The health of the children receives much attention. Each child is examined twice a year, and a record is kept, detailing all the facts of health, growth, eyesight, bearing, and other physical conditions. The high school contains an excellent gymnasium, and both boys and girls are given work there under physical instructors.
The money appropriated by the city and State is spent in the establishment and maintenance of libraries in the class rooms. Books suitable to the various grades are selected with some reference to the regular school and supplementary reading. In every book selected, the literary style and moral tone are considered. As the child is promoted from one grade to another he finds a new stock of books each year.
The Board of Education consists of fifteen members appointed by the Mayor. It has always been composed of influential citizens, and enjoys the reputation of being perfectly free from political influence and devoted to the welfare of the schools. The School Board at present consists of Charles Philip Easton, President; Thomas Ewing, Jr., Vice–President; Charles H. Fancher, Ethelbert Belknap, John F. Brennan, F. R. Burton, Dr. Valentine Browne, Richard L. Condon, Rudolf Eickcmeyer, Jr., Peter U. Fowler, A. V. Williams Jackson, Charles R. Otis, Samuel M. Stevenson, Albert Van Houten, and William R. Watson; Charles F. Gorton, Superintendent, and John H. Claxton, Secretary.
The Halsted School is a day school for boys and girls with a boarding department for girls only. Beginning with the kindergarten, the course is strictly graded. The classes average ten pupils in number. The school is distinctly college preparatory although there is a course leading to graduation for pupils who do not intend to enter college. In this course pupils may substitute science and modern languages for Greek and Latin. There is also a department of music.The Halsted School is the successor to a private school established in Yonkers some thirty years ago. This school passed through several changes of administration, and in 1890 came into the hands of Miss Maria D. Halsted, a woman of intellectual tastes, unusual ability, and high ideals. Miss Halsted had been a teacher in the school for a number of years, and has left an impress upon it which is felt to–day in more than its name.In 1893 the school was reorganized, and in the following spring moved into its present building, on North Broadway and Lamartine Avenue. The schoolhouse has been three times enlarged, additional ground has been purchased, and the dormitory is now a separate building. In both the dormitory and school building the sanitary arrangements have received great attention and are inspected by the Board of Health each year.After Miss Halsted’s death, in 1895, an association was formed looking toward the incorporation of the school under its present management, and in 1896 the school was capitalized and incorporated in accordance with the laws of the State under the name of The Halsted School Corporation. Its directors were prominent Yonkers men chosen from the stockholders, with Mr. John Kendrick Bangs as President.Since that time the school has doubled its number of pupils (now about one hundred and fifty), enlarged its faculty, and increased and improved its equipment. It has done much toward carrying out its original aim of securing to Yonkers a thoroughly good private school which shall educate its students in the best sense of the word.
