To the Members of the Historical Society, 2002
Miss Poole – Advanced Education for Women

June 13, 1902

As a member of the Class of 1883 at the Peabody High School, as a teacher in the same school from 1894 to 1896, and as a student of pedagogy under Professor Hanus at Harvard College during last year, it has been my privilege to note certain marked trends in education today, and to watch the reflection of these in our own high school.

Two of these tendencies which, during the last few years have been most noteworthy in their influence on our Peabody High School are:

First, the increased number of those who prepare for higher institutions of learning; and second, the recognition of the demand of the community for a more practical education, which has been met by the addition, in September, 1900, of a commercial course to the school curriculum. The second of these tendencies has resulted in a largely increased number of those who continue their education beyond the grammar-school stage; the first has swelled the list of those who supplement their high school course by courses in the colleges, technical schools, or professional schools. And since the necessity to become bread-winners comes to some so early that it deters them from completing a purely academic course at the High School, if a commercial course makes it possible for such to continue longer in school and gives them, beside the strictly commercial branches, some study of history, government and literature with, perhaps, one science, the expenditure is justified; for it is not only helping them toward earning a livelihood, but is also preparing them to become more useful and intelligent citizens.

The growing tendency to use the high school course as a means of preparing for higher institutions should be warmly welcomed, not only as increasing the number in the learned professions, but also because it sends forth into the community a body of broadly trained men and women who, even though they find their special work away from the town of their birth, may influence and help shape the public opinion of the townspeople here.

It was during the years that I was teaching in the high school (1894-1896) that the college spirit spread like an infection which seized many of the pupils and one of the teachers. This sudden and growing impulse toward a high education, which led me to break my connection with the school in order to supplement the preparation which I had received at the Salem Normal School by a course at Radcliffe College, was due to the strong impress of three college-bred teachers among the five members of the corps. The momentum acquired by the spirit they had set in motion is shown by the fact that, during the seven years since 1895, the number of graduates who have attended colleges, technical schools, and professional schools is nearly, if not quite, thirty-five, which is equivalent to the number who had attended such schools during the forty-five years of the school’s existence prior to that year. It must be said that this number does not include those who have attended state normal schools; and it is to be regretted that many who have attended higher institutions, have been unable, through lack of means, to carry their courses to completion.

One way of minimizing this obstacle which blocks the path of so many would be a diversion of the state money from the support of normal schools to the establishment of state scholarships in the various colleges. This presupposes that each college shall posses a well-established department of pedagogy which shall include graded schools from the kindergarten through the college preparatory stages, in which students shall have the opportunity for practice teaching. The awarding of state scholarships should be in the hands of a board especially appointed for that purpose, who shall determine what students are best fitted by scholarship, moral character, and professional spirit to receive such scholarships; and this board shall also direct the choice of courses of study made by those holding the scholarships toward such subjects as shall make them most useful in teaching in the public schools of the state. Courses in pedagogy, including practice teaching, should be prescribed for all students who intend to teach. Such an arrangement as this would give the state a body of teachers with a broader training than is now attainable in the state normal schools.

But teaching is only one of the many modes of action to which a well-trained mind may direct its energies. Those who have held the popular conception that a college education trains a student away from practical life will have to drop this notion in the face of facts which prove the contrary.

A single illustration which serves well to show this is the “Wellesley Inn,”—the outgrowth of an enterprise started in the fall of 1897 by Mary Esther Chase and Clara Hathorne Shaw, two graduates of Wellesley College. At that time, these two women opened a tea-room in the Village of Wellesley which proved so successful that a corporation was formed which sold shares to the members, and to graduates of the college. The business has grown so rapidly that a property has been purchased in the heart of the village, and the house now standing is to be so enlarged and improved that a most attractive inn, Colonial in style, white, with a moss-green roof and shutters is to be made.

The success of this experiment shows that the outcome of a college training may be a practical business life, as well as devotion to one of the learned professions; and it is to be hoped that the college spirit may continue to stir the boys and girls in our high school to seek larger opportunities which shall react to bring about better trainage (?), better schools, better government, and better citizenship in the town which has sent them forth.

Mary Elizabeth Poole