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| Mansfield PA and Richmond Township in Tioga County PA |
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in and near Mansfield including Richmond, Sullivan, Rutland, Covington
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Visit the History Center on Main Street at 83 North Main Street. We also have a locaton at 61 North Main Street. Regular hours are noon to 3 T, W Th or by appointment. Also visit us on Facebook |
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Mansfield in the Seventies
An Interesting Sketch by a Former Resident Showing Marked Changes
– “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Local Talent
In looking over some old paper recently I found among them the enclosed
programme a drama entitled Uncle Tom’s Cabin played by the Good Templars
of Mansfield on Friday evening, February twenty-seventh, eighteen hundred
and seventy-four, being thirty-one years ago.
| Drama
Uncle Tom’s Cabin Presented by the Good Templars at Union Hall, Mansfield Friday Eve, Feb. 27, 1874 Programme Quartette, Home on the Rushing Sea Recitation, Prayer and Potatoes, Ells Seeley Drama – Six Acts Uncle Tom ……………. Everard Wilcox George Harris ………… Lee Smith George Shelby ………… Henry Saxton St. Clair ………….. Alba Welch Phineas Fletcher …………… D.L. Wilcox Gumption Cute ………. Fred Allen Mr. Wilson ……….Frank Elliott Deacon Perry & Mann …….. H. Johnson Shelby ………….. Homer Kingsley Haley & Sambo ……….. Dee Gaylord Legree ………… George Spurr Tom Locker ………… Manford Bartlett Marks …….. J.S. Hoard Eva …………….. Maggie Elliott Eliza ……………. Ella Middaugh Aunt Chloe & Cassy ……… Linnie Wilcox Marie …………. Lydia Baker Ophelia …………… Fannie Spurr Topsy …….. Rose Voorhees Song – Poor Old Slave ……. Company |
North Main Street in Mansfield in the 1870s as Henry Johnson saw it. The brick building was the Elliott drug store and is the only building in this photo that remains. All the wooden buildings were replaced by brick buildings over a few decades.The large building on corner [three stories] was the Soldiers Orphans School. The Shepard-Bailey building replaced it in 1904. BC Tech and Cummings Jewelers occupy yhat corner now. |
The writer well remembers with what interest this play was presented. Union Hall was packed full to overflowing, standing room was at a premium, and many turned away who could not find room. Many of the best citizens of Mansfield were members of the Good Templars at that time.
Of the company who took part in this drama, I do not know of only two who now reside in Mansfield; several have gone to their reward and the others scattered to the four winds. It is surprising to think what changes will take place in just a few short years. To one who once lived in Mansfield and enjoyed so many happy years there, can only look back and think of the good time with the friends who are now gone.
On August 20, 1870, the writer, then a young man, first saw the beauties of the town of Mansfield, coming from Troy, PA, by stage on a visit to one of your still honored citizens, Mr. Henry Johnson and family.
Mansfield at that time was not what it is today, with beautiful brick blocks, fine residences, churches, school buildings, park, etc. My first glimpses of Main street was to see the building until recently occupied by the Ross Cigar Company, standing in the street in front of the Dr. Elliott drug store, being moved from the corner of Elmira and North Main street to its present site, then known as the Ben Bailey store. Dr. Elliott’s store and the little brick building near the Baptist church were the only brick buildings in the town at that time. L. Cummings was at that time erecting the building recently burned, known as the Hotel Allen, for the orphan school. The west side of Main street was a row of low wooden buildings. First came Westley Pitts, groceries; Dr. Elliott, drugs and post office; James Webster, groceries; Dr. Cole, drugs and groceries; Reuben Holden, groceries; and lastly William Hollands’ harness shop in a small wooden building on the corner where Roses’ store is now located. Hiram Middaugh was building the Episcopal church that summer. On the corner were now stands the bank block, Mr. J.W. Willhelm had a dry goods store in a small wooden building. Where now stands the Allen block was a residence known as the Smythe house surrounded by tall evergreen trees; that house was moved back near the Presbyterian church. On the corner where now stands the Pitts block, Allen Petterson’s father had a barber shop in a small wooden building. A little to the south of this building Pitts Brothers & Murdough was located, doing a dry goods and grocery business, in a wooden building, and in the upper rooms Ross & Williams had their business offices.
Instead of a short visit in Mansfield as the writer planned, I engaged to work for the firm of Elliott, Clark & Company – S.B. Elliott, M.L. Clark, A.J. Drake, H.L. Johnson, and G.D. Spurr – sash and blinds, and became a citizen of Mansfield. In 1882 I moved from Mansfield to Elmira, where I have since resided. Have been a constant reader of the Advertiser, and it always comes like a letter from an old friend.
Hoping I have not tried your patience too much, nor used too much space
of your valuable paper, I am most respectfully yours,
Henry S, Johnson
| Mansfield PA and Richmond Township in Tioga County PA - Article added to site 23 MAR 2018 |
Mansfield Advertiser, Jan 1877
Business - Article lists all the businesses in
Mansfield and other pertinent information 12/17 - 3 and 4
Mansfield Advertiser, 24 January 1877, p.3, col.3
& 4
[From the Elmira Advertiser]
The New Tioga and Elmira State Line Railroad
Route
Mansfield - Its Business and Manufacturing
Interests, Etc.
[seventh article]
Mansfield, Tioga County, PA, is one of the most important,
prosperous and promising places on the line of the new and direct railroad route
between Elmira and Blossburg. It is 35 miles in a southwesterly direction from
Elmira, 12 miles south of Tioga Junction, 11 south of Tioga, and 10 north of
Blossburg. The Borough, which was incorporated Feb. 13th, 1857, and the
boundaries of which were enlarged Jan. 14th, 1875, contains, including a
reasonable portion of the resident pupils of its State Normal and Soldiers'
Orphan Schools, about 1,600 population, four churches, Methodist, Baptist,
Presbyterian and Episcopal, a graded school with three teachers, many beautiful
and costly residences, a free reading room, three lawyers, five physicians, one
bank, two hotels, several heavy manufacturing establishments, and numerous
stores and other places of business. The location is the finest in the valley of
the Tioga, being sufficiently elevated above the river to be healthy and
salubrious at all seasons of the year; while the adjacent high hills command
charming views of the surrounding country. The Borough shows the most
unmistakable improvement, and evinces, in a marked degree, the energy, industry
and public spirit of its citizens.
Borough Officials:
Burgess - D.H. Pitts
Council - C.V. Elliott, P.V. Clark, M.A. Cass, L.A.
Ridgway, W.W. Bentley, F.M. Shaw
Clerk - J.W. Adams
As a business place Mansfield, for one of its size, has few
if any equals in northern Pennsylvania. It is the central point of trade and
shipment for a large continuous and wealthy agricultural region; and its future
prospects are by no means less promising because of its new railway
communication which places it within two hours time of Elmira. The following is
intended to be a full and faithful exhibit of its business and professional
interests, aside from details of the State schools, above mentioned, which will
be treated in a subsequent article.
Business and Professional Men:
Mart King, extensive manufacturer of all kinds of common
furniture.
Pitts Bros., dry goods and general merchandise.
J.S. Murdough, dry goods, etc.
Kohler & Chapell, hardware, etc.
O. Elliott & Son, dry goods, etc.
F.A. Allen & Co., hardware
E.O. Crandall & Son, groceries, etc.
T.F. Rolason, groceries, etc.
L. Cummings, groceries, etc.
R.N. Holden, groceries, etc.
H.V. Phelps, groceries.
Bailey & Allen, meat market.
Cummings & Swan, meat market.
C.V. Elliott, drugs, books, etc. [Mr. Elliott is also and
M.D., and the present representative of Tioga county in the State Legislature.]
L.A. Ridgway, drugs, books, etc.
A.J. Cole, drugs and groceries.
N. Kingsley, boots and shoes.
O.V. Elliott, boots and shoes.
Jesse Smith, boots and shoes.
Mrs. Stickney, millinery.
Miss Lamb, millinery.
Wm. Hollands, harness making.
L. Locher, harness making.
A. Peterson, barber.
Decker & Metcalf, sash and blind factory.
V.R. Pratt, postmaster
Pratt & Goodenough, Mansfield Advertiser.
J.W. Adams, F.W. Clark, Henry Allen, lawyers.
C.W. Brown, John Barden, H.G. Smythe, J.P. Morris, Wm.
Barden, physicians.
Ross & Williams, bankers.
United States Hotel, J. Van Osten, [formerly of Havana, NY]
proprietor.
Mansfield Hotel, R.J. Brundage, proprietor.
Beach & Clark, furniture and undertaking.
R.R. Kingsley & Son, tannery.
C. Payne, foundry.
T.H. Bailey, saw mill.
J.M. Bailey, grist mill.
Tioga Iron Works, owned by a Philadelphia Company, and
temporarily closed.
P.V. Clark, Tioga Railroad station agent [longest in
service but one on the route] and an active local dealer in anthracite and
bituminous coals.
H.M. Beeles, art gallery.
U.S. Snover, carriage manufactory.
R. Wilson, blacksmith.
C.M. Stearns, razor strap manufacturer.
Bixby & Howe, coal dealers.
D.A. Gaylord, blacksmith.
Jud Smith, blacksmith.
H. Longwell, carriage manufactory.
Oliver Ide, blacksmith.
J.S. Murdough, cooper shop.
Kimbalt & Close, livery.
Wm. Adams, livery.
G.R. Holden, bakery.
R.E. Olney, jeweler.
R. Crossley, ornamental and landscape gardener.
R.P. Buttles, wagon repair shop.
P.M. Clark, lime and plaster.
George Prutsman, Mansfield Paint Manufactory.
Andrew Sherwood, State Geologist.
O. Newell, dentist.
C.E. Spaulding, L.A. Swan, tailors.
The foregoing indicates a well diversified business and
professional community, and a lively place, possessing excellent trade and
educational facilities. Several of the manufactories of Mansfield and its two
State schools are deserving of special notice, and we can very appropriately
begin with Mart King's great furniture manufactory.
This is the most extensive, popular and successful
furniture manufacturing establishment in all northern Pennsylvania or southern
New York. It is indeed a mammoth concern, and managed by its large hearted,
whole souled and energetic proprietor with consummate tact and ability. It was
established in 1869, and ran until Christmas, 1870, when it was totally
destroyed by fire. Mr. King, after thoughtful and mature consideration concluded
to rebuild; commenced April 1st, 1871, and again resumed shipping goods on the
first of June, the same year, only sixty days after the work of rebuilding
commenced. From that time until the present [it will be six years of the first
of next June] and notwithstanding the almost unparalleled stringency of the
times, this famous establishment has not stopped a day, except holidays, but
kept running at full tilt, ten hours out of every twenty-four, and all its work
sold as fast as turned out. It employs from twenty to twenty-five men, has a
great amount and variety of the most perfect and effective machinery yet
invented by American genius, and is a most interesting place at which to study
human ingenuity as applied to a highly important branch of the mechanical arts.
The articles manufactured are mostly common furniture, for the wholesale trade,
and shipped in the "white" or unfinished state, such as bedsteads, extension
tables, - both of which are made specialties - bureaus, common tables, lounges,
wardrobes, children's cribs, etc., etc. - the quantity being enormous, and every
effort made to have everything as perfect, in both material and workmanship, as
possible. Still, all furniture ordered, to be finished, will be thus turned out,
in first-class style. The amount of lumber used is from 500,000 to 750,000 feet
a year, the price paid for bass and maple being but $10 per thousand feet, and
for ash only $16, delivered. A large and well seasoned stock of all kinds is
kept constantly on hand. Cash "on the spot," is the motto, and the men are paid
in full, and invariably every Saturday night. The business for the first year,
before the loss by fire, was to a copper $12,353.44, and last year the sales
were within a fraction of $50,000, with a prospective increase even in these
"times that try men's souls," during the present manufacturing year.
We found Mr. King [who, by the way, is one of the State
Trustees of the Normal School] a man of most genial nature - quick and keen
intelligence, and endowed with any amount of good, solid, practical common sense
- a commodity far more valuable than gold. He is greatly pleased with the marked
reduction of freights to Elmira and beyond, consequent on the opening of the new
route, and finds it not a little to his advantage, as he deals largely with
furniture warehouses in Elmira, Waverly, Owego, Binghamton, Scranton,
Carbondale, Havana, Watkins, Corning, and many other places on the line of the
Erie, Northern Central, Lehigh Valley, and other railways reached through
Elmira. He sends out no solicitors for trade, but is well and most favorably
known all through a large section of Pennsylvania and New York, and seems to
have no rivals able to compete with him in his line of manufacture. His work
sells itself, and continually calls for more, the prices being exceedingly
reasonable, the quality unsurpassed, and his business magnetism [so to speak] of
the first order. It scarcely need be said, in concluding this paragraph, that
the place of of all others within a hundred miles of Elmira at which to purchase
furniture for the retail trade is the celebrated furniture manufactory of Mart
King, at Mansfield, Tioga County, PA.
The State Normal and Orphan Schools are such unusual
features, in and of themselves, and of such consequence to Mansfield, where they
have been most properly and wisely located, that we feel compelled to devote our
next article, [this being already long enough] almost exclusively to them,
trusting that it may prove interesting to all who believe in a liberal
education, and the best systems and methods under which it can be most
effectually, and at the same time the most economically obtained by those whom
fate and fortune have places in unfortunate or moderate circumstances.
Mansfield Advertiser, 31 January 1877, p.2, col.3,4 & 5
[From the Elmira Advertiser]
The New Tioga and Elmira State Line Railroad Route
Mansfield - Its State Normal and Soldiers' Orphan Schools
[Eighth Article]
The State Normal School in and for the fifth district of
Pennsylvania, located at Mansfield, Tioga County, was recognized as such by
State authority in the year 1862, fifteen years ago. The institution of which it
was the permanent outgrowth was first established as a Wesleyan Seminary in
1854, and intended, under the control of the Methodist Episcopal persuasion, to
become the second Lima. It owed its origin to the active and indefatigable
efforts of an influential citizen named Joseph Hoard, who may always be regarded
as its founder. The building was not completed until 1857, when it was
consecrated as a Seminary and opened under highly favorable auspices. In April,
1858, during its first term, and when occupied by students to its full capacity,
it was burned. An effort was soon thereafter made to rebuild it on a larger
scale, 150 feet in length and five stories high, but after one wing had been
erected, the insurance money having been lost [probably because of some legal
technicality], the requisite funds could not be raised, and the work had to be
abandoned. About the year 1860 or 1861, when thus abandoned, it was suggested
that it be turned into a Normal School for the fifth district of the State,
there being twelve districts, in all. The stockholders offered it to the State,
and appropriations were made by which the building was completed; but many old
obligations remain unpaid, and in 1862, while in an embarrassed condition, and
inadequately furnished, it was "recognized" as before stated, and in 1863,
opened as a State Normal School, with a limited number of students as pupils,
and not a full compliment of teachers. A second failure followed, and it was
finally sold at Sheriff sale on old judgment claims. The sale, however, was
afterwards set aside as illegal, and, at that critical period of its eventful
history, Hon. John Magee, then of Bath, but later of Watkins, came forward in
his generous and characteristic munificence, called for and paid all legal
claims against the property, and put the institution at once on a sound and
practical working basis, to the great joy of its true and active friends, the
people of Mansfield, and county of Tioga - taking security on the redeemed
premises. From that hour the institution prospered, under the able management
detailed below, rapidly extinguished its funded debt, and at the end of a few
years, Mr. Magee magnanimously presented it with the balance due him, amounting
to over $3,300.
In 1863, after Mr. Magee came to the rescue, Prof. F.A.
Allen, [present proprietor and Principal of the State Soldiers' Orphans School]
took charge of the Normal School as Principal and manager, for a term of five
years, assumed and fulfilled the obligations of the Trustees of the State, in
addition to furnishing the building [apparatus, etc., included; and, under his
careful, arduous, and judicious supervision it soon became strongly
self-sustaining. There were 259 students in attendance the first year,
[afterward as high as 400] and a large graduating class was sent out the second
year. At the end of five years Prof. Allen retired from the school, and it has
since been under the direction of Trustees, with Charles H. Verrill, A.M., as
Principal, under whose able management, it has continued to prosper, and is at
the present time on a good and endurable financial foundation. Prof. Verrill
has, in fact, been with the school twelve years, having first became connected
with it as Professor of Mathematics in 1865. He held that position for four
years, was elected Principal in 1869, and has thus been identified with the
institution from the time that its first graduating class were in it as
students. The whole number of pupils on the rolls of the school, since its
recognition in 1862, is 1,200; whole number of graduates 239; and, even in these
very close times it is in a remarkable flourishing condition, the catalogue of
1875-76 showing an attendance of 204 - 106 gentlemen and 98 ladies.
The location is an excellent one, not only so far as
regards its elevated and healthful site but also so far as the village, or
borough, within the boundaries of which it is situated, are concerned; and by a
special act of the Legislature, no intoxicating liquors can be sold, and no
billiard tables kept within a radius of two miles. The salutary consequences of
such an act, which is enforced to the very letter, are too obvious to require
comment. There are now two large and beautiful brick building in use, one having
been built within a few years past, which are heated and ventilated in the most
approved manner, the two [furniture, etc. included] and their ornamental
grounds, costing over $100,000. No better or desirable and comfortable students'
rooms and boarding accommodations can be found in any other educational
institution in the State - every arrangement being attractive, systematic,
health inspiring and complete. The same may be said of the excellent cabinet,
presented by distinguished ............. and the Smithsonian Institute, and
likewise of the apparatus, library, reading room, and also of the "Model
School," where graduates must teach for a given term before they can, under the
laws of Pennsylvania, be permitted to take charge of or teach in the common
schools. The following is the organization of the Normal School, according to
the last published catalogue, which bears the imprint of the "Advertiser
Association, Elmira, 1876," omitting the names of Trustees whose term expired
last year.
Board of Trustees:
Representing Stockholders - John S. Murdough, Daniel H.
Pitts, Elmer R. Backer, Justus B. Clark, Jr., Alonzo M. Spencer, Joseph P.
Morris. M.D., Eugene L. Sperry, Melvin L. Clark, Peter VanNess, John M. Phelps,
Albert Sherwood, Frank M. Shaw.
Representing the State - Hon. Simon B. Elliott, Mart King,
Fordyce A. Allen, Chas. V. Elliott, M.D., Hon. H.W. Williams, Hon. John I.
Mitchell.
Officers of the Board:
John S. Murdough, President.
Peter Van Ness, First Vice-President.
Albert Sherwood, Second Vice-President.
Eugene L. Sperry, Secretary.
Joseph P. Morris, M.D., Corresponding Secretary.
Philip Williams, Treasurer.
Faculty
Charles H. Verrill, A.M. Principal, Professor of Science
and Art of Teaching, and Mental and Moral Philosophy.
Joseph C. Doane, Professor of Natural Sciences.
William H. Bradford, Professor of Mathematics.
Miss Mary J. Tomlinson, A.M. Preceptress,, Instructor of
Latin and English Grammar.
Miss Dora M. Woodruff, B.F., Instructor of Reading, and
Assistant in Mathematics.
Miss Eliza J. Shaw, M.E., Principal of Model School.
Mark C. Baker, Instructor of Vocal and Instrumental Music.
Henry S. Johnson, Steward.
Mrs. Henry S. Johnson, Matron.
The foregoing [Charles V. Elliott being a member of the
current Legislature, and Hon. John I. Mitchell a member of Congress] are
gentlemen and ladies of high character an intelligence, and competent for the
faithful discharge of all duties incumbent on them; and the Normal School with
which they are connected enjoys a deservedly wide popularity, and is equal to
the best of its exalted class in the Keystone State. It may not be amiss in
passing to state that, recognizing the fact that gold and greenbacks are nearly
on a par with each other, and the present stringency in money matters, prices
for boarding students have been reduced $18 per year - the present term being as
follows: Tuition and boarding, [including room rent, fuel, lights and washing],
61 per term. Tuition with boarding, $12 per term. All students who design to
teach receive $7 deduction per term. Soldiers' orphans receive $14 deduction per
term. At graduation students receive $50. Tuition and boarding in Model School,
$30 per term. Tuition without boarding, $5 per term.
There are three terms of 14 weeks each in the year, known
as the Fall, Winter and Spring terms. The present winter term commenced Dec.
14th, 1876, and the next term will commence March 27th, 1877; next commencement
day, June 28th, 1877. The Normal School Law of Pennsylvania provides for three
distinct courses of instruction, Elementary, Scientific and Classical - each of
which embraces a large variety of studies, and the whole embracing all the
requisites of a thoroughly practical education. For full particulars of the
institution, its studies, courses, examinations, diplomas, government,
regulations, etc., send to the Principal for copy of annual catalogue, with the
full understanding that the school is open to pupils of New York and other
States as well as those of Pennsylvania, there being quite a number present from
various counties in the Empire State, and two from the city of Elmira, Namely,
Henry e. Lathrop and Edgar R. Flatt. There is probably not another institution
of learning within anything like a similar short distance of Elmira, which
possesses equally economic, and yet all sufficient facilities for acquiring the
qualifications of first class teachers, and an ample education for all the
requirements of business and professional life.
The State Soldiers' Orphan
School
This is one of the many benevolent and most commendable
institutions of like character in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The plan of
providing for and education all of the helpless orphans of soldiers, who fell in
the War of the Rebellion, up to the age of sixteen years, and thus giving them a
good and right start in the world, which tends to make them good and true men
and women, instead of vagrants, paupers and criminals, was first advocated by
Governor Andrew Curtin, while he was yet in the Gubernational chair, and he is
said to have been irresistibly impelled to the great and glorious work by two
orphan children asking alms at his own door on a national Thanksgiving day, who,
in answer to his inquiries as to why they were compelled to beg, informed him,
with tears in their eyes, that their father was killed at the battle of
Gettysburg, and that their poor mother had since died. At his solicitation the
Pennsylvania Railroad company first subscribed $50,000, as a "commencement
fund," to be devoted to the plan and purpose of establishing Soldiers' Orphans
Schools throughout the State. This generous act was soon followed by a special
message to the Legislature, and in due time one of the most praise-worthy,
grandly ...................... and noble public charities of the age took
definite form. According to the annual report of the State Superintendent of
Orphans Schools for 1875, the whole
number of orphans admitted into these up to that time, since the system went
into operation was 7,858. The cost of the system for 1875 was $123,690.76 and
the total cost to the State, up to May 31st, 1875, was $4,4238,226.02 - four
million, four hundred and thirty-eight thousand, two hundred and twenty-six
dollars and two cents, exclusive of buildings. The number of pupils in the
schools and homes of the State, May 31st, 1875, was 2,780. Number of schools and
institutes in which there are soldiers' orphans,m 28. Of course, as time rolls
onward, the number of these orphans, below the age of sixteen, will rapidly
decrease, and it is a grave and pertinent question, as to whether the schools
should not be perpetuated by State authority, for the benefit of society at
large, and indigent orphans, other than those of soldiers, who will otherwise
grow up [many of them at least] in ignorance and wretchedness, to become the
victims of degradation, crime and disease, and the inmates, at a much larger
public expense, of poor houses, jails, penitentiaries and insane asylums. This
is a subject that deserves and should receive most careful attention and
consideration, not only in the State of Pennsylvania, but in every State in the
Union.
Prof. F.A. Allen, former Principal of the Normal School, and a gentleman of great intelligence, sagacity, ability, high attainments, and superior organizing, and executive power, is the Principal and proprietor of the Mansfield State Soldiers' Orphan School. It was first established as a "Model School," in connection with the Normal School. In 1866, he sent to the State authorities for, and received 50 orphans, 25 boys and 25 girls - to be cared for, and 150 were tendered by the Superintendent. When he retired from the supervision of the Normal School in 18-, these orphans were left on his hands, and became the nucleus of a regular Orphan School. The number of pupils, including some day scholars, soon ran up to 110, and subsequently to 218, the orphans being taken at ten years of age and retained until sixteen. The State pays $150 each, per annum, which covers all expenses, board, tuition, clothing and medical attendance; also funeral expenses in case of death. This small amount per capita, as the number thus far has averaged about two hundred, suffices, in connection with a food farm under a perfect system, to handsomely sustain the school and even make it profitable. The Principal owns the building and farm, and both are kept in prime condition and order. The sanitary and all other arrangements are admirable, and the children are well clothed, provided with abundance of good wholesome food, heat, comfortable and well ventilated sleeping rooms and beds, and are rapidly progressive, healthy, contented and happy. The school is divided into five grades, with a teacher for each grade or department, and superintended by Prof. V.R. Pratt, [a graduate of the Normal School] who took charge of it as the acting and active Principal, at the end of the commencement of the second year - Prof. Allen acting as proprietor and general financial manager. During the past five or six years Prof. Pratt has had the entire direct control and management, as much as if he had been the actual proprietor. He is reported as possessing fine qualifications as a teacher, and as a kind hearted and genial gentleman. The school has quite a number of lady employees, in addition to its five teachers, and the policy is to have as few changes as possible. All the studies are embraced under three heads - Languages, Mathematics and Physical Sciences. In the summer season the boys work two hours a day on the farm, without interfering with their regular studies, un the supervision of a kind hearted, intelligent and practical farmer, and receive that attention and direction that a father would bestow on his sons. The girls are carefully taught in all kinds of housekeeping and plain sewing.
Two bands of music have been organized for the boys, and
instruments purchased, costing $285, and good proficiency has been attained.
Three thorough inspections a year, of all the Orphans' Schools of the State, are
made by competent male and female officials; and under the last year's
inspection the Mansfield School is reported "Number 1" - a fact that speaks
volumes in its favor, and needs no clarification.
"A New Departure"
The methods of teaching in the school [which is open on
easy terms to other than orphan children] are left almost exclusively, by the
Superintendent, to the discretion of Prof. Allen; and they are indeed a new
departure, and found by actual experience to be a vey great improvement over the
old, for a late annual report to the State Superintendent. Prob. Allen, after
stating the division of the school into five grades, of about forty pupils each,
with separate rooms and teachers, and the three distinct departments of study
under the head of "School Room Work" says: "Believing, as we do, that the
elements of these departments of study may be taught successfully to the
youngest child permitted to enter our school, we select from each such braches
as seem best to meet the wants of our children, and such as we deem best
calculated to develop harmoniously to faculties of body, mind and heart
physiology, botany and local geography, in science; the elements of geometry and
process in arithmetic and its tables in mathematics, the constant correction of
improprieties in speech, and the no less constant work of teaching how to tell
what they know, in good English, together with the training each child to write
so that all school requests are in writing, in the department of languages, we
find not only highly useful but practicable. Our teaching in the main is given
without books. The subject of study, taken up, is first taken into the mind and
heart of the teacher, who seldom fails to give to it a life of freshness that
appetizes the class, thus creating a desire for more. After each class
recitation pupils are required to reproduce the lesson in writing before the
class. It will readily be seen that this process accrues a closer attention
during recitation, greater accuracy in language and clearness in thinking."
Moral Instruction
Under this head Prof. Allen says: "No system of training or
development can be properly called education , that does not embrace the moral
as well as the physical and intellectual. In our system of instruction we have
never been able to discover a point at which moral instruction should be
dropped, even for a single day or hour. And though we have stated times for
daily devotional exercises, and Sabbath periods for Sabbath School instruction,
our constant aim is to so blend the three, in the every day concerns of life,
that when we shall have finished our labors with these children, their
development may be symmetrical and in the right direction."
In a still later report, in treating of this new method,
the Professor says:"In this work we deal with the thing taught, and not what the
books say about it, If the subject considered is chemistry, philosophy, etc.,
the foundation is laid in giving ocular and tangible demonstrations. The pupil
does, as well as sees and hears, as the collection of specimens in all these
departments give ample testimony."
We have copied the foregoing quotations for the benefit of
those who make teaching their avocation, as well deserving thoughtful
consideration and as far as possible of practical application; and this long
article cannot be more appropriately closed than by quoting from the State
Superintendent's report to Gov.l Hartranft for the year 1857 the following
language of Mrs. E.W. Hutter, the lady Inspector appointed by the State. She
says: "We send out these orphans with robust frames, made so by the healthy work
in the kitchen and on the farm, which they have learned to perform with ease and
skill, and at the same time obtaining the great treasure of a solid English
education, which may be the foundation of still great attainments. The girls
learn to bake and cook, to sew on the machine, and to cut and fit dresses, to
make buttonholes, etc., etc., in fact all that pertains to make a woman a good
housekeeper. Many of the boys learn farming, or trades of different kinds,
tailoring, plumbing, carpenter work, and other useful mechanical trades, while
some are clerks and bookkeepers."
"The results of the Soldiers' Orphan Schools are perhaps
best seen in the character and conduct of these who have already left their
fostering care, having reached the required age of sixteen years. A large
percentage of these are now industrious valuable citizens, a credit and blessing
to the State that reared them. Many of girls are well married. A large number of
those, who attended the Normal School, are teaching."
"In fact, from all the schools we meet these dear orphaned
children, now grown to manhood and womanhood, filling positions of trust, and I
feel that the State may well be proud of the part she has taken in training them
up for the lives of usefulness."
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