USA > Indiana > A history of education in Indiana > Part 19
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In Indianapolis, from April, 1857, to May, 1860, there is no record of any public money being paid to teachers. In the latter year the schools were open twenty-one weeks, and the following year one week longer. From 1858 to 1864 the city high-school was closed. In Terre Haute all public schools were closed from 1854 to 1860. In New Albany the schools were closed from 1858 to 1860, and again for three years from 1861 to 1864, the rooms being rented to teachers for the use of private schools. In Muncie, between 1853 and 1867, during four years there were no schools, and for the other ten an average of but sixty-seven days each. The schools organized in Jeffersonville, 1853, "had," in the words of a resident, " but a feeble, sickly existence, without reputa- tion or influence for good ; patronized by but few of the citizens who could afford to provide for the education of their children at private expense. They lingered on until the enactment of the law of 1865."
Another impediment to education during this period (1852-1872) was incident to the drain upon the thought, time, and means of the people by the civil war. This was espe- cially true of the southern half of the State, on the border- land of the Confederacy, peopled from the South and inter- estedly following, if not in sympathy with, the movements of Southern social and political life. The school administra- tion was given a political significance in the heat of that struggle, and met with factions and obstruction as it has not since. In 1862 a part, at least, of the school buildings of New Albany were leased by the trustees to the United States Government for hospital uses for disabled soldiers-remain- ing in their possession for more than a year.
But, despite these hindrances, education was not neglected.
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221
TWENTY YEARS UNDER THE NEW LAW.
Schools were multiplied, endowments were augmented and conserved, the public interest in free schools became more general, legislation more definite, and the forces, as we now look back upon them, seemed shaping themselves for a sound educational system. Culture became aggressive. The move- ments that have made Indiana educationally, if they did not take their rise in this period, began their growth anew.
There follows a study of the conditions and achievements of the first score of years under the new order, from 1852 to 1872.
1. Revival of Seminary Organizations.
Among all the movements of the period that contributed to the improvement of education, none was more wholesome or effective than that which led again to the establishment of private and incorporated academies and secondary schools in the twenty years following the first reversal of the free- school enterprise in 1854. These were the counterpart of the earlier county seminaries and their contemporaries from 1825 to 1850.
City schools once started had been closed; the old public seminary buildings had been disposed of, and the schools abandoned; and even the elementary rural and village schools were greatly restricted by the attitude of the Supreme Court touching local tuition taxes. The State system, in the moment of promise, was robbed of the means to make its service effective. Free public-school education seemed little better than a pretense. It cost too much to be ignored; it was far too meager to be held sufficient.
In this condition, schooling would have languished but for private interest and church zeal. As usual, from busi- ness foresight, or professional ambition, or philanthropic motives, or neighborhood pride, the needed work, neglected by the State, was yet carried on; not always economically, or to the greatest profit, but withal faithfully and efficiently. No period is richer in worthy effort, self-sacrificing devotion to high principles of duty, or larger progress in right educa- tion than this. It has been a pleasing, self-imposed task of
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UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
the author to search out the history and trace the influence of these noble seminaries and their principals, who did so much for education in Indiana. It increases one's respect for a people who could so turn defeat into victory as did the fathers of the last generation.
The accompanying table is presented, not as an exhaust- ive list of the secondary schools of this period, but rather as suggesting the vigor and comprehensiveness of the move- ment which led to their establishment:
Table of Seminaries established since 1850.
Location.
Name of institution.
Date.
Remarks.
1. Indianapolis
Business University.
1851
Private.
2. Hope ...
Seminary for Young Ladies.
1851
Moravian sch'l.
3. Brookville.
Brookville College.
1852
M.E., closed '74.
4. New Albany.
De Pauw College
1852
M. E.
5. Wabash.
White's Manual Labor Inst. Wolcottville Seminary .
1852
Friends.
6. Wolcottville.
Liber College.
1853
Private.
8. La Porte.
La Porte Female Institute.
1853
Private.
9. Fort Wayne
Presbyterian Seminary
1853
10. Logansport.
" Public " School ..
1853
Private.
11. Dunlapsville.
Presbyterian Seminary.
1853
12. Moore's Hill. ..
Moore's Hill College .
1854
M. E.
13. Manchester (Dear- born Co.)
Manchester Institute.
1855
Private.
14. Lafayette.
Western Female University. St. Mary's Academy
1855
Baptist.
15. Notre Dame
1855
R. C.
16. Bedford.
Bedford College
1855
Christian.
17. Thorntown
Thorntown Academy
1855
Friends.
18. Crown Point
Miss Parsons' Ladies' Sem. 1856
Private.
19. Hopewell.
Hopewell Academy ...
1856
20. East South Bend ..
1856
R. C.
21. Frankfort
1857
Private.
23. Battle Ground ..
1857
M. E.
24. Battle Ground ..
Farmers' Institute
1857
Friends.
25. St. Meinrad
St. Meinrad's College
1857
R. C.
26. Ladoga.
Ladoga Academy .
1858
Christian, 1871.
27. Lafayette.
St. Ignatius's School. 1858
R. C.
28. Indianapolis
Business University.
1858
Private.
29. Anderson
1858
Private, 1876.
30. Valparaiso.
1859
M. E., 1871.
31. Merom
1859
New Light.
32. Hartsville
Hartsville University 1859
U. B.
33. Indianapolis
St. John's Academy 1859
Episcopal.
34. Roanoke
Classical Seminary 1859
U. B.
22. Rockport.
Rockport Academy, later " Collegiate Institute ".
1857
M.E.,closed '73.
Collegiate Institute
Graded and Normal School. Male and Female College ... Union Christian College ....
Presbyterian.
Academy of the Assumption Farmers' Academy
1852 Closed, 1868.
7. Liber (Jay Co.) .. . .
223
TWENTY YEARS UNDER THE NEW LAW.
Location.
Name of institution.
Date.
Remarks.
35. New Albany
Young Ladies' High-School.
1859
Private.
36. Princeton
Emerson Academy.
1859
Private.
37. Stockwell.
Stockwell Academy
1860
M. E.
38. Westfield.
Union High-School
1860
Friends.
39. Richmond.
Business College ..
1860
Private.
40. Bloomingdale.
Bloomingdale Academy
1860
Friends.
41. Valparaiso
Collegiate Institute
1861
Presbyterian.
42. Salem.
Blue River Academy
1861
Friends.
43. Spiceland
Spiceland Academy
1861
Friends.
44. Lafayette
Classical Academy
1862
Private.
45. Terre Haute.
Commercial College.
1862
Private.
46. Columbia City
St. Joseph's School
1864
Now St. Paul's.
47. South Bend.
St. Joseph's Academy
1865
R. C.
48. Crown Point
Crown Point Seminary
1865
1881
49. Valparaiso
St. Paul's High-School.
1865
R. C.
50. Crown Point
Crown Point Institute.
1865
Baptist. 1870
51. Tolleston ..
Tolleston School.
1866
Private.
52. Oxford.
Oxford Academy
1866
53. Oakland City
Oakland Institute
1866
54. Azalia ..
Sand Creek Seminary.
1866
55. Fort Wayne
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart .
1866
R. C.
56. Rensselaer.
St. Joseph's Manual Labor School
1866
R. C.
57. Lafayette
Star City Business College .. Howard College.
1867
Christian.
59. Richmond
The Busy Bee Indus. School. Hall's Business College
1867
Friends.
60. Logansport.
1867
Private.
61. Ridgeville
Ridgeville College.
1867
F. W. Baptist.
62. Lafayette.
St. Mary's Academy
1867
R. C.
63. Dover Hill
Dover Hill Academy
1869
Private.
64. Indianapolis
" Scientific School "
1866
Private.
65. Bainbridge
Bainbridge Academy.
1867
New Light.
66. New Philadelphia.
Academy.
1867
Private.
67. Williamsport
Green Hill Seminary
1868
U. B. 1886
68. Greencastle.
Female College of Indiana.
1870
Presbyterian.
69. Logansport.
Female College.
1870
Presbyterian.
70. Bourbon .
Salem College
1870
Dunkard.
71. Logansport
Smithson College
1871
Universalist.
72. Columbia City .
Green Hill Academy
1872
Private. 1878
Here are included only such schools as are fairly second- ary in rank. This does not mean that no elementary work was done, but that they emphasized advanced academic work. The list includes only those having some established record as justifying mention. It is at best, perhaps, only par- tial. It, moreover, comprises organizations of varying types
1866
Private.
58. Kokomo ..
Gen. Baptist. Friends.
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UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
and of widely different purposes. But of whatever origin, they reveal the evident aim to make easily available the most liberal academic culture to all classes and with studied econ- omy.
Without any attempt at a logical classification of these schools,* a brief survey of them discovers some interesting groups, whose characteristics are given.
1. In a number of instances the schools of the earlier period were revived now, and found in the atmosphere of the newer educational movement their greater vigor. This was the case with the seminaries founded upon the ruins of the old county organizations, or in the fuller development, or the new lease of life of such as, founded just prior to the adoption of the new Constitution, seemed eclipsed by the greater promise of the new system. To one or other of these classes belong the Wolcottville Seminary, the Indiana Fe- male College, the Union Literary Institute at Spartanburg, La Grange Collegiate Institute, and the better organized seminaries of Muncie, Winchester, New Castle, Salem, and Bloomington, whose best days, really, were after their sale and their reorganization as private institutions under the law of 1852.
2. But another element appears in the establishment of new schools of academic grade by the churches. These were generally true secondary schools, sometimes called colleges, occasionally attaining to college rank; now under the direct control of some church, and again the charge of a minister or layman, who gave it a pronounced denominational bias. Somewhere in the State, at some time during the period, almost every one of its churches was represented in one or
* It is greatly desired and hoped that any added information which readers of this chapter may be able to give touching the old seminaries may be sent to the author for future use. A small part only of the material available has been used, but the information is, at best, only par- tial. It is in every way desirable that the list of these schools and their reliable characterization shall be made as complete as the present genera- tion can make them.
225
TWENTY YEARS UNDER THE NEW LAW.
more schools. The Catholics took the lead in founding nine well-defined secondary schools; the Friends' Society, eight; the Methodists, seven; the Presbyterians, six; the Christian Church, four; the United Brethren and Baptists, two each (the latter made as many as half a dozen other attempts, but without success); and the Episcopalians, the Universalists, the Dunkards, and Free-Will Baptists, one each. In this class of church schools are to be found some of the most efficient agencies for education, not in the period named only, but since as well. Such were Brookville College, Hopewell Academy, Blue River Academy, Ladoga Acade- my, the Green Hill Seminary, and the Roanoke Classical Seminary, any one of which, in its prosperous period, would dignify the educational effort of any people.
3. Another large class of these schools included those initiated and managed by private enterprise. There were almost a score of them of sufficient note and reasonable teaching to entitle to a favorable mention. The Wolcott- ville Seminary was for sixteen years, and during all its his- tory, under the principalship of Miss Susan Griggs. Miss Griggs was brought to the State through the agency of the "National Board of Popular Education." She had been a teacher in Vermont, and was a graduate of Newbury Semi- nary in that State. Among her assistants, also, were gradu- ates from Cazenovia and Newbury Seminaries, from Mount Holyoke and Rockford Seminaries, and Evanston College, Illinois. Besides to Miss Griggs, the school was greatly in- debted to the public spirit and liberality of Mr. George Wol- cott, who erected and furnished the building.
Among these private schools also was the so-called " Public School " of Logansport, established in 1853 by Prof. Barnett, a co-educational institution with which also Mrs. Barnett was connected. It did an acceptable service during the years when schools were few and real teachers fewer. Mrs. Barnett was a graduate of the Mrs. Willard Seminary at Troy, New York. Another example of such private school whose memory is worth perpetuating is the "Graded
226
UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
and Normal School," founded at Anderson in 1858 by Mr. Joseph Franklin, and which for eighteen years furnished not only scholarly men and women, but numerous teachers as well to the neighboring schools.
4. A different class of schools, chiefly private, as those last mentioned, but having a specific character setting them off as a distinct group, were the business schools, a half dozen of which, besides a number of "farmers' academies," repre_ sent the protest of the period against the extreme humanistic and disciplinary tendencies of the traditional school. The oldest of these, perhaps, and the earliest Indiana progenitor of a line of business schools, was the Evansville Commercial College, founded in 1850. This was followed in order by the Indianapolis Business University (1858), the Richmond Busi- ness College (1860), the Terre Haute Commercial College (1862), the Star City Business College of Lafayette (1866), and Hall's Business College of Logansport (1867). Belong- ing to this class, as being of an industrial character, and only incidentally literary, is the White's Institute, first founded (1852) as a home for needy and orphan children.
Another group of this class of schools, less industrial but having practical aims, is represented by the "Farmers' Acad- emy," such as were built up at Frankfort, Battle Ground, Stockwell, etc. Of the first, as, a few years later, at Ladoga, Milton B. Hopkins was principal, and for a time the sole teacher. It was located, in the year 1857, about five miles south of Frankfort, the house being erected by individual farmers. Mr. Hopkins, who afterward served the State as Superintendent of Public Instruction, was a rare teacher, leaving his pupils thirsting for knowledge while fitting them for responsible positions in profession and trade. Such was the reputation of the school for six years, while Mr. Hopkins remained, that young people were attracted to it from ad- joining counties, and led to pursue the higher studies.
A more strictly industrial school, and one of the most suc- cessful of its class in the whole history of the State, is the " White's Indiana Manual Labor Institute," located near
227
TWENTY YEARS UNDER THE NEW LAW.
Wabash in 1852, and which maintains its industrial charac- ter after almost forty years. It was founded upon the terms of a bequest by Josiah White, of Philadelphia, and was de- signed to be a school and home "for poor children, white, colored, and Indian "; for orphans by preference, for others if means allowed. By the same document provision was made for a like school in Iowa.
The original bequest for the Indiana school aggregated, with interest, $21,162.54, half of which, it was stipulated, might be expended in the purchase of land, the remainder for improvements. The present property holdings include 760 acres of land and the improvements, including "homes," barns, the school-house, shops, etc., aggregating in value not less than $75,000.
Children of the three classes have been admitted from the beginning, though for thirty years they were mostly white. In the fall of 1885 the Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends, under whose management and care the school was originally put by the terms of the bequest, resolved to under- take some more extended Indian educational work under Government contract. With this in view, the management of what is now generally known as " White's Indian School," or the "Indian Training School," was shared with the " As- sociated Executive Committee on Indian Affairs in the United States." A special building was erected, and the year following (March 26, 1883) twenty-seven Indian children from the Quapaw, Sac, and Fox Agencies, in Indian Terri- tory, admitted to the institute. The number was soon in- creased to sixty, then to seventy, and has for recent years averaged from seventy to eighty.
Under the present contract the school receives from the General Government $167 per annum for each Indian edu- cated, to the maximum number of sixty. Applicants must be not less than six nor more than eighteen years of age, and may each be kept for three years. The school maintains a school for literary instruction, which has been adopted by the local township trustee as constituting a part of the public
228
UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
system. The five common-school grades are recognized, with a course in physical geography, book-keeping, and vocal and instrumental music added. A reading-room is maintained and two literary societies.
Besides the usual school work, a well-thought-out and es- tablished system of industrial exercises is followed. These comprise the varied farm work, a carpenter shop, broom- making, shoe-mending, and gardening for the boys, and chamber-work, sewing, cooking, laundrying, dairying, and fancy work for the girls.
A recent report says of these Indian children : "They learn readily and work cheerfully, habitually, and skillfully." They are imitative, and excel in penmanship and geography, landscape gardening, and the simple arts, and "in obedience, promptness, and industry compare favorably with pupils of other schools."
The present superintendent and matron have been with the institution, and are chiefly responsible for its remarkable growth and general success, since 1874. Dr. James E. Rhoads, of Bryn Mawr, Pa., after visiting the school, was led to say : "It is a most creditable school, and in its whole aspect bespeaks the excellent service it does in transform- ing Indian children into self-reliant, work-loving Chris- tians."
5. Still a different movement is shown by the larger in- terest in the education of girls, as appears in the schools open for them, either alone or in mixed classes. Not fewer than fourteen such ladies' schools were opened in as many years. Many of them were private, though most grew up under the influence of the churches. A few of them are deservedly famous.
Two years after the suspension of the La Porte Univer- sity, Prof. W. H. Churchman, himself a blind man, and well known for his connection with the Indiana Institution for the Blind, opened (1853), in the abandoned buildings, the La Porte Female University. It was a high-grade literary academy for young ladies, and flourished until the building
229
TWENTY YEARS UNDER THE NEW LAW.
was burned in 1855. Its short life in no sense measures the extent of its influence.
The Western Female University was a pretentious school, established in Lafayette by Prof. William Brand, of Frank- lin College, and was meant to afford to young ladies oppor- tunities for a liberal collegiate education. While it failed in this, it nevertheless provided a sensible and fairly complete secondary training at a time when more than elementary instruction was yet deemed superfluous for women and girls.
Among the earliest of these schools, and one of the most efficient, was the De Pauw Female College, established in 1852. Seven years later Rev. R. M. Johnson, then recently of the Ladoga Academy, opened in New Albany, also, the Young Ladies' High School. All these schools were, and generally were meant to be, only high-grade seminaries, but the best of their kind. A statement of the course of one and its management is applicable to all. The Parsons Semi- nary, in Crown Point, was opened in the fall of 1856, and continued about four years. Its principal was Mary Eliza- beth Parsons, a pupil of Mary Lyons and graduate of the Mount Holyoke Seminary, who had taught at Oxford, Ohio, and Greensburg, Ind., and sought at Crown Point to estab- lish a second Holyoke at the West. She died in 1860, leav- ing behind delightful memories among her students of loving womanhood, scholarly devotion, and inspiring life.
The courses of study in none of this class of institutions differed greatly from those in use prior to 1850. Some of the subjects seem more modern. More of science was in- cluded. History began to be taught, and, in the form of grammar, some attention was paid to English. In general, less time was put upon the ornamental and merely classical, and more upon fundamentals. The "Farmers' Academies," and manual-labor schools and industrial movements, and growing business life, had had their influence. Among sub- jects, the means of education were found to be many. Pre- scription and exclusiveness were losing their hold. 16
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UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
While many, indeed most, of these institutions sent out both young men and women (a few of the latter) into the schools as teachers, it is noticeable that neither their names nor the articles of incorporation emphasize the preparation of teachers as the purpose of their organization. A few of them, however-as the Roanoke Seminary, the Clinton Coun- ty Farmers' Institute, Ladoga Academy, Union High School, Blue River and Spiceland Academies, and Brookville College -prepared hundreds for the work of teaching, not for the common schools alone, but for instruction in seminaries and embryo colleges as well.
Not less in this period than in the epoch of county semi- naries were there strong and scholarly men and women among the teachers. Besides those already named were Dr. C. N. Sims, the eminent divine, then principal of the Male and Female Methodist College at Valparaiso; Ebenezer Tuck- er and I. N. Taylor, of Liber College; Rev. O. H. Smith, in the Rockport Collegiate Institute; Prof. Rouse, in the Lafay- ette Classical Academy; Rev. Daniel Rice, in the Logans- port Female College; W. P. Phelon, of the La Porte Technic and Training School; Prof. Wilcox, of the Valparaiso Col- legiate Institute; Prof. Shaw, connected for many years with the Hopewell Academy; Prof. G. W. Hoss, professor and later president of the Indiana Female College; J. P. D. John, in Brookville College, and others whose educational services have regenerated the State. They were the best prod- uct of their generation, and their schools veritable colleges.
But the period was made eminent not less by the increased recognition accorded to women in the rank of teachers. Mention has already been made of the scholarly and devoted Miss Parsons, of Crown Point; Mrs. Barnett, of the Logans- port "Public School "; and of Mrs. Venable, as the assistant of her father, Rev. Mr. Martin, in the Orange County Semi- nary; of Miss Susan Griggs, also, and others only less well known. Besides, there were Miss Kate Knight and her sis- ter Martha, who for seventeen years maintained a school in Crown Point; Mrs. Goodwin, in Lafayette; Mrs. L. S.
231
TWENTY YEARS UNDER TIIE NEW LAW.
Holmes, for ten years at the head of modern-language in- struction in Merom College, and others. Provisions for the better and more liberal education of girls were made both in the establishment of separate schools and in a more general co-educational movement. Women during this period were admitted to full privileges in the State University (1867). The percentage of women among teachers in the common schools was greatly increased also. All of which were but parts of the same social and culture movements which put women into the seminaries, and attracted from other States, as well as the institutions of our own, scholarly, refined, womanly women to be the instructors of the State's youth in seminaries and academies.
Upon the whole, the education furnished in this second seminary period was not greatly unlike that of a generation before. It was the best of its kind, and an admirable substi- tute in lieu of the needed but absent State system. But it was felt to be far from satisfactory.
There was no co-operation among the schools, at least only such chance uniformity as comes to different agencies operating among the same people at the same time, and having a common purpose. Each school was independent of every other. All the evils of the old district system were, in the seminaries, multiplied and intensified. They furnished the most limited opportunities only for graduation and classi- fication, and so worked at a disadvantage.
Again, they were expensive. Even as compared with the schools of the same time, it was estimated that an equal grade of instruction might have been furnished by the State at from one half to two thirds the cost; or at the same rate have continued the schools fifty per cent longer. It is the history of experiments in this country in every section that private schooling is expensive schooling.
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