SCHOOL PKOGHESS AND THE ACADEMY. 389 



meetings, one of which we have noted — the celebration 

 of peace after the War of 1812. 



For thirty years and more the hall was rented for vari- 

 ous purposes — singing school, theater, debating society, 

 March meeting ball, phrenological lecture, temperance 

 meetings, and other gatherings. It was used as a sail loft 

 at one time, where the broad canvases of our fishing craft 

 might be cut and sewed. 



One of the later uses for which the academy was rented 

 was a high school, paid for by the town. Now a high 

 school paid for by the town was precisely what ought to 

 have been established before ; and in fact the academy 

 project would never have been started but for the town's 

 slowness in assuming responsibility for higher education. 



The public school progress during the academy period 

 until the beginning of the high school must now be re- 

 ferred to briefly. At the year 1796, the date where we 

 branched off to consider the academy, we found the school 

 children numbering four hundred and seventy-two. That 

 number is greater than we have to-day of school age, and it 

 may be readily seen that the tiny schoolhouses of a century 

 ago were much overcrowded. The Beechwood people had 

 been clamoring for a school building at every town meeting 

 for years, and so also had the Jerusalem people, but both 

 of them in vain. They were offered only partly enough to 

 build, or they were granted money to hire additional room. 

 To reduce the number of scholars, none were admitted in 

 1798 under six years of age; and besides this means of 

 preventing an excess of scholars, at this time the establish- 

 ment of the academy relieved the pressure upon the school 

 at the center of the town and probably drew somewhat 

 from the other "arms" of the town. In 1792 the little 

 Center schoolhouse had been ordered repaired and moved 

 and a new schoolhouse was built, both together costing 

 ;i^54 9^-. \\d. By this change the writer understands 

 that a schoolhouse was provided for the South End 



