Eastern High School - Echo Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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THROUGH THE YEARS AT THE EASTERN HIGH SCHOOL 1843, it was to the effect that females who may have manifested superior abilities and attained suitable acquirements in the Primary School? are as deserving as males of the opportunity to obtain a more liberal English educationii and should therefore be given itfk And the Board, its conviction now screwed to the point of making a definite recommendation to the Council, concluded a section of its Fifteenth Annual Report with this passage: We earnestly recommend this subject to the consideration of the Council as one of very great importance in completing our system of education, and well calculated to give it new impulse. BEGINNINGS: PLANS AND ACTION Moreover, in this same Report the Board pointed out that not one, but two such schools were equally necessary, and suggested the general location of each. And why two schools? The answer was partly given in the next Report: because females were of. course far less robust than males and therefore far less able to endure the difiiculties of pedestrian travel presented by long distances and bad weather, aggravated no doubt, though these points are not enumer- ated in the record, by hard walking ldue to unpaved streets, high stepping-stones, and the likel and the proper attire of the day for young misses ltight, stiff bodices, long heavy skirts, pantalets cover- ing the shoe-tops, shawls, eth : As females are more delicate than males, and cannot attend school at a remote distance, especially in inclement weather, con- venience seemed to require two schools, one in the east and the other in the west. Thus either the eastern or the western school owed its origin-at least at this timbto the greater delicacy of the female! For early the next year-a memorable time in the annals of the sister schools-the City Council did consider favorably the Board,s akNot also a iiclassicalii education, it will be noticed, as in the case of the males of the first High School-the times were not ready for that idea-but at least a more liberal English education? and that was much. All credit to the wise and resolute members of the Board of 1843! The names of these members are as follows: John F. Monmonier, David Irelan President H. S. Sanderson William Rusk John Wilson J. B. Emery T. O. Sollers Elijah Stansbury, Jr. Hugh A. Cooper Stephen Collins A. H. Penington Samuel Harris M. Toner iZJ

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CHAPTER I THE FIRST ERA 0344-1853 t BEGINNINGS: THE IDEA The beginnings of Easternii and iiWesternii ithose educational twin sistersi constituted the next Outstanding Event in the history of Baltimoreis Public Schools following the establishment of uthe High School? and incidentally made it necessary to refer hereafter to that member of the school family with more precision. The year that these Female High Schools actually came into being was 1844, but the year preceding this must by all means be included in their respective histories, for it was then that the significant idea which produced them flrst became sufhciently clear and hxed in the minds of the School Commissioners to demand expression in action. This idea, slowly and with difficulty arrived at through the ages, expressed in different forms at different times and places, was, stated generally, the belief that the female of the species was sometimes the mental equal of the male and should be treated accordingly. Stated more specifically by the Baltimore Board of Education in ill

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THROUGH THE YEARS AT THE EASTERN HIGH SCHOOL radical and twofold suggestion, approving the construction of two Female High Schools, and the Board promptly proceeded to secure buildings and teachers and to make other necessary arrangements for getting them started. iAt this point, that is practically at the very start, the stories of the eastern and the western school diverge, each becoming a separate and individual thing though containing many of the same details, educational matters of equal importance for both. Perhaps or; a Great Occasion a hundred years hence iiEastern,i and uVVest- ernii will again together make a single recordJ A home for the new higher school to be established in the eastern part of the cityii- east of Jones, Fallsi,-was a prime consideration, and thereby hangs a little tale. It seems that a school house standing at Front and Pittiink Streets in 1843 and housing what was concisely described as uFemale No. 3ii had at first seemed also a possible and inexpensive home for the eastern Female High School, for Female No. Bis roof was in a decayed conditionii and would soon require renewal, and the erection of a second story would not increase the costs a great deal? However, by the early part of 44 either Female No. 3 had deteriorated with tremendous rapidity or the Board had made a more thorough examination of its condition, for a modification of the original plan was called for: the erection of a brand-new building on the Front-and-Pitt-Street corner uthat would accommodate Eastern Female High School and Female No. 3? And at once the Building Committee of the Board iMessrs. Mon- monier, Sollers, and Tonerl contracted with Mr. William H. Hooper to put the new plan into effect. Meanwhile the Board concerned itself with securing a competent principal, who must also at first be a full-time-and the only- instructor, for the number of expected first candidates for admission iThe cityis boundaries in 1844 were, briefly, as follows: Northern-Boundary Avenue, now North Avenue Eastern-a straight line along what is now the Edison Highway to the Patapsco at the Lazaretto Light Westetn-a straight line extending in a slightly southwesterly direction from the present North Avenue and Payson Street to Gwynns Falls, at what is now the western edge of Carroll Park golf course Southern-determined by the course of Gwynns Falls as it flowed into the Patapsco :MThe name iiPittfi from the famous English statesman of the 18th century, was presently changed to Fayette? in honor of the admired French patriot and American soldier, La Fayette. This is only one of the many Baltimore streets that reflect city or state or national history. E31