In the 1920's, Attorney James Pollock Kohler wrote a series of letters about his early years as a boy in Milton Pa. The Miltonian published them under the heading "Reminiscences of Milton by J.P; Kohler".
This letter, published on June 30th 1921 talks of the schools in early Milton, including the school house on Upper Market, the brick school house on Broadway, the Lancastarian School and the Center Street School. He describes the teachers, and lists the faults of the education at the time.
SCHOOLS
In these days of graduating exercises, a word about the Milton schools of other days may be interesting.
Some one led me by the hand to a little school house on Upper Market street across from the Milton Academy, built later. The teacher's name was Tharp. I have a hazy recollection of a shirt waist and of being led away again. The school house disappeared some years after the Academy was completed.
My first real school experience was in the primary course in the brick school house on Broadway, which stood opposite the site of the present Catholic church. The building stood back from the roadway and had considerable land to the East and rear. This land afforded ample playground, and the boys and girls, before and after school, and. at recess, made good use of it. "Catcher" was very popular, because they could run all around the building. In the rear was ample room for playing round town, a game similar to baseball, but with fewer players. "Anthony Over" was also played, which game consisted in throwing a ball over the school house to "sides" located in front and behind. The slight incline to the left afforded splendid sliding from Broadway to the alley in the rear. There were three school rooms in this building and a cellar for coal. Only two of these rooms were used, the Western one at one time by Joseph Rhoads, for a private school. Here this eminent teacher fitted young men for college. The Eastern room was in charge of Miss Mary Robins. The "Miss" was always prefixed, because she was more like a mother than a teacher.
Across Broadway, and where the Catholic Church now stands, was the celebrated, academy in which Kirkpatrick "led his boys up the steep hill of science." The school was a thing of the past at that time and stood closed and mute until Barr and Wertman made of it a storage place for their sleighs and buggies. The hill on which it stood was much higher then and it was surrounded with land, running back to Walnut street with a wide strip in front.
One Follmer, whom the boys called "Shoefbuck," wielded the rod in the secondary department of the Lancastrian school on Center street, to which I was transferred. There had been a shortage of teachers when this man was selected. He believed in and practiced corporal punishment and led his victims into the cellar from which yells came up through the floor. He was not popular with the boys and when one day a load of cord wood came to the front of the school the driver, not knowing where to deliver it, suddenly opened the school room door and yelled: "Shoefbuck, where do you want the wood?" Follmer received a nickname that never left him.
I distinctly recall a time when she kept me after school because I would not "hold out" my hand to receive the tap of her ruler. She very carefully, and in true motherly style, laid me across her lap and prepared my posterior for a proper application of her corrective treatment. Her preparation involved the unbuttoning of three small buttons, and the field was hers. This one does was all even needed. Two large maps hung on the front wall near the teacher's desk. They were labelled "Eastern Hemisphere" and "Western Hemisphere." On the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and other waters, were pictured ships in full sail. These maps were old and yellow, cracked and torn, but their contents were impressed indelibly upon my little mind. No teacher ever explained them, no word about geography was mentioned and perhaps they had been used in a higher class, but from those maps came our first idea about the earth on which we live. Plain wooden desks and benches were used and both were carved with initials so that not a square inch of smooth surface could be found. Deep gashes by jack knife blades were everywhere that destructive boys could find room for them. The girls' side was kept better and it had none of the rough house that the larger boys indulged in.
John McMurtrie for a while taught in this room and afterwards Mrs. Gray held sway for many years. Also in this room one "Charley" Buoy taught a pay school during the summer months. He afterwards became a minister. I well remember the neatly fitting calf -skin boots that he wore and how, with his feet on the desk, he seemed to admire the delicacy of their workmanship.
But on the second floor of the Lancasterian school was the scene of the greatest activity. Here at different times presided "Nels" Wagner, "Professor" John and Joseph Rhoads. "Prof." Reimensnyder was ahead of these. The older boys and girls in this room were merging into manhood and womanhood. The three "R's" were well drilled into the younger craniums, while Latin and Greek were taught the older scholars. From this school young men went to Yale and Princeton, possibly with a few conditions, but they went, and stayed. This was the High School of Milton.
Of these three teachers, Wagner was probably the best liked. Just out of college he brought to the class room a fund of useful knowledge. It was not always hard grind with him, but he lightened the task with a bit of wit now and then, an amusing story and the reading of a poem or bit of prose. One of his stories was about a young fellow who took his girl to a festival. He bought some cookies and began eating them. He said to his girl: "Sal, these cookies are good, you ought to buy yourself some."
There comes a time in the lives of most of us when knowledge becomes attractive, when our curiosity concerning thing's worth while is quickened and when self-government makes discipline unnecessary. Wagner had the power to open the youthful mind. I do not recall that he ever used the rod, or spoke a harsh word, but I do know that going to school to him was a pleasure, not a task.
"Prof" John was different. He was haughty, dignified, severe and a disciplinarian. He punished.
"Shinny" in those days was a recess game. Every boy had his bent locust stick and took it to school with him. It was of more value than many marbles, though not in the class with skates or "pungs." When recess was over the shinny was brought into the school room. As no particular recepticle was provided the boy had great difficulty in safely disposing of his shinny. The desks had iron legs in which were open spaces that a shinny could be placed underneath and lengthwise of the desk. I had great trouble keeping my feet away from my shinny thus stored and it would knock up against the desk legs and make a noise. My punishment, by this Professor (?) was to walk to the front of the room, near his desk, in sight of the whole school, take hold of the shinny at each end, lean forward and downward till the shinny nearly I touched the floor, and. then keept it there. In addition to the humiliation of this position, there was an excessive degree of backache and other muscular strains that took much joy out of the game of shinny. I am sure Nels Wagner would have corrected this evil with less pain and with a diplomacy that would have made a repetition impossible.
Of "Josie" Rhoads I can only say that he is a dear memory. He was every inch a teacher. Walking to or from school, with his head bent and his hands locked at his back, he seemed to be in continuous thought. He did not see you when he passed you, but in the class room he was strictly business. They say he had a certain skate strap with a large buckle in the end and punishment was administered by asking the recalcitrant to lean over with head down when out would shoot the strap and buckle where the pants were tightest. I managed to escape the strap and buckle but others mentioned it with awe and there was strict discipline in his school room. He was insisting upon having good recitations and upon keeping the sluggards after school to mend their broken records. I had been away and came back to school after several years. Stenography then a new art, had interested me and I had picked up the consonants and vowels sufficiently to write simply words. Vanity prompted me to spread these words in chalk on the blackboard. I wrote things that I supposed no one could read. One day in the corridor outside of the school - room a visitor's bench was wrecked by some of the larger boys. An investigation was necessary and our teacher held a little court and called witness after witness before him. My turn came and the questioning began. To my amazement and chagrin he took down my statement in shorthand. I never after that wrote any shorthand on the black board.
The fault with the teaching in those days was too much cramming and too little explanation. The twenty-six rules in Brown's Grammar were recited backwards and forwards by the class, but few understood their meaning. The rules for multiplying or dividing fractions were on the tongues, but the reasons for the rules were not explained. When explained, memorizing the rule becomes unnecessary. In spelling and reading the drill was perfect. Every Friday afternoon a spelling match took place and good spellers came out of the school. But penmanship was almost untaught. A boy that could not make a straight line with pen or pencil was permitted to buy at "Benny" Haag's bookstore a Spencerian Copy Book, made up of page after page of artistic birds, deer, spread eagles and other such truck. These books he was allowed to bring to school, and during the half hour of writing before noon, he could waste his time on this nonsense instead of making plain letters of the alphabet in a plain way. Never at the blackboard were the letters "y" and "h" written and their slants and proportions pointed out. Of course all these things have been corrected in the schools of later years; and good penmanship today is not the valuable accomplishment it was then, when it was the open sesame to the better positions.
I still read in The Miltonian, the names of class mates in the old Center street school. With it's four rooms and large playground it was a busy and noisy place. And strangest thing of all, some of those that were considered dull and backward forged to the front in later life. It is because larger bodies move more slowly, but more surely? Do the scintillators burn out too young? Johnson said that Pope flew higher but that Dryden stayed longed on the wing. But most of these names may now be found elsewhere than in the Miltonian. JAMES P. KOHLER.
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More Reminiscences of Milton by J.P. Kohler [Index]
More About The Schools In Milton:
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Find More Stories & History Of Milton
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Education History
From Bell’s History of Northumberland County 1891:
Educational effort at Milton, no less than the material development of the town, received its early impetus from Andrew Straub. On the 30th of August, 1798, he conveyed to John Teitsworth, John Cochran, John Chestnut, John Armstrong, and George Calhoon, trustees, lot No. 90 of the town plot, “for and in consideration of the great desire” he had “to promote the education of youth in the town of Milton” and at the nominal sum of five shillings. It was expressly stipulated that the lot in question should be used “for the only purpose of a school house being erected thereon and a regular English or other school being kept for the education of youth in the town of Milton, and whatsoever other uses may be considered as beneficial to said school by the trustees thereof”.
At the time this deed was executed a school house had already been erected. It was a small log building, and stood on the triangular lot of ground on Lower Market street near the location of a brick school building erected there in 1872. The first teacher was James Cochran, and his immediate successors were James McGuigan and William H. Sanderson. This was the only school house in the lower part of the town from the time of its erection in 1796 until the year 1807. It continued to be used for educational purposes until 1838.
In 1802 a one-story frame school building was erected on Broadway at the site of the school house burned at that place in 1880. This was attended by the school population of the upper part of the village, and the first teacher was John L. Finney, subsequently register and recorder of Northumberland county.
Hitherto no provision had been made for the education of the German element, which formed a considerable part of the population. In 1807 a log school house was built on Mahoning street by the joint efforts of the Reformed and Lutheran congregations; it was designed to serve for both school and church purposes, and the school conducted here combined religious and secular instruction. But it did not prosper, perhaps because the English schools offered superior advantages, and the enterprise was abandoned.
In 1838 the log school house originally erected on Lower Market street was sold and removed to the vicinity of the old stone mill at the mouth of Limestone run, where it was rebuilt and used as a blacksmith shop. Its former site was marked by a depression in the ground, which formed a pond and in the winter afforded skating for the juvenile population that congregated at its successor, a brick school house of two rooms erected in 1838 by Thomas S. Mackey under the auspices of the local board of directors.
Secondary education early received attention at Milton. In 1815 Joseph D. Biles established an English school at the Broadway school house, adding Latin and Greek to his curriculum in the following year. This gained for his school the name of “The Milton Academy”, thus for the first time applied to an educational institution at this place. In 1817 it numbered among its students John F. Wolfinger, for many years a member of the Northumberland county bar, Samuel Pollock, and James Pollock, afterward Governor of Pennsylvania. But this school did not long continue, and other pedagogues succeeded Biles whose inclination did not impel them to continue the advanced course of study that he established. The Broadway school house continued in use for educational purposes until 1849, when it was sold by the directors and rebuilt at a different location as an African Methodist church. In the same year it was replaced by a new brick school building, which was destroyed in the fire of 1880.
The Lancasterian system was introduced in 1830, and was the next attempt to establish a school of advanced standing. This was so called from Joseph Lancaster, an English educator by whom it was elaborated, and its distinguishing feature was the employment of pupils in the higher classes, or the most proficient pupil in each class, as assistants to the teacher. The Milton Lancasterian Association, of which Henry Frick and Joseph Rhoads were the leading members, introduced the system at this place. The school was conducted in a building at the site of the Center Street school house, owned by the association was erected in 1830. The first principal was A. T. W. Wright, a gentleman of fine education from Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and under his administration the school attained a fair degree of prosperity and popularity. He was succeeded by Charles Guenther, who did not, unfortunately, possess the qualifications of his predecessor; the association became involved financially, and its property was sold at sheriffs sale. It was purchased by Henry Frick, and subsequently passed to the school directors; they divided it into three rooms, two of which, those on the east and west, were used for school purposes, while the apartment in the center was appropriated to the purposes of an armory.
The Milton Academy, the leading educational institution of the West Branch valley during the period of its existence, originated with the Rev. George Junkin, pastor of the Presbyterian church and the moving spirit in many public enterprises of a moral and educational character. Through his efforts a stock company was formed, composed of Samuel Hepburn, Joseph Rhoads, William H. Sanderson, Samuel Teas, Sarah Pollock, and others, by whom a plain, one-story brick building was erected at a cost of four hundred dollars at the brow of the hill on the north side of Broadway, and a short distance to the east of the frame school building previously mentioned. The entrance was on the western side, and from its elevated location the academy commanded a view of the town, the river, and the valley. The interior was divided into two rooms by a narrow entrance hall. The apartment on the north was the smaller of the two; it was occupied by the students in Latin and Greek, the higher mathematics, rhetoric, etc., while the other room was set apart for those who had not advanced beyond the ordinary English branches. A small cupola surmounted the building, but the necessary appendage of a bell was never provided.
The first principal of the academy, to whom its usefulness as an institution of learning and the high character it maintained were principally due, was the Rev. David Kirkpatrick. He was employed as a teacher of the classics at Oxford, Chester county, Pennsylvania, when Mr. Junkin formed his acquaintance and prevailed on him to change the field of his labors; he accordingly came to Milton, and on the second Monday of May, 1822, opened a classical school at a frame building that occupied the site of Dr. James McCleery's residence on Front street. In the following October he removed his school to the academy building, where he taught until November, 1834, assisted at different times by a Mr. Mayne, Thomas C. Hambly, and others. Among his students were many who subsequently acquired honorable rank in the legal and medical professions, and as clergymen, teachers, civil engineers, etc.
The Milton Classical Institute was the next institution of advanced character in the borough. It was founded by a company of citizens in 1859, and placed in charge of Rev William H. T. Wylie, pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian church. The building was a two story brick structure, erected at a cost of six thousand dollars, and situated on Prospect Hill at the site of a school house erected there in 1845 by the school board. After Mr. Wylie retired the owners disposed of the property to Colonel Wright, of Rochester, New York, by whom the school was continued until the building was destroyed by fire in 1867.
The first school building on Center street, as previously stated, was that erected by the Lancasterian Association. It was used for school purposes until 1859, when it was replaced by a brick structure two stories in height and containing four rooms. The main entrance was on the south side, with side-doors on the east and west, and the building was raised somewhat above the level of the lot. This school house was doubtless creditable to the town at the time when it was built, and was the largest in the borough at the time of its destruction by fire in 1880. It was immediately replaced by the present Center Street building, a brick structure of ample and symmetrical proportions, convenient arrangement, and careful adaptation to the purposes required. It was dedicated on the 25th of February, 1881, with appropriate musical and literary exercises, including an address by J. P. Wickersham, State superintendent; the cost was eleven thousand eight hundred dollars.
The Lower Market Street school house, a one-story brick building containing two rooms, was built in 1872, and is the only school house of the borough that escaped destruction in the fire of 1880. It is situated upon the lot originally deeded for school purposes by Andrew Straub in 1798, and is the third building there erected.
The borough high school was organized in 1878, and embraces in its course of study the higher mathematics, Latin, chemistry, botany, physics, mental science, and the English branches. The principals have been as follows: William Foulk, J. Elliott Ross, William Deatrick, E. R. Deatrick, and S. O. Goho; the last named is the present incumbent, and was first elected to this position in 1883. Its duties include also the supervision of the other departments of the schools, and a district superintendency is contemplated.
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