grade and went backwards. The first grade covered two and a half years, or five terms, and was followed by an advanced grade that covered two years. The last term of the first grade included reading, spelling, arithmetic, language, geography, writing, drawing, history, physiology, and philosophy. The first term of the advanced grade dealt with reading, writing, history, composition, physiology, algebra, and philosophy; while the third and fourth terms of this course covered reading, drawing, history, composition and literature, physiology, algebra, geometry, political economy, chemistry, and bookkeeping.
It is evident that the pupils who were able to follow these courses to their completion would be well prepared for real high-school work. Along with this guide went a series of suggestions to teachers on methods of teaching.
At the time covered by this report (1881 and 1882) the town situation seems to have been in general very satisfactory. In Prescott the attendance was larger than ever before; “the scholars seem to study for the sake of learning”; but there was a great drawback in the irregularity of attendance, “as is the case in all frontier towns” and others as well. “The school is being graded as rapidly as possible.”
In Tombstone the session of 1881–82 was the second, and started off with 135 pupils the first day. The schoolhouse was divided into two rooms for two teachers, but was not big enough; the Turnverein Hall was rented, and a third teacher employed; then the Presbyterian Church and a fourth teacher were secured. The average attendance that year was 188; the several private schools opened the year before now gave place to the public schools, and patent benches were put into the schoolhouse owned by the district. On December 28, 1882, the enrollment was 276, with an average attendance of 240. There were then five teachers in the school, counting the principal. The six grades, as required in the public-school manual (five primary and one advanced), were provided, and the advanced grade “is prepared for high-school work, which it is now doing in part.” In this connection Prof. M. H. Sherman, then superintendent of Tombstone, recommended the establishment of a high school, and this seems to have been and is perhaps to be properly counted as the real beginning of advanced educational work in the Territory.
In 1881 Prof. George C. Hall reported the Tucson schools as organized into three divisions: Primary, with four grades; grammar, with four; a high school, with literary and scientific courses covering three years. The pupils were graded, and separate schools for boys and for girls had been abolished. It now has four regular and two special teachers—in Spanish and music. In 1883, $40,000 of short-time bonds for a new schoolhouse were issued.[1] The high school at
- ↑ Session Laws of Arizona, 1883, ch. 34.
