The next span of Newton school history was marked by the growth of private schools; issues of governance, equity and curriculum; and the beginnings of teachers organizing.
By 1763, Newton had two full-time school masters and four one-room, 14 ft x 16 ft schoolhouses for a population of 1,306. The teachers taught reading, writing, and arithmetic to a mix of boys aged 5 to 16. The school ran from mid-November to the first of March.[1] The schedule was:
- Newton Corner, 20 weeks for 2 days a week
- Northwest, 14 weeks for 2 days
- Oak Hill, 10 weeks for 6 days
- Southwest, 6 weeks for 5 days
Each school was its own district with its own school committeeman. Committeemen were responsible for hiring and supervising teachers. A 1772 town meeting voted to forbid Selectmen from supervising school masters.[2]
The 1763 town meeting voted to provide wood for the schools (before this, students “were obliged to find fuel in the winter”[3]) and expanded the school committee to five, adding a member for a grammar school to be held in Edward Durant’s home. Grammar schools taught the basics plus Greek and Latin to prepare boys for college.
The Revolutionary War and a new Commonwealth
The Revolutionary War sidelined educational progress. Newton sent over 300 men ‘to do battle in the armies of the young Republic,’[4] waived their taxes, and borrowed money to support them,[5] burying the town in a mountain of debt. Town finances and the new state’s governance were in turmoil for years.
In 1780, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts adopted a new Constitution. It contained only a passing mention of public schools, buried deep in one long sentence on “Wisdom and knowledge,” “to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the university at Cambridge, public schools, and grammar-schools in the towns;” (Chapter V, section 2)
In 1788, the town of Newton hired its first school mistress.[6] She was paid 16 pounds; the male teachers received 25 pounds. Summer school for girls began.
In 1789, the state passed An Act To Provide For The Instruction Of Youth, And For The Promotion Of Good Education, which required school teachers to be U.S. citizens and to be certified by a college or learned minister. Moral instruction in “piety and justice and a sacred regard to truth; love of their country, humanity, and universal benevolence; sobriety, industry, and frugality; chastity, moderation, and temperance”[7], was added to a teacher’s duties.
Private schools proliferate
The Act reduced the requirement for towns the size of Newton to provide a grammar school. This enraged educational reformers, who complained about the educational inequity. Wealthy families could send their sons to grammar schools but:
Many a poor and industrious man would spare the labour of his son, and give him an opportunity to learn, perhaps to fit for college, while the means were in his own town, who could but ill afford a considerable tax for tuition, and the price of board in a neighbouring town.[8]
It appears doubtful that Newton ever had a well-functioning public grammar school in this time. By 1803, half of the town’s children went to private schools:
The failure of the (Newton) public schools to compete with the private schools was blamed by the school committee upon the apathy of the parents…. The private schools were attacked for “skimming off the cream,…[9]
Private schools proliferated, including Edward Durant’s highly regarded boarding school at Gibbs Place ($30 a quarter for boarders, $5 for day students) and Judge Fuller’s private academy in West Newton. (History books credit Judge Fuller with changing the name of New Town to Newton with his persistent and consistent misspelling while he was town clerk from 1766 to 1792.)
In 1794, the town began to purchase school buildings previously owned by the school districts. One brick schoolhouse had become so dilapidated that when it rained, “it was not uncommon for the teacher to huddle the scholars together under an umbrella or two.”[10[ Fire stoves replaced open hearths for heating, new school buildings were constructed, and older ones were sold.
From 1795 to 1806, town meetings regularly formed committees “to mature a plan for regulation and governance of the schools.” No committee reports have been found.
By 1808, the town had grown and divided into seven school districts: East, West, North, South, Southwest, Centre, and the Falls. The Industrial Age had begun, with factories and mills being built. The town population grew from 1,491 in 1800 to 1,709 in 1810.
In 1817, State law made school districts corporations, giving them the power to enforce contracts, to sue, and to be sued. The first court case in 1819 was over inequity: In Commonwealth v. Dedham the court held that schools must “be maintained for the benefit of the whole town” and that it is not “in the power of the majority to deprive the minority of this privilege.”
An 1831 map of the town, shown above, records the locations of nine schoolhouses. Most private academies were in people’s homes.
A report on school governance
In 1818, Newton issued a report on school governance. A committee of three clergymen and the seven school committeemen recommended:
- Daily reading from the Bible
- Three school books: the New Testament, Murray’s English Reader or Lyman’s American Reader, and Walker’s Pronouncing Dictionary
- A quarter of the school budget for girls’ summer school
- School committeemen working cooperatively in hiring teachers
Town selectmen adopted the report, except for a recommendation to reduce overcrowded classrooms by raising the minimum age to seven, although “the number of children in several (schools) is greater than can be taught or governed to advantage.”[11]
Decentralized governance
In 1821, town selectmen voted to fund each school directly and to let the schools spend “as they may think best” and manage “in their own way.”[12] Smith’s History of Newton believes this was “to satisfy neighborhoods disposed to complain of the management” by the school committee.[13]
State laws passed in 1826-7 supported the independence of school districts: “The whole amount of money spent in supporting the schools of the town was still to be determined by the town, and to be raised by tax under town authority. After being raised and apportioned to the districts, there was no responsibility to the town for its expenditures.”[14] School districts were required to submit financial reports to the Secretary of the Commonwealth and elect their own committeemen. It is unclear if Newton school committeemen were ever elected by a school district and not at a town meeting.
Independently run school districts led to chaos:
“Thus the town was disintegrated into districts with their petty jealousies, which have interfered with the normal growth of the town in its larger interests.”[15]
Despite the laws, the town resumed duties belonging to the school committeemen, approving a school mathematics book in 1828 and forming a committee to consider building a high school in 1838.
Male teachers earned about a dollar a day, the average wage for non-farm workers. If they weren’t local residents, they boarded with families. The town’s one-room schoolhouses had been enlarged to 25 or even 40 square feet, with benches on either side of a wide alley and a box stove in the middle “around which the scholars were permitted to gather in cold days to warm themselves.”[16] The class size was as many children as showed up. Truancy was rampant, and teachers were restricted in what they could teach.
Concerns about curriculum
In 1810, teacher Seth Davis “introduced into his school declamation and geography, with map drawing. This created a sensation, and a special town meeting was called to see whether the town would allow such a dangerous innovation. After a long discussion of the demoralizing tendencies of the times, it was decided by a large majority to allow the map-drawing, but that declamation could not be permitted to continue.” Mr. Davis quit and started a private school.[17]
Mr. Davis was ahead of his time. In 1816, Harvard made geography a requirement for admission; in 1827, the State made it a requirement for public schools; and “in 1835 the town voted that a terrestrial globe be purchased for each of the District Schools, and that the committee in each district provide a box for its safe keeping.”[18]
An 1834 State House report found that, despite “more money raised by taxes for the purposes of education” per pupil than any other State in the Union, “the school law is evaded to a great extent, and that the schools of the State are in a condition far below what is generally believed.”[19]
Blame for this was put on bad school books and incompetent teachers. “The whole business of instruction with very few exceptions has hitherto been performed by those who have felt little interest in the subject, beyond the immediate pecuniary compensation stipulated for their services.”[20]
Teachers begin to organize
Teachers began to organize to advance their profession. In 1830, the American Institute of Instruction was founded in Boston. The Institute advocated for teacher-training colleges, the establishment of a Massachusetts State Board of Education, and State funding for public education.
“It was organized at a time when there was a dearth of collective enterprises for the advancement of the schools of the country, and its members began immediately to do what they could to rectify this situation. Through its annual meetings, publications and legislative petitions its influence was felt, especially in New England.”[21]
Newton teachers were members from the beginning, and one, George Walton, became president of the Institute in 1862.
State funds for education
The State began to respond to pressure to improve public education. In 1834, a School Fund of a million dollars was established from land sold to Maine. Funds were to be equally distributed annually for the encouragement of public schools, “provided, that there shall never be paid to any city, town or district a greater sum than is raised therein respectively for the support of common schools.”[22]
The last provision was added to prevent communities from reducing the amount they spent on schools by using money from the School Fund. The State wanted the “improvement of schools and not merely to their support as they now are.”[23]
Next in the series: Newton becomes a city and builds a high school.
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- Samuel Smith, History of Newton, Massachusetts, (Boston: The American Logotype Company, 1880) 246. [back]
- Francis Foster, A History of the Newton Schools (Newton: Jackson Homestead, 1973) 9. [back]
- George Martin, The Evolution of the Public School System (New York: Appleton and Co., 1915) 60. [back]
- Moses Foster Sweetser, King’s Handbook of Newton, Massachusetts (Boston: Moses King Corp. 1889) 26. [back]
- Newton Federation of Women’s Clubs. The Mirror of Newton, Past And Present (Newton, Mass: 1907) 18. [back]
- Foster, A History of the Newton Schools, 5. [back]
- Martin, George H. The Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School System: a Historical Sketch (New York: D. Appleton and company, 1915) 88. [back]
- Carter, James G., Letters to the Hon. William Prescott, LL.D., on the free schools of New England: with remarks upon the principles of instruction. (Boston: Cummings, Hilliard & co., 1824) 30. [back]
- Foster, A History of the Newton Schools, 8. [back]
- Smith, History, 248. [back]
- Smith, History, 440. [back]
- Newton, Mirror, 49. [back]
- Smith, History, 441. [back]
- Laws of Massachusetts, June 13, 1817 & March 10, 1827, 116-117. [back]
- Newton, Mirror, 49. [back]
- Smith, History, 441. [back]
- Newton, Mirror, 53. [back]
- Smith, History, 442. [back]
- 1834 Chap. 0169 An Act To Establish The Massachusetts School Fund. [back]
- Thomas & John Flaherty, James Carter: Champion of the Normal School Movement (1974) 3. [back]
- Michael B. Richard, The American Institute of Instruction (History of Education Journal 3, no. 1, 1951) 31. [back]
- 1834 Chap. 0169 An Act To Establish The Massachusetts School Fund. [back]
- 1834 Chap. 0169 An Act To Establish The Massachusetts School Fund. [back]
