The original Edgewood Public School was built in 1891, as the keystone of its great entrance arch tells us. Old Pa Pitt was not able to find the architect of the school, but he would not be surprised to hear that it was Frederick Osterling. The picturesque and asymmetrical Romanesque of this building reminds us of his early style, which was influenced by Richardsonian Romanesque but also reached back into the pre-Richardsonian Romanesque of his master Joseph Stillburg.

In 1914, Ingham & Boyd were commissioned to design a new high school for the growing borough,¹ which was built the following year. The style could hardly be more different. This is a typical Ingham & Boyd building in every way, with a simple and dignified classicism (and no columns, because Ingham & Boyd disapproved of columns) and a completely symmetrical façade. Today both schools, connected by a newer entrance (so that the old entrances are blocked in), are in use as the Edgewood Elementary STEAM Academy. The builders of the original 1891 school would probably have agreed that a well-educated citizen ought to have some familiarity with the marvelous properties of steam technology.

The new high school was featured in the April, 1917, issue of the Architectural Forum. This photo shows us that the entrance has been eliminated, and the windows replaced with blank expanses of glass. In the main, though, the general appearance of the school has not changed.

Here we see how the entrance looked when it was an entrance.

The floor plans show us that, as a high school, the building was small, but up to date with all the latest features. The accompanying text describes the school thoroughly:

Edgewood High School, Edgewood Park, Pa. Page 102. The High School at Edgewood Park, Pa., is located adjacent to a grade school building, with which it is connected by a covered and enclosed passage, so that the grade school pupils may use the gymnasium and auditorium of the high school building, the connection being made through the first floor main corridor on the left of the plan. It is intended to enlarge the building, when necessary, by an additional corridor and class rooms at the rear of the auditorium, leaving one side of the auditorium and gymnasium free, the lighting being maintained substantially as at present. The exterior walls are of mottled gray brick and terra cotta. The floors and roof are built fireproof, of reinforced concrete and hollow tile. The floors of corridors and locker rooms are of terrazzo, tile being used in toilet rooms and maple flooring elsewhere in the building, except in the chemical laboratory, where the floor is of asphalt. The interior trim is of oak, except on the ground floor, where pine is used. The heating and ventilating are by a combined motor driven supply and exhaust fan system, supplemented by direct radiation. The steam plant is in the adjoining grade school. The class rooms seat from 35 to 40 pupils each, a total of 310. The cost of the building was 17 cents per cubic foot.

“Higher education leads to higher ideals, to greater wisdom, and to contentment.” It is a typical Ingham & Boyd touch to add an inspiring quotation to the front of a school.

But where did the quotation come from? This is a curious mystery. It must have been familiar, or it would not have been enshrined in terra cotta. But old Pa Pitt’s diligent searches in the world’s digitized libraries have found it in only two places:

1. A 1949 advertisement from the Committee on Steel Pipe Research of American Iron and Steel Institute that ran in several architectural magazines, where it is again quoted as a well-known saying: “The American system of free public education has become a symbol of democracy through its thousands of magnificent school buildings from coast to coast. The number, size, beauty, and superior physical equipment of these schools demonstrate our public understanding that ‘higher education leads to higher ideals, to greater wisdom, and to contentment.’ ”
2. The March 21, 1959, issue of the Shamokin News-Dispatch, where it is used as an unattributed space-filler, again in quotation marks, meaning that the compositor grabbed it from somewhere.

So we have a quotation that was well known in 1915, but has left no trace in print before 1949 across the millions of digitized books, magazines, and newspapers on line. If anyone can give us a hint as to where this quotation came from, old Pa Pitt would be very grateful.

1. We have the Architectural Record article, of course, and many other listings as well. The Construction Record, October 3, 1914. “Architects Ingham & Boyd, Vandergrift building, are writing specifications on a two-story brick and fireproof high school building for the Board of Education to be built on Maple avenue at a cost of $75,000.” ↩︎

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