How Worcester got an elected School Committee

This is taken from the excellent A History of Worcester (1674-1848) (p. 120) by Kenneth J. Moynihan, whose columns in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette I continue to miss.

In 1823, a committee arose that seemed like all the others, but it was not. At a self-initiated meeting in August, “the inhabitants of the center school district” appointed a six-member committee to “report on the general concerns of said district.” Within weeks the committee was ready to report that “for several years past, the schools in this District have generally fallen below the common standard in the Commonwealth,” and would not bear comparison with those in neighboring towns. “Ought this state of things be long endured?” the committee asked. “Is it not reproachful to the Center District of the shire town in the county of Worcester?”

As part of the solution to this problem, Worcester's first board of Overseers was elected at the end of that year.