The Original Morse School, 1891 - 1956
The
original Morse School, designed by Cambridge architect Charles F.
Fogerty, stood on the corner of Brookline and Allston Streets, just a
few blocks from the current site. As the population in Cambridge grew in
the late 1800’s, the existing school buildings could not accommodate
the rising number of students. Some schools in Ward Four were forced to
cram as many as forty-seven children into rooms designed to hold far
fewer.
When
it opened in the fall of 1891, the Morse School provided 13 new
classrooms for children in kindergarten through eighth grade. The
Cambridge Chronicle hailed the school as “without a doubt one of the
finest public school buildings in the State with its spacious and well
ventilated rooms and halls, good light and cheerful interior.” Students
entered the three-story brick structure through a grand arched entrance.
In addition, to classrooms, the school boasted a teachers’ room which
by the following year was “finely furnished with a choice library of
books and educational papers, chosen to aid them in their teaching,” an
auditorium on the third level with seating for 450, and a separate
“girls’ basement” and “boys’ basement” with toilets and sinks. The
school featured many modern conveniences, including electric bells
which rang in each classroom and speaking tubes to the office. When it opened, the Morse School made
headlines not only for its design and interior appointments, but also
for the remarkable fact that it was one of two schools in the city to
have a woman, Miss Mary A. Townsend, as principal.
Although
innovative for its time, the school lacked elements now considered
standard. Because children returned home each day to eat lunch, the
school had no cafeteria. Rather than a specially designated music room,
students practiced singing in the auditorium where the school’s only
piano was kept. Arliene Davis, who graduated from the Morse School in
1935, remembers the schoolyard as a simply paved area into which all of
the school’s more than four hundred students descended simultaneously
for recess. Despite the cramped space, children enjoyed playing a wide
variety of group games, often organized by the teachers, during their
ten to fifteen minute break. This short recess provided the children
with their only opportunity for exercise during the school day.
Learn More
The Morse School, 1957 - 1997
The Morse School Gets Renovated 1999
Artwork Found Within the Walls for Morse School