Schools In Wheeling in 1886

- from The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, September 14, 1886
 

OUR SCHOOLS

SPLENDID PROVISION FOR YOUTH.

In the long, long ago-"in good King George's glorious days," the colony of Virginia was ruled over and governed by Sir William Berkeley who, in one of his reports to the home government touching the condition and welfare of the colony, of which this section was then a wild and, except by savages, an uninhabited part, thanked God that there were no printing presses or free schools to teach and enlighten the people and rouse them to the independence that later on asserted itself and made this glorious country what it is, and hoped that there would be none of these to vex him "these hundred years."

With what horror must the shades of Berkeley, as they from time to time revisit the domain over which that arrogant, narrow-mined, bigoted old Lord once ruled, view the condition of affairs to-day. The printing press and the free schools! To what enormous proportions have they grown and what a power for good they are in the land! The press-the mighty engine before whose power evil-doers flee and in whose strength the people find a defender of their rights and privileges! The free school - the poor man's college, where the citizens of tomorrow are trained to appreciate and glory in this grand country and its manifold blessings! Governor Berkeley did well to couple the press and free school together; the one is the outgrowth of the other and both are the pride of the people. The mighty strides both have made fill the beholder with astonishment and amazement. Take the free school system, for instance, and note the men of prominence whose early education was limited to that attained in a free school, and the reputation and place in history they have reached. The free school is a blessing that is not as fully appreciated as it should be.

WHEELING'S PRIDE

The proverbial modesty of newspapers and newspaper men precludes an extended and laudatory notice of the newspapers of Wheeling, but of her public schools too much cannot be said in praise. They are one of Wheeling's prides, and properly so, for they are the best in the State. Indeed there are few in the country considered as a whole, and with everything - buildings, teachers, furniture, apparatus, course of study, grade attained by graduates, system, order and other details that go to make a good school that excel the public schools of the Independent School District of the City of Wheeling. In educational assemblages her schools have often been referred to as models and her instructors have always been listened to in those meetings with marked attention and deference.

It is not proposed in the chapter to speak of the organization of the schools of this city into an independent school district, but rather to treat of them as they are found to-day; as the investor, the capitalist, the speculator who shall come here to invest his money in new or old established industries will find them; as the workingman who comes to this desirable field of labor, which with the introduction of natural gas becomes more desirable than ever, will find them for the benefit and advancement of his children. The schools are under the direction, supervision and control of a Board of Education, composed of twenty-one members, three from each of the seven sub-districts, Washington, Madison, Clay, Union, Center, Webster and Ritchie, that compose this independent district. These members are elected, one every two years, to serve for six years. They have a Clerk and a City Superintendent. The teachers are appointed by the commissioners in whose district they teach and confirmed by the Board, but are controlled and under the direction of the Superintendent. The present Superintendent is Prof. W. H. Anderson, who succeeded Hon. John M. Birch, now U.S. Consul to Nagasaki, Japan. Both are gentlemen of marked executive ability and it is largely owing to their labors that the schools have reached the high eminence they now rest on. Mr. H. H. Pendleton is Clerk and Mr. O. H. Collier President of the Board.

SCHOOL BUILDINGS

In the district there are seven large school buildings and two annexes for the accommodation of white pupils and one elegant building for colored children. The coming year will see erected in Ritchie district another school building, the interior arrangement of which will not be excelled by that of any school building in the country; it will be a model in the way of heat and ventilation.

The total value of all the school property of the district is about $310,000. The value of all the buildings is somewhere in the neighborhood of $174,000; of furniture $16,970; of apparatus, $1,400. The average value of the houses is about $22,000. During the past year the average cost of education per pupil based on the enrollment, was a little over $10 50; based on the enumeration it was a trifle over $6, the enumeration showing 10,006 school youth in the city.

Each of the seven schools, and the colored school, is a grammar school in itself, with the primary divisions attached. There are 91 rooms in the buildings and the services of 105 teachers are required. A principal presides over each of the sub-district schools; to each is attached a grammar room and assistant grammar teacher, and the balance of the rooms are divided into four divisions, A, B, C and D, with grades running from 2 under the division A rooms to 7 under the D divisions. In addition to these teachers there are four German teachers, who have charge of the study of German in all the schools. The aggregate of salaries that will be paid for teaching alone during the coming year will be $19,000. The levy for this year is estimated to realize $71,000 for a school fund, $92,000 for a building fund and $5,000 for the Public Library fund, which as detailed elsewhere is under the control of the Board of Education.

The school buildings of the district with two or three exceptions are handsome buildings viewed from an architectural standpoint. A notable example is Centre district school, located in the Fifth ward, an illustration of which is published in this issue. All of the buildings are modern and conveniently arranged inside. The furniture is of the most approved pattern from a scientific and hygienic point. The rooms, stairways, halls and exits are also arranged that in case of fire every building could be emptied inside of two minutes. The yards are spacious and afford good playgrounds. Connected with each building are quarters for the janitors. The heating and ventilating apparatus in the new school house to be erected in Ritchie district will itself cost nearly $2,500. In all the buildings the heating apparatus has been so perfected and the ventilation so arranged that the evils to health so often found in crowded school rooms are so far done away with as not to be perceptible.

PRACTICAL WORK

The course of study prescribed by the Board is a well selected one and embraces all those branches most useful to those who in after years are to be compelled to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows. A student of the Public Schools of Wheeling when graduated and in possession of the Board's diploma is entitled to a teacher's certificate for any room except the grammar rooms.

It is to be said to the credit of the people of Wheeling that they take a great interest in their schools, as evinced by their liberality in furnishing all the money needed for buildings, furniture and appliances, and by the many visits that parents pay to the bright, cheerful rooms in the scrupulously clean buildings where their children are instructed by a set of patient, competent, accomplished teachers. Wheeling's schools are to be numbered among her most important and beneficial advantages.

OTHER INSTITUTES OF LEARNING

In addition to the excellent public school system there are institutions of learning that would be creditable to any community. Chief among these are the Wheeling Female College, of which Prof. Brown is the efficient President; Mount de Chantal, just outside the city, for which the Sisters of the Visitation have earned a high reputation; Prof. Frazier's Wheeling Business College; famous Bethany College near by, with which Rev. Dr. Pendleton has long been identified; the Linsly Institute for boys, founded by the liberality of Noan Linsly and successfully conducted by Prof. Orr. St. Joseph's Academy; St. Vincent's High School; the Seguin Collegiate Institute; many good private schools, art and musical schools. No Wheeling boy or girl need live or die in ignorance.

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