Building the Fernald School

Benjamin Sokol

Recently, I have witnessed the changes overtime of the Fernald School. I have been specifically trying to hone in on why certain buildings were built and if people had much influence over the architect, William Preston. The first building in the newly established Fernald School was the gym. The purpose of building this first, was to make sure the children had space to run around. The board of the Fernald School then thought that the school needed a hospital to accommodate the needs of the children. Once the gym and hospital were done, a modified "Ling Plan" was adopted for the school's gym. This meant that the Gym was built with medical, aesthetic, military and pedagogic wings ; the obvious next step was to make a wing for the children to sleep in. (2) This building was also completed in 1852. Over time this wing got too big. Because of this, the school decided to build one new wing for boys to sleep in and one new wing for girls to sleep in (1890). Even after this drastic change, both the boys’ and girl’s facilities were crowded and the children did not receive any better treatment.

Something interesting regarding Fernald School’s architect, William Preston was that he was the same architect who built MIT. Therefore, the style of both institutions’ buildings is very similar. Both buildings are built in Queen Anne and Greek Revival styles. These styles typically had “royal” color schemes and were very grandiose.

The association with MIT, even if only its architecture, was important. MIT recalled extremely intelligent individuals who comprehended things on a higher level. Looking like an elite institution would make people think that the Fernald School was also a place to be respected. This was important because the board of Fernald had gotten feedback that they had to change and become a more elite Boarding School for the children. The school started to try methods for improving the students’ abilities academically. The Fernald School then received more grants and became more prominently known.

The Fernald School showed up in several local, state and national newspapers. Each of these pictures showed children at the Fernald School doing either hard work in the classroom or hard labor outside. When more buildings were built at Fernald, former superintendents and prominent citizens had their names engraved on them, either due to their work or contributions to the school. These endowed buildings in turn helped to increase the prominence of the Fernald School and its connections to Waltham and the greater community. (4)

Citations:

Noll, Richard and Briole G: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Kraepelin
Tse, May K. "Famous Architecture." Famous Architecture: Unique Buildings Echo MIT's Innovative Style - The Tech. Accessed November 17, 2016. http://tech.mit.edu/V119/N27/MIT_architectur.27f.html.
Seeman, Mary V. "Psychiatry in the Nazi Era - Ww1.cpa-apc.org." Accessed November 20, 2016. https://ww1.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/CJP/2005/march2/cjp-mar2-05-Seeman-RP.pdf.
Https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BxxHIf1i1dAsZERjTVB3d1c4VXM. N.p., n.d. Web.