Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-11-02
N EW JERSEY
SCHOOLHOUSES
TIE Building of New Schools and
EnIarging of Old Ones
Shows Prosperity.

IF there were no other signs than
the building of new school houses and
the charging of old ones to prove
the prosperity Of northern New Jer-
sey," said a Newark building con-
tractor yesterday, these evidences Of
increased growth would suffice. There
are seventy-one new school houses in
process of erection in the state; more
than half of which are located III
northern Jersey, within IN hour or
so of New York by steam road or troll
ley. OF the new school projects pro-
posed the most important is the new
normal school which will me built in
Montclair in the next two years. This
school has long been needed to fill a
demand made by the increasing popu-
%lation of Essex county.
in nearly every city and village
lin the five upper counties, namely,
Hudson, Bergen, Essex, Passaic and
Middlesex, the primary and grammar
schools are being enlarged. The
amount of money appropriated last
year for these improvements will nof
! lllOCI tlO SApCllSCy IL nIob NbOJ W.
eventually cost cannot be estimated
at present. This work is the result
of a sudden influx of new people into
this territory during the last two
years. For that time the lower
grade schools have been so crowded
as to urgently require enlargement
which is being pushed as rapidly as
.Naccih1o GnnAitinnc dnnnndino tho
enlargement of practically all of the
schools in so large a district is un-
usual and deserves more than pass
! ing mention. Two million seven hun
dred thousand dollars was appropri
ated last year for new schools for the
state.
Some of the contracts for enlarge
ment and building of new schools
have fallen to me, and when learned
the amount of work that was actually
being done in this direction, took
the trouble to investigate the cause.
| found that in Hudson county alone
there are 10000 school children, and
in Essex county only 1000 less. New
ark alone has 1880 school children
and 81 school buildings out of the
total of 1874 school buildings in Els
sex county.
The refusal of the authorities at
Montclair within the last few days
to approve the plan for building q
large central school for the lower
grades shows over how wide a terri
tory the population of this section is
being distributed. The argument
against this central school was that
the population not only in the dis
trict in and about Montclair, but also
throughout practically all the five up.
per counties, Is so scattered as to de-
mand the location of smaller schools
rather than the proposed central
building, at comparatively short dis
tances from one another. The re-
! port of the Department of Education
of the state shows that the demand
for school accommodations in the five
northern counties greatly exceeds
that in the rest of the state, and
shows that the increase in popula-
is more rapid here than elsewhere,
At the present rate of increase in
population it is estimated by the
state school authorities that within
the next five years one hundred OF
more new school buildings will have
to be built in that part of the state
north of New Brunswick.
at is the plan of the board at pres
ent to build moderate sized school al
frequent intervals, and to gradually
increase the number of high schools
in the larger cities and towns. By
this means small children will be able
to attend schools at walking distances
of their homes and the larger schools
will be accessible by trolley from all
nOintS."