States.[1] These two schools were removed subsequently to Framingham
(1853) and Westfield (1844), where they are still active; while
others flourish at Bridgewater (1840), Salem (1854), Worcester
(1874), Fitchburg (1895), North Adams (1897), Hyannis (1897) and
Lowell (1897), that at Framingham being open to women only.
There is also a state normal art school at Boston (1873) for both
sexes.
The commonwealth contributes to the support of textile schools in cities in which 450,000 spindles are in operation. Such schools exist (1909) in Lowell, Fall River and New Bedford. The commonwealth also maintains aboard a national ship a nautical training school (1891) for instruction in the science and practice of navigation. During the Spanish-American War of 1898 more than half of the graduates and cadets of the school enlisted in the United States service.
There are several hundred private schools, whose pupils constituted in 1905–1906 15.7% of the total school-enrolment of the state. Of higher academies and college-preparatory schools there are scores. Among those for boys Phillips Academy, at Andover, the Groton school, and the Mount Hermon school are well-known examples. For girls the largest school is the Northfield Seminary at East Northfield. In Boston and in the towns in its environs are various famous schools, among them the boys’ classical school in Boston, founded in 1635, one of the oldest secondary schools in the country. The leading educational institution of the state, as it is the oldest and most famous of the country, is Harvard University (founded 1636) at Cambridge. In the extreme north-west of the state, at Williamstown, is Williams College (1793), and in the Connecticut Valley is Amherst College (1821), both of these unsectarian. Boston University (Methodist Episcopal, 1867); Tufts College (1852), a few miles from Boston in Medford, originally a Universalist school; Clark University (1889, devoted wholly to graduate instruction until 1902, when Clark College was added), at Worcester, are important institutions. Two Roman Catholic schools are maintained—Boston College (1863) and the College of the Holy Cross (1843), at Worcester. Of various institutions for the education of women, Mount Holyoke (1837) at South Hadley, Smith College (1875) at Northampton, Wellesley College (1875) at Wellesley near Boston, Radcliffe College (1879) in connexion with Harvard at Cambridge and Simmons College (1899) at Boston, are of national repute. The last emphasizes scientific instruction in domestic economy.
For agricultural students the state supports a school at Amherst (1867), and Harvard University the Bussey Institution. In technological science special instruction is given—in addition to the scientific departments of the schools already mentioned—in the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (1865), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (opened in 1865). There are schools of theology at Cambridge (Protestant Episcopal), Newton (Baptist) and Waltham (New Church), as well as in connexion with Boston University (Methodist), Tufts College (Universalist) and Harvard (non-sectarian, and the affiliated Congregational Andover Theological Seminary at Cambridge). Law and medical schools are maintained in Boston and Harvard universities.
Public Institutions.—Massachusetts was in 1903, in proportion to the population, more richly provided with public collections of books than any other state: in that year she had nearly a seventh of all books in public, society and school libraries in the country, and a much larger supply of books per capita (2.56) than any other state. The rate for New York, the only state having a larger number of books in such libraries, being only 1.19. The Boston public library, exceeded in size in the United States by the library of Congress at Washington—and probably first, because of the large number of duplicates in the library of Congress—and the largest free municipal library in the world; the library of Harvard, extremely well chosen and valuable for research; the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (1791); the Boston Athenaeum (1807); the State Library (1826); the New England Historic Genealogical Society (1845); the Congregational Library; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1780); and the Boston Society of Natural History (1830), all in Boston, leave it easily unrivalled, unless by Washington, as the best research centre of the country. The collections of the American Antiquarian Society (1812) at Worcester are also notable. Massachusetts led, about 1850, in the founding of town and city libraries supported by public taxes, and by 1880 had established more of such institutions than existed in all other states combined. In 1900 out of 353 towns and cities only five, representing less than half of 1%, were without free library facilities, and three of these five had association libraries charging only a small fee.
The state is very well supplied with charitable and reformatory institutions, in which noteworthy methods have been employed with success. The state institutions, each governed by a board of trustees, and all under the supervision of the state board of charity, include a state hospital at Tewksbury, for paupers (1866); a state farm at Bridgewater (1887) for paupers and petty criminals; the Lyman school for boys at Westboro, a reformatory for male criminals under fifteen years of age sentenced to imprisonment for terms less than life in connexion with which a very successful farm is maintained for the younger boys at Berlin; an industrial school for girls at Lancaster, also a reformatory school—a third reformatory school for boys was planned in 1909; a state sanatorium at Rutland for tuberculous patients (the first public hospital for such in the United States) and a hospital school at Canton for the care and instruction of crippled and deformed children. Three more hospitals for consumptives were planned in 1909. Under the supervision of the state board of insanity, and each under the government of a board of seven trustees (of whom two are women) are state hospitals for the insane at Worcester (1833), Taunton, Northampton, Danvers, Westboro and Medford, a state colony for the insane at Gardner, a state hospital for epileptics at Palmer, a state school for the feeble-minded at Waltham (governed by six trustees), a state school at Wrentham, state “hospital cottages for children” (1882) at Baldwinville (governed by five trustees), and the Foxboro state hospital for dipsomaniacs and insane. There are also semi-state institutions for the insane at Waverley, Barre, Wrentham and Baldwinville, and nineteen small private institutions, all under the supervision of the state board of insanity. Under the supervision of a board of prison commissioners, which appoints the superintendent and warden of each, are a reformatory prison for women at Sherborn (1877), a state reformatory for men at Concord (1884), a state prison at Boston (Charlestown), and a prison camp and hospital at Rutland (1905). There is a prison department at the state farm which receives misdemeanants. Other institutions receiving state aid, each governed by trustees appointed by the governor, are the Massachusetts general hospital at Boston, the Massachusetts charitable eye and ear infirmary at Boston, the Massachusetts homoeopathic hospital at Boston, the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts school for the blind at South Boston and the soldiers’ home in Massachusetts at Boston. The Horace Mann school in Boston, a public day school for the deaf, the New England industrial school for deaf mutes at Beverly and the Clarke school for the deaf at Northampton are maintained in part by the state. Finally, many private charitable corporations (about 500 in 1905) report to the state board of charity, and town and city almshouses (205 in 1904) are subject to visitation. The Perkins Institution is memorable for its association with the fame of S. G. Howe (q.v.), whose reforms in charity methods were felt through all the charitable interests of the state. The net yearly cost of support and relief from 1884 to 1904 averaged $2,136,653, exclusive of vagrancy cases (average $31,714). The whole number of paupers, besides vagrants, in 1908 was 23.02 per 1000 of state population, and the cost of relief ($5,104,255) was $1.699 for each inhabitant of the state. The number of sane paupers declined steadily and markedly from 1863 to 1904.
Finance.—Massachusetts is a very rich state, and Boston a very wealthy city. The debt of the state (especially the contingent debt, secured by sinking funds) has been steadily rising since 1888, and especially since 1896, chiefly owing to the erection of important public buildings, the construction of state highways and metropolitan park roadways, the improvement of Boston harbour, the abolition of grade crossings on railways, and the expenses incurred for the Spanish-American War of 1898.
The net direct funded debt (also secured by accumulating sinking funds) in December 1908 was $17,669,372 (3.61 millions in 1893). The average interest on this and the contingent debt ($60,428,223 in December 1908) combined was only 3.35%. The net debts of towns and cities rose in the years 1885–1908 from $63,306,213 to $163,558,325. The county debts in 1908 aggregated $6,076,867. The assessed valuation of realty in the state in 1908 was $2,799,062,707 and of personalty $1,775,073,438. No other state has given so vigorous a test of the ordinary American general-property tax, and the results have been as discouraging as elsewhere. The “dooming” process (i.e. estimation by assessors, without relief for overvaluation except for excess more than 50% above the proper valuation) was introduced in 1868 as a method of securing returns of personalty. But the most rigorous application of the doomage law has only proved its complete futility as an effort to reach unascertained corporate and personal property.[2] Various special
- ↑ This is an especially honourable distinction, for William T. Harris has said that “The history of education since the time of Horace Mann is very largely an account of the successive modifications introduced into elementary schools through the direct or indirect influence of the normal school.”
- ↑ In 1869 the personalty valuation was 60% that of realty; but it steadily fell thereafter, amounting in 1893 to 32%. From 1874–1882 the assessment of realty increased nearly twelve times as much as personalty. In the intervening period the assessed valuation of realty in Boston increased more than 100%, while that of personalty slightly diminished (the corresponding figures for the entire United States from 1860 to 1890 being 172% and 12%), yet the most competent business and expert opinions regarded the true value of personalty as at least equal to and most likely twice as great as that of realty.
