USA > Indiana > A history of education in Indiana > Part 2
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The treaty of Greenville (1795), negotiated by General Wayne with the hostile tribes, really first opened Indiana to permanent and comparatively safe settlement. Twelve months afterward the records show, besides Vincennes, but two other settlements-one near what is now Lawrence- burg, and another in Clark County. Within five years the population of the territory had increased to 4,875. Through the influence of the land-offices, opened in 1804 and 1807, and the more settled state of affairs, the population in 1810 amounted to 24,520 ; and before statehood was assumed, in 1816, this had been trebled.
By the same act, noted above, establishing the land- offices, the Secretary of State was authorized to set apart a township of land,* near Vincennes, to be used in founding a college.
* This was located, October 10, 1806, in Gibson County, and surveyed 23,040 acres. (Sec p. 15.)
8
THE TERRITORIAL PERIOD.
Three years later (1807) a fourth land-office was located and opened at Jeffersonville (a town had been laid out five years before). In 1805 Michigan was organized into a sepa- rate Territory, and in 1809 Illinois. This left Indiana with its present boundaries and two land-offices. Settlements were making and institutions forming. Nevertheless, its entire population was not more than twenty-five thousand. It had grist, lumber, and powder mills to the number of fifty; tanneries, looms, and spinning-wheels ; textile ma- chines and shops ; and an occasional school.
On the new frontier, and so far removed from the cen- ters of civilization, the formal agencies for education are always at a disadvantage. Some things must be done, and schools have many substitutes. The family life, the exac- tions of labor, and neighborhood relations are themselves educative. Besides, in such communities there are few chil- dren. M. Rivet at Vincennes about 1793, a chance teacher in Clark County ten years after, and Mrs. Julia L. Dumont in Vevay from about 1813, included most that can be said of the teachers of Indiana during its territorial history. In 1804 one township of land was set apart in each of the land districts for the use of a seminary, that for the Vincennes dis- trict being located in Gibson County. The land was put upon the market in 1807, and soon after the seminary was opened.
5. The Federal Enabling Act of 1816.
Within five years (1815) the population had almost trebled, and the Territory (December 14, 1815) was seeking recognition as a State. To this end a bill was early intro- duced into Congress, and, having passed both houses, was approved, April 19, 1816, as "an act to enable the people of Indiana Territory to form a constitution and State govern- ment, and for the admission of such State into the Union on equal footing with the original States." Section 6 of this act comprised five propositions submitted to the Indiana Territorial Convention for acceptance or rejection, and which were the conditions of statehood.
9
TERRITORIAL ACTS.
The two paragraphs of these provisions that have to do with education, and so chiefly concern this discussion, were but carrying out the spirit of the " Ordinance of 1787" and the letter of the resolutions of 1785, and were as follows :
1. That the section numbered sixteen in every township, and when such section has been sold, granted, or disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto, and most contiguous to the same, shall be granted to the inhabitants of such town- ship * for the use of schools.
4. That one entire township, which shall be designated by the President of the United States, in addition to the one heretofore reserved for that purpose, shall be reserved for the use of a seminary of learning, and vested in the Legis- lature of the said State, to be appropriated solely to the use of such seminary by the said Legislature.
These and the accompanying conditions, submitted to the Convention, were, on the 10th day of June, 1816, accepted, at Corydon ; and the State has since, by that act, received for the benefits of learning 576,000 acres of land-the corner- stone of our school fund, and the guarantee of our State system.
* This has been officially interpreted as meaning that the title to these lands does not rest in the State, but in " the inhabitants of such town- ship" ; and that the State may neither sell the lands nor appropriate the proceeds to its own use. This decision rendered by the Supreme Court gives the ground for a separate "Congressional Township Fund," as dis- tinguished from the "Common-School Fund." (See p. 214; also 4 Stat., 298.)
PART SECOND. UNDER THE FIRST CONSTITUTION.
CHAPTER II.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND FIRST LEGISLATIVE PROVISIONS.
1. Article IX of the Constitution.
AT the State Convention held at Corydon, June 10 to June 29, 1816, just referred to, and of which Jonathan Jen- nings, delegate from Clark County, was President, a Consti- tution was adopted, in twelve articles, of which the ninth was devoted to education, as follows :
"SEC. 1. Knowledge and learning, generally diffused through a community, being essential to the preservation of a free Government, and spreading the opportunities and ad- vantages of education through the various parts of the coun- try being highly conducive to this end, it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to provide by law for the improve- ment of such lands as are, or hereafter may be, granted by the United States to this State for the use of schools, and to apply any funds which may be raised from such lands, or from any other quarter, to the accomplishment of the grand object for which they are or may be intended. But no lands granted for the use of schools or seminaries of learn- ing shall be sold, by authority of this State, prior to the year eighteen hundred and twenty; and the moneys which may be raised out of the sale of any such lands, or otherwise ob- tained for the purpose aforesaid, shall be and remain a fund for the exclusive purpose of promoting the interest of liter-
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CONSTITUTIONAL AND FIRST LEGISLATIVE PROVISIONS.
ature and the sciences, and for the support of seminaries and public schools. The General Assembly shall from time to time pass such laws as shall be calculated to encourage intellectual, scientific, and agricultural improvements, by allowing rewards and immunities, for the promotion and improvement of the arts, sciences, commerce, manufactures, and natural history; and to countenance and encourage the principles of humanity, honesty, industry, and morality.
"SEC. 2. It shall be the duty of the General Assembly, as soon as circumstances will permit, to provide by law for a general system of education, ascending in a regular grada- tion from township schools to a State University, wherein tuition shall be gratis, and equally open to all.
"SEC. 3. And, for the promotion of such salutary end, the money which shall be paid as an equivalent by persons exempt from militia duty, except in times of war, shall be exclusively and in equal proportion applied to the support of county seminaries ; also, all fines assessed for any breach of the penal laws shall be applied to said seminaries in the counties wherein they shall be assessed.
"SEC. 4. It shall be the duty of the General Assembly, as soon as circumstances will permit, to form a penal code founded on the principles of reformation, and not of vin- dictive justice ; and also to provide one or more farms, to be an asylum for those persons who, by reason of age or in- firmity or other misfortunes, may have a claim upon the aid and beneficence of society, on such principles that such persons may therein find employment and every reasonable comfort, and lose by their influence the degrading sense of dependence.
"SEC. 5. The General Assembly, at the time they lay off a new county, shall cause at least ten per cent to be reserved out of the proceeds of the sale of town lots, in the seat of justice of such county, for the use of a public library for such county; and at the same session they shall incorporate a library company, under such rules and regulations as will best secure its permanence and extend its benefits."
12
UNDER THE FIRST CONSTITUTION.
The entire article is one of rare excellence, and suffers nothing in comparison with the later and more familiar paragraphs in the Constitution of 1851. Its provisions are worthy of the most critical study. In the first place it is noticeable that the basis of the free-schools idea was purely secular. "The preservation of a free Government " is made the sole ground for encouraging the diffusion of knowledge and learning, and spreading the opportunities and advan- tages of education through the States. Not only was the system to be a public one, but it was meant to be a State- controlled, centrally-administered organization. The sale of lands, the scope of the school, the provision of funds, the care of dependents, and the founding of libraries were recognized in the article as legitimate objects of the State's interest. The creation of a permanent fund, through the anticipated sales of congressional township lands, was pro- vided for, and the principle of the State's obligation to the localities further confirmed.
As to the system, the plan was a generous one, compris- ing schools of every grade, from the township or neighbor- hood school through county seminaries, to and including the university ; all articulated into a single enterprise, and uniformly administered. It was, moreover, to be uniformly available. Greatly wanting as was the State's practice in subsequent years, Indiana was, in theory at least, saved from the blunder into which most other States fell at some time, in the establishment of "pauper schools." Under the Con- stitution of 1816 the means and privileges of instruction were meant to be equally available to all. Further, it was intended that attendance upon the schools should be without charge. If it be remembered that this was the expression of a pioneer people fifty years before schools were generally free in New England, much less in the West, in a country where life was a battle with the elements and luxuries were unknown, the greatness and liberality of the plan are empha- sized. Other than free schools are the creation of other than free people only. But "all classes" with these early set-
V
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CONSTITUTIONAL AND FIRST LEGISLATIVE PROVISIONS.
tlers meant or was made to include the defective and depend- ent classes as well. Homes, asylums, and schools for these were then almost unknown in all this land; but with wise forethought the care of them-more than that, their educa- tion-was made an interest of the State, and in time, under its provisions, such schools were established. Finally, let it be noted that the State's responsibility included not learning in the arts and sciences alone, but extended to intelligently directed industries, and the promotion of " humanity, hon- esty, and morality." It was the Ordinance of 1787 trans- lated into Western institutions.
Governor Jennings, in his first message to the State Leg- islature in 1816, urged upon the members of both bodies the necessity of immediate steps to carry out the requirements of Article IX of the Constitution, enforcing his thought by the statement that "the dissemination of useful knowl- edge will be indispensably necessary as a support to morals and a restraint to vice." Legislative attention was thus formally and officially called to the plan of education as prescribed by the Constitution, but no specific or detailed recommendations were offered. A like general but some- what indefinite and more or less perfunctory concern had been manifested by Governor Posy in his message to the Territorial Legislature the previous year. But no intelli- gent and burning interest is apparent. The conditions of physical and political life were urgent. Settlements were sparse, resources meager, and life necessitous. Institu- tions of every sort were founded at a disadvantage. What could wait, must wait. There was easy room for mis- take.
How to realize the ideal set up by the Constitution-" a system of education ascending in regular gradation from township schools to a State university, wherein tuition shall be gratis and equally open to all "- was an educational problem, an attempt at whose solution was prolonged, with more or less of vigor but with only doubtful success, for a generation. It still resulted in no system, tuition was not
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14
UNDER THE FIRST CONSTITUTION.
free, and schools were not, and were not generally expected to be, freely or equally open to all.
Nevertheless, among the States, the attitude of Indiana upon the question of education as fixed in the Constitution is an honorable one.
Five States-Pennsylvania and North Carolina in 1776, Vermont the year following, Massachusetts in 1780, and New Hampshire in 1784, all during the heat of the Revolution- had included in their first constitutions references to learn- ing and provisions for education in some form or other. For the most part, both references and provisions were gen- eral and ineffective. In each of the five States named the Legislature was required to provide "a school or schools," and to encourage and promote " all useful learning in acad- emies and universities." Pennsylvania and Vermont re- quired "a school in each county." Permanent funds were to be conserved. All existing instrumentalities were to be used. But in the six other States forming their constitu- tions in this (the Revolutionary) period-New Jersey, Mary- land, Delaware, Virginia, South Carolina, and New York- and in Kentucky and Tennessee, first admitted as States thereafter (1792 and 1796, respectively), no constitutional reference is made to either education or schools.
Ohio, in 1802, incorporated some very general provisions, couched in negative language, however, against excluding any of her citizens from those schools having congressional endowment, and against the misappropriation of her public funds. Louisiana, admitted ten years after, ignores the en- tire subject of public education in her Constitution .*
Having due regard, therefore, for the best thought of the earlier constitutions upon public education, the precedents for Indiana were neither specific nor encouraging. Educa- tion in most States, and particularly outside of New Eng- land, was either a private interest or the subject of local and
* For an extended treatment of this subject, see a monograph by B. A. Hinsdale, Ph. D., Education in the State Constitutions.
15
CONSTITUTIONAL AND FIRST LEGISLATIVE PROVISIONS.
special enactments. Section 2, quoted above, was unique in constitutional literature. "Previous to Indiana, no State had, in its Constitution, declared for a graduated system of schools extending from the district schools to the university, equally open to all on the basis of gratuitous instruction." The step was not only forward, but along a new line. A State-controlled system, graduated to the need of all ages, and equally free and open to all classes, was made organic in the first Constitution of the Commonwealth of Indiana.
2. Vincennes University.
By an act of Congress approved March 26, 1804, the Secretary of the Treasury was instructed to locate in each of the three land districts into which Indiana Territory was then set off one entire township, or thirty-six sections of land, to be appropriated to the use of a seminary of learning.
A township was selected October 10, 1806, in Gibson County, and on November 29th of the same year the Terri- torial Legislature passed an "act to incorporate an univer- sity in Indiana Territory." The tract selected included 23,040 acres of the best land then available. Twenty-three trustees were immediately appointed, who, on December 6th following, organized with General William Henry Harrison as president. The board was empowered to sell 4,000 acres of the township, and to acquire and to hold not to exceed 100,000 acres.
The land was sold, and out of the proceeds a brick build- ing was erected at a cost of about $6,000. The institution was formally organized by the opening of a preparatory or " grammar" school in 1810. Rev. Samuel Scott was the first president or principal, and remained in charge until 1823.
The legislative act creating the university is interesting as an historical paper, and rich in suggestion of the educa- tional sentiment of the State eighty-four years ago. In the preamble it appears that : "Whereas the independence, happiness, and energy of every republic depends (under the
16
UNDER THE FIRST CONSTITUTION.
influence of the destinies of Heaven) upon the wisdom, vir- tue, talents, and energy of its citizens and rulers ; and whereas science, literature, and the liberal arts contribute in an emi- nent degree to improve those qualities and acquirements; and whereas learning hath ever been found the ablest advo- cate of genuine liberty, the best supporter of rational relig- ion, and the source of the only solid and imperishable glory which nations can acquire; and forasmuch as literature and philosophy furnish the most useful and pleasing occupa- tions, improving and varying the enjoyments of prosperity affording relief under the pressure of misfortune, and hope and consolation in the hour of death; and considering that in a commonwealth where the humblest citizen may be elected to the highest public offices, and where the heaven- born prerogative of the right to elect and reject is retained and secured to the citizens, the knowledge which is requisite for a magistrate and elector should be widely diffused."
In addition to some incidental stipulations concerning the organization of the institution, the act further provided for a liberal course of study in the following words: "For.the instruction of youth in the Latin, Greek, French, and Eng. lish languages, mathematics, natural philosophy, ancient and modern history, moral philosophy, logic, rhetoric, and the law of nature and nations ; that it shall be the duty of the said president and professors to instruct and give lectures to the said students of the University, according to such plan of education as the said trustees may approve and direct, in the branches above mentioned."
It was a generous plan and not greatly marred, as might have been expected, by the sordid motive on the one hand, or the utilitarian colorings of poverty on the other. It was to be for that day truly a college of "liberal arts " and a school of philosophy. It was the most western high-grade institution, and the only one for many years. Whatever the school might or did fail to do or actually do, its plan of organization as conceived by the Legislature was large and liberal. Besides the school of arts and languages set forth,
17
CONSTITUTIONAL AND FIRST LEGISLATIVE PROVISIONS.
it was further required, in terms given below, that the trust- ees should, at their discretion and as circumstances would allow, establish a school in each of the three learned pro- fessions, a school for girls, a grammar or preparatory school, and, finally, make the advantages of the institution avail- able for the education of the Indians as well as the whites. It was the "grammar school" mentioned here that was first organized and opened in 1810. Notwithstanding the trustees were required "to use their utmost endeavors to induce the aborigines to send their children to the univer- sity for education," and were authorized to clothe and main- tain as well as educate them "at the expense of the institu- tion," but few Indians seem to have been attracted to the school. The motive was good ; out of all proportion to the achievement.
In the same spirit of large-hearted benevolence, and a charity that was in no wise common for the time, it was further enacted "that no particular tenets of religion shall be taught in the university by the president and professors mentioned." The school was to be made equally available and acceptable to patrons of any creed or no creed. Indeed, touching the education of girls, the responsibility of the State for the higher as well as elementary training of her subjects, the support of professional schools, and the secu- larization of learning, the Vincennes University Act was surprisingly modern.
Of course it can readily be seen that for such an institu- tion's support there would be required the avails of more than a township of land. Endowments were not to be thought of, and general taxation was equally out of the question. There would be tuition fees; but, with the most favorable conditions and the largest attendance, the total receipts from this source would be inadequate to the realiza- tion of a tithe of what was planned in the original and very generous act of incorporation. As usual, the Legislature was (theoretically) equal to the emergency. It was there- fore ordered: "That, for the support of the aforesaid institu-
18
UNDER THE FIRST CONSTITUTION.
tion and for the purpose of procuring the necessary philo- sophical and experimental apparatus, there shall be raised a sum not exceeding twenty thousand dollars by a lottery, to be carried into operation as speedily as may be after the passage of this act, and that the trustees of the said uni- versity shall appoint five discreet persons, either of their body or other persons, to be managers of said lottery, each of whom shall give security, to be approved of by said trust- ees, in such sum as they may direct, conditioned for the faithful discharge of the duty required of said managers ; and the said managers shall have power to adopt such schemes as they may deem proper to sell the tickets, and to superintend the drawing of the same and the payment of the prizes; and that as often as the managers shall receive one thousand dollars, they shall deposit the same in the hands of the treasurer of the said board of trustees; and the said managers and trustees shall render an account of their pro- ceedings therein at the next session of the Legislature after the drawing of the said lottery." *
However such a policy might be condemned to-day, the lottery was a common mode of raising funds less than a hundred years ago in all sections of the country and for every conceivable purpose. Church debts were so paid, libraries established, city streets improved, institutions en- dowed, benevolences extended, and college and professional schools built if not supported. The Legislature of Indiana in 1806-'7 was no exception to the class of legislative and deliberative bodies of the period. Vincennes University was only an object of its solicitude. It appears that the lottery was really never drawn, and so the institution was deprived of one considerable revenue.+
* Indiana Territorial Laws, 1806-'7.
+ It is interesting to find that in the proceedings of the same session of the Assembly (see Laws of Indiana Territory for 1806-'7, published by authority of the Legislature) appears an "act for the prevention of vice and immorality," in which all lotteries, whether public or private, arc pro- hibited when for individual use.
D
19
ATTEMPTS AT SCHOOL SYSTEMS.
The school, opened in 1810, included, besides the usual secondary subjects, something also of the languages and higher mathematics, and represented the best learning of the West. Its faculty was small, and its material resources even more inadequate. Its support came almost entirely from the fees of students. At best, it made learning a sort of luxury that could be enjoyed by the thrifty only.
About 1823, and shortly after the retirement of President Scott, the university having suspended for want of funds, the remainder of the Gibson County township was appro- priated by the State and sold, and the proceeds turned over to the State Seminary at Bloomington, established under an act of the Legislature of 1820, and opened in 1824. For fifteen years (1823-'38) there was no school, the building being for a time the seat of Knox County Seminary; but, by the authority of the Legislature in 1846 (the trustees having reorganized and taken steps to reopen the school), suit was brought against the State for the recovery of the property. The case was appealed from the local courts to the Supreme Court of the State, and finally to the Supreme Court of the United States, where in 1854 judgment was rendered in favor of the Vincennes institution for $66,585, which, leaving out costs and attorney's and agent's fees, left the university about $40,000 .*
CHAPTER III.
ATTEMPTS AT SCHOOL SYSTEMS.
OCCASIONAL attempts at legislation had been made even during the territorial period to provide for the schools by enactments concerning school-lands, the appointment of offi- cers, and the regulation of leases. Of course, even these prudentials were important, and so not to be ignored. They
* Sce Higher Education in Indiana, by J. A. Woodburn, Ph. D., 1891.
20
UNDER THE FIRST CONSTITUTION.
must necessarily receive the first attention. There could be no system without a constant, assured supply of general funds. Only so is to be explained the first generation's anxious and perennial concern for school lands, leases, salt springs, fees, salaries, loans, and interest. These must be conserved and improved as a means to any sort, even the simplest, most unpretentious, of public schools contemplated in the congressional grants.
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