Dubuque High School - Echo Yearbook (Dubuque, IA)

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William A. Carter and Timothy Mason were elected board mem- bers. Although a tax was levied, there was not enough money raised to buy land and erect a school building. The Board made arrangements with the private schools, the Board agree- ing to pay individual tuition if the schools would accept all pu- pils who applied. About this time there was throughout the country a strong feeling toward public education, and so by 1850, in spite of such argu- ments as, Why should I be taxed to educate other peoples children'?'l, many of the states provided free elementary edu- cation. ln 1850 two one-story 'brick build- ings were erected on the First and Third VVard sites. The First Ward is today Franklin School, and the Third, is Pres- cott. Dubuque had many difficulties in maintaining its early schools, perhaps the most troublesome was that of inade- quate funds. Lack of money caused the schools to close until several years later when the Third NVard school was re- opened with money received from state appropriation. In 1858 our first high school was es- tablished. Opened in what was called the uupper roomv of the Third VVard School, the high school was known as an auxiliary, or higher departmentv of the public schools. This new school found many adversities in its early years. A few months later, in 1859, the high school was moved to a building on Seventeenth and Iowa Streets, known then as the Female Seminary and now known as Our Lady of Lourdes Home. Very soon after, affected by a nation- wide depression which had started in 1857, the school was forced to close. Although the grade schools remained open during this period, the teachers worked for half their salary. In 1866, after being discontinued for more than five years, the high school was reopened in what was known as Turner's Hall, a girls will remember how they would hide behind an old stov to escane exercises! l This is the gym building on West 17th Street. Some of

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This one-room-school is typical of many that existed in this country. Those who founded Dubuque were young men-Julien Dn- buque had been only 26 when he made his agreement with the Fox Indians-james Langworthy, George W. Iones, jesse P. Farley, Iohn King, John Plumbe, Ir., Caleb Booth, and Father Mazzuchelli were some of those influential in Duibuqneis establishment. Lumbermen, lawyers, railroad builders, lead miners, contractors-they initiated the trans- formation of wooded hills into a frontier town. The years passed, Dubuque grew, and the need for edu- cation became apparent. In 1833, because there was no state government in what is now Iowa, there could bc no public school system. Therefore all the schools operated on a private basis. A school was organized in the first year of legal settlement, and George Cubbage became Dubuques first school teacher. Barrett Whitte- more, Mrs. Caroline Dexter, Mrs. Oilleilley, and Mrs. Louise King opened private schools. In 1838 some of Dulbuqneis leading citizens-P. A. Lorimer, Ezekiel Lockwood, Ioseph Fales, Patrick Quigley, Benjamin Ru- pert, Thomas Wilson, and Lucius Langworthy-incorporated the Du- buque Seminaryf, Alanzo Phelps was hired to teach Gall branches of a lib- eral educationf, In 1840 T. B. Burr opened a school in the basement of the Presbyterian Church. It was not until 1844 that Iowa Territory had an education law with the authorization to raise money for school purposes by taxation. This law also made Dubuque a single school district and stated that school district officers should be elected. Warner Lewis was elected president, E. Normal was elected secretary, and Miss Dorthy Bechtel drew this pen and ink wash drawing of the Fifth Ward School. Miss Bechtel is co-ordinator of art in the Dubuque Public Schools.

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. krvkr K kb,,L f - jill K ,V K X xp V ly r . .... Mx Y , M K A group of teachers at Central School building at the northeast corner of Twelfth and Clay Streets. In the first year of its existence the Dubuque High School offered a three-year course, with three tenns in each year. Candidates for admission to the high school were required to pass an examination of ten ques- tions each in definitions, geography, mental arith- metic, English grammar, United States history, and general history. The examinations were given by a committee of citizens. During the years that the country was torn apart with the Civil War, many interesting events were a part of life in Dubuque. A law was passed forbidding the use of tobacco in the schools. The reading of the Bible was adopted in the schools, and quite a controversy arose over this. In 1854, children at the Fifth and First Ward schools bought a melodian and an organ for their schools. There was a day in Iuly when a tornado blew the roof off the Fifth Ward School. In 1867 the Board demanded that if the local bookstore did not reduce the price of text books, the Board would open its own store. A year later, a small- pox epidemic raging in the community, the prin- cipal ordered strict enforcement of the vaccina- tion rule, although the schools did not close. In 1866 a petition for the opening of a school for colored children was presented, and the Board rented a church basement and opened such a school on March 5. In 1868 the uschools were charged with failure of giving any moral instruc- tions to the students, and their charge was vigor- ously denied by the principals and teachersf' In the same year the primary departments were so crowded in the First and Fifth Ward schools that classes were divided into two shifts, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. In 1874 some of the pupils in the High School petitioned the Board for permission to use one of the rooms in the High School as a gymnasium, and the re- quest was granted with the provision that the stu- dents would furnish and equip the room them- selves and secure the opinion of a respectable architect that the strenuous exercises would not