The educational complex in Bala Cynwyd, Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, that includes Lower Merion Academy (1812), Cynwyd Elementary School (1914/1921 & 1999), and Bala Cynwyd Junior High School (1938, 1963, 1999) on a tract of land bequeathed to educational purposes holds significance under Criterion A, events associated with education, and under Criterion C for school architecture with contributing significance for the period from 1812 to 1952. The complex features Lower Merion Academy, the only community school founded in Montgomery County with stated non-denominational educational objectives for all children, including the poor, and the oldest free or public school building to be continually used educationally. The land and its buildings represent various stages in the evolution of both local and county education. Lower Merion Academy represents the shift from the early church-related schools to the Lower Merion Township public school system established in 1835. With the advent of motor buses at the beginning of the 20th century, the construction of Cynwyd Elementary School began the trend of school consolidation and modernization in the district and county. When Bala Cynwyd Junior High School was built adjacent to Lower Merion Academy, the junior high curriculum fostered the reuse of the smaller Academy schoolhouse for certain classes. Architecturally the complex is significant as the only of its type in the county and for epitomizing construction typologies of county school buildings over nearly two centuries, including a Federal style schoolhouse, an early 20th-century Classic Revival elementary school, and a neo-classical junior high school. The complex of three schools stands as a unique public educational facility on land dedicated in perpetuity to the free education of students.
History of the complex (Maps 1-2; Illustrations 1-7)
Jacob Jones (1713-1810), a Quaker and descendant of an early Welsh settler of Lower Merion Township, was a member of the Society of Friends Merion Meeting that had been established in 1683. Merion Meeting apparently did not provide a separate school for its community, though some instruction was apparently carried out in the loft of the meetinghouse and in private homes. In 1803, when Jones drew up his will, he followed the established Quaker commitment to education defined in the directives from the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. He left 9.41 acres of his plantation and 800 pounds for building a "school or schools for the free education and instruction of as many poor and orphan children of both sexes living in the said township without regard to their religious profession or education." Additionally, 500 pounds were provided in his will for investment in landed security to pay for teachers and building maintenance. Administration of the school was to be by a self-perpetuating board of trustees.
The designated school was completed by 1813, two years after the death of Jacob Jones' wife, Mary, in 1811. The agreement of June 9, 1812, between Algernon Roberts, Henry Bowman, and David Roberts (the three surviving trustees) and Joseph Price and Nathan Lewis ("architects") to build Lower Merion Academy, and the Green Tree Insurance survey (now Mutual Assurance Company) with a confirmation date of October 13, 1814, provide historic documentation on the structure. Jones' land and financing allowed for the construction of a three-and-a-half story, pebble-dashed stuccoed, stone schoolhouse--one much larger than the one- or two-room log or stone schools that were the norm. Based on the educational principles of the Friends, the schoolmaster received living accommodations and land to farm as detailed in the will.
Lower Merion Academy opened on November 1, 1813, and was first called the Lower Merion Benevolent School. The school offered not only basic subjects but also higher branches of learning such as natural philosophy. The advertisement posted in public places near the schoolhouse specified that the school was open to both sexes for $3.00 per quarter or free to the poor inhabitants of Lower Merion. Historic photographs after 1870 indicate a spring house and outbuildings for farming were included on the land as well as the Union Sunday School. The Union Sunday School was designed and built originally as the American Kindergarten for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. It was dismantled and moved to the site north of the Academy after the Exposition (Map 2). The building was used for Sunday school, to house the Academy Library, and as a primary center for social activities and festivals until it was demolished in about 1923.
Lower Merion Academy has functioned since 1813 for public education either under the guidance of the trustees or the eventual public education system of the state. The ideals of Jacob Jones stated in his will of 1803--to further the educational welfare of the township regardless of wealth--predate the Pennsylvania laws of April 4, 1809 and March 31, 1812. The law of March 31, 1812, specified to "establish public schools in such a manner, and under such regulations as shall be approved by the select and common councils of the city of Philadelphia." The law was written in response to circumstances that prevented poor children from receiving a "free and impartial education in Philadelphia." Jones' bequest thus constitutes the realization of a public school earlier than the regulatory process for the formation of such schools at the local or state level.
The self-perpetuating Board of Trustees of Lower Merion Academy governed the school, selected the teachers, and handled the finances as a separate entity until 1835. On April 1, 1834, Pennsylvania passed the common school law initiating public education in the state. On September 19, 1834, Lower Merion Township was the first community in the county to elect school directors to office. Montgomery County did not join the state common school system until July 27, 1835. At that time, besides Lower Merion Academy, the Township's schools included four neighborhood schools held as real estate by trustees (Union, Fairview, Mt. Pleasant, and Merion Square) and Mr. Sibley's School that was run for a profit near the Lancaster Turnpike. On November 16, 1835 these schools formally opened as common schools. The school district became eligible for funding from the state and was also supported by taxes levied in the township. The following year, with the termination of a rental agreement with the Sibley School, the School Directors of Lower Merion voted to build the first Township school, "Wynne Wood," near the Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike, according to specifications dated April 18, 1836.
In subsequent years, the schools held as real estate by trustees were absorbed by the school district, but the Lower Merion Academy fell under Section 17 of the common school law of June 13, 1836. This law stated that schools endowed by bequests could remain under the control of the trustees, but public funds could be used for support provided the school was conducted in conformity with the Commonwealth common school system. In this manner, Lower Merion Academy functioned as a school under the auspices and funding of Lower Merion School District through a resolution of September 15, 1836. In 1854 the Act of Assembly established free schools and authorized the different counties of the Commonwealth to provide uniformity in the remuneration of teachers. From 1854 until 1914 Lower Merion School District hired and paid teachers and oversaw the curriculum. The trustees monitored the building and maintained the property. Unlike other district schools, however, the Academy provided living quarters for the teacher and family as well as fields for planting crops.
Lower Merion Academy served additional roles during its active period as a school. First, its presence as an educational center for children and families caused residential growth as the area shifted from farmland to crossroad villages supporting new industrial and suburban development. By 1850 housing lots on the east side of Bryn Mawr Avenue had been sold in a full block to teachers and trustees associated with Lower Merion Academy. Maps of the time labeled the community as "Academyville" and it continued to expand with the growing student-body of the school.
To serve this rapidly growing population, the Lower Merion Library Company was established in 1842 to provide a lending library to the community. Neighbors contributed their books and stock shares were sold to raise funds to make book purchases. As decades passed, the library grew to a broad collection of over 1400 books housed in the Union Sunday School building. When the Academy closed as a school in 1914, the Bala Cynwyd Library Association retained the oldest books of the collection. At least six hundred volumes have been returned to the Academy trustees and preserve a great cross section of both literature and educational books through 1914.
Religion was not overlooked in the function of this educational institution and the student population. At the time, the American Sunday School Union from Philadelphia supported non-sectarian worship to educate and enlighten youth. Between 1861 and 1915 this organization was allowed to meet first in the Academy and after 1876 in the Union Sunday School building.
Due to losses incurred to the trust funds that reduced money for maintenance, in 1905 and again on April 3, 1914, the trustees of Lower Merion Academy leased the school and land to Lower Merion School District for a minimal fee with the understanding that the District was responsible for maintaining and preserving the building as well as for its continual educational use. Until 1914, classes were graduated from the Lower Merion Academy, but when the new Cynwyd Elementary School opened in 1915 (having been built on land of the Jones bequest), students were relocated to the modern structure. The classrooms of the Academy were then reserved for potential educational use. In the 1920s the Academy's living quarters became the home for the custodian of the Cynwyd Elementary School and the Academy itself.
Savery, Scheetz & Savery, a well-known and respected architectural firm in Philadelphia carried out the design of Cynwyd Elementary School for grades one to eight in 1914. The building was sited with its main facade facing Levering Mill Road and had eight classrooms. Construction costs were listed at $57,010 for the school, with an additional sum of $13,124 used to create a playing field at a lower level between Cynwyd Elementary School and the Academy. By 1920 Savery & Scheetz expanded the school at the rear with classrooms flanking a gymnasium that doubled as an auditorium. The same materials and style blended the two sections, but in the post-World War I economy the wing cost $201,481. Cynwyd Elementary School then contained eighteen classrooms, offices, a retiring room, library, manual training (art), domestic science departments, teachers' and pupils' lunchrooms, showers, and the gymnasium/auditorium.
In 1937 Lower Merion School District was forced to expand schools once again. This brought the rehabilitation of Lower Merion Academy, further interior remodeling of Cynwyd Elementary School, and the construction of the District's second junior high school next to the Academy. The 9.41-acre tract willed by Jones was not deep enough for the expansive new construction to hold 1000 students. In 1937 the District therefore purchased 3.5 acres from the Reyenthaler Estate north of the Jones tract for $25,000 (Map 1). (In 1943 another 3 acres was purchased for later expansion.) Thus on the Jones tract and partially on the new land, and just west of the Academy, the two to three-story Bala Cynwyd Junior High School was constructed between 1938 and 1939 in the shape of a "U." Designed by Davis & Dunlap as a fully fireproof building, it featured entrances both on Bryn Mawr Avenue and Manayunk Road. The school boasted two gymnasiums, a fully-equipped, dedicated auditorium, advanced technical facilities for shop and cooking classes, and a large oil burning heating plant to also serve Cynwyd Elementary and Lower Merion Academy. The cost of the construction was over one million dollars.
Simultaneously, a full rehabilitation of Lower Merion Academy was completed to accommodate junior high curriculum and provide a model house for home economics classes on the upper floors and a botany class in the basement. The most dramatic change to this building was at the south façade. A steep wooden staircase to the playing field was removed and a flagstone terrace added at first floor level with the botany room below. Extensive stone terracing and steps were built to reach the playing field. Across the way, at Cynwyd Elementary School, $101,150 worth of improvements were made. Classrooms were added to bring the total to 22 and a fully equipped new cafeteria was also installed in the lunchroom.
In the last half of the 20th century three different decades brought changes to the schools once again. In 1963 a critical need for science laboratories at Bala Cynwyd Junior High School caused the addition of a science wing by Supowitz & Demchick along Manayunk Road in place of the west entrance steps and terracing. In 1967 an increase in elementary school children created the need for a new wing at Cynwyd Elementary. The architects Demchick, Berger, and Dash, Associates, added a two-story contemporary wing at the west end to house a library and classrooms (demolished 1999).
In 1977-78 declining enrollment and student demographics caused major changes within Lower Merion School District. Four elementary schools and one of the three junior high schools were closed. Remaining elementary schools were converted to grades Kindergarten through 5; two junior high schools became middle schools for grades 6 though 8, and two high schools served classes 9 through 12. When Bala Cynwyd Junior High School was converted to a middle school, the Academy was affected again. Only the basement spaces were needed for classrooms, and the upper floors became meeting and conference rooms for the school district, community, and parent-school associations.
In the last decade of the 20th century and in preparation for the new millennium, the School District undertook a capital project to complete rehabilitation and additions to elementary and middle schools. In 1999 the 1967 wing on Cynwyd Elementary School was demolished. Einhorn,Yaffee, Prescott, Architects designed a full new classroom and gymnasium wing connected to the historic school by a full-height glass hyphen. This provides a view of Lower Merion Academy and serves as the main entrance to the school. The original 1914 and 1920 school sections were rehabilitated to code and ADA compliance and the old gymnasium was converted to a library. New terracing, steps, ramps, and concrete bleacher seating extending to the refurbished playing field were included in the project. Work began at Bala Cynwyd Junior High School nearly simultaneously through the same architects and was completed by 2000 to introduce telecommunications wiring, add a library and classroom in the two-story atrium created in 1963, convert the large gymnasium to two stories of classrooms, and build a new gymnasium over a cafeteria as an attached wing at the northwest corner of the school. During this period construction work caused the Academy to be placed in active use for middle school classes for three years. With all rehabilitation in the schools complete, plans have recently been made to incorporate the Lower Merion Historical Society on the second floor of the Academy as a research and historical education center for the community, returning the first floor and basement to school and community use.
Criterion A, Education
Both within the county and the township the nominated property stands as a unique complex of schools. The buildings were built principally on the plantation land donated by Jacob Jones, who followed Quaker principles to fund education. This was not unusual for the time. Colonial schools in America essentially evolved through religious institutions to assure that youth were trained to read the Bible. In 1647 Massachusetts enacted one of the earliest statutes establishing a school system, but the required town schools were often barely funded, and citizens favored home schooling, church schools, subscription schools, seminaries or academies where some tuition was charged. Most states generally relied on religious schools to educate children unable to afford tuition-based institutions of learning. The large Quaker community of Philadelphia established schools there as early as 1683. Abington Friends (later Montgomery County) was founded in 1697. By the end of the 18th century there were as many as twelve Friends schools in Philadelphia. In 1784 Christ Church, Philadelphia, founded Episcopal Academy to support instruction in the principles of religion. Like many of the Friends Schools, it continues today as a private, non-sectarian school offering comprehensive primary and secondary education. On the other hand, a German Lutheran congregation in Lower Merion Township built a one-room, stone schoolhouse in 1787 in Ardmore that has not served as a school since the 1820s. The building remains on the western side of the township about four miles from Lower Merion Academy. What made Jones' bequest go beyond the Quaker educational norm was his desire to provide an education for children regardless of an ability to pay a tuition fee, regardless of any religious inclination, and regardless of gender. In essence what has been defined in the state as public school education.
When Lower Merion Academy opened on November 1, 1813, tuition was $3.00 per quarter for those who could pay, or was free to those who could not. No religious affiliation was necessary. The school thus constituted a non-sectarian public school prior to any local or state laws mandating public education. The Board of Trustees, five of Jones' friends, were in charge to carry out the bequest and manage the school. In the early years when the student body was small, paying students from the city were encouraged to attend or board at the school. But rivalry on the playground between the "boys of broad cloth . . . and the lads of homespun caused bloody encounters." The elite, paying scholars were rapidly dropped as the local population grew and the teacher's time was more fully occupied.
The headmaster and his family lived in the building, maintained it, and farmed the land. The renown, stability, and popularity of the school is marked by the fact that one teacher, Israel Irwin, taught for 23 years and raised his family in the building. Girls and boys had different curriculums. Girls learned reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar and plain needlework; boys were further challenged with decimal arithmetic and the vulgate. Quarterly examinations of students were expected. Although attendance was often poor, classes graduated yearly and enrollment grew with the popularity of the school and as the residential neighborhood expanded. Academy scholars from the community became prominent lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and congressmen.
By 1835 when the common school act was passed and six schools formed the early school system of the township, all but Lower Merion Academy were one-room schoolhouses. As the Pennsylvania Railroad expanded during the second half of the 19th century, the Main Line gained suburban status and the population grew. Mandated education for children over age six (1873) and compulsory attendance for ages 8-13 (1895) also caused school population growth. Gradually, larger, two-story stone, neighborhood elementary schools were built, replacing all but three of the one-room schoolhouses. By the turn of the century educational reform was being encouraged by the Superintendent of Schools of Montgomery County. School Districts were expected to consolidate small schools into larger, more economical institutions. Additionally, new gasoline powered motor buses meant larger schools could economically serve a more distant student population.
After one hundred years of service to the township educating scholars, Lower Merion Academy was too small and out of date. By agreement with the Board of Trustees of the Academy, Cynwyd Elementary School was built by Lower Merion School District in two phases (1914 and 1920) on the trustees' land as a fully equipped school to meet the standards of the day. Eighteen uniform size classroom spaces were designed for grades one through eight. Each grade-level had its own teacher, except for a combined seventh and eighth grade. In addition to reading, writing, and math, the curriculum included art, music, geography, history, moral lessons, games, and physical education focusing on "Swedish gymnastics." Cynwyd Elementary School became the first 20th-century school built at the eastern end of the township. Since then the school building and the elementary curriculum have been adapted to state and Lower Merion School District standards to continue to serve students in the 21st century.
Junior high schools became a state standard after 1919, and Lower Merion's first junior high school, Ardmore, was completed in 1924. The construction of Bala Cynwyd Junior High School next to Lower Merion Academy in 1938 is significant for the role the junior high curriculum played in the planning of the school complex. The rehabilitation of Lower Merion Academy as a home economics suite, for business and typing classes, and as a botany center was feasible and easily attainable through well-designed rehabilitation of the older building. Indeed, especially for those in home economics, the Academy established the concept of a model home. The planners of the complex looked at the curriculum and made Lower Merion Academy function to its best advantage. Bala Cynwyd Junior High School opened in 1939 designed for 1000 students in classes seven through nine. The course of study outlined for the students involved standard subjects for boys and girls. Courses included English, mathematics, general science, geography, history, spelling, penmanship, guidance, health, gymnasium, chorus and instrumental music. Girls attended art, foods, and clothing. Boys went to mechanical drawing and woodworking. In eighth grade Latin was offered as a "try-out" language and boys attended sheet metal and electricity. At ninth grade required courses were English and algebra and electives included new subjects: French, German, and Commercial Work (business practice and typewriting). Commercial Work, Home Arts (known as food and clothing), and botany courses became the curriculum in Lower Merion Academy. The basement rooms served botany, the large second floor classroom was equipped with typewriters, and a second kitchen with adjoining dining room had been installed at the top of the stairs for Home Arts to supplement the kitchen, pantry, and dining room on the first floor. Lower Merion Academy thus served as an annex to Bala Cynwyd Junior High School for home economics and business classes for over thirty years of junior high school curriculum. Curriculum changes in the late 1960s and the eventual conversion of the Junior High School to a middle school during a restructuring of the districts grade system between 1978 and 79 meant Lower Merion Academy's role was reconfigured again. The first and second floors served community and school functions, the basement classrooms for a period became a teaching bicycle shop, and then were eventually used to house Special Education classes. The integration between Lower Merion Academy and Bala Cynwyd Junior High School for educational purposes has been continuous since the junior high school was built. The surrounding playing fields have also served physical education curriculum for both Cynwyd Elementary School and Bala Cynwyd Junior High School on a regular basis. No other educational complex encompassing an historic Federal school and a 20th-century elementary and junior high school on one tract of land has been identified in Montgomery County. Finding another in the state is unlikely. The tract remains significant as a rare educational complex.
Architectural Significance of the Complex
The architectural significance of this complex relates to its representation of a continuum of traditional, well-designed and constructed school architecture of 1812 to 1952 ranging from an early, multi-room schoolhouse of 1812 to an elementary school of 1914 and a junior high school of 1938. Within the 22 school districts in Montgomery County, none have been found to include three similar intact and functional school buildings in close proximity spanning such a time period. The earliest structure, Lower Merion Academy, architecturally characterizes a Federal schoolhouse designed for students and a resident teacher. Other academies not closely affiliated with religious organizations developed during the Federal period in Montgomery County, but unlike Lower Merion, all were tuition-based and not open to the poor. None survive today as schools. Those built were Milltown School (1795), Cheltenham; Norristown Academy (1804); Pottstown Academy (ca. 1806); Sumneytown Academy (ca. 1806), and Loller Academy (1811), Hatboro.
Of these schools, only Lower Merion Academy and Loller Academy operated in their original buildings into the 20th century. These multi-floored buildings with central bell towers (Loller's featured a clock as well) had large interior spaces easily adaptable to the expanding student population and developing educational needs of the later 19th century. Loller Academy indeed is the one school in Montgomery County that parallels the history of Lower Merion Academy. It too was built with the bequest of one man, Richard Loller, an associate county judge who provided funds to build an academy or seminary of learning in his name within one mile of the center of Hatboro. Completed in 1812, it fell under the care of nine trustees and is listed as the 35th academy in Pennsylvania. It was, however, a private school without residential space for a teacher. Not until 1848 did Loller Academy became the single public school for Hatboro. It continued in that manner until 1926. In 1927 Hatboro High School opened on the Loller Academy property and Loller Academy continued as an elementary school. Neither school currently functions educationally. In 1963 Loller Academy was converted to the Hatboro Boro Hall and the high school was adapted to the needs of an insurance company. In Montgomery County, Lower Merion Academy thus remains as the earliest school building still used as part of a public educational complex.
The architectural feature that also assisted in the survival of Lower Merion Academy is the fact that it was designed and used to accommodate a live-in teacher. The west side of the building had smaller rooms on both the first and second floor fitted with fireplaces and classic mantels for pleasurable living and ease of heating. The east side had the full-length school rooms heated by utilitarian iron stoves. The north façade of the building accommodated this separation with two entry doors on the porch. The west door opened directly into a living space; the east door went into the central hall with direct access to the staircase and classrooms. In 1914 after the students moved to Cynwyd School, the Academy easily became a residence for the school custodian and his family. This protected the building until its renovation to a home economics suite and botany center for curriculum associated with the new, neighboring Bala Cynwyd Junior High School. Continued educational and community use of the building has varied since the conversion to Bala Cynwyd Middle School in 1978.
Cynwyd Elementary School, added initially in 1914 and expanded again in 1920, typifies the classic architectural style used in Lower Merion School District and other districts both in Montgomery and neighboring Delaware County. At this time of school consolidation, new 20th-century buildings began to replace one-room or multi-room Victorian schoolhouses. For example, Lower Merion School District built four new elementary schools for the community between 1914 and 1931: Cynwyd Elementary and Bryn Mawr Elementary in 1914, Ashland Elementary in Belmont Hills in 1919, Merion Elementary in 1925, Wynnewood Road Elementary in 1927, and Penn Wynne Elementary in 1931. The two earliest, Cynwyd Elementary and Bryn Mawr Elementary represent trends of Classic Revival architecture typical of the turn of the century. The school mass is rectangular and symmetrical with two-and-a-half stories of functional floor space with classrooms on the perimeter walls. Auditorium/gymnasium spaces are centrally located. Both feature brick with white terra cotta trim, large multi-pane windows used in groups of three or four, decorative, arched fanlight windows at stair halls, and classic architectural elements at doorways and central entry parapets. Of these six schools four still function as Lower Merion School District elementary schools. During the 1977-78 school restructuring, Bryn Mawr Elementary was sold to become a bank and office building. Wynnewood Road School now serves as a Jewish School, Torah Academy. Cynwyd Elementary, with its new wing of 1999, thus remains as the oldest functioning elementary school in Lower Merion School District expressing Classic Revival architectural traditions. The closest suburbs to Lower Merion that experienced the same school demographics were in Delaware County. There the same elementary school architectural style prevailed. Some elementary schools remain in use (Edgemont Elementary, Lorraine Ave., and Oakmont Elementary, Eagle Road, Haverford Township), others in Wayne and Rosemont, Radnor Township have been adapted to new functions. None or these schools were, or are, on a tract of property with an earlier Federal school or a later junior high school.
Bala Cynwyd Junior High School stands as the last school built in the township before World War II of traditional, long-enduring materials. The building displays a neo-classical modernist styling fitted to a school planned around mid-20th-century school curriculum, the busing of students, and the topography of the site. It was built to complement Ardmore Junior High located at the opposite end of the township. With the demolition of Ardmore Junior High School in 1992, Bala Cynwyd Junior High School became the earlier of the two remaining schools built for junior high or middle school years in the township. Bala Cynwyd Junior High School stands as a traditional school of the first half of the century, whereas Welsh Valley Middle School (Harbeson Hough Livingston & Larson Architects), built as a junior high in 1956 and further expanded in 2000-01, was designed using post-World War II building materials as a campus-like school with connecting walkways between the principal grade-oriented and activity buildings. Davis & Dunlap's design for Bala Cynwyd Junior High School, alludes to classicism in a modern setting through its simple, two-story limestone, Tuscan columned entrance in a flat, undecorated brick façade on Bryn Mawr Avenue.
A comparison of Bala Cynwyd Junior High School with other Montgomery County junior high or middle school buildings shows that within the 22 school districts, none of the four pre-1952 buildings located are comparable in architectural design with Bala Cynwyd. Norristown's Stewart Middle School on West Marshall Street opened as a junior high school in 1925. Built of brick and limestone, the building reflects the Classic Revival style of that era with similar traits to Cynwyd Elementary School. Eisenhower Middle School on Markley Street, Norristown, was built in 1936 as a high school. This three-story building with vertical fenestration and a six-story central vertical tower identifies quickly with the modernism of the 1930s decade. Its size, however, relegates it to the high school category. Pottstown Middle School on N. Franklin Street, Pottstown, was built in 1933 as a junior high school. The two-and-a-half-story school returns to the Georgian Revival style, with a central, tall bell tower over a symmetrical brick façade with a columned and pedimented entrance. The Jenkintown Middle/High School on Highland Avenue built in 1928 as a high school follows a two-story, central-gymnasium pattern in brick similar to Cynwyd Elementary School. Federal style architectural features are part of its design. Bala Cynwyd Junior High School, designed as a junior high, thus represents an architectural style and pattern of the 1930s not found in other Montgomery County junior high or middle schools. Its architectural merits add to the significance of the Lower Merion Academy, Cynwyd Elementary School, and Bala Cynwyd Junior High School complex.