Our City Schools

In company with several members of the Board of Education, we yesterday visited the city schools of the first and second districts.  On account of sickness and the inclemency of the day the attendance of the scholars was less than the usual average.  In the first district Mr. Gorton has 98 pupils enrolled, only 60 of whom were in attendance.  Miss Humphrey had on her roll the names of 58, only about 20 of which were present.  We understand this building has been recently repaired and is in much better condition than formerly; still it is a poor apology for a school house, and should be replaced by a better before any public improvement in that portion of our city is attempted.  The room in which Miss Humphrey teaches is very contracted, close and without means of ventilation.  A class in reading and spelling recited in Mr. Gorton’s department while we were present, and for their ages acquitted themselves very commendably.

The balance of the forenoon was spent at the stone school house in the second district.  This building is roomy and airy, quite too airy on the exposed sides during the prevalence of the cold north-west or west wind, such as we had yesterday.  The heating apparatus is inadequate for the cold, blustering days of the winter or early spring.  Miss Gregg is the principle of this school.  We visited the rooms presided over by Miss Tripp, Miss Alvord, Miss Bennett, and Miss Christie.  In all of these the scholars were reciting, and with a fluency and proficiency that displayed not only the attention they gave their studies, but that they understood what they learned.  The questions were not altogether confined to the books, but were such as grew out of the lesson recited, thus showing something more than a mechanical proficiency.

The system on which our public schools are conducted is calculated to arouse ambition in the scholars, and cause them to aspire to excellence.  As they progress in their studies they are advanced from class to class until they are able to acquit themselves in the highest class, when they are transferred to the High School.  This course inspires an emulation among the scholars that causes them not only to be exceedingly attentive to their lessons, but never, only from the most urgent necessity, to absent themselves from school.  We regret that we could not spare the time to accompany the committee on their visit to the other four districts in which our city is divided.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, March 5, 1862, p. 1