Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877, with a genealogical register

[380] salary remained stationary until 1777, when it was advanced to sixty pounds; but as an offset the master was required to relinquish all claim to the ‘Hopkins money.’ During the Revolution, all values became unsettled and fluctuating. The schoolmaster was partially protected, however, by an agreement that the town should pay for his board in addition to the stipend from time to time established. We obtain a glimpse of the financial disturbances at that period from the records of the Selectmen. For example: Sept. 4, 1780. ‘Allowed the schoolmaster Kendall his account from July 7, 1780, to Sept. 2d., £ 407 4s., including two weeks boarding at £ 50, per week, and allowing £ 8, per week, above what he charged some time before, for eight weeks board.’ Oct. 1, 1780. ‘Allowed to Mr. Wm. How £ 90, for boarding Mr. Kendall two weeks, and £ 55, per week, for boarding him four weeks, £ 220, being in the whole £ 310. It is too much, and the account was allowed by the selectmen for prudential reasons, but sorely against their wills.’ Dec. 18, 1780. “Allowed Mr. Kendall's account (schoolmaster's) to this day, at £ 380, if paid within one week, otherwise to be £ 400. Soon afterwards a more stable currency was introduced, and the former was withdrawn.” The electmen, May 9, 1781, ‘allowed Master Whittemore's account of £ 1,000, in old emission, to be paid in new emission at one for forty.’ Under this new state of things Master Kendall's salary was fixed at thirty pounds and his board, as appears by a vote of the Selectmen, April 7, 1783, ‘to engage with Mr. Asa Packard to keep the Grammar School in this town for three months, to commence on Thursday next,¹ at the rate of thirty pounds per annum, and his board to be found for him, it being upon the same terms that Mr. Kendall kept it.’ Fifty years later, it appears by the Report of the Auditing Committee, April 19, 1833, that the salary of the schoolmasters (of whom there were then five) was five hundred and fifty dollars,—each providing his own board; since which time the amount of salary has been more than quadrupled.

The following tables exhibit the condition of the schools, and cost for instruction, as stated in a ‘Tabular View of the Public Schools of Cambridge, Jan. 1, 1876,’ appended to the Report of the School Committee.