This article originally appeared in the Spring 2023 edition of the Historical Review.
The roots of Reading High School can be traced to the formation of the all-boys Reading Academy in 1852. A female equivalent public school was founded in 1857. By 1859 both sexes were consolidated in one classroom under one principal, Joseph Valentine, and assistant principal John A. Stewart.
Stewart succeeded Valentine as the school’s second Principal in 1867. In 1875, Stewart wrote a 300 page textbook titled “History of the United States”, which was used in Reading’s High School as well in public schools around the region.
Born in 1829 in Dungannon, Ireland, Stewart came to the United States as a fresh graduate of the University of Dublin. In 1855 he moved to Reading to accept the position as assistant principal and teacher of Latin and Greek.
A pillar in Reading’s educational community, Stewart first faced adversity from the Reading School Board in 1876. An article published in the July 11th, 1876 Reading Daily Eagle reported that the Board’s High School Committee decided to make major changes to the high school teaching staff. The article reported that Stewart was to be demoted to Assistant Principal, based upon the decline of the caliber of graduates coming from the institution. The article went on to state:
“The Eagle has advertised at different times for apprentices to the printing art and before taking them they are carefully examined in the English branches. In the case of one applicant, when asked what a dash was, replied, ‘I do not know.’ He was a graduate of the High School”.
That article also accused Stewart of knowingly letting students get away with having other classmates write essays for them. Unsurprisingly, Stewart retorted to these allegations the same week they were published. His July 18th, 1876 written appeal to the school board was leaked and published in the August 10th, 1876 Reading Times. He scalded the Reading Eagle for publishing the alleged mistruths,
“You know what a foul friend Rumor is; how, small at first, it crawls upon the ground, but eventually hides its vaunting head on the clouds and overshadows with its vile body the whole community. There is but one worse plague afflicts the earth, and that is the unbridled, unscrupulous, lying newspaper”.
That night the school board voted 24-12 to retain Stewart as the Principal.
The End of Coeducation in Reading High School
Five years later, at a special meeting of the School Board on June 29th, 1881, the High School committee presented a report which recommended a division of the High School. Due to more applicants successfully passing the entrance exam to the school than it could reasonably accommodate at that time, they recommended a new site should be purchased and a building erected for the boys. The girls, who made up a 2:1 majority of the student body, would remain in the old high school building on North 4th Street. This plan temporarily housed the boys in the second story of “Bard’s Hall” which sat at Eighth and Penn streets. The resolution passed by a margin of 26-7. Even Board President Eckert, amongst the seven “nays”, agreed that the high school had been failing its students, stating, “The course of study in the High School should be elevated instead of being what it is today, only a first-class grammar school.”
The intention was to provide the boys with a curriculum designed to prepare them for college admission. The girls’ courses would resemble a “Normal School” – designed to pigeonhole them into teaching positions. The committee’s report also recommended starting fresh with new faculty, leaving Stewart abruptly jobless after 26 years.
On August 16th, 1881 a meeting of the school board was set to select positions within the two new schools. In that morning’s edition of the Reading Times, John Stewart published a 10 paragraph address to the school board, appealing for them to step into “his shoes”.
“I place myself squarely on my record for the last twenty-six years. By that record I ought to be judged, and by that record I shall either stand or fall.”
He went on to accuse the school board of being uninformed of the actual status of the academia in the high school, asking, “Do you personally know the merits of my individual case? You must answer No! For looking over the records of last year I see that but six controllers out of the entire body of forty-four visited the school at all.”
That evening motion before the School Board providing that John Stewart be reinstated as Principal of the new Boys High School, was defeated by 19 yeas to 22 nays.
The decision was a divisive one in the community, with many citizens petitioning for the reinstatement of John Stewart. The August 17th, 1881 Reading Times published an official list of names on the petition, which included the likes of Matthias Mengal (attorney and father of Reading Public Museum founder Levi Mengal), esteemed historian Morton L. Montgomery and prominent attorney Isaac Heister.
By now it was clear that even the local Reading Eagle and Reading Times newspapers took to opposing corners in the fight. While that week’s issues of the Times were filled with angry letters written by taxpayers and alumni of the school, the Eagle was silent on the matter. Interestingly, most of the opinion pieces published in the Times were written by men, citing examples such as increasing taxes to maintain two buildings as their reasoning against the divide. Very few were vocal on the unfairness this division may present to the girls looking for an equal education. The following was the only editorial written by a young woman that ran in the Reading Times, on August 18th, 1881,
What an Indignant High School Girl Has to Say on the Subject of Education:
“Words cannot express the astonishment with which I was filled, on opening yesterday’s edition of the Times, to find that there existed in this “enlightened”(?) city of Reading, an individual who was afraid that we girls should be too well educated. The sentiments expressed are worthy of the dark ages when woman was supposed to be merely a tool, unworthy of refinement or education. He says, “the position intended to be occupied by women, is to be mothers.” Will a knowledge of Latin, Algebra, Rhetoric, etc. interfere with the discharge of the duties of her station? Which is to be preferred – a coarse, uneducated mother, or a refined, intellectual mother? There can be no hesitation as to the answer.”
The issue came to a head on August 24th, 1881 when a “town meeting” was advertised in the Reading Times. The meeting was to take place that evening at Mishler’s Academy of Music to “protest the action of the Board of Controllers, in dividing the High School, and thereby increasing the expense, and also in their unjust action in removing from the position of Principal of said school, Prof. John A. Stewart.”
Right before the event the Liberty Cornet Band paraded up and down Penn Street, attracting the attention of the public to the sign promoting the meeting. According to the next day’s Times, no less than one thousand people were in attendance. The meeting was called to order and the following resolutions offered:
- “The we, citizens and taxpayers of Reading in general town meeting assembled, do hereby earnestly protest against the recent action of the Board of Control in dividing the High School into two branches, thereby entailing greatly increased and unnecessary expense in the employment of a double corps of teachers and in the contemplated erection of an additional High School Building.”
- “That we protest against the causeless removal of Prof John A. Stewart from the position of Principal of the High School, which he has held for a series of years with credit to himself and with profit to the schools of Reading.”
- “That for the purpose of avoiding any future complications in regard to the High School Faculty the members of the Board of Control, or a majority of their number be and are hereby requested to notify the President of the Board to call a special meeting prior to the first Monday of September, to act upon the nominations of Principal and Assistant heretofore made, so that they shall not be allowed to enter upon their duties, without confirmation by the Board.”
Regardless of much of Reading’s elite being adamantly against the move, the splitting of the schools was imminent. Rumors of John Stewart opening his own institution swirled as a result of the boisterous town meeting.
In the August 29th, 1881 Reading Eagle an article titled “Prof. Stewart’s School” published confirming the rumor. A more detailed article ran in the September 3rd Reading Times headlined by, “THE STEWART ACADEMY, An English, Mathematical and Classical School for Both Sexes”. The Seyfret Mansion at 25 South Fifth Street had officially been acquired as a location.
On August 30th Stewart penned a letter to an inquiring School Board member that was published in the next day’s Reading Times,
“In answer to your inquiry of yesterday, whether I was about to open a private school as announced in the Eagle, I have to say; That before any trouble was anticipated in the High School, (that is to say before the 1st of July or thereabouts) ot was the intention of my wife, in connection with my two daughters, to open a school of a select character for young ladies. Why, I need not state. Seyfert’s mansion was thought of for the purpose, but nothing was done until the development of the intentions of certain members of the Board of Control made inquiry necessary.”
Stewart went on to explain that because of the school board terminating him he had no choice but to give himself a new opportunity to make a living.
A special meeting of the School Board was called on September 1st in the old City Hall. Abraham Herr, the same board member John Stewart publicly addressed in the previous day’s Reading Times, made a motion to rescind the action of the Board relating to the division of the High School. His motion was seconded but ultimately stone-walled by other members. John Stewart was officially out. Anticlimactically, the meeting ended a half hour after it began.
To illustrate the tension of the time; as members of the board were making their way out of the council chamber after that meeting, fistcuffs broke out between city resident Thomas O’Brien and Jones Thomas, Board Member from the Sixth Ward. Allegedly, the altercation started when O’Brien called for Thomas to resign his position, prompting Thomas to strike him with his fist.
On Monday, September 5th classes started for the split sexes; 212 young women in the Girl’s School and 120 young men at Bard’s Hall. It was the beginning of a 46-year era of a gender divided education system in Reading. Boys and Girls would not again be in the same public school classrooms until the Castle on the Hill was built in 1927.
Monday September 12th, 1881 saw the grand opening of John Stewart’s new institute; the Stewart Academy. There were 85 desks filled with new pupils of both genders from some of Reading’s most influential families. Amongst the faculty were his wife Emma and eldest daughters Anna and Louise. By the time the school held its first commencement exercises for six graduates in June 1884, the school had 171 pupils.
The Next Generation
An era of transition began with the death of Emma Stewart in 1888 from “Bright’s Disease”; a historical classification of kidney disease. The school year following her death, John appointed a young Charles Foos as his assistant. Charles would later in life go on to be Reading School District’s Superintendent with an elementary school being named after him at Douglass and Weiser Streets.
In the summer of 1889 the Stewart Academy did not renew its lease on the Seyfert Mansion. The school made the transition to John Stewart’s private residence at 116 South Fifth Street for the beginning of the 1889-90 school year. This was likely due to the fact that Stewart had also fallen ill with Bright’s Disease, and would succumb on September 24th, only two weeks after the term had started. The news of his death made the top of the fourth column on the front-page in the September 25th, 1889 Reading Times,
“He was a polished and urbane gentleman – a kind and indulgent husband and father, and he died loved and respected by all who knew him.”
With the death of the headmaster, the future of the institution came into question. Stewart had three sons but none followed his footsteps when it came to teaching. It was his daughters who had been aiding him in his endeavors since leaving the public school system. Shortly after Stewart’s death Reading’s School Board approved that school furniture from the Stewart Academy be examined and possibly purchased for use. This led to rumors that the academy was closing. Those rumors were squelched in the October 17th, 1889 Reading Times, when it was reported that those pieces of furniture were merely a surplus and the school would continue in operations.
However, this did mark a significant transition for the educational institution. The school was marketed the following fall as the Misses Stewart’s Private School. Eldest daughter Anna Stewart took the reins and continued on her father’s legacy. By 1894 the school had relocated to 238 North Fifth Street. At this time John Stewart’s youngest daughter, Elizabeth, only 18 years of age, had joined her older sisters in teaching at the school. She herself was a product of the institution. The school was still co-education for pupils from six to sixteen years of age and enrollment was capped at 25 children.
A Move to the Country
The school saw radical expansion in its 42nd year. In May 1923 Anna, Elizabeth and their brother Donald Stewart filed a charter to incorporate under the name The Stewart School. Limited by space in the city, Miss Anna decided to purchase a 10 acre farm along Bernville Road. She decided the school would be known as a “Country Day School” which, as stated in an article that appeared in the June 20th, 1923 Reading Times, “provided a place where children may have all the advantages of a rural boarding school, but attending from nine to five and then returning to their homes with no lessons to learn.” Because of the additional space, enrollment increased to 50 pupils. On the campus was a quaint old farm house which sat right on Bernville Road. Much work was done in the summer of 1923 to prepare the house as classrooms for the term starting in September. The Stewart’s had the building painted white with green shutters. The barn, which sat back on the property, was renovated into a multipurpose building. The cow stables on the ground floor were converted into a garage for the school bus and visiting automobiles. The upper floor served as an indoor theater and gymnasium. The rolling 10 acres that the school sat on served as an outdoor play area for the children and would see more development in the coming decades.
With the incorporation came the formation of the school’s first board of directors. Miss Anna Stewart was its first President, with Elizabeth serving as Vice President. Donald Stewart served as secretary and treasurer. Directors were Miss Mary Archer, Mrs. Edwin A. Quier, and Mrs. Heber L. Smith. At the beginning of the 1923-24 school year the staff consisted of four women in addition to Anna as Principal and Elizabeth as Director and Head Mistress.
This move led to a relationship with the Berkshire Country Club due to proximity in location as well as many children of its members being educated at the Stewart Country Day School. The Stewart School was known by this time for educating the children of many of Berks County’s wealthiest families. Enrollment included names like Heister, Muhlenberg, Dives and Thun. The school was also known for its stellar theater productions by students, some of which were performed at Berkshire Country Club.
Tragedy hit the school on August 27th, 1926 when Miss Anna died suddenly of heart disease shortly before the academic year began. The Stewart School and greater community mourned her passing. A former pupil wrote in her obituary, “Many young people have come under the influence of ‘Miss Anna,’ as she was familiarly called. Through her own broad culture she showed to them the best of what the world has produced and because of her enthusiasm they grew to find pleasure in what was really good.”
Immediately following her death, local textile industrialist George Horst, whose daughter Caroline was a student, had an open-air amphitheater constructed on the grounds and dedicated it as a memorial to Anna Stewart. It would serve as the location of all Stewart School performances as well as other local Shakespearean theatrical groups. Elizabeth Stewart succeeded her older sister in the position of principal.
The Stewart School celebrated its 50th anniversary with a Golden Jubilee event on Saturday June 25th, 1932. Alumni and their families were invited back to the school to partake in a day full of activity. For the occasion, a gold covered Florentine book was created with a brief history of the school, and also provided pages for all guests attending to sign. This book is currently in Berks History Center’s Henry Janssen Library and was utilized in writing this article. One interesting fact noted in this book was that every year there is one student taught without charge, “as a gift to God and to the community.” The student was unaware of their status and treated equally as the rest.
According to the June 27th, 1932 Reading Times, hundreds of former students attended the anniversary event, including members of its first class of 1884. Brief addresses were made by J. Bennet Nolan and Frederick Muhlenberg, both former students of the Stewart School. Nolan’s daughter, Catharine Nolan, spoke of the “Catharine Nolan Medal”, which was annually presented to the school’s most representative student. Miss Louise Stewart was also in attendance though she had not been involved in the school for many years. The event ended with Miss Elizabeth being presented with a golden purse by her former students.
Elizabeth ran the school for nearly another two decades. She never married and had no heirs. In 1952 the school was converted into a civic center and the charter amended so as to establish in its place the Friendly Association, Inc. Its purpose was, according to Elizabeth’s January 14th, 1954 obituary in the Reading Eagle, “providing for the human care and training of domestic animals and the instruction and education of the public in humanitarian practices and principles and for aiding needy and deserving persons.” Miss Mary Archer, who was a longtime supporter and board director of the Stewart School was the President of this new venture. Undoubtedly connected, one of her most well-known philanthropies, the Animal Rescue League of Berks County, was founded later that same year.
Elizabeth, the last living daughter of John Stewart, died on January 13th, 1954 at age 77. She was born on June 17th, 1876, weeks before her father first had his position threatened by Reading’s school board over the caliber of graduates. When he formed the Stewart Academy in 1881 she was 5 years old and one of his very first pupils. From that moment forward she dedicated herself solely to the educational endeavors initiated by her father. When Elizabeth finally took the helm of the Stewart School after Anna’s passing in 1926, Reading’s public school system was a year away from reestablishing coeducation in the high school. She and her sisters, perhaps ahead of their time, spent that entire half-century proving that women have equal place; both as pupils and cultivators of education.
Postscript
In May of 1961 the Friendly Association, Inc. sold the 10 acres that once made up the Stewart School to Wodenschiere Country Club. The main house was demolished and a pool was constructed on the area that once made up the Anna Stewart Memorial Amphitheater. The pool and club opened to membership in July of 1961. Wodenschiere owned and operated the pool for over 50 years until it closed permanently in 2014 due to declining membership and increasing maintenance costs. The property was sold to Bethany Romanian Church of God who currently uses the original but renovated barn building as a place of worship. Everything else on the property has been razed.
