USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Discovery and conquests of the Northwest, with the history of Chicago, Vol. I > Part 54
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58
But the first effort to gather all the children of the village emerges in 1830. Mr. J. B. Beaubien and Lieut. Hunter (in the Secession war, Major-Gen. David Hunter) engaged Mr. Stephen Forbes to open a school, held in a house belonging to Beaubien, where Randolph Street meets Michigan Avenue. At one corner of that crossing now stands Chicago's grand Public Library Building. That school house was a low and gloomy but large log building, which could boast of five rooms. The Forbes family gave up a room to the school of twenty-five pupils, in which Mr. Forbes assisted. The dark and rough walls were later enlivened by a tapestry of white cotton sheeting. Mr. Foot carried on the school the next year.
The School Commissioner of the laws of Illinois in those days was principally a custodian of school lands and funds: he was neither organizer, superintendent, nor director of education. But when Col. Richard J. Hamilton (whose name is commemorated in Hamilton Avenue, on the West Side of Chicago), became commis- sioner, from 1831 to 1840, his interest as a citizen made him active in forwarding schools. He and Col. Owen hired Mr. John Watkins to teach a school on the North Side in 1833; and they built for his use the first school house of Chicago, on Clark street, near the north shore of the river. Mr. Watkins in a letter to the Calumet Club in 1879 claims that he was the first school teacher in Chicago. He says of his first school house:
621
Chicago Public Schools.
"The building belonged to Col. Richard J. Hamilton, was erected for a horse-stable, and had been used as such. It was twelve feet square. My benches and desks were made of old store boxes. The school was started by private subscription. Thirty scholars were subscribed for; but many subscribed who had no chil- dren. So it was a sort of free school, there not being thirty children in town. During my first quarter I had but twelve scholars: only four of them were white: the others were quarter, half, or three-quarter Indians."
Mr. Watkins soon opened school on the West Side, near the east end of Fulton Street, but in 1835 was again on the North Side. The Indian chief Sauguanash or "Billy Caldwell" offered to pay tuition for all Indian children who would go to school, to buy their books and their clothes, upon condition that they should dress like the white children; but not one would accept his proposition.
In the fall of 1833, while Mr. Watkins seems to have been teaching, Miss Eliza Chappel, afterward the wife of Rev. Jeremiah Porter, opened "an infant school," plainly, a school for the smaller children, on the south side of the river and near the fort. She had about twenty pupils. From Mr. Wells we learn that in the same autumn Mr. Granville T. Sproat from Boston opened an "English and Classical School" in a Baptist Church on South Water Street, near Franklin: and in the following March he had as an assistant Miss Sarah L. Warren (Mrs. Abel E. Carpenter). Relating her experiences in one of her letters she says: "I boarded at Elder Freeman's. His house must have been situ- ated four or five blocks southeast of the school, near Mr. Snow's, with scarce a house between. What few buildings there were then were mostly on Water street. I used to go across without regard to streets. It was not uncommon, in going to and from school, to see prairie wolves, and we could hear them howl at any time in the day. We were frequently annoyed by Indians; but the great difficulty we had to encounter was mud. Rubbers were of no account, and I was obliged to have a pair of men's boots made."
1
622
Chicago Public Schools.
Mr. Sproat's school, in which Miss Warren remained till June, 1836, was the first public school in Chicago; that is, as the law stood then, one receiving aid from the school funds. A teacher must make out a schedule of the attendance of the pupils and report it to the school authorities, upon whose certificate of approval he received a proportionate share of the income of the school funds for the year. Mr. Sproat, writing in 1887 from Canaan Four Corners, N. Y., tells Mr. Pillsbury (see Report named above, page cci) that the public money paid all expenses, while generally the parents had to pay tuition fees in addition. This bears testi- mony to the good management of Col. R. J. Hamilton, the School Commissioner. Generally the land given in each township for public education was sold; and the . proceeds of the sale were loaned at interest. The great majority of the townships in the state had their land sold early, at a low price; and the investments were often injudicious, so that the township has little to show for the liberality of the United States. At Chicago, the . school section of the original township is situated near the center of the city. In October, 1833, all but four of the 142 blocks of this section, were sold at auction for $38,865, on a credit of one, two and three years. The remaining four blocks are (1880), valued at $2, 500- O00. The value of that portion sold cannot now be less than $65,000,000. Had Chicago kept one-quarter of these school lands, she would have had the richest school fund of any city on earth, and her schools would have been absolutely free for all time, without any school tax.
It is not worth while to follow in detail the succession of these schools of private enterprise; for these the reader may refer to "The Twenty-Fifth Annual Re- port of the Board of Education," for 1878-79: an appen- dix thereto prepared chiefly by the Superintendent of that time, Mr. Duane Doty, and Dr. Willard, the present writer, and Shepherd Johnston, clerk, gives detail, to which one may add from Andreas's History of Chicago. Suffice it to say that Dr. Henry Van der Bogart followed Mr. Sproat: then came Thomas Wright
623
Chicago Public Schools.
and James McClellan, and George Davis, and John Brown, and Edward Murphy who kept order where Mr. Brown had failed, securing it by the vigorous exhi- bition of an oak cane an inch in diameter, for which function he received $800 a year.
Of the work of the ladies before the city charter in 1837 gave the schools into the hands of the corporation, we say that Miss Chappel called to her assistance Miss Elizabeth Beach and Miss Mary Burrows, and herself retired in the winter of 1834-35, giving her place to Miss Ruth Leavenworth. Mr. John S. Wright, then a young man of but twenty years of age, at his mother's wish and at her expense erected a building for Miss Leavenworth's school. When she ceased teaching in 1836, Miss Frances Langdon Willard opened a school for the instruction of young ladies in the higher branches of education. She taught many years in at least six states, and kept a private record of her pupils in each place: this interesting book, which enrolls many of the matrons of Chicago, has passed into the hands of her grand niece, Mary Frances Willard, now of the John Marshall high school in the same city. Miss Louisa Gifford (Mrs. Dr. Dyer) became Miss F. L. Willard's successor; and the school became a public school, while Miss Willard opened another school on her original lines.
We should not pass the name of John S. Wright without testimony to his work for education in Chicago, Ill., and the West. Coming from Massachusetts to Chi- cago in 1832 at the age of seventeen, he entered quickly into all public interests: he was not a teacher, but his educational influence surpassed that of many teachers : he was not an agriculturist, but founded and edited the Prairie Farmer, an excellent and powerful farmers' paper: that was a great educational agency, because his educational articles, which began with its first num- ber were addressed to the great class of cultivators of the soil, and not to teachers. Where anything was to be said or done for common or normal schools John S. Wright was never lacking.
624
Chicago Public Schools.
Searching the statutes of Illinois for educational en- actments, the present writer found an act of February 1835, establishing a system of schools for "Town 39 N., Range 14 E. of the Third Principal Meridian." By the map he found this to mean Chicago. The in- corporation act of 1837 repealed it; but it is notable as establishing a free school in one place.
Sections 1, 2, and 3 provide for the annual election of five or seven inspectors for the township, who were to examine teachers, visit the schools, and prescribe text books. They were to recommend to the County Com- missioners the division of the township into school dis- tricts; and the Commissioners must divide it as recom- mended, altering boundaries from time to time as the Inspectors should advise.
Section 4 directed that the voters in each district should annually elect three trustees, who should appoint qualified teachers; make the schools free to all white children under regulations to be prescribed by the In- spectors; take care of school property; levy and collect a tax for rent, fuel, and furniture; and levy and collect such other tax as a meeting of the voters might direct.
Here is a curious mixing. The Inspectors might visit schools and make rules, and choose text books and de- clare who were fit to teach, but they could not hire a teacher or buy anything: they could say what the boundaries of districts must be, but must refer the actual declaration of the division to another body which could make no different boundaries. The Trustees might hire teachers, but could not levy a tax to pay them, though they might levy taxes to buy desks: they could not direct what the teachers should teach, nor fix the times of sessions of schools, or make any regulations, nor choose a text book. The voters might elect these hand- tied officers, and vote a tax to pay teachers, which must be at last the mainspring to set the cog wheels in motion. The system was a sample of the silly jealousy of official power which divides responsibility so that no one can be called to account if affairs go badly. And this fear of "one-man power" was shown among a people which followed Andrew Jackson, the most dictatorial of all
625
Chicago Public Schools.
presidents, "through thick and thin," and applauded him though he broke laws and defied the Supreme Court.
It appears that there were in Chicago in 1835 six schools and 300 pupils, and that the interest on the school fund was enough to pay teachers, if a small tax was levied for other expenses. So Chicago had doubt- less free schools in 1835; perhaps ever after.
In March, 1837, Chicago became a city. By the conditions of the charter, the common council were commissioners of schools for the city. They were to appoint annually not less than five, nor more than twelve school inspectors. The voters still elected three school trustees in each district. The inspectors had the same powers and duties as under the preceding act, except that the Council laid out the districts. The first Board of Inspectors consisted of ten citizens, among whom were Col. Hamilton and his successor as Commis- sioner of Schools, William H. Brown.
New names appear in the lists of teachers, some of whom, as Calvin De Wolf, well known as Justice De Wolf, and Thomas Hoyne, honored with many public trusts, are worthy of special mention. The school in District No. I was for advanced pupils; and its teacher, Mr. George C. Collins, had the largest yearly salary, $800. In the charter, provision was made for a High School whenever the voters should desire one; but no effort to create one was made under this law. Indeed voters were sometimes very indifferent to their duties: in September, 1837, Mr. J. H. Blatch- ford, an inspector, asked the Council to appoint Trustees in his district, because there was no school there, and repeated notices of legal meetings had failed to bring out voters enough to elect Trustees; and those officers alone could appoint teachers.
In 1839 a special act of the legislature, drawn by J. Young Scammon, laid the foundation of our present school system. In addition to the school fund the council was authorized to levy a tax for school purposes to supply the inadequacy of the school fund for the payment of teachers. On February 27, 1840, William H. Brown was appointed school agent, and assumed
626
Chicago Public Schools.
the charge of the school fund of the city. This office he held for thirteen years, and carefully managed the trust placed in his keeping. For ten years of this time he refused compensation. The first board of education under the new organization consisted of William Jones, J. Young Scammon, Isaac N. Arnold, Nathan H. Bolles, John Gray, J. H. Scott and Hiram Hugunin. The first meeting of this board of education was held in November, 1840, and William Jones was elected chair- man. It is at that date that the written records of the public schools commence.
In December, 1840, Mr. Argill G. Rumsey and H. B. Perkins were employed as teachers in the South Division, Austin D. Sturtevant in the West Division, and Mr. A. C. Dunbar in the North Division. The salary paid each of these teachers was $33. 33 a month. From the regulations adopted by the board of education in 1841, it appears that the schools were kept five days and half a week, and the amount of vacation allowed in a year was four weeks. Instruction in vocal music was first introduced in 1842, Mr. N. Gilbert being the teacher.
In 1840 the only school building owned by the city, built in 1836 for $200, was on the East part of the site of the Tribune building, in District No. I. This was occupied until January 1845, and then sold for $40, the purchaser having the worst of the bargain. In 1844, Ira Miltimore succeeded in getting an order through the Council for the erection of "a good, permanent brick school house on the school lot in the First Ward, 60x80 feet, two stories high, to be fitted up on the best and most approved plan, with particular reference to the health, comfort and convenience, both of scholars and teachers." This was opposite Mc Vicker's Theater, and was known after 1858 as the Dearborn School. Those familiar with the city before the great fire can remember the old building which was still useful, but far from ornamental: it was torn down just before the fire; but no Dearborn school took its place. When it was erected, the total enrollment of pupils for the city, December, 1844, was only 979, and the average mem-
627
Chicago Public Schools.
bership for that month, 645, with eight teachers. The new building was deemed by many to be larger than the city needed. It was called "Miltimore's Folly." The mayor elected in 1845, Augustus Garrett, showed his lack of foresight by recommending officially that the " Big Schoolhouse " be sold or converted into an Insane Asylum. But at the end of its third year this Insane . Asylum of the Sarcastic Garrett had nearly as many pupils and teachers as the whole city at the time of his tirade: 864 pupils and seven teachers. " Wisdom is justified of her children."
Among the principals of this Dearborn School were several eminent for their services as teachers. Austin D. Sturtevant, now not long deceased; Perkins Bass, afterward principal of the Normal University at Bloom- ington; George D. Broomell, professor of mathematics in the High School for many years; Daniel S. Went- worth, first principal and practically the founder of the Cook County Normal; Albert R. R. Sabin and Leslie Lewis, Assistant Superintendents at this present writing; and Miss Alice L. Barnard, noted for long and success- ful work.
Of course the large building led at once to the grad- ing of the pupils, which was adopted as fast as new buildings, and the putting of several teachers under one roof would allow. Uniformity of text books had begun in December of 1840, when Worcester's Primer, Peter Parley's First, Second and Third Books of History and an elementary speller were adopted. In the following March and April, full lists were adopted. Reading of the Bible was ordered as the first exercise in the morning, each pupil reading a verse; but explanation of the mean- ing of what was read was most strictly forbidden. Later, the repeating of the Lord's Prayer after a scrip- ture reading by the teacher was required: this custom continued until September 22, 1875, when the rule was abolished. Some efforts have been made to reintroduce reading of the Bible; but the authorities have given them no consideration.
The success of "Miltimore's Folly " was soon evident; and more follies of the same sort became necessary as
628
Chicago Public Schools.
the city increased rapidly in its settled area and popu- lation. In 1845 the Kinzie School was ordered on the North Side; then the Scammon on the reserved lots, West Madison near Halsted, in 1846: then prepara- tion for the Jones School began by the opening of a school at the corner of Wabash Avenue and Twelfth Street. The Scammon building was completed in May, 1847. The absurd division of power between the in- spectors and the District Trustees, which had continued from 1835, was finally abolished; and the sole power of appointing and dismissing teachers was given to the Board of Inspectors, by an ordinance of the Council, February 12, 1849. The Washington School on Sanga- mon and Indiana Streets comes next, and movements that result in the Haven and the Brown are begun, while the Franklin is completed and opened at the same time as the Washington, January, 1852.
The Common Council, November 28, 1853, passed an ordinance creating the office of Superintendent of Schools, offering a salary of $1,000. Probably this was found insufficient to attract a suitable man. In June, 1854, the salary was left to the Inspectors with a fixed limit of $1, 500. In December of 1853, the Board elected Mr. John D. Philbrick, head of the State Normal School, New Britain, Conn., who refused the place. March 6, 1854, John C. Dore, principal of the Boylston School, Boston, was elected, and accepted the position, to which he came in June. At this time the schools enrolled about 3, 000 pupils, and there were thirty-five teachers. Mr. Dore's administration, though short, was vigorous and effective, laying good foundations. In his time the preparations for a High School were carried on to a completion, though he did not remain to see it opened. He resigned, March 15, 1856, and Mr. William Harvey Wells, principal of the Normal school at Westfield, Mass., filled his place for eight eventful years, during which he gave such shape and firmness to the school system of Chicago that he seems almost the founder of it.
Mr. Wells, born 1812, was then forty-four years old. He had been a teacher for twenty-five years with dis- tinguished success. He was the author of an English
629
Chicago Public Schools.
Grammar that was deservedly popular. He had the tastes of a philologist, and assisted in the revisions of Webster's Dictionary, though he had not the advantage of a collegiate education. He combined the faculty of organizing with the ability to administer affairs. His
spirit was hopeful, and his presence cheering. He had a genuine interest in all with whom he dealt; and they knew it from his actions, looks and tones, and believed in him. He hated controversy and struggle, loving peace and accord. He could see both sides of a dis- puted question. Such a man may seem hesitating and indecisive; but there was no hesitation in him when principles were in question: on methods and measures he could compromise. He was always earnest, some- times impulsive, and zealous in his special work. He studied the grading and management of schools, so that his book The Graded School became the hand- book of principals and superintendents. Tired with the exacting labors of his position, he resigned it in 1864, and turned to other less strenuous work. He was for several years a member of the School Board, and one year its president. Philanthropic and religious under- takings knew him as an active friend; and thousands were saddened by the announcement of his death in 1885. The present writer speaks from knowledge of him for nearly thirty years, and gladly testifies to his worth.
Under such a manager the schools rapidly improved. A larger share of the youth came into the Schools. Regularity and punctuality of attendance became an object of ambition. The standard of scholarship rose; and with that, deportment gained honor. Better school houses were devised.
The new High School was organized in the fall after Mr. Wells' coming; and in it was a Normal Department to prepare girls for teachers. Mr. Charles A. Dupee was the first principal. Provision was made for a classical course of three years, an English course of the same length, and a Normal course of two years; but in 1860 the classical and English courses were lengthened to four years. In 1868 a college course of three years was devised.
630
Chicago Public Schools.
In 1855 the legislature passed the free school act. An earlier law had provided that two-thirds of the voters of a school district might levy a tax for the sup- port of schools. But of how little avail that was may be seen from the fact that in 1846 Cook County-and that means Chicago and probably nothing more-raised for education $5,204, while all the rest of the state raised under that law but $3, 559, or 41 per cent of the total amount. Under the new law of 1855 a state tax for schools was to be levied on the taxable property of the state, and the resulting revenue was to be redistrib- uted to the counties, two-thirds of it in proportion to the number of white children and youth under twenty- one years of age, and the other third in proportion to the areas of the counties. This makes the wealthy counties pay for the education of the poorer. The first year (1856) under this law Cook County paid $35, 965. 29, or 55 per cent of her state school tax for the benefit of other counties, the whole tax being $65, 150.31. In contrast, Williamson County raised $1,737.04 and re- ceived from other counties $3, 180.21, or 65 per cent of her total of $4,917.25. The southern part of the state opposed free schools; and the law could not have been carried without this concession. In a financial way, Chicago is a great educator.
In 1857 the Legislature abolished School Trustees in Chicago, and brought the school work into unity under the Board of Inspectors, and increased their number to fifteen, one-third to go out each year.
Mr. Charles A. Dupee, first principal of the High School, resigned in 1860 to enter the practice of law, and Mr. George Howland, who had been a teacher in that school from January 1858, became principal. He held the place for twenty years. He was a graduate of Amherst; a man of refined taste and special classical attainments; gentle in manner, and kind in feeling; modest, and with a certain diffidence which caused many who met him while he was Superintendent to think him cold and severe, mistaking his natural re- serve. He was a poet, and published a small volume of verse: also he wrote translation of six books of Vir-
631
Chicago Public Schools.
gil's Æneid in hexameter verse, nearly line for line, which is used as a text book in the High Schools, and a like translation of Horace's Ars Poetica. Under his serious aspect there was a love of humor, which led him to write a comic translation of the first book of the Æneid for private circulation only, in which Virgil's solemn pomposities were caricatured in modern Ameri- can slang. He remained unmarried, and died one year after he laid down his school work.
By a provision of the city charter of 1863, separate schools were required for colored children: as they were mostly in the southern division of the city, such a school was set up on Taylor Street, but discontinued in 1865, the Legislature having obliterated the color line.
Upon the resignation of Mr. Wells in 1864, Mr. Josiah L. Pickard, State Superintendent of Schools in Wisconsin, was elected Superintendent and accepted the position, which he held until the school year closed in June, 1877, when he was elected President of the Iowa State University, a high position which he still fills. No other has held the Superintendency so long as did Mr. Pickard, thirteen years. He had not the formative influence of his predecessor: the school sys- tem needed no radical reform. It was his work to con- duct it steadily, with such occasional modifications as its growth or its accidents might require. Doing this in his mild way, with quiet dignity that never repelled, doing justice with kindness, conscientiously attentive to all duties and to the welfare of pupils and teachers, he was universally honored and loved; and his departure was regretted, all the more for the belief of many that it was the purpose of certain politicians to oust him had he not resigned on receiving the invitation from Iowa.
The increase of business required new officers for the Board: in 1859 a clerk was appointed: in 1860 Mr. Shepherd Johnston was elected to that office, which he held about thirty-four or thirty-five years, till his death. In 1863 the office of Building and Supply Agent was created: to it Mr. James Ward, who had been a mem- ber of the Board six years and of the Committee on
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.