The Mather School is the oldest

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichke ...

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the C ...

. It is located in the Dorchester region of

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most p ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

and was named after

Richard Mather Richard Mather (1596 – 22 April 1669) was a New England Puritan minister in colonial Boston. He was father to Increase Mather and grandfather to Cotton Mather, both celebrated Boston theologians. Biography Mather was born in Lowton in the ...

. Mather was an English-born American

Congregational Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs it ...

minister who emigrated to Boston and settled in Dorchester in 1635. On ''The Dorchester Town Records'' reads the following:

"It is ordered that the 20th of May 1639, that there shalbe a rent paid of 20ls yeerely foreur imposed upon Tomsons Iland to bee payd p euy p'son that hat p'prtie in the said Iland according to the p'portion that any such p'son shall fro tyme to tyem injoy and posesse there, and this towards the mayntenance of a schoole in Dorchestr this rent of 20ls yeerlyl to bee payd to such a schoolemaster as shall undertake to teach english latin and other tongues and also writing...."

The first building was a one room schoolhouse and was located on what had been known as "Settlers' Street," near the corner of the present Pleasant and Cottage Streets. It served until 1694 when a contract was made with John Trescot to build a house twenty feet long and nineteen feet wide, with a ground floor, a chamber above, with a flight of stairs, and a

chimney A chimney is an architectural ventilation structure made of masonry, clay or metal that isolates hot toxic exhaust gases or smoke produced by a boiler, stove, furnace, incinerator, or fireplace from human living areas. Chimneys are t ...

. The contract required the building to be boarded and

clapboard Clapboard (), also called bevel siding, lap siding, and weatherboard, with regional variation in the definition of these terms, is wooden siding of a building in the form of horizontal boards, often overlapping. ''Clapboard'' in modern Americ ...

ed; to be filled up between the studs; to be fully covered with boards and shingles. The site of this building is supposed to be the hill near the meeting-house, on what is now known as Winter Street. The successor of this first school is the Mather School located at Meeting House Hill, the second building of that name. The previous building, erected in 1856, was located on the same site where the fire station is now. It was renamed the Edward Southworth School when the new Mather School was built in 1905, and has since been demolished. The Mather School, located on Parish Street just a few yards away from the original location, is operating for students of the Dorchester district spanning grades K–5. The school's mission is proficiency with support for all in reading, writing and math. Other classes offered are

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

physical education Physical education, often abbreviated to Phys Ed. or P.E., is a subject taught in schools around the world. It is usually taught during primary and secondary education, and encourages psychomotor learning by using a play and movement explorati ...

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

and computers. Additional programs include tutoring, mentoring and nutrition education. The school has a culturally diverse student and staff body with seven specialty classes and a well equipped playground. The principal as of the 2021–22 school year is Hai Son.

References

External links

The Mather School Website

Dorchester Atheneum

Boston Public Schools K-12

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mather School Public elementary schools in Massachusetts Educational institutions established in the 1630s 1639 establishments in Massachusetts Pre-statehood history of Massachusetts Elementary schools in Boston

See also

References

External links