Schools: Boston's Backwardness

In Boston last week, a Negro Paul Revere on horseback led a march of 10,000 up to a 93-year-old school in protest against a sad fact—Boston has not only the nation's oldest public school system, but also its most senile.

The so-called "Athens of America" seems impervious to the idea that big cities need the best schools in the country. At last count, 38% of Boston's 90,000 pupils attended schools more than half a century old, including one built in 1847. Many are ill-lit, malodorous fire traps. Boston's schoolchildren are jammed in tight—40...

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