A column written by M.H. Bennett in the Jan. 9, 1886, Press and Horticulturist newspaper laid out the education system in San Bernardino County, which included at that time what is now western Riverside County.
According to Bennett, every area with at least 10 children ages 10 to 17 received $500 a year to have a school that operated for at least eight months a year. If there were at least 90 children, the apportionment was $1,000, with another $500 for every 30 children above that.
Schools were divided into primary and grammar grades. The primary grades were first through fourth grades and the grammar classes consisted of fifth through eighth grades.
In 1886, the city of San Bernardino had 22 teachers altogether. The majority were located at its central city location, with the rest located in smaller schools scattered throughout its growing suburbs. The central school, a brick building that cost $25,000, had 500 children attending. Meanwhile, in Riverside, its downtown school had five teachers, with four more employed in its suburbs. The average monthly pay was $60 for primary teachers and $75 to $100 for grammar teachers.
One of the main tasks of the County Superintendent of Schools at that time was the testing of applicants for teachers’ certificates.
Testing was held twice a year, on the first Tuesday of January and July. While Bennett emphasized that trained teachers were always preferred, anyone who wished to be a teacher was welcome to take the teaching certificate test. Applicants were tested in arithmetic, grammar and orthography, as well as the theory and practice of teaching, school law and natural history. Orthography is the study of the conventional spelling and use of language, which at that time was apparently considered separate from the study of grammar.
While anyone could take the test to become a teacher, people with diplomas from the University of California, a State Normal School (which is what teaching schools were called at the time) and those with certificates already issued in other counties of California did not have to take the test and were automatically granted teaching certificates. Those taking the test had to receive at least a 50 in each subject to pass, or a 70 in the arithmetic, grammar and orthography portions of the test to receive a “first grade certificate.”
To attend the University of California in 1886, students in Southern California had to travel to Berkeley in Northern California, a costly and onerous path for someone wishing to become a teacher. However, at that time there was already a state teaching school in Los Angeles, which was certainly more convenient for anyone in the Inland Empire wishing to become a teacher, particularly young women.
If you have an idea for a future Back in the Day column about a local historic person, place or event, contact Steve Lech and Kim Jarrell Johnson at backinthedaype@gmail.com.
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