Flag

.

The Green School, like others, was marked by the American flag which floated from the building. However, a flag may not have been an original feature of the Green School. The Fifth Street School in New Bedford is believed to have been the first school in America to fly the flag daily beginning May 11, 1861, and only gradually thereafter did other schools begin to adopt the practice. In the late 1880s, The Youth's Companion, a national children's magazine published in Boston, inaugurated the schoolhouse flag movement, encouraging all public schools to fly the American flag. Renewed impetus was provided the movement in October, 1892, with the 400th anniversary of the landing of Columbus, an event The Youth's Companion urged schools to recognize by flying a flag. The Green School certainly had a flag by 1894, the year in which all Middleborough schools which lacked one were finally outfitted.

In 1902, the Middleborough School Committee and Superintendent drafted a list of 28 so-called “flag days” for the use of the local schools. “On these days it is expected that the flag will be displayed and lessons appropriate to the occasion given”, with the first half hour of each day designated for these lessons. “A deeper impression, it is believed, will be made upon the pupil and more significance be given to the occasion than if the flag is displayed every day.” Accompanying these exercises was the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, written in 1892, and probably introduced into Middleborough Schools shortly afterwards.

Though Massachusetts state law in 1935 required the display of the American flag in all schoolrooms and weekly conduct of the Pledge of Allegiance, Middleborough schools were unaffected as for many years prior they had fulfilled these guidelines and performed the Pledge on a daily basis.

Construction

.
The historic Green School was built in 1871 to replace an earlier structure which stood on the same site and which by that time had fallen into great disrepair. The 1870 School Committee report for Middleborough noted that "the schoolhouses in No. 3 [the Green] and 14 [Fall Brook] are poor and inconvenient, and in our opinion unsuitable for school purposes. If the town does not deem it advisable to build more than one house the coming year, we most earnestly recommend that steps be taken to build a house at the Green, suitable to accommodate that school ...."

As a consequence of the Committee's recommendation, the following year a schoolhouse was constructed at the Green. "Your committee have done nearly as much as the means in their hands would enable them, to improve the condition of the school buildings. A new house has been built at the Green, No. 3, according to the vote of the town, at an expense of $1,674.67. This includes a new fence. It stands on the ground so long occupied by what had become an apology for a schoolhouse, and which has been sold for $75. The new house is 24x36, is a neat structure, with blinds, and will accommodate 56 scholars. It has modern seats, a sink, extensive blackboard, and many other conveniences. The building deserves to be appreciated by the people of the district. It has been honestly and creditably built by Mr. James P. Sparrow." The cost of the school was broken down as follows: James P. Sparrow, per contract, $1,500; B. N. Bradt & Company, furniture, $172.47; and George Soule of Middleborough, chairs, $2.20.

While the original exterior design of the Green School has been preserved in photographs, its interior layout is less well documented. Likely the building had two small foyers at each entrance, one for boys and one for girls. It is here that coat hooks and shelves for lunch pails were likely located. Between the two was undoubtedly a washhroom which contained a small sink.

Next Page: Furnishings

Furnishings

.
There is little record regarding the original furnishings of the Green School, though it was undoubtedly furnished like a typical schoolhouse. The blackboard was the focal point of the Green school room and likely was situated on the rear wall opposite the entrances. In nearly constant use throughout the day, the blackboard required frequent repair and repainting. In 1877, the Green School’s blackboard was repainted by H. A. Sparrow, and it is likely that it was repainted with “liquid slating” in 1887. It was “thoroughly renovated” in 1906, repaired in 1910 by Eben Jones and again in 1912 by F. A. Johnson. In 1917, the board was resurfaced.

To write on the board, lumps of chalk known as “crayons” which differed from the slender cylindrical pieces common today were used.

A desk or table for the teacher likely stood at the rear of the building near the blackboard, and was used for her books, record cards, and as a resting place for the iconic hand bell. In 1886, Lorenzo Tinkham was paid $1.50 for a table for the building, though whether this was a replacement table for the teacher or a second table to help students with their studies is not known.

The students at the Green were originally provided with twenty double seats and desks which provided seating for forty students, just enough to accommodate all the students in 1881. These desks which were required to stand up to heavy use, were not always as durable as one wished. By 1881, just ten years after having been installed in the building, “several” were characterized as having “long been broken” and in need of replacement. Eventually, in 1904, the Green was furnished with adjustable seats and desks from the Chandler Chair and Desk Company at a cost of $161.00.

Adjustable desks had long been considered preferable to the previous seating options as indicated by Superintendent Jacoby in 1897:

Adjustable school furniture is far superior to the old line seats and desks, and no other should be bought. By its use it is no longer necessary to attempt the adjustment of the pupils to the seats and desks, but the seats and desks can be easily and properly adjusted to them. They are the best to buy on hygienic grounds, promoting , as they do, the physical growth and development of the puils, and the closer the adjustment the better will be the results. Being more comfortable, they are also more conducive to intellectual and moral growth and development; for one of the conditions of good work and conduct in school is physical comfort.

Despite the high praise adjustable desks received, there may have been some dissatisfaction with the new desks at the Green, for just two years later in 1906, Superintendent Bates was recommending they be renovated.

Sometime about 1884 a bookcase was probably installed in the Green Schoolhouse following the requirement by the state that school districts furnish pupils with free text books and supplies. The School Committee recommended in its report for 1883 the addition of these pieces of furniture to the local schoolrooms, and it was likely adopted. A more substantial piece of furniture arrived in 1903 when an organ was donated to the school for the use of students.

Also present in the room would have been a clock, a highly recommended article for instilling promptness in scholars. “We are more desirous of having clock-work in every school without exception. Such discipline is splendid, and obviates the need of frequent reproofs, or repeated punishments," noted the Middleborough School Committee in early 1873. The clock, however, was also an important tool for the teacher, helping her track the amount of time spent on each lesson.

Smaller articles in the building undoubtedly included galvanized pails - one with a dipper to be used for drinking water, and a second for cleaning - an ash pail and stove equipment, clothes hooks for clothing, shelving for lunch pails, cleaning tools such as a mop and broom, and doormats to eliminate the amount of dirt and mud tracked into the building.

While the Green School with its bare walls may have appeared initially somewhat spartan following its construction in 1871, in time this lack of decoration was addressed through the school adornment movement through which local schoolhouses were filled with suitable works of art of educational value including reproductions of noted paintings and busts of famous Americans. Superintendent of Schools Jacoby supported the movement stressing “what grand opportunities are here offered for private munificence!” It is not recorded what items may have been added to the Green School, though in many local one-room classrooms, pictures of Washington and Lincoln were commonplace.

NEXT PAGE: Heating & Ventilation
PREVIOUS PAGE: Construction

Heating & Ventilation

..
Like other local schools, the Green was heated by means of a wood stove which likely stood in the center of the room and had a pipe traversing the ceiling to the rear chimney. To fuel the stove, the town paid various dealers to provide wood. During the school’s first year of operation, Arad Bryant was paid $7.50 to supply it with wood, and an additional $1.75 was spent for sawing. In 1872-73, $18.50 was paid to A. H. Soule and R. Gammons for wood for the Green School. Contracts called for wood to be cut and split, ready for use, and brought to the school yard where it was stored in a large wood house.

Throughout the early twentieth century, wood continued to be provided by local dealers and farmers. In 1906, the town was paying from between $5.00 and $5.50 a cord for hard wood and from $3.00 to $3.50 for pine. In 1905, the Green School would have consumed approximately 5½ cords of wood, two-thirds hard and one-third soft. Shortage of fuel could sometimes be a problem though usually not enough interfere with the operation of the school. In 1918, however, the February vacation was extended by a week in order to conserve a limited fuel supply.

Coupled with heating, ventilation was long an issue of concern in local schools. In 1872-73, the Middleborough School department regulations required teachers to “give due attention to the temperature and ventilation of their respective school-rooms.” In order to provide a free-flow of air, doors and windows were frequently opened, even in the coldest weather. “That children may not take cold by exposure to draughts during this process of ventilation gymnastic exercises are given. These exercises are given at intervals during the day whenever the air becomes impure.” Greatly variant tempreatures were a notorious feature of the one-room schoolhouse.

It is not clear whether any steps were taken at the Green School to remedy these ventilation concerns until 1895 when “…boards about a foot high were placed in front of the lower sash of the windows, about an inch distant from it. By raising the sashes to a proper height, fresh air may now be admitted to the rooms in such a way that the danger to the health of the pupils from window draughts is greatly lessened.”

The installation of these boards was merely a temporary expedient. The following year (1896), the School Committee was calling for improved ventilation in the suburban schools, including the Green, and suggested the installation of a jacketed or ventilating stove. In response, the school department, in 1897, installed a “Lakewood” wood furnace in the Green School. “Connected with it are a fresh air duct leading from the outside, and a galvanized iron ventilating duct extending from the floor up through and above the roof. The latter duct is heated by the smoke pipe which enters it about two feet from the floor and runs up through its centre. It is believed that excellent results will be obtained from the system, both in heating and in ventilation….The Green schoolhouse was selected for the first one because the attendance there is the largest of the suburban schools.”

By 1913, however, parents were dissatisfied with both the heating and ventilation in the building, and requested that the School Committee look into the matter of improving both. It is not clear what steps were taken, though in time, an oil-burning furnace was installed, providing for more efficient heating of the building.

NEXT PAGE: Repairs & Renovations
PREVIOUS PAGE: Furnishings

Repairs & Renovations

.
Following construction of the Green School in 1871, the schoolhouse appears to have been well cared for. In 1887, it was valued at $1,000, the same sum as the schools at Waterville, South Middleborough, Fall Brook, Wappanucket and Purchade. Only the central schools – the high school, School Street and Union Street – were valued higher.

Periodic repairs were made to the building including those in 1876-77 by James P. Sparrow, the builder of the school, for which he was paid $5.50. In 1881, Sparrow was paid $9.02 for repairs to the Green and Fall Brook schools and the following year, D. F. Wood was paid $5.75 for similar work to the school. Unspecified repairs continued to be made by Horatio N. Wilbur (1886, 1887, 1889, 1905), Warren Wood (1888), Fred C. Sparrow (1907, 1914, 1919), Herbert Erickson (1907), J. J. Fowler (1914), and F. A. Johnson (1917). A more substantial interior renovation was completed in 1907, with $59.47 worth of material from J. K. & B. Sears, by Eben Jones. In 1895 and 1919 new floors were laid in the building, and in 1895 the roof was reshingled.

In 1912 and 1925, the building is stated to have been "thoroughly renovated", though the nature of these changes is not known. Possibly it was in 1925, that the three bays of the facade were altered from dual entrances flanking a large 6-over-6 sash window to two smaller windows on either side of a single doorway. At some unknown point, electric lighting, a bathroom and a modern oil-burning furnace were installed.

Throughout its history, the Green School was painted a number of times, though most likely not red, that color actually being uncommon for schools. Similarly, it appears that only in later years has the building been painted green, undoubtedly a play upon its name. Most likely it was painted white with dark trim. Such is the color scheme indicated in an early photograph of the Fall Brook School which was built by Sparrow just one year after the Green and is likely to have shared the same plan. The earliest known photograph of the Green, dating from about 1906 depicts a a color scheme of white trim work, a pale body of either white, buff or light gray, and dark doors and window trim. Following 1871, the building was first repainted in 1878 by H. A. Sparrow who was paid $28.00 for painting the building, and then again in 1888. The building may have gone unpainted for several years for in 1902 Superintendent Bates noted that a number of the suburban schools were in need of painting, and the following year, the Green School was repainted, along with those at Nemasket, Thompsonville and Thomastown. The exterior was repainted in 1910 at which time the interior was done as well, the total work costing $79.51. In 1925, the exterior and interior were again repainted, with the interior being renovated at the time. Interior repainting is also recorded as having been done in 1895 and 1899.

NEXT PAGE: School Yard
PREVIOUS PAGE: Heating & Ventilation

School Yard

.
An important feature of the Green School, as with all schoolhouses was the surrounding schoolyard which provided not only a recreational space for children, but also a location for sanitary facilities and a woodhouse.

While a fence was originally built in 1871 when the school was built, in 1878, either a new fence or an addition to the existing fence was erected about the Green School yard with J. K. & B. Sears of Middleborough being paid $6.63 for lumber, and E. B. Elmes $5.63 for building it. Schoolyard improvements continued the following year (1879) during which James Sparrow was paid $1.00 for grading the yard which was described as “large” and “well-fenced” in 1881. Despite its size, the Green School yard was nonetheless somewhat barren. In April, 1904, undoubtedly as part of Arbor Day exercises, trees were purchased through the contributions of the pupils and planted in the school yard under the supervision of Tree Warden Bailey. Increasing motor traffic in the second quarter of the twentieth century led to the posting of "Warning" signs along the approaches to the school in the summer of 1935.

Located within the school yard were sanitary facilities which were provided in the form of an outhouse. While there is no specific mention of a separate outhouse, a “commodious wood-house” is mentioned as standing in the schoolyard in 1881. This may have, in fact, included sanitary facilities as was sometimes common. School outhouses tended to be subject to vandalism on the part of some students. In 1885, the interiors of the outhouses at several Middleborough schools (though not the Green), were described as “shockingly marked and cut, each year adding something to that of the year before, till they now are unfit for use.” Like other school property, the prevention of damage to these structures was added to the burdens of the school teacher. In 1911, Superintendent Bates recommended the construction of privy vaults for these outbuildings which, in time, were replaced by indoor bathrooms.

Typically, male students were assigned responsibilities for wood and water. Water for the Green School was obtained from either the Church of the Green or from “agreeable neighbors”, and carried in a pail by students across the road. With the designation of Plympton Street as Route 44, traffic volume through the area increased and made such a task potentially hazardous. Not until 1936 was the school provided with running water following the extension of a town water line beyond the school which made a connection with the school feasible. During the summer of 1936, the school was connected and cisterns dug to accommodate waste from the sink. “The installation of this water aids greatly to the convenience and health of the children attending the school.”

To care for the school property, janitors were engaged, though somewhat haphazardly during the early years of the school's existence. In the 1870s and 1880s, the chore appears to have been carried out by younger boys and during the school’s first year of operation, Willie Bryant was paid $3.00 for regularly cleaning the building. In 1907, the janitor responsible for cleaning the Green School was paid $14.75 for the year. Later, Edward Buchanan was paid $2.50 per week for maintaining the Green School in 1930. Edward W. Fessenden served as the school’s last janitor from 1936 until its closure in June, 1941.

Besides the regular janitorial service the building received, once a year it was thoroughly scrubbed, typically in late summer in preparation for the school year. While neighbors looking to supplement their income generally took on the task, in rare instances a teacher might perform the work. In 1889, teacher Mary E. Deane at the Green was paid $2.00 for cleaning the school, a singular mark of devotion on her part.

PREVIOUS PAGE: Repairs & Renovation