HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MEDFORD, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, IN 1630, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1855.
Charles Brooks, Ed.

In 1837, voted to continue the primary schools through the year.

To show how promptly our town took the form and pressure of the times, we need only state the appropriations annually made for the support of the schools; and, beginning with 1832, they stand thus:--

It will take but little arithmetic to prove that here was an increase in appropriations, within ten years, beyond all former precedents, and beyond the ratio of increase in numbers or wealth in the town. Medford partook so fully of the new enthusiasm for the improvement of its schools, that in 1853 it stood twelfth on the list of towns in the county, and twenty-fifth in the Commonwealth; paying, at that time, $6.04.7 per head for each child in town between the ages of five and fifteen.

1840: The age at which pupils were admitted to the primary schools was four years; and they could not remain in the grammar schools after they were sixteen.

April 3, 1843: Voted to build a schoolhouse, in High Street, upon land bought of John Howe. This house was to be sixty feet by forty; three stories high; of wood, with brick basement; and its cost limited to $4,500,--to be called the High School.

The Course of Study in the High School shall embrace four years, and be as follows:--

class 4.
1.	Review of preparatory studies, using the text-books authorized in the Grammar Schools.
2.	English Grammar, to the completion of Syntax and Prosody, including Rules of Versification and Analysis, and their exemplification.
3.	Ancient and Physical Geography.	To be pursued conjointly, and by the same geographical divisions.
4.	Worcester's General History.
5.	Algebra, to succeed Arithmetic.
6.	Hitchcock's Book-keeping--3 lessons a week.
7.	French Language. 2 lessons a week.
class 3.
1.	Algebra and book-keeping completed; after which,--
2.	Legendre's Geometry.
3.	Whately's or Blair's Rhetoric, with Syntactical and Prosodiacal Exercises, and exemplifications of Rhetorical Rules in Reading and other Lessons.
4.	Bayard's Constitution of the United States.
5.	Gray's or Parker's Natural Philosophy.
6.	French Language, continued.
7.	Drawing,--two lessons a week.
class 2.
1.	Davis's Trigonometry, with its applications to Surveying, Navigation, Mensuration, &c.
2.	French Language, continued.
3.	Drawing, continued.
4.	Natural Philosophy, completed.
5.	Olmstead's or Norton's Astronomy.
6.	Wayland's Moral Philosophy.
7.	Paley's Natural Theology.
8.	Physiology, commenced.
9.	Cleveland's Compendium of English Literature.
The Spanish, Italian, or German Languages may be commenced by such pupils as in the judgment of the master have acquired a competent knowledge of the French.
class 1.
1.	Modern Languages, continued.
2.	Intellectual Philosophy.
3.	Astronomy in its higher departments.	Either of them at option of pupil, with aprobation of master.
4.	Whately's Logic.
5.	Mechanic's Engineering and higher Mathematics.
6.	Botany.
7.	Geology, or Natural History, generally.
8.	Chemistry.
9.	Physiology, completed.
The several classes shall also have exercises in English Composition and Declamation.