Withrow High School - Withrow Annual Yearbook (Cincinnati, OH)

Page 25 text:

Education in Cincinnati HE fundamental necessity to obtain protection to property and commerce is the education of the Citizens of the community. All educational activities of Cincin- nati were in private hands until 1829. Those children whose parents did not pay did not receive instruction; At that time there were forty-seven schools with a total enrollment of sixteen hundred. Cincinnati was then, and until the Civil War continued to be, the center of learning for the West and Southwest. The Cincinnati College was the outgrowth of the Cincinnati Lancaster Seminary, which was established in 1815 through the efforts of Dr. Daniel Drake and Reverend Ioshua L. Wilson. In this sehoo1 the older pupils, under the direction of teachers, were used as monitors and teachers for the younger children. Wiiiiam H. McGuffy, the author of the celebrated school readers, and Ormsby M. Mitchell, the founder of the Cincinnati Observatory, were members of the faculty at the Seminary. William Henry Harrison was a director. The school occupied a building erected on the present site of the Mercantile Library Building. Professional education began in Cincinnati with the establishment of the Ohio hiedical CoUege in 1820. Lane Theological Seminary and the Cincinnati Law School were established a few years later. The leading spirit in establishing public schools in Cincinnati was Nathaniel Guilford. The result of his work was a law passed in 1828 providing for puhhc schools in Ohio. The city acting under the provision of this law, constructed two buiidings of brick and stone of two rooms each. One stood on the river bank near the Front Street pumping station, and the other on Sycamore Street, near Fifth Street. A little later four other buildings were occupied, but 8.11 were Crude structures and utter1y inadequate. It was in this same period that the Cincinnati high schools had their beginning. William Woodward fe1t the need of education in the West, and, through the influence of his friend, Samuel Lewis, provided for the establishment of Woodward Free Grammar School. Later he changed the conditions of his gift to make it possible for the trustees to establish a high school. The school was opened on October 24, 1831, and during its existence it has been called successively Woodward Free Grammar School, Woodward C011ege, and Woodward High Schoo1. Thomas Hughes. Woodwardis neighbor, was an English shoemaker. Following Woodwardts ex- ample, he bequeathed twenty-seven acres of land to the city for the establishment of a schooI. The fund thus created was the beginning of Hughes High School. George Graham employed an architect to plan a model schoolhouse. In 1833 he had this school built on his own 10t on Race Street, When it was completed, he offered the whole property to the Council for the cost of the building. The Counci1 at first refused to pay the amount, but finaiiy accepted the building. It was brick, two stories high. and had two rooms on each floor. Nine other schools patterned after this model were afterwards built at a total cost of $96,000. Those ten schools were controlled by a Board of Trustees which was composed of one member from each ward. Nathn anie1 Guilford was the chairman of the first Board. Men teachers then received from three hundred to five hundred dollars per year, and women from two hundred to two hundred and fifty do11ars. Ow: or THE EARLY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS Evening schools were established for boys in A I'V'anzanOldPrinf 1840, and for girls in 1855. These schools were founded for the boys and girls who must work, for the adults who 1acked the advantage of an earlier education, and for foreigners who wished to learn thetAmerican language. 19

Page 24 text:

RIVER FRONT ABOUT 1840 From an Old Prinl

Page 26 text:

From the beginning of schools in our City both the public and private schools have ranked high. After the evening schools were established, there came a time when the schools of Cincinnati were in the hands of the politicians. The schools suffered from lack of funds. and for many years not a single new school house was erected. Then came the renaissance of education in Cincinnati. Under the leadership of an able superintendent, aided by high-class men in the Board of Education, and a large body ofearnest teachers, the school system began to improve. The work was reorganized so as to make it meet the present-day needs of the community; and many old buildings, that were inadequate, unsafe, and unsanitary, were remodelled or replaced by new ones. Within twelve years, thirty buildings were constructed or remodelled; and some were replaced by handsome new ones at a total cost of five million dollars. The cost of the new Hughes, Woodward, and Withrow High Schools is included in this. In these high schools there are offered the general, manual training, domestic science, commercial, industrial, music, art, and agricultural. courses. The business of the high school is to furnish both liberal and definite vocational training to the student who knows what he wants to do; and to furnish to those who are undecided as to their choice of a vocation experiences which will assist them to choose. Vacation schools are provided as recreation centers for children who must stay in the city during the summer. These schools do not continue the hook work of the regular school. Its curriculum includes Such occupations as appeal to a Child whose school books have been put away for a time, but who must he kept busy. Summer Academic Schools, which were instituted in 1908, have two purposes: to enable pupils who failed in one or two subjects to catch up, and to enable unusually bright pupils to skip a grade. When Charles MCMiCken died in 1858, he gave by will almost the whole of his estate valued at $1,000,000 for the purpose of establishing and maintaining two colleges in Cincinnati. Nearly one-half the property thus devised was lost by a court decision; so that for ten years the revenue derived from the estate was applied to its improve- ment. Finally there was passed by the General Assembly of Ohio an act under which the University of Cincinnati was established. In 187-1 the Academic Department, now called the Nlchlicken College of Liberal Arts, was formally organized. In the years that followed the many varied departments that round out the functions of a complete university have been or- ganized. The College of Engineering is noted for its cooperative course. Students are handled in pairs, the members of each alternating so that one student is at work while the other is attending college classes. In this way the practice of engin- eering: is taught in the shops or on a railroad, under actual commercial conditions. and the science underlying the practice is taught in the University The College for Teachers is also a cooperative school; and the College of Medicine is arranged on a cooperative basis with the General Hospital. There are today seventy parochial schools in Clncmnati in which there are 500 teachers and 19,000 pupils. It thus appears that Cincinnati, with well- detined purposes is seeking through the cooper- ationinf all its civic, commercial, industrial, and educational institutions to develop a unified system of public education that shall adequately meet the Hrmms HIGH SCHOOL needs of all its people. FLORENCE E. CONNERS, t27.