100 Years Ago at BFS

An interesting note about the 1913-1914 school year is that it marks the point when BFS seems to have adopted its system of recording student grades using pre-printed, two-sided 6″ x 9″ cards: white cards for the lower division in grades 1 through 6 (kindergarten was not included, perhaps it was not yet considered an academic year), and blue cards for the upper division in grades 7 through 12. This student records system would be used for almost the next 60 years at BFS, and it is still used today as the official transcript system for students enrolled at BFS from 1914 to 1968. The student record system of even earlier years is presently unknown, though it is understood that the school did not use numerical grades as preferred at other schools. Looking at the transcript cards for the two graduates of 1914, Shreve Parrish and Ernest Palmer, the only section filled out on each transcript was for their final year, under 11th grade, and notes their date of graduation as June 5, 1914. At the time, our upper division of grades 7 through 12 had been proudly designed to allow many of our students to finish their studies a year ahead of students at most other schools, a design which continued into the 1923 year when BFS graduated its then-largest graduating class of 24 students, a number attributed solely to the phasing out of our early graduation due to the redesign of our school’s curriculum. I personally experienced written evaluations at BFS, which my parents and I greatly appreciated, but, having overseen the digitization of BFS student records from 1913 to 2007, I now think they had it right in 1913.

Excerpted from the transcript of Ernest R. Palmer, BFS Class of 1914 Mr. Palmer died in 1949 at the age of 52, see page 4 of The Millburn and Short Hills Item, Dec. 8, 1949

Look closely and one can see the stoop of the brownstone at 116 Schermerhorn, mentioned by Will Walter Jackson at the 1914 Commencement. BFS was gifted that brownstone by the estate of Phebe Anna Thorne.