The points in regard to physical equipment stressed by a district superintendent in the area containing the largest number of schools attended mainly by Negroes were: date of erection, an assembly hall located on the main floor, gymnasium, and, in the congested districts, bathroom and lunchroom. Table XI shows such facts concerning these schools.
MOSELEY SCHOOL
Located at Twenty-fourth Street and Wabash Avenue, 70 per cent Negro attendance.
It will be noted that only five of these schools, or 23 per cent, were built since 1900, and four of these five are in sections where the Negro population is less than 25 per cent. The ten schools serving the largest percentage of Negroes were built, one in 1856, one in 1867, seven between 1880 and 1889, and one between 1890 and 1899. Of the 235 white schools 133, or 56 per cent, were built after 1899.
| School | Date of Erection | Location of Assembly Hall | Separate Gymnasium | Bathroom | Lunchroom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colman | 1887 | None | None | Yes | Yes |
| Copernicus | 1907 | First floor | Yes | None | None |
| Doolittle | 1885 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Douglas | 1889 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Drake | 1900 | None | None | None | None |
| Emerson | 1884 | None | None | None | None |
| Farren | 1898 | Third floor | Combined | Yes | Yes |
| Felsenthal | 1901 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Forrestville | 1896 | First floor | Yes | None | None |
| Fuller | 1890 | None | None | None | None |
| Haven | 1885 | Fourth floor | Combined | Yes | None |
| Hayes | 1867 | Fourth floor | Combined | Yes | Yes |
| Keith | 1883 | None | None | Yes | Yes |
| McCosh | 1895 | None | None | None | None |
| Mann | 1890 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Moseley | 1856 | None | None | Yes | None |
| Oakland | 1903 | First floor | Combined | None | None |
| Raymond | 1886 | Third floor | Combined | Yes | None |
| Sherwood | 1892 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Tennyson | 1895 | First floor | Combined | None | None |
| Webster | 1883 | None | None | None | None |
| Willard | 1915 | Basement | Yes | None | None |
Assembly halls and gymnasiums were totally lacking in seven of the twenty-two schools, and in the remaining fifteen the assembly hall was on the third or fourth floor, where, according to the district superintendent, it cannot have maximum use for community purposes. A really useful assembly hall, he stated, should be on the ground floor, opening directly on the school yard, and capable of being shut off entirely from the rest of the building so that it could be lighted and heated separately for evening gatherings. Only three of these fifteen schools had separate gymnasiums. In the others the gymnasium was combined with the assembly hall. There was little in the way of apparatus; what there was consisted mainly of hand apparatus, including clubs, dumbbells and basket-balls, that could be used in the assembly hall or the corridors. The district superintendent emphasized the need for gymnasiums in Negro residential areas because the children were weak physically and needed special exercises.
Playground space for schools attended largely by Negroes compares favorably with that for schools attended largely by whites, though Douglas School (92 per cent Negro), with 1,513 pupils, has only one playground 96×125 feet. Most schools have two playgrounds, one for boys and one for girls. The only other school having such limited play space as Douglas is a foreign school, Von Humboldt, where there are 2,500 pupils and the playground is 50×100 feet. Like Douglas, this is a double school with inadequate space for the children inside the school and outside. Sometimes there is a public playground near by which relieves the congestion on the school playground except in the case of Keith School (90 per cent Negro), the principal of which emphasized the need for a playground near her school.
In a group of twenty-four schools, six of which are attended mainly by Negroes, six mainly by white Americans, and twelve mainly by children of immigrants, it was found that there was no unusual crowding of classrooms in those attended mainly by Negroes except in the case of Douglas School. Conditions were practically the same in the three groups of schools.
Indications of overcrowding are the average number of seats in a classroom, the average number of pupils per teacher, and the double-school or shift system. There is little variation among the three groups of schools in the number of seats in the classroom and the number of pupils to each teacher, except that the school having the largest number of pupils to each teacher (57) is Colman, 92 per cent Negro. Although there are no double schools in the group attended mainly by white Americans, one of the six schools attended mainly by Negroes and five of the schools attended mainly by children of immigrants are double schools. Under this system, which is a makeshift in a neighborhood where another school is needed to take care of the children, the children go to school in two shifts, one shift an hour later than the other, and leave correspondingly later in the afternoon. Under this arrangement more children are at the school during the major part of the day than can be seated in the classroom and the full school curriculum can be carried on only under pressure, as one group of children must always be hurried on before the next group appears.