San Mateo County CA Archives History - Books .....Chapter IV San Mateo Of To-day 1893 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher cagwarchives@gmail.com January 12, 2007, 2:40 am Book Title: Memorial And Biographical History Of The Coast Counties Of Central California. CHAPTER IV. SAN MATEO OF TO-DAY. COUNTY OFFICERS. FOLLOWING are the civil officers of San Mateo county: George H. Buck, superior judge; George W. Fox, district attorney; J. F. Johnston, county clerk and recorder; E. Eskerenkotte, deputy clerk; W. J. McGarvey, deputy clerk; George W. Lovie, assessor; George Barker, auditor; P. P. Chamberlain, treasurer; W. H. Kinnie, sheriff; Claud Fox, under sheriff; H. S. Pitcher, tax collector; J. F. Utter, superintendent of schools; D. Bromfield, county surveyor; Alexander Gordon, assemblyman; A. F. Greene supervisor (chairman) first township; W. B. Lawrence, supervisor second township; John Stafford, supervisor third township; Jas. B. Freitas, supervisor fourth township; H. B.Adair, supervisor fifth township. ASSESSMENTS. The following are the property valuations of the county for 1891 and 1892: 1891. Real estate and improvements $12,690,475 Personal property 1,151,305 Total $13,841,780 Southern Pacific Railroad Company 235,094 Total $14,076,874 Tax rate 1.20 1892. Real estate and improvements $14,889,665 Personal property 1,140,310 Total $16,029,975 Southern Pacific Railroad Co $233,090 Pullman Car Co 1,497 — 234,587 Total $16,264,562 Acres of land assessed 293,973 County tax rate $1.15 SAN MATEO COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS—1892. J. F. Utter, superintendent County Board of Education: George H. Rice, president, Redwood City; J. F. Utter, secretary, Redwood City; Mary Stewart, Redwood City; Etta M. Tilton, San Mateo; J. C. Nash, Halfmoon Bay. CENSUS CHILDREN. No. between 5 and 17, white, boys, 1,373, girls, 1,260; total 2,683 No. between 5 and 17, negro, 6, Mongd, 2 8 — 2,641 No. under 5, white, 989; negro, 2 991 No. under 17 total 3,632 No. between 5 and 17 attend public school in year 1,952 No. between 5 and 17 attend only private schools in year 244 No. between 5 and 17 not attending school in year 445 No. native born, 3,137; foreign born, 495 3,632 No. teachers or classes, grammar, 25; primary, 31 56 No. pupils enrolled, boys, 1,108; girls, 986 2,094 Average number belonging 1,472 Average daily attendance 1,326 Percentage of attendance on number belonging 91 COURSE OF STUDY. No. of pupils enrolled, grammar grade, 566; primary grade, 1,528; total 2,094 Average number months schools maintained 9 Sex teachers, male 8, female 48 56 Grammar certificates, high 5; first grade 42; second grade 9 Average salary paid teachers per month $66.37 CURRENT EXPENSES. Paid teachers $34,077.11 Paid rent, fuel, etc. 5,781.28 Paid libraries 603.95 Paid apparatus 386.01 $40,848.35 Paid sites, buildings and furniture 8,745.32 Total expenses $49,593.67 Balance July 1, 1891 $13,254.02 Received kate taxes 20,814.00 Received county 15,338.00 Received city and district. 1,394.91 Received subscriptions,etc. 7,069.00 Total received $57,869.93 Total expenses 49,593.67 Balance June 30, 1892 $ 8,276.26 Value of lots and buildings and furnishings $ 94,055 Value of libraries 9,170 Value of school apparatus 4,360 Total school property $107,585 No. of volumes in libraries 11,441 Average month wages paid male teachers $88.14 Average month wages paid female teachers 62.81 Salary of county superintendent $1,500.00 No. graduates from California normal schools 7 No. teachers holding life diplomas 12 No. teachers holding State education diplomas 14 No. teachers holding hfgh school certificates 5 No. teachers holding first grade certificates 42 No. teachers holding second grade certificates 9 Among the private schools of the county are the following: BELMONT SCHOOL. This was opened in 1885, near Belmont, on the Southern Pacific railroad, twenty-five miles south of San Francisco. It was founded by the present head-master, H. T. Reid Harvard 1868), who resigned the presidency of the University of California for the purpose of carrying out his long cherished plan of erecting a preparatory school for boys, which should hold an honorable place among the best educational institutions in the country. The location of the school is probably unsurpassed as regards healthfulness, beauty, convenience and adaptability. Its steadfast purposes are to offer thorough preparation for those colleges and technical schools whose requirements for admission are most severe; to do all that it may to quicken the moral and religious sense, and strengthen the moral courage; and to give such attention to systematic physical culture as shall contribute to good health and a vigorous physical development. The greater part of all students attending the school, 72 per cent (1892), are preparing for college. The graduates of the school have for the most part entered Harvard, Yale, the University of California, Leland Stanford, Jr., University, Cornell University, or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. No candidate from the school has ever failed to pass the examinations for which he was recommended as prepared, and its graduates are admitted to the University of California, Leland Standford, Jr., University, Cornell University, and the Van Rensselaer Institution without examination. Physical culture under the direction of a special teacher of gymnastics will hereafter be a stated requirement, and will have a place in the program of exercises, the same as mathematics, English or any other requirement. Military drill is a feature only as an adjunct to the work of physical culture. The discipline of the school is very simple, and entirely in the interest of the boys, who are on the whole well meaning. Belmont does not pretend to keep and successfully deal with bad boys, and is perhaps a little intolerant of them, for it insists on their immediate withdrawal as soon as their unruly, vicious, or vulgar dispositions become known. The school was started in the belief that the best social, scholarly and disciplinary results are likely to be obtained in a school whose numbers are so limited as to make it possible to exercise over every pupil a close individual supervision. Certainly nothing could compensate for the loss of such supervision. On the other hand it is of great advantage to the scholarship of a school to have its classes formed with such care that only pupils of like capacity or attainments and with a common purpose may be placed together. It is also highly desirable that classes should be large enough to stimulate interest and a healthy rivalry. How to combine in one the advantages of a small and a large school has been one of the educational problems. Its solution seems to be pretty well assured in the so-called cottage system. In this system there is a separate building for every forty boys, more or less, and this building is the family home of a teacher and his wife. The cottage system, therefore, secures all the advantages of a school limited in numbers, while a group of several cottages gives the numbers necessary to the most advantageous classification. The gradual enlargement of the school on the cottage system has become the fixed policy of the school. The increase in the size of the school calls for an immediate increase of the school facilities; a gymnasium equipped with the best modern conveniences will be erected and other buildings will soon follow. The best equipment for the best work is the steady purpose of the school. OAK GROVE SCHOOL. This institution for boys, although the most recent to be established in San Mateo, is the peer of any other in the county. It is presided over by Ira D. Hoitt, A. B., M. A., a teacher of life-long experience and late State superintendent of public instruction. He is assisted by a full corps of able teachers. The location and grounds were weighty considerations in the selection of this place for the school. It includes the private residence and beautifully improved grounds of the late J. H. Redington, situated two and a half miles from Millbrae, three miles from San Mateo and one and a half miles from Oak Grove Station, which can be reached from San Francisco in one hour. It is therefore near enough to the city to allow of taking advantage of any special privileges from that source. It is two and a half miles from Millbrae, the nearest village, and therefore free from any disadvantages of town surroundings. It is accessible and convenient not only for pupils but for parents who may wish to visit their sons when on business trips to the city. The grounds include 156 acres and are possessed of great natural beauty, to which extraordinary attractions have been added by the expenditure of many thousands of dollars, under the direction of a skillful landscape gardener. The purpose of the school is to stimulate in the boy manly impulses, quicken and strengthen his sense of duty and moral courage, contribute vigor to his physicial development, lead him to a clear idea of right, and to the acquisition of such mental furniture as shall prepare him for admission to the best college, university, or technical school in the land, or for a successful business life, and at the same time surround him with as many of the refinements, comforts and pleasures of home as are possible in a first-class school. Only teachers of accredited ability and high standing will be retained in the school. The course of study extends from the primary school to the college and university. ST. MATTHEW'S SCHOOL. St. Matthew's School founded in 1866, is situated about a mile and one-half from San Mateo. The site commands a fine view of the bay of San Francisco, with Mount San Bruno to the north, Mount Diablo in the center beyond the bay and the Conta Costa range, and Mount Hamilton to the extreme south. Nestling as it does at the base of the eastern slope of the Coast Range, there is absolute protection from all fogs, and the climate is much warmer than in the valley below. The buildings are placed on three sides of a quadrangle, thus affording every opportunity for close communication, and at the same time securing perfect lighting and ventilation and unlimited sunlight. A TELESCOPE is permanently mounted on a solid pier of masonry and furnished with necessary gearing for perfect and easy equatorial motion. A teacher of gymnastics is engaged when opportunity arises, and a gymnasium is connected with the school. Target practice with small arms is indulged in, under proper supervision. A revolving Wingate target for all distances up to and including 300 yards, with a marker's shelter, is provided. A large playground has been carefully leveled, providing drill ground, a base ball diamond and football grounds. Dancing is taught as classes are formed. Every means is employed to arouse enthusiasm in lines of study and self-improvement outside of the prescribed courses and in sports. In this connection clubs and societies have proven most helpful and stimulating. Besides the regularly organized baseball and football "leagues," a literary association, with its own reading room, has been maintained, a reading club has held frequent meetings, a yacht club and tennis club have been actively engaged, and the Brotherhood of St, Andrew has been established. The junior grammar, middle grammar and intermediate grades constitute the grammar department, while the academic department is composed of the junior academic, middle academic and senior academic grades. The course of the grammar department is the same for all students, but in the academic department there are three distinct courses, designed to prepare boys for an English scientific or classical course at college. While the course has been arranged, primarily, with a view to preparing boys for college, the scientific course is arranged for those who expect to enter upon active business life when they have left school. Those who have this object in view will be allowed to omit trigonometry and astronomy during the last two terms, taking up bookkeeping and commercial arithmetic instead. French, German, Spanish and music are taught. But lessons in these branches must take second place in the arrangement of the schedule and cannot be substituted for studies in the regular course. In general, boys should not begin the study of languages and music if they are in any way backward in their common-school branches, unless such study is in the line of their preparation for college. Special attention is given to preparing boys for the University of California, and graduates of this school are admitted to that institution, as well as to the Leland Stanford, Jr., University, Cornell University, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, and Hobart College, without examination, on recommendation from the rector. Such recommendation, however, is given to those students only, who have shown marked industry and ability throughout the course. St. Matthew's school is conducted by Rev. A. S. Brewer. The Convent of Notre Dame, built in 1886, has an attendance of eighty pupils, with Sister Mary Louise at its head and five assistants. Additional Comments: Extracted from: Memorial and Biographical History of the Coast Counties of Central California. Illustrated. Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast from the Earliest Period of its Discovery to the Present Time, together with Glimpses of its Auspicious Future; Illustrations and Full-Page Portraits of some of its Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of many of its Pioneers, and Prominent Citizens of To-day. HENRY D. BARROWS, Editor of the Historical Department. LUTHER A. INGERSOLL, Editor of the Biographical Department. "A people that take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants."-Macaulay. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/sanmateo/history/1893/memorial/chapteri206gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cafiles/ File size: 15.9 Kb