The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1890-09-21

ana the business SChOol-What the
System Costs.
The public schools of the District open to-
morrow, and the attendance Of last year will be
increased by between two and three thousand
pupils, making a total enrolment, in round
numbers, of forty thousand They will be
watched over and trained by 795 competent
teachers and instructors. The attendance at
the Washington public schools is unusually high
in proportion to the enrolment, and the aver
age for the year rarely falls below four or five
thousand less than these figures. The students
have had their rest and are willing to work hard
now that the task is about to be set before them.
and it will be an enthusiastic crowd that will
surge in and out of the school-house doors for
the next few days. They won't be so enthusias-
tic after that, but then they will have settled to
the work and forgot that they ever had any va
cation. The chalk designs, notices, ETC., have
been left on the boards as a relic of last June's
exercises, and when the small boys and girls en-
ter the rooms tomorrow they will feel almost as
if they had just been away for day or two and
time had not after all made very wide breach
between the beginning and the end of their va
cation
There ninety-one school-houses in the Dis
trict, and the cost of running them during the
years 1SS9'90 was $707, ,125. The salaries paid,
teachers and ianitors, amounted to $3.50, 600,
and the other expenses came to $147, 100. Ex-
elusive of last years additions the value of the
land on which the buildings were erected was
S459, ,142, and of the buildings themselves
S1,S19, 416. The new buildings erected since
july $780, and up to June, 1890, amounted in
value to $4,000, bringing the total value of
the school property in the District to So ,55S.
In almost every other city in the country the
number of pupils attending the high grades of
the public schools is smaller than those attend
ing the lower grades. In Washington the
larger number attends the high-grade schools.
This fact affords food for reflection as to the
class of young men and women attending our
schools. In large manufacturing cities, where
factories or machine shops draw off the surplus
of youth as soon It's they can be utilized at work
boys and girls usually stop school after having
gained the least smattering of an education in
the first two or three grades. In Washington
there are few factories, and there is no such
| disturbing cause to the child's requirement of
an education. The parents of Washington who
send their children to public schools are for the
most part in Government employ, and are able to
keep their children at school until they have at
| least passed through the eighth grade.
| The present year marks a new era in the
| school history of the district. The establish
ment of the two new high schools in different
quarters of the city as auxiliaries to the Wash
| ington High School and the transformation Of
| the Thompson School into a business high
| school are both departures which promise to
| do much good.
The greatest care has been taken in the selec-
| tion of teachers for these branch high schools
and the highest possible grade of efficiency will,
be reached in their work. They are nearly all col
lege graduates, and particularly versed in the
| departments over which they have special con-
| troll. These schools will commend themselves
! to the parents after short trial. A saving to
pupils and parents in car fare, wet feet, over
exertlon, ETC., will be made by the establishment
| n hrrhc Tha+
fully as efficient, the buildings perfectly con
| Quoted, with particular attention paid to ven
| tiation and lighting, and the opportunity for
| good results just the same as at the main
| school. The teachers at the branches will
average only twenty or twenty-five pupils each,
while those at the main school are forced to
divide their attention among forty or forty
five. The school authorities wish to see this
new move well patronized, and trust parents
will not allow themselves to be prejudiced in
| favor of the O-street school, simply because of
the prestige it enjoys on account of its longer
| existence.
The Business High School on Twelfth street
northwest, between X and l., is the second in
stitution of the kind in the United States. The
! school authorities thought they had something
original when they proposed to establish a
school for thorough training in business, but
it has lately been learned that San Francisco
has school of a similar nature. Typewrters
| have been ordered, and are already for the en-
| bryo business men and women to begin work
|
settled in their new quarters. The course al
the Business School is one year in duration, but
pupils who wish to further perfect themselves
in the branches taught there have the privilege
of attending an additional year. The course
will include stenography, typewrting, a
thorough course in business arithmetic, book
keeping commercial geography and other
necessary studies. There will be a corps Of six
regular teachers devoted to this work,
There are four teachers who give them
selves up entirely to the physical culture of the
pupils Last year there We're only three, but the
good results made themselves so unmistaliaby
apparent that this year the directors have been
encouraged to add to the number. These teach
ers have classes in physical training, and by
means of calisthenics and other forms of eXeI-
else greatly add to the general healthfulness Of
the children under their care.
The new branch High School for the eastern
section of the district is located in the Peabody
! School, Fifth and G streets northeast, and is
known as the Capitol Hill High School. For
Georgetown pupils the Curtis School, o street,
between Thirty-second and Thirty-third streets,
| will be the most convenient.
Electric Belt Free.
To introduce it and obtain agents the under