On June 21, 1887, Paul Laurence Dunbar received his grade report for a recently completed Algebra class. He was 14 years old and attending Central High School in Dayton.
This is to certify that Paul Dunbar, having completed Algebra at the Central High School, Dayton, O., is awarded this Testimonial of proficiency in that branch of study.
Third Grade 77.2
Alice Jennings
TeacherChas. B. Stivers
PrincipalCentral High School Grade Report, June 21, 1887. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 3).
Students with the highest scores were said to be in the First Grade and those in the next group were in the Second Grade. Paul was in the Third Grade, earning the equivalent of a C for the course. Paul had much better performance in other areas of study, such as Virgil (94%), English Literature (97%) and Literature (100%). When he was young, Paul wrote a poem about Algebra. The lines are written in a barely legible scrawl and signed "P. Laurence Dunbar."
For all the times I ever had
In Algebra were very bad.
My lessons are all recorded here
And o're them I've shed many a tear.
Excerpt from "Algebra," by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Unpublished manuscript. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 3).
Later in life, in a letter to a fan, Paul recalled his 14-year-old self and jokingly said he spent too much time writing instead of studying the mathematician Euclid.
I must say that my life has been so uneventful that there is little in it to interest anyone. I was born at Dayton, Ohio, twenty-five years ago. Attended the common school there and was graduated from the high school. This constituted my "education." I began writing early, when about 12, but published nothing until I was fourteen. Then the fever took me, and I wrote ream upon ream of positive trash when I should have been studying Euclid. Plays, verses, stories, everything I could think or dream were turned out. Fortunately, I seldom tried to publish.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to A. S. Lanahan, February 17, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 2).
Soon after Paul got a C in Algebra, public schools in Dayton became racially integrated. Until that time, Black grade school students had been taught separately from whites.
A commodious brick schoolhouse was erected on Fifth Street for the use of the colored graded school, known as the Tenth district, and pupils prepared in it were admitted to the intermediate and high schools. While under the fourteenth amendment which became a part of the constitution of the United States in 1868, colored youth had the legal right to demand admission to the public schools in the city districts in which they resided, the right was not claimed by the parents of colored youth. The separate colored school was continued until 1887, when, as a measure of economy and of more efficient teaching, the board of education abolished it. Colored youth now attend without objection the schools in the districts in which they reside.
History of Dayton, Ohio, with Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Pioneer and Prominent Citizens, by Harvey W. Crew. United Brethren Publishing House (Dayton, Ohio). 1889. Page 217.
A reference to the report of the board of education will show that teachers and principals of the schools were appointed for the ensuing year last evening. No principal was appointed to the Tenth district (colored school), not because the work of Miss Green, the present incumbent, is unsatisfactory, but because there is a prospect that the school will be abolished.
"City Items." The Dayton Daily Herald (Dayton, Ohio). June 24, 1887. Page 3.