<\/p>\n
Today let us consider Waterville’s school buildings as they have changed and developed over the years.<\/p>\n
The oldest building still standing that was once used as a school is now an apartment house on Upper College Avenue, opposite the nursing home. It was built in 1853 as a result of a compromise that ended a heated controversy.<\/p>\n
At that time, 129 years ago, the population of Waterville was growing and need of schools in relatively new sections of the town became imperative. Both the area west of Elm Street and the section above the college campus demanded school buildings, and for four successive town meetings the voters could not decide between them. While the town then had 17 school districts, 16 of them were outside Ticonic Village, and each of those 16 had its own one-room rural school. Ticonic Village had two schools, the little yellow school house behind the meetinghouse and town hall on Front Street, and a brick schoolhouse on College Avenue near where the American Legion Building now stands.<\/p>\n
Finally in 1853 a committee of ten citizens came up with a compromise that the voters accepted. It called for two buildings, thus satisfying both regional groups. A new schoolhouse was built at the corner of Pleasant and School Streets, and another was erected on Upper College Avenue, the one that is now an apartment house.<\/p>\n
Soon after the State passed legislation for public high schools in 1870, Waterville opened such a school on the second floor of the School Street building. Later it was used entirely for a high school. In 1921 the city decided to adopt the 6-3-3 system, providing for a Junior High School between the six elementary grades and the three years of Senior High School. That demanded a Junior High building. It was decided to tear down the old high school on School Street, and erect on the expanded inta large. modern Junior High School. That opened in 1922. When the big, complex present High School building was opened west of the Messalonskee and the high school on Gilman Street became the Junior High, the first Junior High became the Pleasant Street elementary school. Another school building still standing was used as a school so recently that some boys and girls who have not yet finished high school may have attended it. It was the South Grammar School now the Durbin Apartments off Gold Street,<\/p>\n
In 1888 Waterville had opened its first designated grammar school, for the first time dividing the elementary system into two parts, one still called elementary, the other called grammar school. That first grammar school was the North Grammar at the corner of Pleasant and North Streets. Many citizens still living attended that school. My own 60-year old son attended there when Miss Gertrude Lord was principal. By that time it had become a full elementary school with all grades from kindergarten to six.<\/p>\n
By the turn of the century the populous south end was demanding a grammar school of its own and in 1903 they got it with a new building on Gold Street. Less than three years leter, on the night of March 9, 1906, that building, in the midst of a raging blizzard. was destroyed by fire. The city acted with unusual promptness. Only three days later on March 12, the City Council appointed a committee to arrange at once for the burned building’s replacement. The committee was composed of Mayor Edgar Jones, Dennis Bowman, Parker Hannaford Harry Belliveau, and George Fred Terry. It is noteworthy that as late as 1906 there was no woman on that kind of city committee.<\/p>\n
Faced as we are today with inflationary costs of everything, it is with a touch of yearning nostalgia that we tell you what that big, brick building cost 75 years ago. Fully equipped and ready for use, the first South Grammar building in 1903 cost $36,100. Its replacement in 1906 cost even less, $34,000. Everything was cheaper in those days. Skilled carpenters seldom got more than two dollars a day, and sometimes worked for $1.50. Unskilled labor was a dollar a day for a twelve-hour day.<\/p>\n
A breakdown of that 1906 cost is instructive. The general contractor Henry Winters received $22,060. A. F. French put in all electrical wiring and fixtures for $1,442. For the entire plumbing job Gideon Picher got $1,070. The architect and inspector, now called clerk of works, together were paid $2,450. Indeed the total cost included $1,600 for cleaning up debris from the burned building and landscaping the lot.<\/p>\n
By 1910 the old high school at Pleasant and School Streets had become badly overcrowded, and the city decided to put up a new and larger high school building on Gilman Street. Starting in 1912, the builders encountered quicksand, and it took a lot of maneuvering before a sound foundation could be laid. The job was finally completed and the new high school opened in the fall of 1913, a few months after I had graduated from Colby. For the next ten years the old high school on School Street was used as an elementary school until it was replaced by the Junior High School. That Junior High School to which I have already referred, was opened in 1922 when Leon Tebbetts was mayor. Through a relationship I had not intended when I joined the Colby faculty in 1923, I came to know Mayor Tebbetts very well. I was asked to supply the pulpit of the Universalist Church while they sought a new pastor. The mayor was a leading trustee of the church. In that way I came to have intimate acquaintance not only with him, but also with Postmaster Edgar Brown, George and Mary Vose, and the church’s foremost philanthropist Dr. George Averill. Mayor Tebbetts told me interesting anecdotes about the building of the Junior High School.<\/p>\n
There was vigorous opposition because some people considered the proposed building an outrageous extravagance. Never before had any building in Waterville had a cost of six figures. To spend more than $100,000 for a school house was just plain nonsense. Yet not only the Board of Education, but also the Board of Trade shortly to become the Chamber of Commerce, supported the plan. With their help Mayor Tebbetts won support of the city government, which then had two bodies, aldermen and common council, and they voted to erect the building. It had strong support from the Waterville Sentinel.<\/p>\n
Another factor was used by the mayor to convince the councilors. The high school was becoming seriously overcrowded, and adoption of the 6-3-3 system would place grades 7,8, and 9 in the Junior High, leaving only grades 10, 11 and 12 to be accommodated in the high school.<\/p>\n
Mr. Tebbetts said he received surprising support from heavily Democratic Ward VII, where traditionally the inhabitants, predominantly French\/Canadian, had felt that their children should finish schooling at the end of the elementary grades. A complete change had taken place in that community, and by 1920 most of the French people wanted their children to have secondary education. They felt that a three year Junior High School, paving the way to the last three years of the conventional high school would help keep the youngsters in school.<\/p>\n
When the Junior High was opened in 1922, Waterville had eight elementary schools in operation: Walnut, Myrtle, Brook, North Grammar, Western Avenue, Redington, and Grove. There was no school west of the Messalonskee, the one-room school on Mayflower Hill having by that time been closed.<\/p>\n
Today Waterville operates only four school buildings: the Brookside and Pleasant Street elementary schools, the new Junior High School on West River Road, and the spacious, comprehensive Senior High School just west of the Messalonskee, which took over the 9th grade again and\u00b7 became a four-year school. Jointly with the State, the City also operates in the old Gilman Street Building the Kennebec Valley Vocational School.<\/p>\n
As population west of the stream increased the, city had put up the Averill Elementary School in that area, but has closed it recently, transporting its children to Pleasant Street and Brookside.<\/p>\n
One by one, the many single room schoolhouses in outlying parts of Waterville have all been closed, and buses transport the children into town. Along with changes in school buildings have come significant changes in curriculum and administration of Waterville schools. But we must leave that story for another broadcast, and now say goodbye until next week.<\/p>\n
Year: 1982<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #1326, Broadcast on November 7, 1982<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35294,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}