USA > Florida > Florida, 1513-1913, past and future; four hundred years of wars and peace and industrial development > Part 21
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The school fund administrated by the State Board of Education amounted at the close of 1911 to nearly one and one-half millions of dollars. It had doubled in the previous ten years. This fund is invested in high class bonds, bearing interest of from three and one- half to five percent. The state school fund also owns approximately two hundred thousand acres in the sixteenth sections of every township in The Everglades, which in the eventual settlement of that section, it is estimated by high authority, should add $5,000,000 of investable funds, available for the support of schools in Florida. Five million dollars additional will eventually be returned when other lands pat- ented to the state under the Swamp and Overflowed Lands Act shall have been sold.
OTHER SOURCES OF INCOME
Another source of income to the school funds arises from the one- mill tax on all assessable property in this state. The fund produced by this tax is distributed to the various counties on a proportionate basis of the number of pupils in attendance on the public schools in each county. This basis of distribution works to the disadvantage of certain counties whose large values of taxable property produces a greater income than the number of pupils in their schools entitles them to draw back from this fund. The method favors those counties in which the property values are less and the number of school attendants larger in proportion. Other sources of income for the support of public schools are the poll taxes, the fines and forfeitures from all state courts and a few other less important sources.
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Each county is made a school district and the management of schools is placed in the hands of a board of education, consisting of three members, elected biennially by popular vote. Each county may be divided into sub-districts by a majority vote of the tax payers of any given section within that county. A special tax levy, not to exceed seven mills, may be made and collected and expended for school purposes within that district. The latest compilations show four hundred and eighty-one such sub-districts in the forty-nine counties.
ADMINISTRATION OF SCHOOL FUNDS
The school funds of the state are administered by the Board of Education, which includes the Governor, Secretary of State, Treas- urer, Attorney General and the Superintendent of Public Instruc- tion, the latter being secretary of the board.
The control of the public schools of this state is vested in the county boards, who are accountable to the state board. The county superintendent of schools is the executive officer in the administra- tion of the orders of each county board. The development and finan- cing of the educational interests in the county are determined in a large measure by the character of the men who constitute these boards. The result has been that in some of the older and longer settled sec- tions of the state, the educational interests are not on a par with similar interests in the more recently developed parts of Florida although this is not a fact of general application.
SCHOOL STATISTICS
Referring to the recent report of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, some important facts are gained regarding public school matters of the state.
Of the total population of the state by the census of 1910-751,- 139-the school population, including those between the ages of six and twenty-one years, was 211,530, of which 125,343 were white and 86,187 negroes. The expenditure of school funds was divided among 2,562 public schools, 1,848 for white pupils and 714 for negroes, for in the educational system of Florida the races are separated, virtu- ally creating two distinct school systems although under one general management. The average length of the school year was 106 days, 110 in the white schools and 96 in those for negroes.
Of the entire school population, 148,089 pupils, or seventy-one
STATE DEAF AND BLIND SCHOOL, ST. AUGUSTINE
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HIGH SCHOOL, ST. AUGUSTINE
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percent, were enrolled, and according to races, seventy-eight percent of the whites and sixty-five percent of the negroes.
The value of public school property in this state was $2,036,684, of which $1,521,778 was for the white schools. The salaries of teach- ers required $1,109,968 and for new buildings $219,041 was expended.
The average monthly salary paid teachers was $52.16; to white male teachers, $68.13; to white female teachers, $55.80; to negro male teachers, $33.68; and to negro female teachers, $30.18.
RACE DISTINCTIONS
Such is a brief outline of the common school system of Florida as it exists today, free to all children of school age resident in this state. The apparent discrimination against children of the negro race in shorter school terms and smaller per capita expenditures for their education, demands but little explanation. Never in the history of Florida as a state has there been a denial of the right of every child, white or black, to the benefits of free schools. White property owners pay by far the largest proportion of taxes for all purposes, although it is not possible to determine with any degree of accuracy what that percentage is. Another fact aids in the explanation-comparatively few of the negro pupils advance in their schooling beyond the lower grades, which are less expensive in their administration than those of the grammar and higher schools in which the average white pupil completes his school education. For the few advanced negro pupils there are several seminaries in which their ambitions and capacities for attaining high scholarship may be satisfied.
The plan of the common school system of Florida contemplates a high school in every county and the necessary number of schools in every district as may be required by the school population. Every in- corporated city in this state may become a distinct school district, and its educational affairs may be financed and controlled separately from those in the county outside of municipal limits.
HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS
Outside of and distinct from its common schools, Florida has several institutions for special training and for the higher education of both races and sexes. These are: the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, at St. Augustine; the Florida Agricultural and Mechan- ical College for Negroes, at Tallahassee; the Florida State College Vol. 1-27
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for Women, at Tallahassee, and the University of Florida, for the higher education of men, which is located at Gainesville. Coeduca- tion is not favored in the colleges under state control. These col- leges are supported in part by the income from special funds, but more largely by appropriations from the state treasury.
In the matter of higher education in Florida, it is only within recent years-in 1905-that the institutions devoted to the training of more advanced pupils were put on a sound and certain basis. When the State Legislature met in biennial session in that year nine separate institutions were receiving aid from the state. These colleges, in buildings and equipment, represented a money value not much above a half million of dollars. The curricula of several, perhaps of the majority of them, were no higher or better than those offered in many of the high schools of the state, and in fact, some of them actually took the places of high schools in the particular counties in which they were located. The appropriations asked for these schools amounted, in the aggregate, to more than three hundred thousand dollars each year, and the campaign for such appropriations by the Legislature had induced a vigorous rivalry among them which offered no ad- vantage to the institutions nor to any of their pupils. These schools had become an increasing burden upon the state without a correspond- ing and growing benefit.
THE BUCKMAN BILL
It was in that year, 1905, that a bill was introduced before the Legislature providing for sweeping changes and reforms. It con- templated a more economical expenditure of funds for higher edu- cation divided among fewer institutions. It proposed to withdraw state aid from so many struggling institutions of learning having insufficient equipment, inferior courses of study and of local benefit and reputations, and to establish instead two splendid institutions of learning-a university for men and the college for women-both thor- oughly equipped, with courses of study the highest and best, efficient faculties, and fitted to win wide-spread reputation. The bill was introduced by Hon. H. H. Buckman, from Duval county, and through all the strenuous debate that preceded its final adoption and in subsequent times, it was known as the Buckman bill.
This bill provided for the establishment of two colleges, one for each sex of the white race; one to be located east, and the other west of the Suwanee river. It proposed the appointment of a board which
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BUCKMAN HALL, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
FLORIDA MILITARY ACADEMY, JACKSONVILLE
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should select the respective locations for these institutions, and in their selection, from which there could be no appeal, the board was required to take into consideration the value of buildings and equipments and all other advantages offered by each city in which were the institu- tions which it was proposed to replace. It provided for a board of control of five members, to which in conjunction with the State Board of Education, should be committed the creation and administration of affairs of the new colleges.
The Buckman bill provided in addition for the establishment on a new basis of a college for negroes already existing at Tallahassee and of the school for the deaf and blind at St. Augustine, to be ad- ministered by the same board of control. It provided for their removal to other locations if so determined by the board.
LOCATIONS OF STATE SCHOOLS
It was but natural that an energetic rivalry should arise to secure the location of these four institutions, among the cities which were anxious to retain schools already existing, even though it might be under new names and managements. This rivalry became almost bitter and aroused closest attention in every section of Florida, until the board finally selected Tallahassee as the location for the state college for women, where the Women's College had existed before it; it se- lected the same city for the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes, replacing the normal and industrial school. It established St. Augustine as the site of the school for the deaf and blind, and at Gainesville it located the University of Florida.
Many new and perplexing problems confronted the board of con- trol at the outset of its undertaking to build up the new system of higher education. The courts were called upon to decide the consti- tutionality of the new law and they sustained it. Sufficient funds were not available to erect in the first year nor in the second, all the buildings required nor to equip them for their largest usefulness. They had to plan for a long future and to establish foundations that should last. Yet, within the first six years of their administration, the institutions and their equipment represented an investment of $2,000,- 000, and their standards of education had been placed on a par with the best in the country.
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UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
The University of Florida at Gainesville has been organized in conformity with the recommendations of the Association of State Universities of America, of which it is a member. This plan gives con- sistent and systematic division to the various fields of work repre- sented in the institution. Its organization includes the Graduate School; the College of Arts and Sciences, offering the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, the Bachelor of Science in Education; the College of Agriculture, with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Agriculture; the College of Engineering, offering de- grees in the branches of Civil, Electrical and Mechanical Engineer- ing; the College of Law, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws; and the Sub-Collegiate Division, which affords a preparatory year to the collegiate course; the United States Agricultural Experiment Sta- tion, and, in addition, the University Extension, with Farmers' In- stitutes throughout the state, Correspondence Courses in Agriculture, and a Lecture Bureau.
Admission to the University may be had on a certificate of grad- uation from any first-grade high school in the state, also by the usual examinations.
THE EXPERIMENT STATION
Connected with the State University is the Experiment Station, which is maintained entirely for research work and is supported by liberal appropriation. It conducts an experimental farm of several hundred acres, stocked with an excellent herd of high grade cattle, and in its laboratories have been worked out problems that have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars to the farmers of Florida.
The campus of the University, comprising many acres of forest covered land, has been laid out in attractive form by skilled landscape engineers, allowing room for the location of new buildings and de- partments as funds shall be available for their construction. Already seven splendid buildings have been placed on these grounds, besides the numerous structures required for the work of the Experiment Station.
WOMEN'S COLLEGE
The Florida State College for Women at Tallahassee divides its work into various schools or departments, each offering appropriate degrees at graduation. These are: the College of Arts and Sciences;
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the Normal Department; the Schools of Art, Music and Expression; and the Department of Home Economics. Three handsome build- ings house the work of the college, which occupies a beautiful tract of many acres, surmounting one of the hills on which Tallahassee is built.
FOR THE DEAF AND BLIND
The Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, at St. Augustine, Is an institution designed strictly for purposes of education and is not an asylum for the unfortunate or a hospital for the treatment of dis- cases. The purpose of this school is to offer, through proper methods of instruction, a thorough and well-balanced course of education to the deaf and blind youth of this state. The statutes of Florida pro- vide that it shall be open free to the deaf and blind children whose parents are unable to defray any of the expenses, residents of this state, and of suitable age and mental capacity to receive instruction by the methods pursued. To children whose parents are able to pay, a charge of $12.50 per month for eight months of school is made. No child of unsound mind is received.
Instruction is in the ordinary branches by methods suited to each individual case, and an industrial department gives those whose in- firmities do not make it impossible, useful training in some mechan- ical art. An excellent moral atmosphere prevails and it is sought to form character as well as to train the mind along right lines.
A department for negro children is maintained entirely separate from that in which white boys and girls are housed and taught. The annual expense for maintenance at present is not far from $20,000, provided from state funds. More than one hundred children were attendant upon the institution during the school year of 1912-1913. Of these the white children included forty-six deaf and thirty-one blind; of negroes, twenty deaf and eight blind. The institution is doing a splendid work and is aiding in the solution of difficult prob- lems for many Florida families in moderate or reduced financial cir- cumstances.
COLLEGE FOR NEGROES
The Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes at Tallahassee provides for the education of the colored race. While its departments and curriculum are not in all respects as compre- hensive as those of the colleges for white students, they have been so arranged as to admit of an indefinite expansion as future develop-
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ments may demand. They are entirely sufficient to meet all demands that have been made. Manual training and housekeeping economics are features of the instruction. The annual expenditure for the operation of the college at present approximates $26,000. The in- come is provided from the Morrill Fund, from the State Educational Fund and from smaller incidental sources. The attendance for the school year closing with July 1, 1913, exceeded three hundred; and the number was limited only by the available dormitory and equip- ment facilities.
DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES
Entirely outside of and distinct from the state school system are a number of ably managed colleges, which are accomplishing excel- lent results. Several of them, under denominational supervision, are among the finest and most completely equipped in the south. Among these are : the John B. Stetson University at De Land; Rollins College at Winter Park; Columbia College (Baptist) at Lake City; the Suth- erland College (Methodist) at Sutherland; Hargrove Institute at Key West; Palmer College (Presbyterian) at De Funiak Springs; the Florida Military Academy at Jacksonville; St. Leo College (Catholic) at San Antonio, besides a large number of good schools under Catholic management at St. Augustine, Jacksonville, Tampa, Pensacola and other of the more important cities. Several normal schools of high standard are maintained in widely separate parts of the state.
Florida, now in the sixty-eighth year of its statehood and with less than forty years of uninterrupted industrial development in its history, has established a system of public schools of which it has reason to be proud. To its advancement and future upbuilding the state has called its best citizens, and an increasingly earnest public sentiment is supporting every movement for its greater efficiency.
CHAPTER XX FLORIDA CITIES
LORIDA, according to the latest decennial enumera- tion by the Federal Government, has twenty-eight F cities with a population of two thousand or more. Without an exception, their increase in numbers of permanent residents and in progress from the show- ing of the previous census, would have been phenome- nal in any state or section which had prospered in a less degree than Florida. Their growth has been but a reflection or a part of the remarkable increases of this state as a whole. Florida and her cities have kept even pace in their development.
Two-thirds of Florida's population is rural and as development of agricultural interests has advanced, the cities have grown in size and importance.
The cities of Florida having a population of more than five thou- sand are ten in number; those with a population of more than four thousand are twelve; those with three thousand and more number twenty-one, and those having more than two thousand are twenty- eight in number. The ten largest cities with their populations are:
Jacksonville . 57,699
Tampa
. 38,524
Pensacola 22,982
Key West 19,945
West Tampa
8,258
Gainesville
6,183
St. Augustine 5,494
Miami 5,471
Lake City 5,032
Tallahassee 5,018
Those with a population of two thousand or more are the follow-
ing:
Appalachicola 3,065
Bartow 2,662
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Daytona 3,082
De Funiak Springs
2,017
De Land 2,812
Fernandina
3,482
Fort Myers
2,463
Kissimmee
2,157
Lakeland
3,719
Live Oak
3,450
Ocala 4,370
Orlando 3,894
Palatka
3,779
Plant City
2,481
Quincy
3,204
Sanford
3,570
St. Petersburg
4,127
Tarpon Springs
2,212
It is a matter of regret that the lack of space prevents the use of the stories of all the enterprising municipalities in the state. A few of these have been selected for special description, not because they are more noteworthy than those that have been necessarily omitted, but they may be of interest as typical of the spirit of advance and enterprise that have made all of them prosperous communities.
CHAPTER XXI JACKSONVILLE
pron
SE J JACKSONVILLE'S history is that of a frontier set- tlement, developing slowly at first and through many years into a trading post and distributing center; then more rapidly into a town of growing commercial importance as the value of its water transportation and its advantageous location were realized, and in later years into one of the great cities of the south, with a future quite as promising as any in the southland.
Its location has been strategic from the beginning and in every decade of its growth. On the banks of the St. Johns river at its narrowest place for seventy-five miles from the ocean, the Indians called it Wacca Pilatka, the place for swimming cattle across the stream, and the English equivalent was Cow Ford. The name remained until 1832, when the town of Jacksonville was formed under an act of the Territorial Legislature of Florida and the place was re-christened in honor of Gen. Andrew Jackson, who had been the first Governor of the territory after it had come under control of the United States. It was the crossing place of the King's Highway which connected Pensacola and St. Augustine, the capitals of the two Floridas, West and East, as the territory had been divided by the English.
The choice of location along the river was the nearest to the ocean whereon a city might be builded, for topographical conditions would prevent the existence of a great commercial center between the pres- ent Jacksonville and the Atlantic, without the expenditure of many millions for filling and dredging low lands.
HISTORIC SURROUNDINGS
Within a few miles of this city, on St. Johns bluff, was erected at Fort Caroline, the first habitation for the uses of the white race on the American Continent, and on the brow of the same hill was
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fought the first battle for religious freedom and the first blood of martyrdom was shed, when Menendez led his attack against the French Huguenots, fifty-five years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.
When Civil war raged between the north and the south, the St. Johns river was the avenue and Jacksonville the gateway by which Federal troops entered Florida in the vain attempt to force the state back into the Union. And this city is and must always be the gateway both by water and rail to the largest section of eastern, mid- dle and northern Florida.
In all its growth Jacksonville has increased in population and wealth as the state has increased. When prosperity, or its opposite, has come to any section of Florida, it has found its quickest reflec- tion in Jacksonville. When disaster has overtaken this metropolis, it has been felt in every city and hamlet in the state, even as the weakened heart beat is shown in the slower and feebler pulse. For Jacksonville is essentially the heart center of Florida's material devel- opment. It is the commercial capital of the great peninsular state.
FLORIDA'S DEVELOPMENT
And this state, this land where European civilization first touched American soil early in the sixteenth century-what is it? Through four hundred years it has been the scene of massacre and slaughter. Spanish, English and French fought with the Indian tribes and with each other for its possession, and from the four centuries less than seventy years has been spared from wars and strife for the systematic development of its resources. Wars of aggrandizement and of con- quest, of massacre and horrible slaughter, of civil strife and savage butchery have stained its soil with the blood of pioneers and martyrs and heroes. It was the first land on the continent to be opened to Caucasian settlement; it is one of the last to be developed by the arts of peace. And no state in all the Union has a more brilliant promise for the future, none has responded more quickly to the touch of industrial undertaking.
JACKSONVILLE'S DISASTERS
Disasters have come to Jacksonville, her full share of them, as the years have rolled by. Five hundred of her citizens fell victims to an epidemic of yellow fever in 1888. Death took ten percent of those
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GLIMPSE OF JACKSONVILLE'S WATER FRONT AND SKYLINE
VIEW OF JACKSONVILLE UPPER HARBOR AND SUBURB SOUTH JACKSONVILLE
HARBOR ENTRANCE-JACKSONVILLE North Jetty-11/2 miles long
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LUMBER SHIPPING, JACKSONVILLE
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stricken with the disease. Those who were spared closed up the ranks and marched on to greater things.
The "Great Freeze" of December, 1894, destroyed the citrus groves of middle and north Florida and took from Jacksonville its distinction as the greatest orange market in the world. It paralyzed for a time the industries of the state and the future looked dark and gloomy, but the result has been a diversification of agricultural effort and the development of other resources which have but added to the prosperity of the city and state.
But the crowning financial disaster of Jacksonville's existence was crowded into a few hours, between noon and dark of May 3, 1901. During that eventful afternoon one of the great conflagrations of the world's history swept over more than a square mile of the city's busiest and most valuable section; it destroyed twenty-six hundred buildings, residence and business, and the loss was more than fifteen million dollars. Ten thousand people were homeless, public utilities were useless, and some there were on that gloomy May night who wondered if Jacksonville could or would survive the blow. But those who doubted were casual visitors, they knew not the courage of its people.
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