Medfield High School Abolished
by Richard DeSorgher
From 1870, when Medfield High School was officially established, to the building of the Hannah Adams Pfaff High School on the corner of North and Dale Streets in 1927, Medfield High School was located on the site of 25 Pleasant Street, with the lot extending back to Miller Street. First called the Centre School, in 1897 it was named the Ralph Wheelock School. It would later burn down in 1940. In 1899, the School Committee, under pressure to save expense to the town and facing overcrowded conditions, changed the high school to a two-year high school, with the students being sent to Walpole and Dedham High Schools for their junior and senior years. It stayed that way until 1903 when the School Committee recommended that the high school be closed all together, having legal permission to do so under the “High School Law of 1902.” The School Committee said they were not happy at that time of abolishing the high school and would “hail with pleasure” to reopen the school but felt that lack of room at the Wheelock School would prevent such an event. The Superintendent of Schools at that time was Abner Badger and he actually agreed with the closing saying the Medfield students would have “the advantages of a first class high school at a much less expense to the town.” Medfield High School was abolished and fourteen students were sent to Dedham High School and twelve to Walpole High. Each morning students with their dime, provided by the town, boarded the train at the station on Park Street and rode to school.
In 1904, it was said due in part to town pride, town meeting voted to re-establish part of the high school. The town returned to a two-year high school with the first two years at the Wheelock School and the final junior and senior years continuing at Dedham and Walpole High Schools.
To complete the story, in 1906 a third year of high school was added and in 1907, despite being rejected by voters at Town Meeting, the Medfield School Committee went ahead and used existing funds to introduce the full four-year high school. A total of forty-three pupils attended, the largest to date in the history of Medfield High School. In 1908, the first high school graduating exercise since June 1899 was held in Town Hall, with eight seniors graduating.
The School Committee reports record that patriotism, town and civic pride, and good manners and good morals were important traits to be instilled in the students by the high school. The Washburn Catechism, a history of Medfield, was studied by the students from 1901-1908. Town Meeting records show Medfield voters to be frugal when voting on the school budget. They were willing to pay for basic education but apparently nothing above and beyond that point. It was also pointed out by the superintendent that Medfield teachers were underpaid in comparison to the state’s average or that of surrounding towns, and he added that this was probably the cause of the large turnover in teaching personnel in town.
Medfield High School would never again close. The 43 total high school enrollment of 1907 would grow to over 900 today. MHS would also become a school recognized nationally as a Blue Ribbon School, whose test scores are among the highest in the state and a school who sends over 96% of its students to some of the best colleges and universities in the country.
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