St. Henry's School

IX. BOOK OF WISDOM

Saint Henry’s Parochial School

Let the children come to me and do not hinder them.

It is to just such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs (Mark 10:14)

The educational mission of St. Henry’s Parochial School is threefold: Message, Community, Service.

Parents, teachers, administrators, and clergy share in the mission to proclaim Christ’s message to the world and to bear witness to that message by service to others and by building a community of faith.

St. Henry School participates in this mission of the Church by means of parents helping their children grow, develop, and mature: spiritually, academically, socially, and physically.

The school attempts to provide an environment in which each child feels worthwhile, accepted, and supported.

Education is the gradual elimination of the feeling of knowing everything

- Anonymous

The second most important building in the port-folio of the parish property is the school. In the early days the school ensured that the traditions of the homeland would live on in a new world.

The parish school provided the means to transmit the traditions of religion and language. It brought under one roof the elements of education and religious instruction that were not allowed in the public schools. Finally, the parish school enabled the Catholics of the congregation to have some voice in what their children learned and how they learned it.

During the 19th century, the nature of public education in Watertown was rather poor. Early public schools in the city had problems with attendance, poor facilities, and a certain lack of citizen interest.

But, at the same time, there were a number of good parochial schools that were organized and operated by Watertown’s major churches. There-fore, it is hard to discern as to whether students were enrolled into parochial schools because of the poor public schools, or if the public schools were inferior in educating because of so many students enrolled in the parochial schools. Whatever.

The first official school district was organized in Watertown in 1844 and the community built one-room schoolhouses in each of the city’s wards.

It is probable that many parents of children instead choose a parochial school, especially for the children of the many German immigrant families who came to Watertown in the 1840’s and 1850’s, for it was in a German Catholic school, such as St. Henry’s, that they could receive instruction in all subjects in their native language and about their religious beliefs in particular.

What is certain is that the family members of St. Henry’s Church were expected to enroll their children in the parish school if at all possible.

It may not be amiss to remind parents that the hearts of their children must be educated as well as their minds. This is real education. All other is sham. To accomplish such results religions and morality must be a part of every day’s lesson. If they are not the knowledge is purely secular. While the mind expands, the heart contracts. God’s laws, not having been inculcated, seldom spring up later. To these the heart is a barren waste and the mind is a cultivated field of weeds.

Parents, therefore, who desire their children to be properly educated, must select that system which has God in it. Our Lord and not our heroes should be their models.

We would earnestly plead, therefore, for the sending of your children to the parochial school. There the mind is polished and at the same time the heart blooms with the flowers of religion.

Virtue lends its aroma to the atmosphere.

Another paradise from which the tutored go forth into a citizenship that is good and with a Christianity that cannot be shaken.

Children so taught will be a pride to their parents and honor to their country and an instrument for good in the hand of God.

Catholic Citizen, 08 30 1902

John Penza, 1980’s

In 1854 a church school was started by the members of St. Henry’s Church, only one year after the congregation had been incorporated.[1]

This frame school building was not the frame house at 1008 North Second Street, as stated in the 1973 Parish Directory and reproduced more than once in the Watertown Daily Times, but rather the first school was located within the first St. Henry’s Church building itself, built under the guidance of the Norbertine missionary Gaertner in 1850, in the current courtyard area between the present church and school.

This claim is substantiated in the 1853-1903 church history section of the book _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________-, page 49.

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