514 HISTORY OF C OH ASSET. 



modern sanitary conveniences, and no proper method of 

 heating them. 



The whole number of pupils in attendance at these 

 eight schools was two hundred and forty during the year 

 1885 ; and these two hundred and forty were fairly well 

 graded for the first time in the history of our schools. Rev. 

 Joseph Osgood, chairman of the committee, had been try- 

 ing to bring this to pass during a half-century of service 

 in connection with the schools, but for a hundred and fifty 

 years, scholars had been allowed to enter wherever a guess 

 at their ability * might assign them. They had hopped 

 over classes or had plodded through them according to no 

 fixed standard. Now in 1885 a four years' course was 

 required of primary pupils, three years for the grammar 

 school course, and four years for the high school. 



For the first time " winter scholars " were debarred 

 from the high school. Four of these boys, such as always 

 spent only the few winter months in haphazard studies, 

 applied for admission ; but they were not fitted for any 

 one of the classes, and the old custom of teaching " any- 

 body at anything " was dead. But it was difficult to keep 

 the four primary and the three grammar schools uniform 

 in their studies, for the graded system was new, and 

 teachers needed grading as well as pupils. One of the 

 difficulties was in the matter of discipline. All teachers 

 about the center of the town, except the principal of the 

 high school, were women at that time, and when a refrac- 

 tory pupil needed a man's muscle to bring him into decent 

 behavior, there was none to be had in these separated 

 schools. 



The idea of having the schools brought into one prop- 

 erly constructed building, well heated, ventilated, plumbed, 

 and all under the control of one man, was cherished for 

 several years. Finally, in 1887, a majority of the school 



*In fact, promotions were frequently made into the high school, not for ability, 

 but because the age of thirteen years had been reached. 



