I located the 19th century Proceedings of the Board of Education for New Haven in the archives of the New Haven Museum and Historical Society located in a beautiful house on Whitney Ave in New Haven. Mary Ann and I went over to take a look last week.
This library is spacious and beautiful as compared to the high spirited Ethnic Heritage Center in the industrial building housing the materials for the Jews, Ukraineans, Irish, Italian and African Americans. Still I know that those groups really appreciate their own space.
We found the proceedings in neatly and carefully written hand script in handsome bound volumes. No mistakes, nothing crossed out. And really hard to read for us twenty-first century folks. I picked the end of 1877 because that's when the devotional service issue was discussed. If I tried real hard, I could read the handwriting but I would look over several paragraphs and realize that I didn't know a thing that was on the page.
Newspaper articles about the topics of the day gave more information. But I did look at them.
The important part is
Rule 4 Sec 27 of the Manual which provides the morning session of the schools shall be opened with appropriate devotional exercises was repealed to take effect from and after the beginning of the next school term.
I knew that was what I was looking for and I also knew that it was taken up again over the next year. But seemed impossible to really follow it in the Proceedings.
Maybe another time....
Shot of the book and the library. The archivist and other staff were very helpful.
No comments:
Post a Comment