week later two more schools were opened, one for boys and one for girls, on Bond Street, near Canton Avenue. For twenty years the boys' schools were taught only by men, but since then women also have been employed, and now the greater part of the public school teachers are women. During the first year there were 269 pupils and three teachers. The number of each has increased until, according to the Eleventh Census (1890) there were in the public schools of Baltimore City

In the year 1899 there were in the schools of the State 236,033 pupils and 4,987 teachers; there were fortyone high schools; and the total school expenditures amounted to $3,035,607. In the city of Baltimore the number of pupils was 79,684; the number of teachers 1,827, and the school expenditures amounted to $1,321,513.

On October 20, 1839, the Male High School—a name changed to the Baltimore City College in 1866—was opened. It has proved a school of high standing where boys are excellently trained to enter upon business or professional life. In 1844 the Eastern and Western Female High Schools were established; they were the first high schools for girls only belonging to any public school system. The State Normal School was founded by the Legislature in 1865 for the purpose of educating

and training teachers for the public schools, and in 1884 a school of manual training was added to the public school system of Baltimore. In 1867 schools for colored children were added to the system, and these now have primary and grammar schools and a high school.

It is interesting to know that, before the days of kindergartens, a school of much the same kind was started in Baltimore by a certain Mr. Ibbertson. The following account of his school is given by Mrs. Trollope: "We visited the infant school, instituted in this city by Mr. Ibbertson, an amiable and intelligent Englishman.

The children, of whom we saw about a hundred, boys and girls, were between eighteen months and six years. The apartment was filled with all sorts of instructive and amusing objects; a set of Dutch toys, arranged as a cabinet of natural history, was excellent; a numerous collection of large wooden bricks filled one corner of the room, the walls were hung with gay papers of different patterns, each representing some pretty group of figures; large and excellent coloured engravings of birds and beasts were exhibited in succession as the theme of a little lesson; and the sweet flute of Mr. Ibbertson gave tune and time to the prettiest little concert of chirping birds that I ever listened to."* Mrs. Trollope speaks in the same place of the neatness in dress of the boys and girls, and of their bright and well-bred manners; so different, she says, from the manners of other American children.

*Domestic Manners of the Americans."

CHAPTER XV.

MARYLAND'S PROGRESS.

It is a fact which people do not fully realize that war costs money as well as human lives. The Civil War left the United States with debt of about three thousand million dollars, but the war had cost the country many times that amount. Throughout the South towns, railroads and factories had been destroyed; farms and planta

Baltimore Loses
Much of its Trade
During the War.

tions had been laid waste; and all business and industries were dead. During the war the regular trade of Baltimore had been much interfered with; but, on the other hand, the Confederates having blocked the Potomac River, a very large amount of freight was carried to Washington over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This helped to take the place of the trade which was lost. The Federal Government bought supplies in Baltimore, and sent vessels

there, and to Annapolis, to be repaired and fitted out; so that new trades began to replace the old ones. But the condition of business for ten years after the war was bad. Trade was depressed, merchants had trouble in borrowing money to carry on their business, and one great market for the country, the Southern States, was so devastated and impoverished that the people who were left there had very little money to spend. They were glad if they could earn a bare living. All classes of the people

suffered from the bad times; but the suffering fell, as it always does, heaviest on the laboring classes.

Of course, when trade is dull the railroads must suffer. They carry less freight and earn less money; and if their income is much reduced, they are compelled to pay their employees lower wages. In July, 1877, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad made a reduction of ten per cent. in the wages of all its employees, following in this the example of the other great railroads of the country. When they learned this the brakemen and firemen of the freight

The Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad
Strike of 1877.