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Reform of NYC Public Schools, 1896

Project Documents

Statistical Tables
Primary Texts

Statistical Tables

Total Population
Population of New York City (Manhattan and the Bronx) in the years 1860-1900. It includes numbers for the total native population (those born in the United States), the total foreign-born population (those residents born outside the United States), and the total overall population of those two boroughs.
Average Student Attendance
Average Attendance of New York City students (Manhattan and the Bronx) in selected years between 1887-1900.
Number of Students Per Teacher
The average total of students attending school, total number of teachers, and the number of students per teacher in a classroom in the New York City School System (Manhattan and the Bronx) for selected years between 1887 and 1907.
Physical Plant
The number of school buildings in New York City (Manhattan and the Bronx) at the time of consolidation (1896) and selected years to 1902.

Primary Texts

The Compulsory Education Law
Department of Education. City of New York. First Annual Report of the City Superintendent of Schools to the Board of Education for the Year Ending July 31, 1899. With Report of the Committee on School System Prefixed (New York, 1899).
Compulsory Education
Board of Education. City of New York. Forty-fifth Annual Report of the Board of Education of the City of New York for the Year Ending December 31, 1886 (New York, 1887).
Order and Discipline
Board of Education. City of New York. Forty-fifth Annual Report of the Board of Education of the City of New York for the Year Ending December 31, 1886 (New York, 1887).
Methods of Teaching
Department of Education. City of New York. Second Annual Report of the City Superintendent of Schools to the Board of Education for the Year Ending July 31, 1900 (New York, 1900).
The School Nurse in New York City (1903)
From Lina L. Rogers, "A Year's Work for Children in New York Schools," American Journal of Nursing, vol. IV, pp. 181-84.
Description of P.S. 188 on New York's East Side (1900)
From, "The Largest Public School in the World," The New York Times, November 25, 1900.
Description of a "Soup School" for Italian Immigrants (c. 1900)
From Leonard Covello, The Heart Is the Teacher (New York, 1958), pp. 22-27
Description of the Tenement Child (1890)
From Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives (New York, 1890), pp. 179-83.
The Ideal School as Based on Child Study
From G. Stanley Hall, National Education Association Journal of Addresses and Proceedings, 1901 (Washington. D.C., 1901), pp. 475-82, 488.