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 Texas : Features : Columns : "Texas Tales"
Austin Grade School
by Mike Cox

Mike Cox
Austin being the capital of Texas, all the laws dealing with major aspects of public education are made there. But the city has another distinction when it comes to teaching children: It had the first school in the state built entirely with public funds.

That institution, the Austin Grade School, was dedicated on Oct. 28, 1876. Built of stone, the three-story school had 12 classrooms and accommodated 200 pupils.


Public funds built the school, but the money to run it came from a combination of state funding and tuition paid by parents. The state money was only sufficient to support the school four months out of the academic year, tuition covering the rest.

The children who attended the school got a better education than many children in Texas, but they had to abide by some pretty tough rules by modern standards. According to a list of rules developed shortly after the school opened:

“Pupils may not leave their seats without permission.”

“Pupils may not communicate with each other in any way.”

“In the morning, the male pupils will enter through the center door and the females through the side doors.”

“At lunch time, the males and the females will be kept separate.”

“The use of tobacco in any form is strictly prohibited.”

“Pupils who arrive before nine and engage in sports unfit themselves for study. Such pupils must go to their classroom and enter their studies.”

School, as one of the rules indicates, began at 9 a.m. and ran to 4 p.m., with a one-hour lunch break. Boys attended classes on the third floor, girls on the second.

While the rules were pretty strict compared to what school students must abide by today, some issues from the 1870s still sound pretty familiar. That’s particularly true of this early entry in the minutes of the Austin School Board: “We find the teachers, while not complaining, embarrassed because of their meager salaries.”

Indeed, a teacher’s salary in 1876 ranged from $70 a month for the person who taught the first graders to $100 a month for fourth grade teachers and the principal.

As Austin grew and other schools had to be built, school officials renamed the Austin Graded School as the West Austin School. It turned out pupils versed in reading, writing, composition, spelling, literature, geography, arithmetic, algebra, physiology, chemistry and Latin.

Not quite two decades after its doors opened for the first time, the school burned to the ground on May 28, 1896. Someone had poured oil inside the lower floor and torched it.

An arsonist had succeeded in destroying a building, but not the city’s understanding of the importance of public education. The school was rebuilt, with two additional rooms. It continued to be known as the West Austin School until Aug. 8, 1902, when it was renamed in honor of former Gov. E.M. Pease, who had signed the bill spelling out Texas’ public school system in 1854.

Pease Elementary School has been added to and remodeled several times over the intervening years, but it’s still open – the oldest continually operated public school in Texas.

Since 1958, it has been the only elementary school in Austin to which any student can transfer. It has only two classes per grade, which as the school’s Web site says, “creates a close, friendly, and old-fashioned community school feeling.”

And these days, girls and boys get to go to school together.
© Mike Cox
"Texas Tales"
- January 1, 2005 column
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