a trail of distrust and dislike. My purpose in giving this account of Mr. Marsafi and his work will have entirely miscarried if readers do not see in it an illustration of how easy it is to
A PHOTOGRAPH WITH ANTIQUITY AS A BACKGROUNDweave a new thread in the bond;
and furthermore, what important consequences may follow one simple act of courteous interchange. The only thing that I am really proud about is that I remembered my
“Safety first!”—the sand cart for me! Taken April 30, 1925
Was Dr. Duggan thinking, I wonder, of the multitudes of Americans who make world cruises or travel in foreign countries?
Enlightened patriotism,
a great phrase, another name for the spirit of internationalism. True internationalism will not drive out the patriotism that means the holding together and keeping whatever good our American ancestors have accomplished; it is the realization of the truth that in this new age, such patriotism is, as Edith Cavell said, “not enough.”
As in the account of my Egyptian friend, it seems best to tell how I came to meet one whom an English writer in a recent article calls the most remarkable woman of her day—Dame Henrietta O. Barnett, D. B. E.
From Cherbough, France, I went, as has already been stated, to England, landing at Southampton and proceeding first to Winchester and then to London. There were three in our party, my companions being two fellow passengers on the cruise, Dr. Eveline Dickenson and Mrs. Gertrude S. Robinson, now Mrs. E. W. Armstrong, of San Francisco. Both of these had traveled in England before, and after a week or two in London both went their chosen ways, leaving me to follow my particular line of interest, which for a greater part of the time was English cathedrals.
However, before Dr. Dickenson left, she renewed connections with an institution which she had visited while on a trip some years before, Toynbee Hall, the first University settlement. She learned that Mrs. Barnett, who with her husband had created that social settlement, was now a widow, living in the Northwestern outskirts of London in a village
I knew a little about the work of these two noted social reformers and was ready to learn more. Toynbee Hall had become a familiar name to me, as it must be to all who have felt an interest in the establishing of Hull House, Chicago, by Jane Addams. Miss Addams had in 1889, visited Toynbee Hall, had studied the methods pursued by the English workers, and had become imbued with the spirit of th Barnetts. Hull House was modeled after Toynbee Hall, as have been the 480 or more other University Settlements now existing in the United Stated, every one f which lives in one form or another as did their exemplars “to share the best and to create friendship.” The Whitechaple, London, Settlement was called a University settlement because Oxford and Cambridge sent their young men to help the Barnetts and the public spirited men and women who had gathered about them. Toynbee Hall, named after one of them, was built to accommodate those students, and to meet the demands of hospitality which had far outgrown the small vicarage.
Dr. Dickenson learned, furthermore, that after the death of her husband Mrs. Barnett had been honored by the King of England with the title “Dame,” a title bestowed upon women (widowed or unmarried) who have gained distinction for one or another form of public service, as the title “Sir” is bestowed on men. With this title, Mrs. Barnett was addressed by my friend, with a request for the privilege of visiting the Garden Suburb. We felt greatly honored soon
Mrs. Barnett has visited America twice, the last time in 1921, to attend a convention of the Federation of Settlements, the “Toynbee Halls” of America. She is deeply interested in America and Americans. The discovery of some common interest led to an interchange of letters, each of us keeping the other informed about matters of mutual concern.
It will be impossible in this chapter to do justice to this famous English woman, who has honored me by her remembrance of that visit in 1925; but if I shall have succeeded in creating an interest in her, and in knowing more about what was achieved by herself and her husband, who for forty years, 1873 to 1913—were foremost among the apostles of practical Christianity in modern England, then I may have accomplished something very suggestive and helpful to the cause of human betterment.
While the work in the slums of darkest London was going on, it became absolutely necessary for the health of Reverend and Mrs. Barnett to get away week ends from the noise and dirt; so they bought a house in the country, at Hamstead Heath. Thus the location of some kind of a settlement there came to be dreamed about, before her husband's death; it seemed to them, as she expressed it to me, to be the next logical step of progress after Toynbee Hall, to get people away from that environment out into the country. The originator of the plan for the tremendous undertaking and the moving force in its execution was Dame Henrietta Barnett. The same vision that helped to create an oasis in Whitechapel whence radiated an energy that had swept away some of the worst slums of the east end of London, and gave to dwellers in mean streets and in dark places, “1. To place within the reach of members of the industrial classes the opportunities for taking, within a two-pence fare of London, a cottage with a garden, where the family labor would provide vegetables, fruits and flowers, and add to health and pleasure. “2. To promote a better understanding between various classes, by arranging that people with all standards of income from 3 s. 3 d. a week to £300 a year should live in the same Estate. “3. To build not only a Church, a Free Church, and a Friend's Meeting House, but also an Institute where people of every section of Society and all sorts of opinions meet, and by study, discussion and recreation, become acquainted and form friendships. “4. To preserve all natural beauty and so to lay out the grounds that every tree might be kept, hedgerows duly considered, and the foreground of the distant view preserved, the buildings kept in harmony with the surroundings.
My observations in 1925 show that these objectives were being realized.
In the pleasant light of the late evening of June 9, 1925, my friend and I saw something of this interesting place. After dinner Mrs. Barnett sent for a village functionary—the head gardener or city planner of the suburb—to show us about. Had I then known as much as I know now of its history and its purposes, what I saw on that trip would have been better understood and appreciated. But I recall the
Bordering on or near the Central Square were three churches. St. Jude's called after the beloved White Chapel church; the Free Church, distinguished by the fact that all sects combine to worship with its walls, and the elders are selected from no less than seven denominations. On the corner stone of the latter are carved the words “God is larger than the creeds.” A third church was the Friends’ Meeting House, an exact replica of Penn's house of prayer.
School houses, kindergartens, elementary and high school, were there, and the crowing educational institution of all, the institute, the second building of which had been dedicated by her Majesty, the Queen, about a year before, and which has since been greatly enlarged.
We were taken along some of the streets, where growing trees promised abundant shade, and visited some of the homes. Each home was surrounded by its own garden, no home, however small, without a bathroom. The rents ranged from 4 s 6d. a week to £400 a year, and between these limits every range of rent and rate—poor and rich together, “meeting each other on the simple grounds of common interests and shared aspiration.” We saw little individual homes for those nearing the end of their pilgrimage, and were shown through one of them by the happy old occupant—
her own home,
with its little living room, bed room, kitchen and bath room; we saw the rest home for working girls and a sort of family cottage for work-house children. There were many other provisions for housing—for homes. A home and a habitation
The Institute mentioned in paragraph 3 has been completed. It was dedicated in 1927. From the catalogs I have received, there is evidence that it is fulfilling the purpose for which it was designed. It will bring a fuller realization of the greatness of the educational project of this woman to know that the Institute serves not only the needs of the Garden Suburb but provides a centre of education for the 150,000 people who have been brought by the Tube to the immediate neighborhood. Among other uses it houses the Henrietta Barnett school for girls, preparatory for entrance to the University of London.
I would like to tell of the beautiful home, where we were entertained, with its objects of rare art, one of which was the large DeMorgan vase, a gift of the artist-author himself, and another the portrait of Cannon Barnett by Watts and presented to Mrs. Barnett by the artist. Over the fireplace I read the unique inscription—“Fear not to sow because of the birds.”
The correspondence and other writing required, she told me, a day that began at six o'clock
A.M.
This year, 1932, she celebrated her eighty-second birthday. She is still contributing articles to magazines, and to the press, on the social problems of the day, and besides lecturing, is now using the radio, her voice being “her chief asset” she says. Some of
She is deeply concerned about Anglo-American relations, and in 1926 conceived the great project of erecting on the English Bunker Hill adjacent to Hamstead Heath
In one letter she says: “I do not think a day goes by without my trying in some small way to bring our great nations into closer relations”; and I certainly feel gratified when she says in another letter: “I want to tell you how much I strive to explain America to English people because you have taught me so much.” She was greatly disturbed by the propaganda connected with the “America First” fiasco of Mayor Wm. Hale Thompson of Chicago a few years ago, and expressed to me her anxiety about it. What I did was to send her a number of the Editorials of the Chicago “Daily News” That I had been saving—sane they were, and showed up the situation in its true light—a good antidote for her alarm, I thought.
At Christmas time last year she wrote: “1931 declares that I have had the privilege of living 80 years on this beautiful earth. Eighty wonderful years, which leave me humble and grateful.”
I am grateful for the good fortune that brought me to know this great woman, and to be influenced by such an exceptionally great personality.
After London, I started alone on my travels in England, my own interests and inclinations directing my course. Historic Cambridge was visited just a little too late to see the closing events of the college year; but the beautiful River Cam, the bridge, or a bridge, the historic old buildings, the great trees and the large green spaces were all the more enjoyed because of that. It is easier to understands, in the case of beautiful Cambridge, than it is with some other educational institutions I have seen, how generation after generation of youth return to the school their fathers knew.
Ely came next, chiefly for the Cathedral, and when I saw the chapel there despoiled of its beauty—exquisitely carved crochets broken off; and, in the many Biblical scenes in high relief that decorated the wall, the hundreds of figures all headless—then I deplored the iconoclastic deeds of the Puritans and the financial zeal of that Cromwellian army that did not spare this beauty. Who were the artists that conceived and executed in stone such varied and exquisitely wrought decorations? How immeasureable the labor of love by those old devotees that went into that work! Here, as all through my cathedral pilgrimage, I found these lines alone adequate to express my feelings:
“The thought that great hearts once broke for, we
Breathe cheaply in the common air;
The dust we trample heedlessly
Throbbed once in saints and heroes rare,
Who perished, opening for the race
New pathways to the common place.”
Then came Lincoln, where my stay was lengthened beyond expectation because of the cathedral there. Good fortune
A side trip of one day was made from Lincoln to visit the places associated with the Pilgrims. My Diary says:
“Friday, June 17. Went to Bawtry by train, got auto, drove to Austerfield 1 1/4 mi. N.E. Driven first to old church, St. Helen's—Episcopal—still used as parish church. It has been well taken care of, Saw the font in which William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth Colony, was baptised.”
From a tablet in the wall, I learned something of the history of the old church but will give here only a few interesting facts—that it was built in Norman times, about the year 1080, the arches and the doorway showing Norman influence; enlarged to the present size in the 12th century, and, having fallen into great disrepair, completely restored in 1898.
After the church, I saw the birthplace of Gov. Bradford. I think that his numerous descendents in America should be a little ashamed for allowing this historic house to suffer such neglect as it has.
Then the drive to Scrooby, and another church where Elder Brewster attended, and walked across a pasture to the Brewster Manor House, which on account of the money and efforts of the Anglo-American Society, and of the Pilgrim Society of Plymouth is in a good state of repair. Two bronze tablets put there by the societies named are on the outer wall of the Manor. I quote inscription on one of them, as follows:
“This tablet is erected by the Pilgrim Society of Plymouth, Massachusetts United States of American, to mark the site of the ancient Manor House where lived Elder Brewster from 1588 to 1608, and where he orgranized the Pilgrim Church of which he became the ruling Elder, and with which in 1608 he removed to Amsterdam, in 1609 to Leyden, and in 1620 to Plymouth, where he died April 16, 1644.”
An amusing thing occurred on the return trip to Lincoln. As many be known,the old Cathedral at Lincoln, besides
After Lincoln came York and its great Minster. Here came the experience that suggested the title of this chapter, for luck pure and simple brought me here at exactly the right moment. I had casually noticed in the papers that some sort of a celebration would occur at York, but had not been sufficiently impressed to note the date or to try understand the nature of the event—the invariable consequence of the psychological law that “we see as we are.”
But upon my arrival, my ignorance and indifference were soon dispelled. The old city was resplendant with flags and bunting. I had great difficulty in finding a room—every place all “booked up.” Thousands of visitors, mostly women, had filled the city in anticipation of a great event the next day, the 24th of June, 1925. Inquiry brought the information that on tomorrow would occur the ceremony of the unveiling in the Cathedral of a memorial window in honor of the “women of the Empire who died in or through the effects of the great War”; also the unveiling of a soldiers’ memorial in another part of the city, and that the
My desire to be near the centre of interest, the Cathedral, was such that I was glad when a back room in a family hotel, located so near that I could see the Cathedral entrance, was found for me. Those old English family hotels are, I observed, sometimes enlarged by the addition to the original of one adjacent house after another; and when I was conducted to a little back room on a floor that had various levels, requiring short flights of steps up and down and numerous turns, I thought that to find my way back, some sort of a blazed trail should have been made along the way. But I was at the centre and that was more important than the sort of room found.
There were very few Americans there to witness this interesting event (I came upon a couple when walking the old walls), and I therefore expand upon it here because my readers may not have heard about it. Briefly, the story is this:
York Minster, or Cathedral, possesses a stained-glass window worth millions of dollars. It was put there in the 13th Century, when that part of the Cathedral (the North transept) was built and is today the most famous window in the world, containing as it does, the largest and best preserved amount of Early English grisaille glass in existence. It has five lancet lights, each 58 ft. in height and 5 ft. 7 in. in width, and is called the “Five Sisters Window.” It gained world-wide fame through Chas. Dickens’ story of the Five Sisters in “Nicholas Nickleby.” During the War, York was subject to air raids by the enemy across the North Sea, and to save the window from possible destruction, it was removed and buried in a cement vault. How this great fabric was handled is hard for one to imagine. But it was done, section by section, and after the War it was brought again to the light. There are innumerable pieces of glass in its composition;
While the question was being considered as to how this could be done, a very big idea flashed into the mind of a woman of the City of York. “The Five Sisters Window for the Sisters” were the words in which she formulated her inspiration. The restoration of the Five Sisters Window, one of the glories of English grisaille glass, should be undertaken through the efforts of women, to remind future generations of the supreme sacrifice made by many hundreds of women of the British Empire during the war, and to honor their memory.
Plans were immediately made for the raising of the money required—a very large sum for English women to raise at that time. The response was spontaneous and eager from all over the Empire. Launched as it was on Feb. 15, 1923, there had been raised by May 7, following, in less than three months from the beginning, the large sum of 3,555£ 19s 9d (over $17,300) the contribution of 32,000 women.
The highly skilled and delicate work of cleaning, restoring and releading was estimated to cost £3,000. The response was so generous that they had enough money not only to do this, but in addition to restoring the Window as a memorial, to provide an oak screen in a chapel adjacent, on the panels of which are inscribed in white the names to the number of 1,465 of the women of the Empire who died in or through the Great War, “and who will be commemorated for all time in the Five Sisters Window of York Minster,” unveiled by the Duchess of York that day.
As I read the list given in evening paper, I found that the names include those in the nursing service, munition workers, motor transport, women's Royal Air Force, medical On the right in the rear are seen the arched openings into the chapel, containing
the oak screen and the inscribed panels. Seen June 24, 1925.
The Cathedral is the third largest in the world. The nave and transepts will hold ten thousand standing; 5,000 seats had been placed and tickets given out to within 800 of the limit, so my chance of getting a seat was one in 800, and I didn't get it; the jam was too great to risk; but I was there in the rear end of the great nave, glad to stand and look at the exercises taking place 230 feet away, and to hear all I could.
Towards the front I could see a section of the seated throng, clearly defined by their white caps and dresses—this was a company of two hundred or more Red Cross nurses; and near by was another section of hats of uniform shape and color, and I knew that to be the place where a great regiment of girl scouts, called there Girl Guides, who had taken part in the parade, had been placed.
I was moved by the strains of the great organ, and the singing of the trained choir of many voices seated on a platform before the rood screen. With the printed program of readings, responses and prayers in my hand, I could follow the words, faintly heard from the distant pulpit. Then came a most appropriate address by the Archbishop, whose remarkably resonant voice reached more distinctly the remote listeners. Finally came the “Last Post and Reveille.” The clear bugle notes seemed to be echoed back by the groined roof nearly a hundred feet above our heads; then came a roll of the drums, producing an effect that I had never heard before. Beginning with a soft, distant echo-like sound, it gradually increase to a roar, and then as gradually decreased in volume and died away. Absolute silence followed,
The young Royal couple, who seem to be so loved by the English people, returned to London that evening, after a rather strenuous day.
My next objective was Edinburgh, Scotland. The travel occurences between York and Edinburgh while of considerable personal interest and extremely pleasant to recall, are not of sufficient importance for inclusion here, especially since that region had received so much attention from writers of note. Suffice it for me to say that I took a somewhat leisurely trip through the beautiful Lake Region with its Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey and Ruskin associations, and brought away perfectly hugh resolutions to read, read, read—after I reached home. Alas! Alas! for such plans.
Glasgow came next and from there a trip to the Burns country. At Glasgow I met the “Hood girls” who, also, were going to Edinburgh. Since a few days intervened, we decided to take a round-about route to that Convention city instead of the direct route across Scotland. This took us by sea to Oban, then by the Caledonian Canal to Inverness, (the highest latitude I have ever reached), and thence to Aberdeen and Edinburgh.
This, as anticipated in a previous section, was the First Biennial Meeting of the World Federation of Education Association which was held in Edinburgh, Scotland from July 20 to 27, 1925.
A brief reminiscence on “Educational Conventions I have known” might serve to put them into proper relativity, and show the significance of the once just named; and here a sentence will attempt to do it. First, came the Kenosha County Teachers Meeting which brought together men and women from a small area—I recall my first one—quite an event in my young life; next in importance was a meeting of the Wisconsin State Teachers Association in Milwaukee, which drew together those living hundreds of miles apart, a greater event; next came the meeting of the National Education Association, which brought together teachers from all parts of the United States—and I recall first N. E. A. and how it expanded by interests—a
much
greater event; and now had come the greatest in importance, if not in numbers, and to it came men and women from every civilized nation in the world. An interesting progressive sequence to review.
Those just mentioned, from small to great, were all alike in purpose—all brought together teachers and those interested in teaching. Their chief difference was in their scope and range—
scope
or number of teachers influenced and pupils indirectly affected; and
range,
by which I mean the extent and diversity of interests. In
scope
the W. F. E. A. included the teachers and children of the world; and its
range
of interest extended, not only from the fundamentals and the educational nurture of infants to the profoundly complex pabulum sought by the adult mind avid for truth, but included the problem of the adaptation of educational stimuli and processes to peoples of varied cultural backgrounds
My stay in the beautiful city of Edinburgh was from July 16th to the 28th. My pleasure during that time was greatly enhanced by the companionship of American friends and acquaintances, among whom, besides my fellow travelers in Scotland, the Hood girls already mentioned, were the following with whom I had had more or less previous association: Julia Wade Abbott of Philadelphia, Mrs. Fannie Fern Andrews of Boston; Katherine D. Black, New York City; Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford of Denver; Dr. P. P. Claxton, former U. S. Commissioner of Education; Milton Fairchild, Washington; Mrs. Howard Gans, New York; Florence Holbrook, Chicago; Sally Lucas Jean, Olive M. Jones, Etta V. Leighton and Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer of New York City; Ruth Pyrtle of Lincoln, Neb; Mrs. Cora Wilson Stewart of Frankfort, Ky.; Dr. Augustus O. Thomas, Augusta, Maine, and Anna Woodward of Massachusetts, all of whom made from their various fields of experience, contributions to the programs of the great meeting. Their lines of educational work are well known in our country, and although the mention of their special work would furnish an idea of the range of interests touched by that program, I am unable to do that here.
Among those named there is one, without whom this meeting would probably not have been, Augustus O. Thomas, the man who had a great vision, and whose patience, breadth of view and sense of humor especially qualified for
In the interim between the San Francisco Conference and the first biennial meeting of the World Federation, a series of very significant events had occurred. Raphael Herman, of New York and Washington, had offered the award of $25,000 for the best educational plan calculated to bring about world accord; and the veteran educator, David Starr Jordan, had won the prize. The Herman-Jordan plan “A Plan to develop International Friendship, and Good Will and Justice through Education” was an important subject for discussion at this meeting, and has been since at W. F. E. A. meetings. The plan called for the appointment of a number of committees to undertake as best they can, scientific and educational study, for the purpose of marshalling a definite body of reliable facts upon which to found intelligent opinion from which to develop a definite plan of procedure.
It is not my purpose here to attempt anything like a full account of that convention, the official report of which fills two volumes, available for all who are interested. What I want to do is to relate a few things about it that seem to me important, and that may give some idea of the greatest educational meeting which, up to that time, the world had ever seen.
First, the aims as given in the preamble of its constitution:
“Whereas educational aims are universal, there should be devised some suitable and effective means to bring into closer co-ordination the various agencies which have to do with education, throughout the world, and thus bring the 5,000,000 teachers into more fruitful and sympathetic relations with one another.”
It was not a large Convention. The number registered as attending during the week was 1,221, of which number, nearly 500 came from Scotland, and another 100 from England, Ireland and Wales. The United States and Canada had 446 representatives; the others were from elsewhere in Europe or from the near or more distant East or from the Southern Hemisphere.
“Education as the Hope of the Race” was the theme of the opening address given by Dr. Thomas on Monday
P.M.
July 20, before a vast audience. He told the motive that had actuated the first steps toward this meeting—how after the war it was felt to be necessary that some thing be done to save civilization; he pictured the difficulty of finding a common ground on which representatives of so many nations could deliberate; it couldn't be politics, or religion; but all could unite on
education,
a universal aim, as expressed in the preamble quoted. Education was lifted to the status of a world cause, because all thoughtful people had come to know “that whatever they would have put into the life of the nation, must first be put into the schools.”
The people of the world must now live together and the teachers of the world must prepare them for their new relations.
Dr. Thomas's final sentence is one that I am glad to pass on. It brought prolonged applause from the great audience:
“Education tempered with wisdom is the ladder of the ambitious, the instrument of the successful, the spur to enterprise; it is the dispeller of ignorance, the enemy of fear, the destroyer of superstition; it is the giver of truth, the patron of invention, the mother of science; it is the
The following quotation from the “Scotsman,” the great Edinburgh daily, of July 20, is indicative of the attitude of the Press:
“Delegates are assembling from all parts of the world to contribute to the participate in, the proceedings. As is to be expected, interest is not confined merely to educational circles, and many of the men and women most prominent in the political life of Europe have been quick to realize the tremendous potentialities for good of such a movement.
For the future of the world lies with youth, and the moulding of the soul and mind of youth is the making of the future destiny of the world.
It is no light duty that is laid on the shoulders of present day educationists, and it is but right that the citizen should look to the schools as the great nurseries of the race.”
The general plan of work of this meeting was the same as that for the San Francisco Conference: Sectional meetings, to discuss definite propositions or agenda, and plenary sessions where all came together. The University of Edinburgh and the assembly room of the United Free Church accommodated these meetings, and Usher Hall or some other great audience room the public evening meetings.
My interests drew me to certain sections. One of these was where health was the topic; another was where I could learn of a movement in which England was then leading the world, namely, pre-school education, called there “infant education.” The section on character education attracted me, as did the one where international relations was discussed. To give a more complete picture of the scope of discussions, I will add to the four named above, the sections on illiteracy, elementary, adolescent, secondary, adult, and university education, and teacher training.
While Americans (I mean of course United Statesians) were very prominent in all health discussions—a striking
It was interesting in the teacher-training section to hear a woman professor of philosophy in the University of Chili, S.A., deliver a message which showed that those in teacher-training work think alike whether they live north or south of the equator—“Teachers,” she said, “must love their work to really succeed as teachers. You must be a teacher in your soul. Teaching is an art, and art needs inspiration.”
Away up the line in the University section, there was the discussion of the question of the establishment of a World University; and there President McCracken of Vassar College made the very practical suggestion, that it would be better to develop the National University into the International, by presenting the international outlook in every course of study and by making students conscious, without impairing their patriotism, of their duties as citizens of the world. It was at this meeting that my interest in Good Will Day was started, which interest since then, I have endeavored to infect others with—not with great success however, since some educational leaders seem to be quite immune to it.
Even if I had abundance of space, it would be impossible for me to do justice to one phase of this great meeting; it would require an abler pen than mine to give an adequate idea of the spirit, the atmosphere, the color of a great meeting of men and women from practically every civilized country. As Dr. Augustus Thomas has said: “Such a confusion of manners and customs, such a riot of languages, such a diversity of race and creed!”
Just an illustration or two must suffice. Among women were the Chilean and Mexican delegates, handsome and vivacious; the Hindo women, soft-voiced and attractive in native draperies of silk; the Serbian women in native costume; and the princess of Lithuania with beautiful, stylish platform appearance, and polished English utterance.
Through the courtesy of a reported on the staff of the “Scotsman,” it was the special good fortune of Miss Blake and myself to witness a most interesting event that occurred in connection with the commencement program of the University of Edinburgh. It was the conferring of degrees on many students, a very colorful and impressive ceremonial, which besides, on that day, included for LL.D. honors, two celebrated people, G. K. Chesterton, the popular English humorist, and Ramsey McDonald, the noted statesman. If the acclaim of the students in the galleries, upon the appearance of Mr. Chesterton my be said to have “made the rafters ring,” that for Mr. Mcdonald, a fellow countryman, “raised the roof.”
Naturally enough, not all of our twelve days in Edinburgh, even all of those of the Convention week were given to the serious affairs mentioned. “The Lady of the Lake Region” was visited one Sunday, with an interest for me born of the literature teaching of long ago, in every feature and point made famous by Scott's careful adherence to actual geographical location. (I
was
a little disappointed in the size of Ellen's Isle!) There was also an excursion to Abbotsford, which included the beautiful ruins of Melrose Abbey
After the meeting I went southward to visit another Cathedral, Durham, and on that trip Florence Holbrook of Chicago was my traveling companion, as far as Newcastle, whence she intended to embark for Norway. Passing over the visit at Durham which furnished no special personal experiences not shared by other sightseers and told in books of travel, I move on to Oxford, long the “promised land” of my dreams of travel in England.
This old center of learning was offering that summer some very attractive courses, and quite a number of Americans were availing themselves of them. The “Hood girls” had preceded me there and when I arrived were already settled and at work at the Summer School for Teacher. Miss Blake joined me on the day of my arrival. A course of lectures on the Greek Drama by Gilbert Murray had attracted both of us; but it was not entirely for such cultural benefits that we visited the old city. We wanted to know about this famous historical educational centre itself, with its many colleges and spots of time-honored associations with famous men; so this objective also engaged our energies.
In the pursuit of the lecture course named, we very soon discovered that the famous author and lecturer seemed not to realize that he was speaking in a large hall, and not in a class, room, and showed the characterized observed in several English lecturers, that they didn't seem to think it incumbent on them to
try
to make their auditors understand.
DRYBURGH ABBEY
Within the ruin is the burial place of Sir Walter Scott. Visited July 23, 1925
What a blessing the microphone must be to those students. In contrast with them, I mention their illustrious woman contemporary, Dame Henrietta Barnett, who had cultivated a voice that made it easy for her auditors to catch every word she uttered. However, our difficulty was increased a little by our being obliged to do considerable interpreting of Oxford English. To get our money's worth, it is decided that we must get front seats, and to dot that we had be present at an earlier lecture and move for those seats at the time of change. It was thus—Miss Blake having given up in despair and joined another class—that I happened to run upon the course on“The Bible in Modern Thought” referred to in part Three of Chapter Six to these Memoirs.
That the front maneuver did not entirely removed my difficulties is evident from his comment found in my lecture note-book: “The ‘Electra of Euripides.” the reading of the tragedy was for the most part inaudible, even though I was near. It could not have been heard back of the fifty or sixth row.” But I may have underestimated the acuteness of English ears and their familiarity with the lecturer's pronunciation.
But I didn't fail to get something out of the lectures of this great scholar whose text books on the Greek Drama are in common use in colleges and to have some new centres of interest developed. More plans for reading and another “Alas”!
It was interesting to note the attitude of mind of some educated English people I met, on thee question of American speech. I became well enough acquainted with one to exchange comments and criticisms on our differences of speech, and in defending one of my usages, I said that I was sure it was according to authority, meaning of course, “Webster's International Dictionary” when she retorted, “I didn't know English
authority.
The opportunity was also afforded me to attend church at the Chapel of Manchester College, and to hear the sermon of Dr. L. P. Jacks, editor of the Hibbard Journal and author of international reputation, who was then the principal of that college. Dr. Jacks recently visited the United States, lecturing under the auspices of the National Recreational Association in the interests of public play grounds, and when on that tour was heard in Kenosha. He is one of the leaders of the adult education movement in England and is considered by many to be one of the most thoughtful students any where, of the leisure time problem. He is another of the great personalities whom I am happy to have met.
From Oxford, Miss Blake and I went to Stratford, and while there took a day's excursion trip to Warwick Castle, and Kenilworth, very interesting and delightful. But aside from the witnessing in Stratford at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre two exceptionally fine plays by star performers, and learning from well preserved Warwick what an ancient castle really was, these places yielded nothing for me to tell about here—nothing that travelers in England haven't seen and readers of travel books don't know.
Besides old churches and educational conventions there is another sort of thing which, it may have been observed, attracts my interest—it is the development of great sociological undertakings, like the “Garden Suburb” and the one I am now to tell about, “The Factory in a Garden,”
After Stratford, London became our objective and on our way there, we took in Bourneville, which readers may not know so much about. To see the “Factory in a Garden” a permit was necessary, and that I had written for while in Oxford. A letter was received at Stratford inclosing the permit to visit on Friday morning, Aug. 14, the works of Cadbury Brothers, Ltd., manufacturers of Cocoa and Chocolate at Bourneville, near Bermingham.
A traveler in England sees everywhere the sign “Cadbury's.” If he inquires what it means, he is regarded as one would be in our country who inquired what “Ford” stood for, or the name of some other widely known industrial leader. Cadbury stands for chocolate, and Bournville is the place where, in 1925, eleven thousand employees were engaged in the making of it, and in the packing of it, and in work connected with its distribution.
It is not my purpose here to tell much about that important industry whose product reaches every corner of the British Empire; but I will simply say that the two hours spent in that great factory—where we started in with the first treatment of the cocoa beans, their roasting and grinding, and saw successively the confectionary room, the covering and dipping room with its hundreds of white uniformed girl and women workers, the box filling room, and the packing room, and finally the shipping platform, where numerous freight cars were being filled with various sized packages; and where we also saw on our rounds, adjuncts not always
What I want to impress is the sociological accompaniment, the humanitarian side of this great industry that distinguishes it from others. We were taken on a motor tour of the beautiful industrial village. From pamphlets given me I learned that as early as 1853, after years of experimentation, the Cadbury's had received a Royal appointment, as Cocoa and Chocolate makers to Queen Victoria; that their sons Richard and George Cadbury had in 1870, moved their growing industry from the city of Bermingham to this site in the country, and that later had created the Bourneville estate now including nearly 900 acres.
It is their ideal that is the important thing, and that I will quote. One will see when reading this quotation an expression of the same motive that actuated the founder of The Garden Suburb in London, and Kohler village in Wisconsin.
“The name Bourneville stands for something more than the geographical area occupied by the Factory and the Village with their grounds and gardens. The “Factory in a Garden” is the embodiment of an ideal, a visible expression of the wish of its founders to build up an industry in an atmosphere free from the drabness and depression which are so often looked upon as the inevitable accompaniments of factory life. It is a proof that manufacture, even in the outskirts of a great city, can be carried on amid surroundings where natural beauties have a chance to flourish; where a village community can live in health and happiness; where the manual worker and the office worker, through recreation both physical and mental, can find scope for a realization of a fuller existence than the mere performance of daily tasks allows.”
And here I leave my readers, if interested in doing so, to get from published accounts of it
A week in London. Then the English Channel! The exclamation point is to express the emotion of dread. But on this occasion, with a boat as large as some ocean liners, the channel did not act up to its repuation, or as I remember it to have done on a previous occasion. (No complaint against it is implied in this statement!)
Then came nearly a month in Paris, which resulted in my feeling just a little acquainted with that wonderful city. I began to think more frequently of Sept. 19, when the “Acquitania” would sail from Cherbourg. I will confess that that ticket for home, purchased in June, was urging so warmly to be used that there was danger of its burning a hole in my safety pocket.
All I will say about Paris is that while I had Miss Blake as a companion, I didn't need French, her command of that language sufficing on all occasions. But she returned to America before I did, and so I went to stay at the American University Woman's Paris Club,
“The Acquitania” made rather quick work of the trip across the Atlantic, and on the 25th of September I was again in the U. S. A., after an absence of eight months. In going through the necessary procedure of the customs officials at the dock, I happened, after a long wait, to fall into the hands of an inspector, evidently very tired and irritable.
I thanked him but said that it would be quite impossible to accept such an offer from a stranger. He then presented
While puzzled about it, I had no complaint against Uncle Sam for the duty charged—it was my opportunity to help a little with the expenses of his gigantic household, of which I was a member—no complaint until I was told what happened to two of my fellow-travellers on the world cruise, whose purchases I knew far exceeded mine, and learned that neither of them had paid any duty! My first reaction was a feeling of injustice done me. Is it enough, if one is inclined to do so, to simply say that one has “nothing to declare”? Then, after thinking about the matter and all that it implied I concluded that eighty-five dollars, even if unjustly high, was a small price to pay for the saving of one's self-respect.
October is a beautiful month in Wilmington and I enjoyed it. Them came a request to come to Kenosha to sit for my portrait to be painted by Robert W. Grafton. The Kenosh College Club had initiated the movement and raised the money for it. I arrived in Kenosha on the fifteenth of November, and the artist wasn't ready to begin until some time later. After the sitting began, they were extended
The year before, on Nov. 21, 1924, I had been happy to attend the celebration of the laying of the corner stone of a new high school, the construction of which in 1925, was progressing finely. Of course I was very glad that this building thought of, talked about, and worked for throughout most of my superintendency was at last becoming a reality—that a dream was about to come true! In size, beauty, cost, and some of its appurtenances, it was away beyond my most extravagant visions, while it lacked some features that my ideal had included—one of these being a location, with ample outdoor space.
The building was opened for use in February, 1926. CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, OPENED IN FEB., 1926 PORTRAIT OF MARY D. BRADFORD, HANGING IN THE
Architect, John D. Chubb, Chicago
LIBRARY OF CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL
Robert W. Grafton, Artist
The verdict of my family and intimate friends that the portrait made me look twenty years older than I was, caused me to realize that the man who had wielded the brush was not only an artist but a prophet.
I refer here to attendance at the Institute of Politics in Williamstown, Mass., in 1926 and 1927. These broadly educational gatherings have been held in August of successive years since 1921, when they were inaugurated by the President of Williams College, Harry A. Garfield, son of the late President Jas. A. Garfield. They are too well known as to plan and purpose to need much comment here. The Institute as a great round table for the discussion of world problems, and speakers of international note are brought there as well as national officials, prominent editors, and other leaders of thought, and specialists from the highest educational institutions of our own country. The Institute is a fact-finding, truth-seeking agency to help public opinion in the right direction, by substituting unbiased fact and truth for that form of publicity which may not be entirely motivated by considerations best for right international relations.
The role of chemistry in world affairs was a special subject added for discussion in 1926, and in the interests of this subject, there was brought to America Sir James Irvine of St. Andrews College, Scotland, one of the worlds's most noted chemists. I quote from one of his addresses a very significant statement which besides expressing in brief form
“You ask if this is something which can be avoided and my answer is that only in one way can we attain the desirable end. It is by the creation of the feeling that all warfare is hateful and must cease; and this in turn cannot be done exclusively by the creation of public feeling; but will find its strongest support in the removal, one by one of the factors which make for bitter international rivalry and these are the facts which one by one are being explored in the Institute of Politics, and from this place are radiated to the four corners of the earth.”
In August, 1927, I was there again, and, desiring to share with my fellow citizens something of the educational benefit, I sent home for publication in the Kenosha paper eight articles bearing upon the discussions heard. I was fully compensated for my work at the close of the session by receiving the following from President Garfield under date of Aug. 25, 1927:
“I want to say to you that your articles have been brought to my attention, and I am greatly pleased with the kindly and sympathetic interpretation which you have written for the Kenosha Evening News. I feel that you have done us a real service by bringing these excellent articles to the readers of your paper, and this is a real satisfaction for I feel that your correspondence has been read by people who have not known of the Institute of Politics before.”
It was gratifying to know that my sacrifice had possibly amounted to something. It took time to write those articles and I would like to think that he was not too optimistic about their having had readers.
This was held at Toronto and, although I had to lose a week of the Williamstown Institute to do so, I attended it. Having given quite full account of the San Francisco and Edinburg meetings, there is no need of dwelling upon this
Only one experience will be mentioned. The question of world peace having now become an absorbing one for me, I was interested in the section devoted to discussion of the “Preparation of Teachers for International Cooperation and Good Will,” the chairman of which was Dr. H. L. Smith of Indians University, of Bloomington. It seemed to me that that was one of the most important sections. If we believe to be true the old, oft-quoted educational maxim of Von Humbold, “what you would have in the life of the nation, you umst first put into the schools,” then there would logically follow the realization of this truth that what we would have put into the schools, must first be put into the understanding and the interest of the
teachers
of these schools. Many teachers and trainers of teachers attended the meeting of that section as did some Normal School Presidents; but those from my own state were conspicuous by their absence. Wisconsin, however, had one representative in a program of this great conference—Miss Louise M. Mears, Department of Geography, State Teachers College, Milwaukee, who presented a paper on “How Children acquire World Mindedness through General Associations.”
I know that the W. F. E. A. is not the only source of inspiration, but I reassert what I believe to be true— without the active co-operation of the heads of training schools, we won't get very far in the preparation of teachers, for international co-operation and good will. “The future of the world lies with youth the moulding of the soul and mind of youth is the making of the future destiny of the world.” teachers
of the world
must prepare them for their new relations.”
This was an important summer, including as it did, another trip to Europe, this time with a seventeen year old boy, my grandson, just graduated from the Wilmington, Delaware, High School. I am not going to tell about the trip, which was the usual one taken under regular tourist company auspices; but I will mention the reasons that actuated me in undertaking it. I knew from experience the great educational value of travel, and I furthermore believed that money put into such an experience for a youth when ready for it, would be of vastly greater importance in his life, than money inherited later. I was simply applying to myself the advice and argument that had been used many times with parents when pleading the cause of some boy or girl who should be kept in school. Well, William Bradford, Jr., and I went and had a good time. He entered the Experimental College of the University of Wisconsin that Fall.
The chief event of the year 1929 that I wish to record here is one that has very near and dear personal associations, and a public significance in entire accord with the feelings of all who remain of the old Unitarian Congregation of Kenosha. It was the dedication on April 12, of the Henry M. Simmons Memorial Church as the Boys and Girls Library. It seems to me to be appropriate here for historical reasons to clear up some misunderstandings in regard to the “Simmons Name,” which has such vital and varied connections with the library interest of Kenosha.
THE HENRY M. SIMMONS MEMORIAL CHURCH
Now The Boys’ and Girls’ Library of Kenosha
Zalmon G. Simmons, the pioneer settler of Kenosha and Henry M. Simmons, minister of the First Unitarian Society of Kenosha from 1871 to 1879, were not related; but although not bound by the ties of blood, they were united by the ties of strong friendship and common interest in progressive causes. One of the enthusiasms of Henry M. Simmons was public libraries, and in this he had the backing of a likeminded man, Z. G. Simmons. About a year after Henry M. Simmons came to Kenosha, a public library was opened in the Unitarian Church, he an excellent judge of books, having done the selecting and Zalmon G. Simmons footing the bill. This was the first public library in Kenosha. It was opened in 1872, Sunday being the day for drawing books.
In 1899, Z. G. Simmons offered to erect in the Central Park of Kenosha a library building and to install in it a library of 25,000 books, on condition that it be called the Gilbert M. Simmons Library. Gilbert M. Simmons, whose death occurred in Kenosha on January 15, 1890, was the eldest son of Z. G. Simmons. This offer was accepted by the City. (A small view of this beautiful building is seen in the background of a picture in Chapter 15.)
The name of Kenosha's foremost philanthropist, Z. G. Simmons, is connected at every step with the progress of the public library cause in Kenosha; and it is hoped that this brief sketch may give significance and right historic setting to the name of Henry M. Simmons, now appropriately appearing on the corner stone of a beautiful building that has become a public library for boys and girls.
This was held in Denver, July 27 to Aug. 1, 1931. Here I was able to be of a little assistance. In the absence of the Chairman, Mr. Frank A. Hoare, Executive of the National
My sister, Ida A. Davison, frequently mentioned in the early chapters of these “Memoirs,” was critically ill when I went to Denver, and the daily airmail kept me in touch with her home in Kenohsa. Death claimed her on Sept. 10. Although 85 years of age, and a constant sufferer during her later years, her memory remained clear and her ability to recall accounts related to her by our parents and her reliable recollection of names, events and dates, made her of great assistance to me in the writing of the first chapters of these “Memoirs.” Her interest in reading about local, national and world events continued almost to the end.
The honors were awarded by the Wisconsin Teachers Association at Milwaukee on Nov. 6, 1931, thus initiating a practice which, I believe, the Association proposes to continue, of awarding “service honors” to old workers in the field of education in our state. There we three who were given this signal recognition: Dr. Edward A. Birge, former president of the University of Wisconsin and previously for many years a teacher of science there, who since 1925 has devoted his entire time to Zoological research and in a
“Have you a philosophy of life, and if so what is it?” I have been asked. My answer is that if I have such a thing, this true story of my life should reveal it. For many years I have thought that the old eleventh-century philosopher whom Robert Browning caused to speak to us in the poem “Rabbi Ben Ezra”—called by critics one of the deepest and weightiest of Browning's poems—contains a philosophy of life that is well worth study. The key to all that follows in that long poem is found in its six-line stanza, where he councils all, but especially youth, concerning those spiritual conditions that are essential to having the last of life yield satisfaction, contentment and happiness. That first stanza, a familiar one to many, is this:
“Grow old along with me!
“The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in Hi hand
Who saith “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!’”
The last three phrases of that verse contain the important summary, and I interpret the punctuation as indicating that
Life has afforded me wonderful opportunities. To adapt to my case the words of my honored English friend already quoted, the year 1932 declares that I have had the privilege of living nearly 76 years on this beautiful earth. Seventy-six wonderful years, which leave me humble and grateful:—grateful for health, for work, for friends, for all the experiences that have broadened my sympathies and deepened my understanding; and grateful to be alive in such an age. Angela Morgan in a poem called “Today” expresses in an impressive way the thought which I have as my final one. I quote the last two stanzas of it:
“To be alive in such an age!
That thunders forth its discontent
With futile creed and sacrament,
Yet craves to utter God's intent,
Seeing beneath the world's unrest
Creation's huge, untiring quest,
And through Tradition's broken crust
The flame of Truth's triumphant thrust;
Below the seathing thought of man
The push of a stupendous Plan.
O age of strife!
O age of life!
When Progress rides her chariot high
And on the borders of the sky
The signals of the century
Proclaim the things that are to be...
The rise of woman to her place,
The coming of a nobler race.
Aberdeen, Scotland visited, 485.
Abolitionists in Wisconsin, 113.
Adams, Dr. Ammon, early town superintendent, 85-88; professional services, 55; supervision of schools, 77.
Adams, Pres. Charles Kendalt, dedicatory address at Stevens Point, 942.
Adams, Sir John, article on Teacher Training, cited, 275.
Adamson, Sarah, Kenosha, H. S. graduate, 135.
Adams, Jane, of Hull House, Chicago, 494.
Administration building in Kenosha provided, 448.
A difficult landing, 8.
Administrative Women in Education, National Council of, (N. C. A. W. E.), when started, 429; service for, 400; eligibility to, 431; present status, 481; active branches of, 482.
A Great Adventure—World Cruise, 475.
A Great Convention attended, Edinburgh, 497.
Air
Albec, George S., principal of Kenosha, High School, referred to, 116, 177; President of
Afford, Mrs. W. H., benefactress of Giel Scouts, 423.
Allen, Miss Elizabeth. Menomonie teacher, 908.
Allen, Mrs. Ella F. gifts to Kenosha schools, 892.
Allen, Nation H., Kenosha tanner, member of School Board, 163.
Allen, William H., New York, acknowledgement of School Report, 442.
Allerston, Mary G. of Steven Point Normal, 277.
Alma, Wisconsin, referred to, 266.
American, Brazz Co. gift of printing outfit, 466.
American College for Women, Cairo, Egypt, 473.
“American's Creed,” suggested me of, 480.
American English, criticized, 505.
American Lagion, referred to, 146,
American University in Cairo, Egypt, 477, 461.
American University Women's Paris Club, 508.
Ames, Jesse, H. Stevens Point Normal graduate, 268.
Anderson C. A., Kenosha School man, 213.
Anderson, George W., school committee member, 455.
Another Trip Abroad, 616.
Annuity Teachers’, a little trouble about, 470.
Appointment to a City School Survey, 461.
“Apron Strings,” disapproval of, 272. Arithmetic in district school, 86, 151-153.
Arthur's Magazine, in Davison home, 91.
Associated Charities, given a start in Kenosha, 360-361.
Ashman Margaret, authoress, Stevens Fotat Graduate, 266; letter, 290.
“Athena,” travel yacht, 822-823.
Atlantic Monthly, in Davison homes, 91.
Attendance at summer school, Columbia, 997.
Attorney-General of State, consulted, 417.
Audohon Society station, 812.
Awatif and Amal, Children of
A woman is elected to Kenosha School Board, 388.
Baboock, Dr. C. L., travel leader, 321.
Baboock, Dr. Stephen M., occasion of receiving doctor's degree, 420.
Bacot, Maria, Kenosha teacher, 126.
Bailey, Alexander, Sr., station agent, Salem, 153; illness, 160.
Bailey, Alexander D., of La Grange, Ill, 281.
Bailey, Eugene M., young man of Salem Village, 153; married, 153,
Balley, Mr. Eugene M., visit to sister referred to, 801; death, 261.
Cavanagh, Mrs. Edith Brown, girl scout leader, 422.
Cavanagh, James, first acquaintance with, 158; graduate of Oshkosh Normal School, 188.
Chamberlain, Dr. T. C., 222.
Charles, John, of Denver, Colo., architect of Stout Manual Training buildings, 836.
Chester, John I., Kenosha, interest of, 434; on teachers committee, 453.
Chesterton, G. K., England, witnessed honors conferred upon, 503.
Cheesemaking, description of, 22-23.
Cheever, W. H., quoted, 339.
Chicago, on lake route, 1, 4, 8; road to, 2; R. R. Connections, 40; medical school at, 9; schools and teachers, 66; Civil War, 66-69; convention nominates Lincoln, 49; better wages for teachers, 218; Columbian Exposition of 1893, 228; school troubles in, 381; loyalty of teachers in, 456, one effect of Thompson fiasco in, 489.
Chicago and Northwestern R. R., 40.
Children's Community Fair, 427.
Christmas Seal sale, 362.
Chubb, John D., chosen Architect, Kenosha, 440.
Citizenship stressed in curriculum, 391-394.
City Council, opposition of, 355, 395-406; cited as business precedent, 417; causes trouble about playground fund, 405, 461.
Civil War times, 56-57.
Clark, Lewis H., acknowledgment, 401.
Clark, Prof. E. W., travel leader, 320.
Clark, Frank C., travel company, 475.
Clark, Harriet E., Oshkosh Normal graduate, 187.
Clark University, student, 255.
Claxton, P. P., in Edinburgh, 498; quoted, 445-446.
Cleary, Francis L., Kenosha H. S. principal, 226; resigns, 233.
Clement, Mrs. Alice C., of Stevens Point Normal, 264.
Coe, John M., principal of Kenosha High School, 120.
Composition, Kenosha school, incident, 100-105.
“College of Hard Knocks,” referred to, 219.
Collins, Joseph V., of Stevens Point Normal, 237, 274; sketch, 240.
Columbia University, N. Y. City., summer school attended, 387.
Committee meetings, 852, 853.
Comparison of teacher's salaries, 1910 and 1920, 350, 455.
Constitutions, study of, in schools, 149-151.
Conatti, Thos. J., principal, Kenosha High School, 114; enlists, 115.
Converse, Supt. F. E., on J. H. S. state committee, 395.
Cooley, Edwin, Paris district teacher, 46; soldier, 50.
Cooper, Robt. S., assists school publicity, 434.
Cottrell, Louise, social worker, Kenosha, 361.
Coulter, John M., University of Wisconsin, 220.
Country school house, described, 27-28.
Crabtree, J. W., of Peru, Neb., Normal, travels, 320; called by, 326, 327; expresses sympathy, 375.
Crawford, Caroline E., teacher, Stevens Point Normal, 237; sketch, 240; work, 258, 277; moves to introduce dancing, 361; mentioned, 281.
Cromwellian Army, mention of, 490.
Cubberly, Ellwood P., summer school, Columbia, quoted, 352, 387-388.
Culver, Garry E., teacher, Stevens Point Normal, 237, 274-275; mentioned, 280, 281; sketch, 289.
Curriculum, Kenosha public schools, first draft, 348; printed 388-390; revised, 465.
Curtis, Alfred, Kenosha resident, 125.
Curtis, G. H., president of Kenosha School Board, 834, 345; before City council, 855.
Customs, U.S., experience with, 509-510.
Cutter, R. B., principal of a Chicago school, 66-69.
“Cymric,” White Star liner, 319.
Dame Henrietta O. Barnett, (see Barnett).
Darwinism, lectures on, 154, 155; Scopes trial, Dayton, Tenn., 156, 157.
Davison, Andrew Jackson, Kenosha County pioneer, 1-7; neighbors, 18, 29-35, 56; marriage, 5; children, 7, 9, 15, 20; accident to, 52-55; family physician, 54, 77-78; at Kenosha, 96, 112; gift to daughter, 137; death, 231.
Davison, Mrs. Andrew J., dowry, 5; arrives as a bride, 5-7; children, 7, 18, 20; neighborliness, 24, 25; sympathy for daughter, 186-187; continued helpfulness to others, 285; death, 284-285.
Davison, Benjamin Franklin, lake captain, 1, 45; niece lives with, 45, 66, 68; learns of Lincoln's death, 70.
Davison, Caroline G., birth, 15; childhood, 58; duties, 58; Kenosha pupil, 97; “passes,” 106; teaches country school, 146, 153; married, 158; death, 281. (see Mrs. Eugene M. Bailey).
Davison, Sr., Cordillo, 1.
Davison, Jr., Cordillo, birth, 7; attends school, 26-27; punished, 42-44; accident to father, 53-54; farm duties, 60; death, 74.
Davison, George W. (grandfather), children of, 1; in Wisconsin, 10.
Davison, Hannah Camp, birth, 15; attends school, 40; acts, 42; in Kenosha school, 97, 105; teacher's examination, 122; illness, 124.
Davison, Ida A., birth, 7; illness, 8; recollections, 16-18, 26, 37, 47, 90; attends school, 26-27; aids brother, 43; in Chicago, 66-73; home duties, 42, 45-55; teaches school, 73; death, 518.
Davison, John, lake captain, 1; wife of, 5.
Davison, Dr. John T., son of Capt. John of California, childhood, 66.
Davison, Mary Wagoner, wife of Captain John, 5.
Davison, Mary Carter, grandmother, with Geo. W., 1.
Davison, Mary Lemyra (see Mary D. Bradford).
Davison, Sarah Isabel, birth, 20; in Kenosha school, 97.
Davison, Captain William, 1; transports infantry, 14.
Davison, Dr. William M. W., birth, 9; sketch, 9; attends school, 87; punished, 40; struggles for education, 9; a Chicago physician, 284; death, 284.
Day, Abbie Louise, duties in N.C.A.W.E., 429.
Dayton, Tenn., Scopes trial at, 156-158.
Decker, Mrs. Jas. A., of Menomonie, 327.
Dell, F. B., Jackson County superintendent, 267.
DeLong, Charles, Kenosha County pioneer, 54.
Deming, Elder Reuben H., of Kenosha, preacher, 78; “Station on Underground Railroad,” 119; friend of public schools, 119-120.
Denamore, Ida M., of Stevens Point Normal, 283.
Denver (Colo.), N.E.A., 1909, 827.
Departments of Superintendents, first one attended, 364; help received, 365.
De Riemer, Alicia, death, 278.
Devlin, Jas., student of Oshkosh Normal School, 189.
Dewey, C. Ernest, Assemblyman from Kenosha, 96.
Dewey, Courtland A., marriage, 30; in Kenosha, 96; church affiliations, 113; photograph, 80.
Dewey, Delina Hale, birth, 80; friendship, 96.
Dewey, Dr. John, from Chicago to Columbia University, N.Y., 277; quoted on Citizenship, 393.
Dickinson, Dr. Eveline, 483, 509.
Difficulty of Superintendent in having continuity of policies, 882.
District school library, 90.
Dodge, Benoni L., first Superintendent Kenosha County, 78; later service, 79.
Dodge, Morris B., quoted, 76, 88.
Dodge, Medora (see Gammon).
Dorsey, Susan M., referred to, 379.
Downey family, Kenosha County pioneers, 30; moves north, 31; visited, 31.
Downey, John, named, 30; teacher district No. 5, 64-65; treasured gift from, 65.
Dryburgh Abbey, visited, 504, photograph, 504.
Dudgeon, R. B., school superintendent, 305.
Duggen, Dr. Stephen P., 482-483.
Dunn County Training School, 307-308.
Dunning, Mrs. Frank, kindergartner, Kenosha, 35.
Durham Cathedral, visited, 504.
Durkee, Hon. Charles, of Kenosha, 201; bequest, 202.
Durkee, H. O., principal, Kenosha High School, 116, 126.
Edgerton Bible Case, referred to, 180.
Edinburgh, Scotland, visited, 496.
Editorials, “Chicago Daily News,” uses of, 489.
Educational Conference, International, 472.
Educational Conventions, reviewed, 497.
Effects of World War on schools, 425-428.
Ehrhard, Mary N., Menomonie teacher, 317.
Elkhorn, Institute at, 317.
Elsom, Dr. J. C., assists in Kenosha, 422.
Emergency in education, 448.
Emerson School of Oratory, Boston, 255.
Emery, J. Q. quoted, 270.
Emmet, William, Paris district teacher, 64.
English Bunker Hill, 489.
English Channel, comment about, 509.
Engelhart, John, School Board, Kenosha, 205.
Enlightened Patriotism, manifestation of, 483.
Evidence of School Board's lack of vision, 886.
Evolution, lectures on, 154-155; opposition to theory, 155.
Faddis, Jennie R., of the Stevens Point Normal faculty, 238, 251-252; sketch, 241; removal to the East, 284; in N.C.A.W.E., 429; death, 284; photograph, 252.
Fairchild, Milton, authority, moral education, in Edinburgh, 498.
Fairfield, Prof. O.P., director of travel in Greece, 820.
Farnsworth, Nellie W., Menomonie teacher, 809.
Farrill, Rev. Edwin F., Kenosha minister, 861.
Farr, Dr. A., on Kenosha school board, 205.
Ferris, Jas. C., assists school publicity, 434.
Fink, Ella, of the Stevens Point Normal School, 264.
Finney, Miss, missionary in Cairo, Egypt, 477.
First printed report of schools, Kenosha, 865-866.
First ride in automobile, 319.
Fisher, Dorothy Canfield, mother of, traveler, 320.
Fisk Institute, Nashville, referred to, 51.
Fitzgerald, Josephine, of Steven Point Normal, 254, 284.
“Five Sisters” window, York, England, described, 493; restored as a memorial, 494; ceremonial described, 495-496; picture of, 494.
Flick, Prof. A. C., of Syracuse University, travel leader, 820.
Flug, Edward, Kenosha school board committee member, 455.
Fogwell, David O, Kenosha Boy Scout leader, 423; director of public recreation, 424; called to war, 424; duties as director summarized, 424-425; help to superintendent of school, 426; children's community fair, 427; photograph, 425.
Fourth of July 1860, 47-50.
Frank, Col. Michael, editor, II; mayor of Southport, 12; quiets mob, 13; diary quoted, 12, 14; superintendent of schools, 115, 120; attends celebration in old age, 227; dedication of report to him, 898; photograph, 227.
Freeman, Prof. J. C., University of Wisconsin, 220.
Frederick, Theodore, purchaser of Davison farm, 21.
Frederick, Elf, family, resident old birth place in Paris, picture of home, 27.
French, Volney, of Kenosha School Board, 163.
Frequently changing school board, 882.
Furman, Josephine, at Kenosha, 104-105.
Gaggin family, in Kenosha County, 148.
Gammon, Mrs. Medora Dodge, Kenosha pupil, 106; leaves Kenosha, 213.
Gans, Mrs. Howard, New York, 498.
Gardening, part of school was work, 427.
Garden Suburb, London, visited, 486-489; purpose given, 486.
Garfield, Pres. Harry A., and institute of politics, 518; letter quoted, 514.
Geary, Joseph, of Ripon College, sketch, 44; wins prize, 49.
Geography, teaching of, in district school, 87-88.
Gerrish, Charlotte, of the Stevens Point Normal, 277.
Gesell, Dr. Arnold L., letter, 279-280; Stevens Point graduate, 286; work referred to, 286-287.
Gilbert, Edward M., Stevens Point Normal graduate, 287.
Gillan, S. Y., letter quoted, 413-414.
Gillett, Anna E., Kenosha teacher, 98, 99, 199; promoted, 106-107; characterized, 107-108; death, 316-317.
Gillett, Gurdin, Kenosha resident, 107; on school board, 163.
Girl Scouts, beginning, 421-422; development of, 422-428; service, 426,427.
Glasgow, Scotland, visited, 496.
Glerum, Edward, first purchasing agent of school board, 458.
Glerum, Jay B., president of school board, 446; committee member, 455.
Goffe, James R., Kenosha High School principal, 214.
Goffe, William, student at Oshkosh Normal, 188.
German, James, official acknowledgment from, 436.
German, Michael, on Kenosha school board, 203-204.
Gould, Frederick J., of England, teacher of ethics, visits Kenosha, 391-392.
Gould, Margaret, Paris district teacher, 26-27.
Grafton, Robt. W., artist, 511.
Graham, Robert, of Oshkosh Normal School, 177; teaching, 182, 189-190; son of, 187.
Grammar in the district school, 85-87.
Grant, Emory L., Kenosha citizen, 163; president Kenosha school board, 198; president at celebration, 227; alumni officer, 228.
Gray, John, in Civil war, 50, 70.
Gray, Nannie R., of Stevens Point Normal, 276.
Gregory family, Kenosha county pioneers, 24, 29, 89.
Hahn, H. H., school architect, takes suggestions from a woman, 359; plans 20-room building, 387.
Hahn, Laura E., vocational school teacher, 370.
Hale, Delina (see Dewey), photograph, 30.
Hale, George, enlists, 30; soldier, 50; photograph, 80.
Hale, O. P., Kenosha county pioneer, 18; sketch, 29-30; activity, 43; in Kenosha, 95; church affiliation, family group, 80.
Hale, Mrs. O. P., owns spinning wheel, 64; loans magazines, 91.
Hall, G. Stanley, of Clark University, 255.
Halsey, R. H., president of Oshkosh Normal School, mentioned, 193.
Hammond, Ellen C., county superintendent, 267; interview, 282-283.
Hampstead Heath Garden Suburb, 485; objectives, 486; described, 487-488.
Haney, Emma, of the Stevens Point Normal School, 237, 241, 250.
Hannahs, Etta, Kenosha teacher, 213.
Hannahs, Mr. Lynn, president of H. S. P. T. A., 428.
Harper, Chas. L., quoted, 178; “Service Honors” awarded, 419.
Harris, Ada Van Stone, 430-431.
Harris, Asa, of Kenosha Co., enlists, 50.
Harris, Mary, Kenosha county school teacher, 46.
Harrison, Carter H., mayor of Chicago, and school troubles, 381.
Hart, Hastings, of Sage Foundation, assistance from, 478-479.
Harvey, L. D., Normal School president, 282; state superintendent, 257; issued manual of Institutes, 269-271; president of Stout Institute, 283, 298, 309-311; letter quoted, 295-296; death, 330; help from, 440; photograph, 293.
Hazard, Martha E., on Oshkosh Normal faculty, 182.
Head, Dan O., member of school board, 349; mayor of Kenosha, 379.
Head, Eugene, Kenosha editor, 168-169.
Head, Franklin H., executor of Durkee estate, 202.
Head, George D., on Kenosha school board, 168, 205; school patron, 168.
Heidersdorf family, Kenosha county pioneers, 35.
Hermann, Raphael, Peace Plan award made by, 499.
Henderson family, emigrate to America, 131.
Henn, Edward, family of, resident in old Davison house, Paris, picture, 76.
Herfurth, Elizabeth M., worker for Teacher Retirement law, 367.
Herrick, Alfred J., of Stevens Point Normal, 287.
High school, room described, 114-115; practices, 117-119; picture of, 115. Hicks, W. D., principal of Kenosha high school, 116.
“His Honor”—saloon, political activity of, 354-355; attacks schools, 356; superintendent repells attack, 356-357; results, 357-358; again in office, 378; again opposes, 395-396.
Hocking, W. J., Kenosha high school principal, 336.
Hoffman, Peter, of Kenosha county, enlists, 50.
Holbrook, Miss Florence, Chicago principal, in Edinburgh, 498,504.
Hollister, Homer, early pupil mentioned, 160.
Hood, Edna E., kindergartner, Kenosha, 347; secretary of N.C.A.W.E., 431; help in time of epidemic, 436; record with sister for W.F.E.A. attendance, 474.
“Hood girls,” fellow travelers, 496; in Oxford, England, 504.
Hooker Lake, in Kenosha county, 153.
Howe, Grace T., of Kenosha, 206.
Hose, Col. J. H., of Kenosha, 206; manufacturer, 210.
Howe, senator Timothy O., Kenosha relatives, 206.
Hoyt, Mrs. Edith E., quoted, 305, 306; as teacher, 306.
Hoyt, Judson E., school superintendent, 290, 294, 305-307.
Hubbard, Thomas W., Kenosha school man, 214.
Huck, Joseph, Kenosha county pioneer, 35:
Hull House, Open Air School visited, 363; its English model, 484.
“Husking Bee,” at Davison farm, 56.
Hutchinson, Champion I., Kenosha warehouse man, 11-12.
Hyman, Julius, Chicago school pianist in 1865, 67.
Hyer, Frank S., positions held, 277.
Illinois, land in 1839, 2.
Illustrations, see list.
Indians, incident, 7.
International Education Conference, 471-474.
Institute of Politics, Williamstown, Mass., 513.
Institute work, 232, 265; conductors of, characterized, 266-267.
Inverness, Scotland, visited, 496.
Irish pioneers, 80, 85.
Irvine, Sir James, of St. Andrews College, Scotland, 513; quoted, 514.
Ives’ Grove, in Racine county, 2.
Jacks, Dr. L.P., of Oxford, 506; visited Kenosha, 506.
Jackson County, institutes in, 267.
James, Sarah, friend, loans pamphlet, 180.
Jean, Sally Lucas, at Edinburgh meeting, 498.
Jeffery, Thos, B., Kenosha manufacturer, gift of, 346.
Jilson, J. B., early school board connections, 118.
Johnson, Norman, enlists, 50.
Johnson, S. C., on Kenosha school board, 205.
Jones, Olive M., at Edinburgh meeting, 498.
Jordan, Ann, district teacher, 41.
Jordan, David Starr, peace prize, 499.
Jordan, Ella Blair, quoted, 474.
Jordan, Lottie Hannahs, assists play grounds cause, 405.
Junior high schools, 6-3-3 plan first advocated, 394; importance shown, 408; preparation for, 410-412; first graduates, 412; war work of, 427; special building for, advocated, 459.
Kane, Kate, Oshkosh student, lawyer, 179.
Karnes, Frank M., manual training supervisor, Kenosha, 846.
Kay, Miss, Whitewater Normal teacher, 832.
Keating, Mrs. Irene, first Open Air School teacher, Kenosha, 868.
Kellerman, William A., on Oshkosh Normal faculty, 181, 191-192.
Kellogg Corners, tavern at, 4; distance from Davison home, 7; celebration at, 47; accident to father near, 53.
Kellogg, Mrs. Eva D., at Madison N.E. A. meeting, 215.
Kelly, Peter, Stevens Point janitor, 288.
Kenosha, Davison land patent recorded, 3 (foot note); farm transfer record, 18 (foot note); market place, 34; residents, 11; named, 11; warehouse incident, 12-14; early repute of schools, 20, 94; historic H. S. building, 97; first public library, 144; school board of, in ‘76, 203; business firm in, 209-210; alumni, ‘84 to ‘94, 229-281, population, 216, 226, 465; college club of, 511; educational rank in 1920, 457.
Kenosha county, wheat yield in 1849, 10-11; formed from Racine county, 11; early school superintendents of, 78-79; superintendent in ‘65, 177.
Kenosha “Daily Gazette,” report of founding of K. H. S. A., 1891, 227; “Telegraph” cited, 868.
Kenosha Woman's City club, 883; helps bond issue, 896; support public recreation cause, 405.
Kerr, Dr., of London, quoted, 502.
Kindergarten training school (see Stout Institute).
Kingman, Michael, Kenosha county farmer, 148; daughters of, 148.
Kirn, Harry W., manual training, 427.
Knapp-Stout lumbering business, 298.
Knight, Dr. Lucius L., traveler, 476.
Knisely, Mary, Oshkosh Normal graduate, 187.
Kohler village, Wisconsin, 507, 508.
Kreuscher, Carl, in Kenosha county, 18; buys Davison farm, 18; house pictured, 16; child's death, 24; descendents, 31; loss of son in war, 31, 49; nephew of, 35.
Ladd, Mary H., on Oshkosh Normal faculty, 181; teaching method, 191.
Lamont, John F., Marathon county superintendent, 268.
Lance, Mrs A. H., 436-437.
Larson, W. E., acknowledgment from, 400.
Leach, Cephas H., student at Oshkosh Normal, 189; principal, Kenosha high school, 215; marriage, 125.
Lease family, Kenosha county pioneers, 9; Martha attends school, 39.
Lee, Robert E., surrender of, mentioned, 68-69.
Liberty Corners school, 146; photograph, 147.
Light, in Davison home, 92-94.
Lincoln, Abraham, nomination mentioned, 49; enters Richmond, 68; news of death, 70; funeral route, 71; Chicago school children at funeral pageant, 72-73.
Lincoln, England, visited, 490-491; “The Imp” of Lincoln, 492.
Lincoln, Neb., visited, 318, 349.
Linton, Sophia, of Stevens Point Normal, 237,241; work mentioned, 276.
Livingston, John W., of Stevens Point Normal School, 277.
Logsdon—Coull, Mrs. Martha, in Stout kindergarten training school, 299.
Loomis, Guy F., becomes superintendent of Kenosha schools, 463-465.
Lucas family, Kenosha county pioneers, 35.
Luther, Mrs. Jessie Nelson, early Kenosha pupil, quoted, 114.
Lyman, F.W., Kenosha merchant, 9-10; friendly help, 96.
Lyman, Frank H., leads movement for Kenosha H.S. association, 227.
Lyman, Rosalie, member of office force, 402.
McCaskill, Virgil E., at Stevens Point, 277; at Superior, 278.
McClenahan, Dr. Robert, (Princeton), Am. University of Cairo, mentioned, 478.
McCracken, Dr. Henry N., of Vassar College, at Edinburgh meeting, 502.
McDermott, Billy, telegraph operator, Kenosha, 232.
McDill, G. E., transfers money, 286.
McDonald, Ramsey, M. P., receives honorary degree, 503.
McFarland, C. D., regent, Stevens Point Normal, 282-283, 296.
McHuron family, Kenosha county pioneers, 82.
McIver, Supt. M. N., Oshkosh, quoted, 840.
McKenny, Chas., president, Milwaukee Normal School, sends greetings, 339.
McLean, Mrs. J. E. (Caroline E. Crawford), 277.
McLoughlin, Edward, Oshkosh Normal graduate, 187.
McMurray, Prof. Frank, Columbia University lecture course, 387-388.
McMynn, John G., principal, Kenosha high school, 120; state superintendent, 149; letter, 227-228.
McNeil, Katherine, niece of Downeys, 30; teacher, 46.
Madison, N.E.A. meeting at, 215; orders from, 232; Wisconsin Academy in, 240; action of board of regents at, 282; summer schools, 318.
Maine, trip to, 207
Mansur, Lulu M., librarian, Stevens Point Normal, 273.
Manual training shops, Kenosha, 346, 427.
Marathon county, institutes, 267.
Markham Academy, Milwaukee, mentioned, 301.
Mariatt, Walter T., editor, “Kenosha Evening News,” obligations to, 348; reports city council proceedings, 355; ready cooperation, 373-374, 361, 378, 426; headlines, 348, 461-462; more helpful publicity, 888; hurt, 421; editorial comment on teachers’ salary schedule, 450-451; photograph, 451; death, 451.
Marsafi, F. M., of Cairo, Egypt, teacher and reformer, 478-483.
Martha's Vineyard summer school, 255.
Martin family, Kenosha county pioneers, 35.
Martin, Peter, Kenosha county taverner, 2.
Maryatt, Thomas P., Kenosha high school principal, 197, 200; friendship with H. M. Simmons, 198, 201; resigns, 203; manages commencement, 204; later history, 205.
Maxon, Rev. Henry D., of Menomonie, sketch of, 301; institute conductor, 301-303; enters Unitarian ministry, 303; influence in Menomonie, 303-304; “Sermons of Religion and Life” cited, 303; death, 303.
Maynard, Daniel, of Salem, Wis., 158.
Mears, Louis M., paper read by, at W.F.E.A., 315.
Melville, Ruth, art supervisor, Kenosha, assistance from, 434.
Menomonie, Wis., my first visit to, 288-293; Mr. Harvey's work begins, 293; position offered there, 295; as an educational center, 297.
Meyers, Gerry, in gold rush, 83.
Meyers, Jacob, Kenosha county pioneer, 18.
Meyers, John, member of school board, in 1874, 163.
Meyers, Julia, pupil in my first school, 134.
Meyers, Philip, Kenosha county pioneer, father of Julia, 184.
Middlecamp, Henry, neighbor, 27, 82; family, 32; in gold rush, 32-33.
Middlecamp, William, student, Oshkosh Normal School, 32, 189.
Milk lunches in schools, 426; picture, 428.
Milligan, Geo., medical student, teacher,38.
Miller, David W., on Kenosha school board, 205.
Miller, Prof. H. L., member of committee on junior high schools, 395; congratulations from, 421.
Milwaukee breweries, influence in Kenosha, 354-355.
Milwaukee, road from Chicago, 2; land office in, 2.
Milwaukee “Democrat,” in Davison home, 91.
Milwaukee Normal School, board of visitors, 232; established, 235; Miss Alma Binzel, a teacher in, 295; my short service in, 470-471.
Mississippi River, path of bird migration, 312.
Model Department, Stevens Point Normal School, faculty, 238; pupils, 244; operation of, 252-254; practice teachers, 285.
Moody, Ann W., on Oshkosh Normal faculty, 181.
Morgan, Angela, quoted, 520-521.
Morrison, W. L., Menomonie county training school, 308.
Moyle, Mary A., 465.
Muentzenberger, Conrad, Kenosha citizen, 163.
Munson family in Kenosha county, 147.
Murphy, Hugh B., assists school publicity, 434.
Murphy, Kate, in Menomonie schools, 291, 300, 307; criticised, 328.
Murray, Gilbert, Gilbert, Oxford, lectures referred to, 137, 504-505.
Musselman, Frances, of Stevens Point Normal, 277.
Mygatt, Wallace, early Kenosha settler, 5.
Nash, Mrs. Chas. W., benefactor of Girl Scouts, 422.
Nature study in schools advocated early, 172-173; in institute, 267; in Menomonie, 312-313.
National Education Association meetings mentioned, (1884), 215; (1917), 429; (1919), 442-446; (1920), 447-448; (1921), 471-472; (1922), 472; (1923), 471.
N. C. A. W. E., brief history of, 429; at Atlantic City, 429-430; regular time of meeting, 431; eligibility to membership, 431; size of organization, 432.
New England visited, 207; speech peculiarities of, 208; teacher, Stevens Point, from, 241.
“New England Journal of Education,” editorial comment from, 434.
Newell, O. S., on Kenosha school board, 205.
Newman, Samuel C., member of Kenosha school board, 395.
New Orleans, La., visited, 364.
New schedule of teachers’ salaries, 451-453.
Nicoll, John, on School board of Kenosha, 205.
Nicolay and Hay, co-authors of “Life of Lincoln,” cited, 70.
Niles, Mrs. Charles F., Menomonie, aids bird study, 813.
Normal School board of regents and Pres. Albee, 181-182, 183-184; proceedings quoted, 188.
North Menomonie schools, 317.
Northwestern Wisconsin Teachers’ Association, 228.
Norton, Millie S., teacher, Kenosha, 109; school activities, 109-111; token 111-112.
Noyes, Lucy A., on Oshkosh Normal faculty 185.
Oberlin College, teacher attends, 44.
Office of Kenosha school board, first location, 343; second, 361; third, 443.
O'Hare, Frances, teacher, Kenosha, 426.
Open Air School started, 362-363; sketch of history, 364; a helpful demonstration, 363-364; interest in, 400.
Opposition encountered, 276-277.
O'Shea, Dr. M. V., interest manifested by, 401.
Oshkosh Normal, referred to, 31; one of its teachers, 79; attracted by, 174; attendance, 177; Normal faculty institute at, 269-271; picture, 180.
Otto, Francesca L., of Menomonie, 315.
Oxford, England, visit referred to, 157; visited, 504-506; mannerisms of lecturers observed, 504-505.
Pageant at Plymouth, Mass., 468.
Parent - Teachers Association,commended, 148; need of, 325; organized in Kenosha, 370, evolution of, 443-444; council of P.T.A., 444; support of public measures, 445.
Park, Anna, of Stevens Point, 237.
Park, Byron B., regent, Normal School, 235; quoted, 282.
Park, Jr., Gilbert, brother of B. B. Park, mentioned, 287.
Park, Judge Gilbert L., of Stevens Point, father, mentioned, 287.
Park, Mortimer T., of Oshkosh Normal faculty, 181.
Parker, Col. Francis, of Chicago Normal School, mentioned, 339.
Parker, W. N., edits “Wisconsin Journal of Education,” 318.
Parls Township, settlers, 1, 3, 18, 27, 29, 80, 81, 82, 84, 85; schools; 20, 26, 27, 29, 49; Whigs in, 84; town superintendent, 76, 77, 161; celebrates, 48; soldiers from, 50.
Paris, France, visited, 821, 509.
Pasha class in University of Cairo, 481.
Patterson, Isabelle, of Stevens Point Normal, 238.
Patzer, Conrad E., “Public Education in Wisconsin,” cited, 64, 75, 149, 270.
Peak's Island (Me.), visited, 207.
Pearse, Carroll G., 471.
Pennoyer, Edgar, opens sanitarium, 55.
Pennoyer, Dr. Nelson A., of Kenosha, mentioned. 9.
Pennoyer Water Cure, father taken to, 55; home of Bradfords, 210.
Pennsylvania Hotel, N. Y., courtesy of, 510-511.
Perkins, A. Walker, with Byrd Expedition. 52.
Perkins, Ephriam, Paris resident, 50.
Perkins, Fred M., of Kenosha, 52.
Perkins, Helen, Paris district teacher, 50-51; Fisk institute teacher, 51-52.
Perkins, Pliny M., Burlington, Racine county, 50; use of his grist mill, 61.
Pershing, Gen. John J., “Experiences” cited, 169-170.
Pettit, Henry, Paris district teacher, 36-37.
Pettit, Judge J. J., Kenosha pioneer, 36.
Pfennig, Chas. H., mayor of Kenosha, referred to, 379-380.
Phelan, John, acknowledgment of report, 400.
Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, 195.
Picture study in Menomonie, 325-326.
Pike's Peak, gold rush, 32-33; wagon purchased, 33; service of, 34, 48.
Pilgrim Tercentenary, visited, 468.
Pitman, Bertha, S., of Stevens Point Normal, 237, 276; sketch, 240; resignation, 276.
Playground cause of Kenosha, history, 403-405; again menaced, 461-463.
Platteville Normal School, presidents of, 277, 339.
Pleasant Lake, Girl Scout camp, 422.
Pleasant Prairie, teachers from, 43, 66, 73.
Plover, Portage county, visited, 245-246.
Political “Boss,” first encounter with, 356-357.
Pollock, W. J., principal Kenosha high school, 223.
Pope, Eliphalet, Paris district teacher, 41-44; punishes pupil, 42-43.
Portable school buildings introduced, 387.
Portage county, raises building fund, 236; old county seat, 245; students from 256.
Potter, Grace, of Whitewater Normal, 332.
powers E,lla F., office assistant, 344, 352; her many duties, 447; visits superintendent in hospital, 464.
Powers, H. H., art critic, 320, 321, 322.
Pray, Katherine, of Stevens Point Normal, 276.
Pray, Kenneth L. M. composes song, 273; letter, 279.
Pray, Theron B., institute conductor, 232, Stevens Point Normal School president, 288, 237; sketch, 238; reference to his work, 242, 243, 277; victim of political plot, 281; quoted, 311; photograph, 238.
Pray, Mrs. Theron B. (Ellen Moffitt) as hostess, 280; death, 342.
Preamble of Constitution, W.F.E.A., 500.
Pringle, George C., secretary of W.F.E.A. conference, 499.
Publicity, belief in, 396-397; results from, 399-402, 443.
Public libraries in Kenosha, brief history, 517.
Public opinion, stimulation of, 396-397
Public recreation, first Kenosha director of, 404; referendum, 404.
Pyrtle, Ruth, at Edinburgh conference,498.
Quarles, Deacon, Abolitionist, 119.
Quarles, Mrs. Emma Thiers, graduate of Kenosha high school, 125.
Quarles, Joseph V.,Kenosha pupil, 114; superintendent and clerk, Kenosha school, 121; president of school board, 202.
Quigley, A. H., assists school publicity, 434.
Quinn, M. Frances, of Stevens Point Normal, 238, 241; removes to Chicago, 284.
Racine County, Ive's Grove in, 2; wheat yield, 10 (foot note); Kenosha County created from, 11; joint celebration, 48.
Racine, favored, why, 15; Davison grain market and accident, 53; brother employed there, 74.
Randall, E. F., Kenosha principal, 412.
Rank in Education of Kenosha, 1920, 457.
Reaction of teachers, to appreciation, 407.
Reading, in district school, 81-82; in Davison home, 90-92.
Rector, Carrie, Paris district teacher, 39.
Reinsch, Paul E., given University degree, 420.
Reitler, Jeanette, of the Stevens Point Normal, 264.
Reorganization of school system, 394, 410-412.
Reports, Kenosha schools first pamphlet, 365-366; second, 371-372; third, 398-399; fourth, 432-435; in newspaper, 457-458; historical features of, 371, 402-403; benefit to Kenosha, 399; favorable comments on, 399-401, 433-434.
Rice, Samuel T., Kenosha neighbor, work for, earned first money, 112.
Ribgy, Mrs. Cora L., fellow traveler, 477.
Ripon College, faculty member of, 44.
Robbins, Mrs. boarder with, in Salem, 147, 151-153.
Robinson, Frederick, Kenosha resident, 111; on school board, 163.
Robinson, Mrs. Gertrude S., fellow traveler, 483.
Rogers, Henry M., Kenosha school board member, 163.
Rowell, Dr. E. F., school board member, 849; petitions council, 355.
Royce, Asa M., president of Platteville, quoted, 339; associations with, 326.
Ruediger, Wm. C., graduate of Stevens Point Normal, 287.
Russell, Dean James e., quoted, 448.
Russell, Sage Foundation, gives help, 478-479.
Ryder, Sarah West, visiting nurse, Kenosha, 362, 363.
“Ryndam,” steamship, mentioned, 321.
Sabin, Ellen C., president of Milwaukee Downer College, quoted, 339-340.
Sager, George H., on Kenosha school board, 205.
St. Louis, Mr. Stout's relations with, 297, 299; educational prestige of, 298.
Sale of Christmas Seals, Kenosha, and results, 862.
Salem Center, sister teaching at, 146; my third school at, 158; institute at, 301-303.
Salisbury, Pres. Albert, of Whitewater Normal, offers position, 328; characterized, 331-338; offers advice, 334; death, 336; prophecy referred to, 341; photograph, 831.
Salisbury, Mrs. Albert, of Whitewater, 382.
Salisbury, Margaret, social worker, acknowledgement from, 400.
Salisbury, Rollin D., of Chicago University, takes course under, 222.
Sayles, Nettle, of Whitewater Normal, 332.
Sandburg, Carl, quoted, 6-7.
Sanford, Albert E., of Stevens Point Normal, 237, 274-275; sketch, 240; to La Crosse, 275.
Schofield, Harvey A., Stevens Point graduate, 287.
Scholey, Joseph M., head janitor, 344; attendance officer, 360; friendly warning from, 376; long service of, 447.
Scholey, Matt J., mayor of Kenosha (see “His Honor”), 354.
School attendance, Kenosha, 1910, 351; in high school, 1921, 464; in 1932, 464 (footnote).
School board of Kenosha, membership in 1910, 345; business office, 343; better quarters, 361; administration building, 443; opposed by city council, 355, 395-396; typical membership, 345; changing membership, 382; a woman elected to, 383; picture, 883; expanding public functions, 404, 424; acts on teachers’ salary schedule, 452-454; number lessened, 854; personnel improved, 446; number individuals in ten years, 465.
School expansion, Kenosha, 201, 228-225, 359, 412, 439-440, 441, 512.
School janitors, pay of, in 1910, 350-351; work made easier, 360.
School publicity, (see reports).
School sanitation, in district No. 5, 79-80; in district No. 2, 132-34.
Scopes trial, in Tennessee, referred to, 156.
Scott, Dr. Colin A., of Stevens Point Normal, 278-279.
Scott family, early Kenosha county pioneers, 7.
Scouting, and its friends, 421-424.
Scrooby, England, visited, 491.
“Scotsman,” Edinburgh Daily, quoted, 501.
Sewell, May Wright, at Madison N.E.A., 1884, 215.
Sharp, Dallas Lore, cited, 168.
Sherman, Dr. L. A., influence of, 319.
Shove, Helen B., Minneapolis principal, cited, 74.
Shutts, Geo., Whitewater Normal School, 326.
Sigel, Frantz, in Civil War, mentioned, 50.
Simmons, Gilbert M., memorial library founded, referred to, 144.
Simmons, Rev. Henry M., superintendent of Kenosha schools, 124, 163, 171-173, 198; signs my credentials, 176; lectures, 145, 154-155; assists in founding library, 144; goes to Madison, 144; officiates at marriage, 206; officiates at burial, 213; church memorial, 517; photograph, 144.
Simmons, Ichabod, Kenosha school board member, 205.
Simmons, Zalmon G., Sr., philanthropist, 144; manufacturer, 210.
Simmons, Zalmon G., Jr., congratulations from, 401.
Sims, John F., president at Stevens Point N. S., 284; quoted, 339.
Sinclair, A. C., on Kenosha school board, 204.
Sinsinawa College, a teacher in, 125.
Sizer, Helen, student at Oshkosh Normal, 178.
Slater, Sarah, district school pupil, 134.
Smith, Dr. H. L., of Indiana, in W.F.E.A., 515.
Smith, Clarence M., home of, 148; student at Oshkosh Normal, 188; goes west, 148.
Smith sisters, early pupils, in Salem, 148.
Smith family, colored Kenosha citizens, 167.
Smith, Martin L., of Racine, student in Oshkosh Normal School, 188.
Snell family, Kenosha county pioneers, 35.
Sniffen, Mary, Paris district teacher, 66.
Social survey by Kenosha teachers, 437-438.
Soldiers’ Aid Society, work of, 56-57.
Somers, district school No. 2, referred to, 49.
Southport, tavern near, 2; Mrs. Davison's arrival, 5-7; difficult landing at, 8; warehouse incident, 11-14; name changed (see Kenosha), 11; picture of, 5.
“Southport Telegraph,” excerpt from (1838), 6; editor, 11.
Spades, Miss Sarah, teacher, district No. 5, 37-38.
Spanish Influenza, epidemic in Kenosha, 435; service of teachers, 435-438.
Spelling, in district school, 62-65.
Spence, Hattie M., student at Oshkosh Normal, 188.
Spence, George, Paris district teacher, 66; Kenosha teacher, 123.
Spindler, Frank N., of Stevens Point Normal, 278.
Statistics, pertaining to school year, 1910-1911, 349-351.
Starkweather, J. B., a Kenosha school board member, 205.
Stearns, Prof. J. W., of University of Wisconsin, 221.
Stebbins, J. M., a Kenosha school board member, 205.
Stevens Point, residents, 237, 248-249; forests near, 247; Wisconsin river, 246-248; railroad centre, 248; natural attractions, 249; mistake, 250.
“Stevens Point Gazette,” cited, 282.
Stevens Point Normal School, early history, 235-237; faculty, 237-238, 273-279, 280-281; building, 243; students, 255-256; gymnasium, 257-258; discipline, 258-259; recreation, 259-261; cultural influences, 261-265; school song, 273; growth of school, 272; of faculty, 273-279; graduates, 347-349; political interference, 281-283; picture of, in 1900, 272.
Stewart, Mrs. Cora Wilson, of Kentucky, 473; in Edinburgh, 498.
Stewart, Flora E., of the Stevens Point Normal, 276.
Stewart, Mrs. Addie Winslow, early Kenosha pupil, 114.
Stewart, Mary, in Downey family, 30.
Stewart children in district school, Salem, 148.
Stimson, Dr. Cyrus N., playground cause, 404.
Stout, James H., of Menomonie, 288, 290-292, 297; schools developed by, 300; church affiliations, 293; other services of, 307-309, 317-318, 324-325; death, 329.
Stout Institute, incorporated, 809-810; bulletin, 294; since 1929, 330; picture of, 290.
Stover family, Kenosha county pioneers, 29; Clark, in Civil War, 50; Albert, constable, 43.
Stratford, visited, 506.
Strong, Mary Martin, cited, 119.
Subordination, of self, 372-378.
Survey, U. S. Bureau of Education, part in, 461.
Supervision of schools, early, 75.
Suzzelo, Dr. Henry, speaker on W.T.A. program, 870.
Swart, Rose C., teacher at Oshkosh Normal, 181, 185; photograph, 186; quoted, 340.
Swart, Mrs. Abram H., in Washington, 186.
Swift, Edgar J., of Stevens Point Normal, 278.
Sylvester, C. H., of the Stevens Point Normal, 237; sketch, 239; work, 259-260, 275-276; mentioned, 280, 281; influence, 286.
Symmonds, Frank S., Kenosha lawyer, 171; Elizabeth, sister, 171.
Symmonds, Capt. Robert, on Great Lakes, mentioned, 169.
Symmonds, Col. Charles J., career, 169-171.
Tainter, Capt. Andrew, Menomonie philanthropist, 292-293; builds memorial, 303-304; property sold, death, 803; picture, 292.
Tainter, Mrs. Bertha Lucas, 303; death, 303; dormitory named for, 309.
Tanner, Mary E., of Stevens Point Normal, 237; sketch, 240-241; work, 262, 276.
Tarbell, Jennie, Kenosha school mate, 125.
Tarbell, R. W. first principal, vocational school, 370.
Teachers, help in public emergency, 435-438; shortage of, 445-447; organize, 448-449.
Teachers’ salaries, in 1910, 350; progress, 405-406; comparisons made, 407; relations to training, 457; turnover in 10 years, 465.
Teachers’ Retirement Fund Law (see Wis. Teachers Retirement Fund).
Tercentenary at Plymouth, Mass., 468.
The American Brass Co., Kenosha, printing outfit from, 465.
The “Factory in a Garden,” visited, 506-507.
The house moving, 16-17.
The “Milwaukee School Board Journal,” 386-387.
The S. S. “Acquitania,” for return trip, 509.
Thiers, Edward C., Kenosha pupil, 106.
Thiers, Emma (see Quarles).
Thiers, Louis M., referred to, 243.
Thirty-third Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, members of, 50.
Thomas, Augustus O., 471, 472, 474, 498; quoted, 500.
Thompson, Oliver S., high school principal, 346.
Thompson, Mayor Wm. Hale, of Chicago, referred to, 489.
Threinen, Wm. J., school board record of, 453.
Timothy of Biblical fame, picture of, 91.
Tinkham, Henry, Paris district teacher, 66.
Tobey, S. B. superintendent of schools, message from, 340; introduced by, 518-519.
“Today”, poem by Angela Morgan, quoted, 520-521.
Tomahawk, Wis., Bradley Park at, 250.
Toronto, Canada, meeting of W. F. E. A., 514.
Towle, Ralph E., on European trip, 320.
Toynbee Hall, London, 484, 485.
Tremper, Geo. N., principal, Kenosha high school, 437; service commended, 464.
Tremper, Mrs. Geo. N., leader in P. T. A. work, 370-371, 444-445; service flag, 248.
Twelve payment plan put in operation, 454.
Twenty-sixth Wisconsin Regiment, members of, 50.
Two profitable summers, 513-514.
Tyler, Pres. John, signs land patent, 8.
Ultimatum to school board, 408-409.
Unexpected experiences after travel trip, 309-310.
Union Grove, mentioned, 36, 54.
Unitarians in Kenosha, 113, 144-145, 154-155; memorial church, new uses for; 516; picture of, 517.
Unitarians, in Menomonie, organized, 303-304; minister, 808; church facilities provided, 293; in Oxford, England, 506.
University of Chicago, take Saturday course in, 222.
University of Nebraska, summer school attended, 318-319.
University of Wisconsin, summer school at, 291-222; son graduated from, 283; honorary degree from, 419-420.
University settlements, 484.
Vandewalker, Nina C., Milwaukee Teacher's College, 347.
Vandermoon, William, family, pioneer Paris settlers, 32.
Van Hise, Pres. Charles D., commends school report, 401; notice from; 419; confers degree, 420.
Van Wyke, Anthony, superintendent of school, Kenosha, 105, 106, 109.
Van Wyke, Mrs. Louise Wood., Kenosha pupil, 106; graduate, 125.
Vaughan, Mary, attends country school, 38-39.
Vaughan family, Kenosha county pioneers, 29; son in school fight, 38-39.
Vincent, Geo. E., quoted, 374.
Vincent, Mrs. W. W., service flag for K. H. S., 428.
Vision, in school affairs, lack shown of, 386.
Wagoner, Caroline G. (see Mrs. Andrew Davison).
Walker, Clarence, Kenosha pupil, 106.
Wallis, George, member of Kenosha school board, 417; cautions board, 418; committee member, 455.
War propaganda, effects of, 426; aftermath, 438-439.
Warvelle, George, Kenosha high school pupil, 114.
Washburn, Woolsey, Paris district teacher, 86.
Washington, Booker T., at N. E. A., 1884, 215.
Washington University of St. Louis, faculty member of, 278.
Washington School, Chicago, attended by Ida, 66; war news, 67-70; Lincoln funeral, 71-73.
Watson, Pres. Charles, of American University of Cairo, Egypt, 478.
Wansau, competes for normal school, 235.
Webster, Emily F., Oshkosh Normal, 181, 188.
Week, Andrew, on financial errand for Stevens Point, 236.
Welles, Beatrice Ives, on Kenosha school board, 383-385; reelected, 408; support from, 415, 418.
Wells, Bessie E., teacher, high school, 218.
Wells, Oliver E., state superintendent, 223.
Wheeler, Mrs. Kate Deming, Kenosha teacher, 119; sketch, 120; her teaching,120-121; suggests reading, 145.
Wheeler, Jerome, of Kenosha, 120.
Wheeler, Arthur D., of Chicago, 122.
Wheeler, Jerome Winthrop, of St. Paul, 122.
Whitaker, Mrs. Clara, Kenosha, first matron of open air school, 363.
Whitaker, Fannie, Kenosha high school pupil, 125; married, 126.
Whitewater Normal School, graduate from, 239; three year course at, 58; Mr. Pray in, 232, 238; Mr. Maxson in, 301; Mrs. Bradford in, 331-334.
White, Una Slater, on Kenosha school board, 408.
Whitechaple, London, social settlement, 484.
“Wider Use” of school buildings, mentioned, 397; begun, 404.
Willard, Frances E., at educational meeting, 215.
Wilmington, Del., school survey, 461; becomes a resident of, 466; delegate from, 472; return to, from travel, 511; leave to go west, 511-512.
Williamstown, Mass., institute of politics, 513.
Willis family, Kenosha county pioneers, 29.
Willis place, farm, 20; house on, 20; picture of, 20.
Wilson, Mrs. Emmet, Oshkosh, reference to childhood, 169.
Wilson, Thomas B., family, of Menomonie, 288.
Windersheim, Dr. G. A., in health department, Kenosha, 862.
Winship, Dr. A. E., comments on school report, 434.
Wisconsin, abolishes capital punishment, 165; winter climate, referred to, 19.
Wisconsin, State Teachers’ Association, depleted, 64; president of, 368; honors from, 518.
Wisconsin Teachers’ Retirement Fund, first committee, 268; law passed, 367; personal benefit, 471.
Woman's point of view, as superintendent, illustrated, 359-360, 416-417.
Wood, L. W., quoted, 838.
Wood, Louise (see Van Wyke).
Woodward, Anna, of Massachusetts, at Edinburgh meeting, 498.
Works, George A., principal, Menomonie H. S., 313, 314; advancement, 315.
World Federation of Education Association, meetings referred to, 474; brief history of, 471-474; first biennial attended, 497; second biennial attended, 514-515; fourth biennial attended, 417.
World War, excitement in New York, witnessed, 390.
Wright, Theodore Lyman, travel leader, 320.
Writing, in district school, 65.
Young, Mrs. Ella Flag, superintendent of Chicago school, referred to, 335; interview with, 379; troubles referred to, 380-381; death, 381.
Yule, La Maude, principal of junior high school, 412.
Yule, John T., of Kenosha, served on school board, 205.
York, England, visited, 492; special celebration witnessed, 494-496.
Yorkville, joint school district, teaching experience in, 127.
Zimmers, P. J., Kenosha retiring school superintendent, 336.