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Reform of NYC Public Schools, 1896

Source: 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), p. 113-114. NYC Board of Education Archives, Milbank Memorial Library, Teachers College, Columbia University.

In most of the schools the order and discipline are highly satisfactory, and the punctuality of the pupils is worthy of special commendation Promptly at 9 o'clock each school-day morning One hundred and fifty thousand youthful learners are on hand, ready to commence the school work of the day. At times, in many schools, not even one dilatory pupil presents himself.

Habits of promptness and punctuality are thus formed, which will be of great value to the pupils in after life, to say nothing of the indirect effect of the example upon many families and homes.

Those who are able to watch, for a few months even, the changes in the conduct and general appearance of the pupils found in a school recently opened in a part of the city which had not been provided with sufficient school facilities, have an opportunity to behold valuable results that are commonly overlooked, and for which the schools fail to receive due acknowledgment.

To the public school justly belongs credit for the unconscious instruction that comes to pupils through required obedience, punctuality, regularity of attendance, orderly movements, personal cleanliness, respect for and kindness toward others, the repression of cruelty, the inculcation of truthfulness, the use proper language, and manly habits.