Seattle's Schools Burst at the Seams as the City Booms

SCHOOLS IN SEATTLE. Rapid Growth and Urgent Needs of the Public Schools. MUST KEEP PACE WITH THE CITY. What Studies Should Be Pursued by Pupils in Public Schools—Amount of School Property Owned by City.

The construction of additional buildings for the accommodation of the pupils in the public schools, and the proper course of instruction to be pursued in the schools, have been of late occupying the greater part of the attention of the school board. The question of what studies can properly be pursued in the public schools has been especially brought to the front by the law abolishing the high school. Speaking on these and relative questions, Superintendent F. J. Barnard said yesterday:

'The Seattle school system is emphatically a common school system in every sense of the term, and every suggestion regarding the course of instruction or the erection of necessary buildings has been made with that understanding. Nothing has been done to increase the efficiency of any one department at the expense of another, but, on the contrary, the improvement of our city system as a whole, regardless of departments and localities, has been the only aim of the board of education.

'To properly manage and instruct the 6,000 pupils in our schools—that is to say, to have a perfect system in which all the children entering school are classified as pupils of primary schools, junior grammar schools, or senior grammar schools, as the abilities of the individual will permit—at this date there are pupils enrolled in the primary schools, 1,261 in the junior grammar schools, and 265 pupils in the senior grammar schools.

'The primary and junior grammar schools are located in ten main buildings and eleven rented rooms or temporary shacks in various parts of the city, the mixed grades at Salmon Bay and Ross not being included. Senior grammar schools are not located in all of the ten main districts, but the pupils being older, stronger and better able to walk, are brought into one building, where a single corps of teachers can perform all the work and thereby reduce the expenses very materially. The senior grammar school is at present located in the Central school building, in unhealthy quarters on the third floor, in rooms never intended for school rooms, but which were in fact attics. Three rooms of the Central proper used as recitation rooms are comfortable.

'The school now enrolls 2,000 pupils, with 208 belonging at date. There are 200 pupils in the highest class of the junior grammar school ready to enter the senior school in eight weeks, making a possible total for next year of 300 to 400 pupils, with an incoming class the year following of 221 pupils. To provide suitable quarters for the present school and also anticipating the future, the board voted asking the people for authority to erect a building on a lot purchased for that purpose, situated between Seneca and University and Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets.

'As far as numbers are concerned there is no doubt whatever of the necessity of this building—but a few of our people maintain that the junior grammar schools give enough of an education—that a knowledge of the three R's—reading, writing and arithmetic—is sufficient, and hence the senior grammar school should be abolished.

'A boy 14 years old today will become a full-fledged citizen in the year 1900. The children of today are the citizens of the twentieth century, with all that that implies. Modern industrial progress is marvelously great, and the common schools must keep pace with it. Seattle's progress has been wonderful and will be greater in the future. The schools must keep up with the procession, even more, must keep ahead of it, that those coming from the East may know where to bring their children.

'Six hundred and sixty-one cities (every one reported in the United States commissioner's statistics) maintain high schools. Will Eastern people moving to Washington pass by Spokane's beautiful high school building, with its splendid equipment, and Tacoma's elegant quarters and richly endowed manual training school, seeking some city with less disadvantages? The cry of the three R's is a delusion and a snare.

'Situated as we are, in the midst of undeveloped riches, with our mines and farms to work, our railways to be built, our trade increased, our whole state to blossom and bear fruit, we may well read Herbert Spencer's answer to the question: What knowledge is the most worth?'

[The article quotes Herbert Spencer at length on mathematics, physics, chemistry and agriculture, arguing that modern industry depends on scientific knowledge.]

It has been said that the state university should do the work of the new senior grammar school. The university is and should be the highest and last step in the system of the state—with a course of study beginning where the high school ends. The work of the high schools is elementary, while that of the university is advanced.

Opposing, as we did, the enactment of a law whereby Seattle would have been obliged to contribute $50,000 a year to the support of the schools in the state—outside the city—it would now be inconsistent to ask that the state contribute to the support of the common schools of Seattle—by lowering the grade of the university. President Gatch says: 'Our university, however well endowed and equipped, if it fulfills the office of a university, cannot possibly do the work of a high school. It is our province to supplement the high school, and not to plant it.' It will be a blot on the escutcheon if our fair city does not maintain a noble high school of higher grade, call it by what name you will.

Regarding the schools in general I must say that in view of the circumstances they have been well conducted. The duties of a superintendent do not include the management of the finances. The superintendent is responsible for the instruction given, the results attained, and to secure the best possible results he asks of the board but two things—a sufficient number of first-class experienced teachers and an equal number of school rooms. Since taking charge of the schools in 1890 the increase in school population and demand for comfortable school rooms have been such that the board was obliged to provide seventy-six first-class, well-lighted, ventilated and permanent rooms. Work on some of them was begun in the spring of 1890, but payments have been made since September, 1890. During one year alone thirty-four new schools were started—that is to say—a school room equipped with stoves, desks, chairs, maps, blackboards, etc., had to be supplied by the board nearly every week of the school year. To build a city in a day, to grade the streets, to put in the sewers, to lay out the parks is a tremendous undertaking, but the building up of the school system, providing for the hosts of little ones, is equally as great. While the problems have been and those expenses apparently great, it is clearly shown by the following table of statistics that Seattle school expenses are not excessive when compared with other cities.

[The article then compares Seattle's per-pupil costs with other cities and prints a letter from J. B. MacDougall, president of the board of education, dated April 29, 1893.]

To the Editor: I beg leave to submit through your paper to the taxpayers of Seattle the following statement of the resources of the public schools, showing their present standing and the value of the property held. The appraisement on the property has been made by Messrs. Andrew Knox, S. L. Crawford and E. A. Turner. I would also state, in addition to the detailed report submitted, that of this amount of property $133,800 is invested in unimproved lots and blocks which are held for the future needs of the school department. This amount should practically be deducted from the liabilities as they appear in the statement herewith. From the figures given it will readily be seen that the school department is upon a stable financial basis. Very respectfully, J. B. MacDougall, President Board of Education.

Resources: real estate appraised at $375,350; school buildings, $419,?; furniture, $30,873. Liabilities: warrants unpaid $174,912.43; bonds $350,000; Comstock addition grounds debt $8,000. Net value of the district $292,998.55. Appraisers Andrew Knox, S. L. Crawford and E. A. Turner reported that they placed their appraisement on the property exhibited to them, making figures without reference to improvements, as they were not builders.