Middletown High School - Cauldron Yearbook (Middletown, CT)

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conspicuousness. But we beg of you not to compare the literary attempts with the masterpieces of the Eng- lish languageg do not enunierate all of the hundred faults, and, above all, do not criticise this production on the same level as the College year-book. We hope you will regard this Hrst venture of the QJRANGE AND BLACK, not as an attempt at faultless lit- erary production, but rather as a loving tribute to our ALMA MA'1'ER. A perfect judge 'will read each 'lvork of 'wit With the same spirit that its author 'hnritg Surtbey the fwhole, nor seek slight faults to find' Where nature mofves and rapture 'warms the mind. THE EDITOR. 'QQ QQ Xeon W of jigs 19,555 'Z fc 'gat 4. ' esta O 'J go e r

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ir Miainrg nf the 1l1lIihil1PIn1un High Svrhnnl. BY HON. WESLEY U. PEARNE. ROM the earliest days of the colony of Connecticut the education of the young was a matter of paramount importance. As early as I65O a law was passed requiring parents to see that their children were instructed in what are now called the rudimentary branches. Towns were also required to maintain schools for this purpose. But while this was so with regard to schools of the primary, and perhaps of the intermediate grades, the free public school of a higher grade did not appear until about the middle of the nineteenth century. The first statute regarding such schools appears to have been passed in 1856. In this city the idea of providing such a school, however much it may have been agitated before, seems to have bee11 a prominent one in the organization of the City School Society. In I839 there were four separate school districts, known as the North, Nortl1 Middle, South Middle and South, territorially embracing all of the city except a small part west of Indian Hill, and under the jurisdiction of the First School Society. In that year a law was passed providing for the separa- tion of these four districts from the First Society, and organizing the City School Society. Doctor Charles NVoodward, Richard Rand, and Stephen Taylor were named in the statute to call tl1e first meeting for the purpose of eiTecting an organization. This meeting was held July II, 1839, when a motion was made to accept the resolution passed by the General Assembly, which motion, after some discussion, was laid upo11 the table, and the meeting adjourned to the 15th instant. july Istll, at half-past six P. M., the meeting convened, when the former motion having been withdrawn, a new one was passed covering the same ground. A committee was appointed to propose by-laws and to take into consideration all subjects appertaining to the object of the organization of this Society, and this meeting adjourned until the 29th instant. July 29th the committee reported by-laws, which were adopted, and