Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/656

536 The town is well provided with schoolhouses, with the best of modern equipments. The pictures of these houses and grounds, with the teachers and pupils in attendance, taken May 11, 1898, are the best description that can be given of the physical status of education in Barrington at the close of the nineteenth century, Barrington has a school committee of five members, elected by the town for a term of three years; a salaried superintendent; a male principal and a female assistant teacher of the High School, and six female teachers of the primary and grammar grades; the town owns school property to the value of about $11,000; it expends between $5,000 and $6,000 annually to furnish a common school education to about 200 pupils. These with the statistics given above, furnish the facts by which to determine the progress of the town during a century of free schools, and the basis for calculating the advance that may be made during the century to come. The advantages for education for Barrington children have been supplemented by private tutors and private schools in and out of town. During the ministries of Rev. Solomon Townsend and Rev. Samuel Watson, students prepared for college and the ministry under their instruction.

In 1842, Miss Eliza C. Smith and Miss Judith R. Bowen opened a private school at the Forest Chapel, located on land on the east side of the main road and north of the railroad, at Barrington Centre. The school was an excellent one, but was discontinued at the end of two years. Rev. Francis Wood conducted a private school in his own house, about 1848. The writer bought and studied his first Latin grammar while at this school. Between 1853 and 1865, a private school, English and Classical, was conducted in the hall of the Remington tavern, by the brothers Clapp, and later by Rev. Mr. Walker. Between 1830 and 1840, a number of Barrington pupils attended a private academy at Washington Village, Coventry, R. I., and, in later years, the classical school at Seekonk; and the schools of Providence have been patronized by Barrington students. Several