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CHAPTER XLI.

EIGHTY YEARS OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF WASHINGTON-1805 TO 1885. 1 1

By J. ORMOND WILSON,

Formerly Superintendent of Public Schools, District of Columbia.

The limits of a paper to be read before this society will allow me to present to you only an outline sketch of the origin and development of the public school system of this city, including some important references and statements that may be of use to the future historian. As a matter of convenience, I have to some extent used the term "Washington" as synonymous with “District of Columbia," and in doing so have only anticipated the near future when they will become identical. Of the four independent systems of public schools originally established in the District of Columbia, that for the white schools of the city of Washington was the oldest and always the leading one; the others starting later copied it as closely as circumstances permitted, and therefore had so many points of resemblance that for the purposes of this paper it has not been deemed necessary to trace each from its origin down to the time when all were merged in one common system. The first eighty years of the public schools may be divided into three distinctive periods, which I have designated by the characterizing terms "initial," "transitional," and "developmental."

SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

1. The original record of the proceedings of the board of trustees of public schools from 1805 to 1818, now in the Force Collection, Library of Congress. Through the courtesy of Librarian Spofford I had a copy of this record made and placed on file in the office of the superintendent of schools.

2. No official record of the proceedings of the board of trustees from 1819 to 1844 has been found. The files of the National Intelligencer, accessible in the Library of Congress, and the acts of the city council and of the Congress during that period, are the chief sources of information.

3. The published annual reports of the board of trustees of public schools from 1845 to 1885. The series for each year is not complete. The reports from 1880 to 1884 were prepared with the usual care and labor, but the District authorities failed to provide for their publication. The twenty-second annual report for the school year 1865-66, prepared by Mr. William J. Rhees, is of special interest, containing "A compendium of the laws and resolutions of the city council of Washington relative to public schools from 1804 to 1867, chronologically arranged," "List of trustees from 1845 to 1866," and much other interesting historical material. The report for 1874-75 is also exceptionally valuable, as it was prepared with reference to the public school exhibit made at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876, and contains brief histories of the public schools of the city of Washington, organized in 1805; the city of Georgetown, organized in 1810; the county, as the part of the District of Columbia outside of Washington and Georgetown was designated, organized in

Read before the Columbia Historical Society of Washington, D. C., May 4 1896.
ED 95-53*

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1864; and the colored schools of Washington and Georgetown, organized in 1864the four independent systems of schools as originally established in the District of Columbia. These monographs were all written with intelligence and fidelity and as a labor of love by persons well qualified for their respective tasks; the first two by Mr. Samuel Yorke At Lee, the third by the Rev. Claudius B. Smith, and the fourth by the Superintendent of colored schools, Mr. George F. T. Cook.

4. Special Report of the United States Commissioner of Education on the Condition and Improvement of Public Schools in the District of Columbia, 1868.

5. The minutes of the board of trustees which have been published in recent years, to be found sometimes in connection with the annual reports and sometimes as separate documents.

6. The acts of the city council, the District legislature, and the Congress, and the orders of the District Commissioners relating to the schools.

7. The files of the Evening Star and other city newspapers published from time to time.

THE INITIAL PERIOD-1805 TO 1845.

Neither the framers of the Constitution nor the earlier Congresses contemplated the exercise of exclusive municipal legislation for the District of Columbia directly by the Congress, and hence as early as practicable after the removal of the seat of Government here the Congress ordained a municipal government for the city of Washington, and in 1804 by an amendment to its charter provided "for the establishmen* and superintendence of schools." On the 5th of December of the same year the city council passed an act "to establish and endow a permanent institution for the education of youth in the city of Washington," which provided for a board of 13 trustees, 7 to be elected by the joint ballots of the two chambers of the council and 6 to be chosen by individuals contributing to the promotion of the schools as provided for in said act. For the support of the schools the act appropriated so much of the net proceeds of the taxes on slaves and dogs and licenses for carriages and hacks, ordinaries and taverns, retailing wines and spirituous liquors, billiard tables, theatrical and other amusements, hawkers and peddlers, as the trustees might decide to be necessary for the education of the poor of the city, not to exceed the sum of $1,500 per annum. The act also provided for the appointment of a select committee of 3 councilmen, whose duty it should be to solicit or provide for soliciting, both at home and abroad, contributions in money or lots for the benefit of the schools. One of the largest contributions was that of $200, made by Thomas Jefferson.

It may be stated at the outset that the colored children of the District of Columbia were not included among the beneficiaries of the public schools in any legislation, either by the Congress or the city council, prior to the abolition of slavery in 1862.

The first board of trustees consisted of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Monroe, Gabriel Duvall, Thomas Tingey, Joseph Brombey, John Tayloe, Robert Brent, William Brent, Samuel H. Smith, William Cranch, George Blagden, John Dempsie, and Nicholas King.

They met in the Supreme Court room, United States Capitol, August 5, 1805, and were called to order by Robert Brent. Thomas Jefferson, then President of the United States, was elected president of the board, and accepted the office in a letter dated Monticello, August 14, 1805, but was prevented from ever discharging its duties by "others of paramount obligation."

At a little later date the Rev. William Matthews, better known as Father Matthews, became a member of the board, and was most zealous and active in the cause of public schools for many years.

A very comprehensive report, setting forth in detail the plan of the entire educational system from an academy to a university, was prepared by a select committee and adopted September 19, 1805.

Mr. Jefferson's early and liberal contribution in money and his accepting and holding the offices of trustee and president of the board of trustees of public schools so

long as he resided here show his personal interest in their establishment, and the fact that he had several years earlier proposed a quite similar plan of education for the State of Virginia, and a few years later, in 1817, vigorously renewed his proposal, makes a strong probability that he himself was the chief author of the first plan of public education adopted for the city of Washington.

In their plan the board of trustees said:

"The academy shall consist of as many schools as circumstances may require, to be limited at present to two, one of which shall be situated east of the Capitol and within half a mile of it, and the other within half a mile of the President's house, it being understood that these positions are considered by the board as temporary, and consequently subject at any future time to alteration.

"In these schools poor children shall be taught reading, writing, grammar, arithmetic, and such branches of the mathematics as may qualify them for the professions they are intended to follow; and they shall receive such other instruction as is given to pay pupils, as the board may from time to time direct; and pay pupils shall, besides, be instructed in geography and in the Latin language. The schools shall be open each day, Sundays excepted, eight hours in summer and six hours in winter, to be distributed throughout the day as shall be fixed by the board, except during vacation, which shall not commence prior to the 1st of August nor continue after the 10th of September, and whose duration shall be fixed by the board."

A circular letter issued with the view of obtaining contributions for the erection of the college said:

"He who with the promise of success aspires to that eminence which shall qualify him for rendering service to his fellow men, must, in his early years, receive an education exempt from local prejudice and narrow views; and without derogating from the respect deservedly cherished for State institutions, it may be confidently affirmed that no place in the Union is so well fitted for this purpose as the city of Washington. The reluctance naturally felt by a parent to send a son from his own to a remote State whose institutions, manners, and habits perhaps widely differ will in a great degree, if not altogether, be inapplicable to a seminary not established in subservience to State views, and the professors in which will, as it is probable, be drawn from various States of the Union.

"There is another consideration which can not fail to entitle such an institution to the decided preference of a large portion of citizens. The parent who sends his son to Washington will find for him, in his Representative to Congress, a guardian and a friend who, during a large part of the year, will be his associate, will observe his progress in his studies, superintend his morals, and perceive the real condition and character of the seminary, and thus be able from time to time to satisfy parental inquiry and solicitude."

In this old record we catch a most refreshing glimpse of the typical Congressman at the dawn of this century.

There were two prominent features of this school system as originally devised for the city of Washington:

First. It was in some points of view very ambitions. There was to be a so-called academy, under which term was included what are now generally designated primary, grammar, and high schools, or elementary and secondary schools, a college and a university, each with functions similar to those of like institutions at the present day, and a public city library. Only the most elementary part of the academy was established at first; the college and the university have come into existence with but little governmental aid, and the public library is still on the list of things prayed for. The children of the poor alone were to receive tuition free of expense even in the lowest grade of schools, and their period of attendance at times was limited to a term of two years. The price of tuition to other pupils was fixed at $5 a quarter.

Second. The founders of this school system appear to have thought it neither right nor expedient directly to tax the general property of the municipality for the education

of even poor children, and they made their scant appropriations for this object out of the revenues derived from taxes on specialties and licenses, most of which were in the nature of a specific tariff on social evils. They probably considered themselves warranted at least in applying the homeopathic principle of similia similibus curantur, curing a social evil with a social evil.

Between 1812 and 1828 fourteen joint resolutions authorizing and regulating lotteries for the benefit of the public schools were passed by the Congress. A portion of the revenues derived from this source was invested in corporation or other safe stocks and designated the "school fund." The interest on these stocks was for many years applied to the support of the schools.

This school fund, created for the most elementary education of "pauper pupils," existed intact when in 1874 a government of the District by the Congress superseded all local autonomy, and when in 1878 that body began to make specific appropriations for the schools without reference to the school fund. In 1880 it amounted to about $80,000. The Congress at that time was averse to making any direct appropriation for a much-needed high-school building, but when attention was called to the existence of such a fund it was induced to authorize its application to this object by an act approved March 3, 1881; and so the first high-school building came into being. The public-school forefathers would probably be somewhat surprised if they should return to the city and behold their long-cherished fund for the education of "pauper children" transmuted into the concrete form of the imposing edifice now known as the Central High School Building, located on O street between Sixth and Seventh streets NW.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them how we will.

The board adopted an elaborate code of rules for the government of the academy, among which was the following:

"Every scholar on entering the school shall take off his hat and bow to the preceptor."

Girls do not appear to have been in the minds of these rule makers, and, in fact, the education of girls, especially of the humbler classes, was then considered of small account.

A western school and an eastern school were established, and the first teacher to commence work, January, 1806, was Richard White, principal teacher of the western school, whose salary was to be $500 per annum. It will be noticed that at even that early day the west end was taking the lead. Poor Richard White! Prototype of many a successor! We find him, October 1, 1807, tendering his resignation, accompanied by a prayer in vain for pecuniary assistance to enable him to remove himself and family from Washington.

erection of the first two schoolStates, the use of which for this These schoolhouses might have

On October 27, 1806, the board authorized the houses, to be located on lots owned by the United purpose had been granted by President Jefferson. been modeled after Noah's Ark, for we are told that they were built of wood, 1 story high, 50 feet long, 20 feet wide, and cost together $1,589.41.

The western schoolhouse appears to have been located on lot 27, square 127, now occupied by the sumptuous residence of Mr. Anthony Pollock, No. 1700 I street NW. This lot, containing about 2,600 square feet, was purchased by the corporation from the United States Government-Sam Lane, commissioner of public buildings—in 1821 for $100; the money was applied to the building of an iron fence to inclose the park around the Capitol. The corporation, John P. Van Ness, mayor, sold the lot with the improvements, in 1832, for $309.

In 1811 Mr. Robert Ould was sent out from England by Mr. Lancaster to take charge of a Lancasterian school established in Georgetown. He was the father of Robert Ould, esq., who, graduating from the Columbian College, became a prominent lawyer, United States attorney for the District of Columbia under President

Buchanan; then, going South at the beginning of the civil war, the Confederate assistant secretary of war and agent for the exchange of prisoners. The fame of this school reached the ears of the Washington school authorities, who in 1812 established a similar school in this city and, on the recommendation of Mr. Lancaster, brought over from England Mr. Henry Ould, a brother of the Georgetown teacher, and placed him in charge of the Washington school.

In 1813 Mr. Henry Ould made the first report of a Washington public school of which we have any record. It read as follows:

"FEBRUARY 10, 1813.

"This day twelve months ago I had the pleasure of opening under your auspices the second genuine Lancasterian school in America. The system was set in operation (as far as the nature of the room would admit) in this city on the 10th of February, 1812, in an inconvenient house opposite the general post-office; but notwithstanding the smallness of the schoolroom, there were 120 scholars entered on the list during the first three months. I was then under the necessity of delaying the admission of scholars, as the room would not accommodate more than 80 to 100 scholars. It now becomes my duty to lay before you an account of the improvement of the scholars placed under my direction in your institution, which I shall do in the following order:

"Of numbers.--One hundred and thirty scholars have been admitted into your institution since the 10th of February, 1812-viz, 82 males and 48 females—out of which number 2 have died and 37 left the school for various employments, after passing through several grades of the school, which therefore leaves 91 on the list. "Progress in reading and spelling.-Fifty-five have learned to read in the Old and New Testaments, and are all able to spell words of three, four, and five syllables; 26 are now learning to read Dr. Watts's hymns and spell words of two syllables; 10 are learning words of four and five letters. Of 59 out of the whole number admitted that did not know a single letter, 20 can now read the Bible and spell words of three, four, and five syllables; 29 read Dr. Watts's hymns and spell words of two syllables; and 10, words of four and five letters.

Progress in writing.-Fifty-five scholars are able to write on paper, and many of this number can write a good German-text hand, who never attempted a single letter of the kind before they came to your institution. Twenty-six are writing words of two and three syllables on slates; 10, words from two to five letters on slates, All those scholars that have left the school could write a tolerable and many a capital hand when they left the institution.

"Progress in arithmetic.-Twenty-six scholars are in reduction, single and double rule of three direct, and practice; 23 are rapidly progressing through the first four rules of arithmetic, both simple and compound."

This pioneer public school report was a concise, business-like statement of the work of the school, unincumbered by any modern psychological discussions. The law of apperception had not been discovered, the idea of culture epochs had not come, and the principles of correlation, coordination, concentration, and interest were away in the dim future.

In 1815, on the recommendation of the trustees, the city council established two boards in place of the one previously existing; one for the first school district, comprising the First and Second wards of the city, and the other for the second school district, comprising the Third and Fourth wards. This movement was apparently a step backward.

On the 30th of July, 1821, the Lancasterian school took possession of the small brick building on the southeast corner of Fourteenth and G streets NW., formerly occupied as a stable for President Jefferson's horses, the use of the building having been granted to the public schools. On that spot now stands the attractive floral establishment of John H. Small & Sons.

The formal taking possession was a noted event. "At 10 o'clock a procession of girls and boys, between 130 and 140 in number, preceded by their teachers and followed

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