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240 HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
ADOPTION AND ORGANIZATION OP THE GRADED SCHOOL SYSTEM
In November, 1848, the three school directors of Sandusky, Foster
M. Follett, Henry F. Merry and Cuyler Leonard, elected, and then
acting under the general school law of the state, employed the writer of
this sketch to take the supervision of all schools of the city and to adopt
such classification of pupils as the condition of buildings and other circumstances
Avould permit.
On the first Monday in December, 1848, in pursuance of notice previously
given, the pupils of the several schools assembled at the high
school building to be examined in their several studies and distributed
into four distinct grades, according to proficiency. The names of grades
then adopted were primary, secondary, grammar and high schools.
At the end of the first week four primary schools, with an average
of about sixty-five pupils each; three secondary, vvith about sixty pupils
each; tAvo grammar schools with about eighty pupils each, and one high
school with about sixty pupils, stood in place of the several hitherto
unclassified district schools of the city.
In view both of the very radical character of this change and of the
very limited number of classified schools in Ohio, or elsewhere, that
might be referred to as precedents, there was a far more prompt and
cheerful acquiescence on the part of the public than was anticipated
by those having the work in charge.
The board of school directors, by whose express permission and
under whose special direction the public schools were first graded, consisted
of Foster M. Follett, Henry F. Merry and Cuyler Leonard.
The teachers first placed in charge of these graded schools were:
Miss Fanny B. Stone, Miss Matilda Barrett, Miss L. Barney and Miss
Almira Smith, of the primary schools; Miss Eliza Lewis, Miss H. M.
Hoyt and Miss E. Moore, of the secondary schools; Miss Helen Follett,
Miss E. Barker, Miss A. Osborn and Mr. W. H. Nye, of the grammar
schools. Mrs. M. F. Cowdery and Miss L. A. McElwain were appointed
assistant teachers in the high school, and Mr. M. F. Cowdery, principal
of the high school and superintendent of all the schools.
A few weeks of patient labor sufficed to satisfy both teacher and the
public that the change to the graded plan was a step in the right direction,
but to those having the schools in charge it was but a single step.
The act itself of establishing the grades involved many other questions
Avhich must be at once considered, some of them very speedily decided.
How many classes shall there be in each grade? What work shall these
classes, in a gh'en time, be expected to do? IIOAV long Avill these pupils
remain in the grade in AA'hich they are noAV placed ? IIOAV Avill the proficiency
of the classes be tested when such are candidates for promotion ?
In Avhat particular respects is more thoroughness to be sought in graded
schools than under the former ungraded plan, with the youngest pupils ?
What can children from six^to eight years of age, safely, cheerfully,
healthfully, thoroughly learn ? What from eight to ten ? What from ten
to twelve? IIOAV much attempted in the high school? IIOAV much of the