Eastern High School - Echo Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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THROUGH THE YEARS AT THE EASTERN HIGH SCHOOL would not be large, and expense must be considered. No details of their efforts in this direction are available except the result to be announced presently. But what were the provisions in regard to the first pupils, the reason for all the other action? A number of these applied equally to all the higher schools and were made part of the Boardis policy when it established the High Schooli, in i 39. Perhaps the most important one had to do with those eligible for entrance. Certainly the passage in which this provision is formu- lated lafter it had been in force for some dozen yearsl is significant as an illustration of democracy at work in the school system; These schools are not confined to any portion of the community; it is intended that pupils shall be gathered from every section of the city, and that all classes and conditions of life shall partake of their benefits. Such regulations, therefore, have been adopted for admission as will not exclude any one on account of his or her position in society. lReport of 1851i In terms of the history of iiEasternfi the Boardis pronounce- ment meant that all young females living in the corresponding sec- tion of the city could take advantage of the opportunity for ua more liberal education,, by complying with certain requirements that had no regard to their social position. These were four in number: ill pupils must be twelve years of age; lZl they must have had at least one year in a Female Primary School lthis was before the two classes, Primary and Grammar, had been madel; Bl they must be of good moral character; Ml they must pass a satisfactory examination in Reading, Spelling, Grammar, Parsing, Geography, and Arithmeticfk Another general provision concerned costs, and will doubtless surprise most readers of these annals, unless they have read the Prologue with care. So that the ufree schoolsii might not seem like ucharity schoolsi, the Board had required from the time of the earliest ones established the payment of a so-called tuition fee of $1.00 per quarter or the presentation of the Boardis certihcate excusing from payment, and this was still the custom when the Female High Schools were established and was to be continued in them. Books and stationery lvery little of the latter at the 3kA different requirement in Ml for the males is one of those straws which show the way of the wind: their examination also included iiAlgebra as far as the extraction of the Square Root? l 4 1

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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

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THROUGH THE YEARS AT THE EASTERN HIGH SCHOOL time, as slates were still at the height of their unhygienic popularityi were supplied by the Board. There were also, of course, the questions of the studies to be pursued ta rather important itemi and the actual organization and procedure of the school day and year, but these matters can more conveniently be glanced at when the first students of Eastern Female High School have actually been enrolled. And they have yet to . take the entrance examinations! We are indebted to the Baltimore S an of 1844 for the definite record of two highly important events, the giving of the first entrance examinations and the opening of the school. The former took place, evidently, the latter part of July-the end of the school year-- for the newspaper item, dated July 315 reads: After an examination held by Dr. Monmonier, Dr. Collins and Mr. Toner, a committee of the Board of School Commissioners;k the following young ladies were granted admission to the Female High School: . Ada Blanche Franciscus, Mary P. Wise. . . . U-Iere follow 73 more names, not arranged alphabetically, with no indication as to which school the respective young ladies were to enter. The other Sun article, mentioned below, reported that 38 pupils made up the flrst class at Eastern? Of this historically important first group we therefore are not certain even of the names, only that they had met the requirements previously enumerated and were, according to the standards of the lower school from which they came, outstanding students, good higher school materialfii There is unfortunately no copy of the iirst entrance examina- tion, or of those of the years immediately following, but one of the year 1854 tbefore any of the changes for improvement suggested by the principal of iiEastern,i were incorporatedi doubtless gives a fair idea of what this first one was like. The questions were printed in fine print on small strips of paper-10 each in Grammar and Geography, 5 in Arithmetic, 6 in Definitions tnot mentioned in the original list quoted abovei , with 10 words in Parsing and 20 in Spelling. Of Reading nothing is said; hence that was prob- :kThe committee here referred to was one of a number of such committees that played a very important part in the functioning of the early school system, assisting in various ways in the proper conducting of the schools. One of the duties of the particular committee assigned to the two Female High Schools tfrequently referred to in the records as uThe Committee of the SchoolW was, naturally, to preside over the examinations for admission to these schools. 1251