USA > Indiana > A history of education in Indiana > Part 23
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* See Fourteenth Report, p. 35.
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THE PRESENT SYSTEM.
dealers are relatively higher than of other commodities; that they are not fixed by the natural laws of supply and demand, but that the prices charged buyers are rendered uwjustly high by combination between the publishers and large re- tailers."
In the attempt of the States to regulate the cost of such books to the public there seem to be four plans in general use: * (1) Free text-books, bought by the school officials, as are other forms of apparatus, held as public property and loaned to pupils; (2) State publication; (3) the indirect con- tract system; and (4) the direct contract system. By the Indiana law of 1889 the contract may be made by the Board of Text-book Commissioners directly with the publishers, or with authors or compilers of books, to be bought outright and published by the commission. A maximum price was fixed by the act for each of the fifteen different books pro- vided for. Immediately upon the enforcement of the act bids were received and contracts made for texts in reading, arithmetic, geography, and penmanship, and the year fol- lowing in the remaining branches-spelling, English gram- mar, physiology, and United States history. In the mean time the maximum price of the History had been raised by special act of the Legislature, and two books in physiology substituted for the one previously prescribed. By Supreme Court decisions it has been established that the law is not only constitutional but mandatory, both upon school officers and patrons
While in general the function described belongs to the State Board, books are obtained through the local trustees certifying to the county superintendent the number of the several books needed, by whom a requisition is made upon the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and through him upon the contractor. Books are shipped directly to the county superintendents, and from them obtained by the local trustees. Reports and payments for books sold are made
* Systems of Text-book Supply, by Prof. S. S. Parr, 1888.
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UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
quarterly to the superintendent, by whom final payment is made to the contractor.
The list of books as now introduced (which can not be changed for five years from the date of their adoption) com- prises the following: Reading, arithmetic, geography, ad- vanced grammar, physiology, spelling, and penmanship, all published by the Indiana Book Company; and the first book in language and a history of the United States, by Ginn & Company.
Other services rendered by the board have been in the development of township and county institutes, the intro- duction of uniform courses of study into rural schools, and the closer articulation of collegiate and secondary institu- tions (all of which find consideration elsewhere in this volume), in maturing a wise system of certificating teachers, in the uniform encouragement given to all professional means of improvement, and the constant and judicious care exercised over the legislation of the State touching schools. Indeed, it is just this unheralded service which defies statis- tics and definition, whose influences are not calculable or apparent, whose results do not appear in kind, but work out in institutions, in motive and habit, that chiefly justifies the board's existence. But for the official and personal encour- agement of the board and its members every agency men- tioned above must have been wholly wanting, or greatly crippled in its workings.
As marking a fairly well-defined tendency in Indiana educational affairs, the following extract from the State Superintendent's report for 1885-'86 * concerning the proper functions of the State Board of Education is inserted :
" (1) It should be given full powers to fix the qualifica- tions of teachers for the different classes of schools, to deter- mine the grades and duration of their licenses, and, through the county superintendents, to provide for and direct their examinations. (2) It should be empowered to prescribe
* Part I, p. 193.
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THE PRESENT SYSTEM.
courses of study for schools of different grades and classes. (3) It should be empowered to make general rules and regu- lations regarding the location and construction of school- houses. (4) It should be given full supervisory control of the county and township institutes. (5) It should be em- powered to make general rules and regulations for the gov- ernment of county boards of education, in the adoption of text-books and apparatus, and for the government of trustees in the purchase of school furniture and supplies."
Much of all this has already gone into the control of the board, either by common consent or by statute, and the ex- periment has generally justified itself. The State has reason to congratulate itself upon the high character of the official service of its central educational department.
CHAPTER XX.
THE PRESENT SYSTEM (Continued).
II. LOCAL CONTROL.
As the township is the original administrative unit of our government, so, since 1852, it has been the unit of our school system as well. In the phraseology of the Revised Statute of 1859, "each and every township that now is or may hereafter be organized in any county in this State is hereby also declared to be a school township, and as such to be a body politic and corporate, by the name and style of 'school-township of County,' etc."
The township school administration is, through the law -especially the earlier statutes-made the standard for all school administrations. The duties of the township trustee are made in general the duties of the city and town school trustee. The modifications in the administration of the sys- tem are few and unimportant. For almost half a century of
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UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
Statehood the township was in fact, if not in theory, the de- termining factor in all school legislation.
Upon the reorganization of the system in 1852 the law immediately, and, in time, public sentiment, recognized, be- side the township, the incorporated town and the city as independent school corporations. In the common thought this came slowly. The town is yet subject to the county control in all matters of supervision, as are the townships. And not until 1885 was the right of the city to extend its instruction beyond that found expedient in the rural schools fully established.
As at present administered, then, the school system of Indiana recognizes three classes of schools, or three kinds of school corporations: (1) the township, (2) the incorporated town, and (3) the city. They are co-ordinate, though not identical in powers, share alike in general privileges and responsibilities, and are mutually exclusive. Theoretically, the differences in control are such as are incident to the different environing conditions, in the city, the town, and the suburban country.
They share alike in their general responsibilities and limi- tations. All are restricted in their levies; are subject to like conditions in the distribution of revenue, the expenditure of the several funds, and the selection of teachers; follow the same prescribed (legal) curriculum; make uniform statis- tical reports; and are integral parts of one system. They share in the same privileges. They draw upon a common fund; have equal legal right to all the advantages of graded and advanced instruction; participate in common courses and a uniform management; and have (theoretically) the benefits of a central supervision. That there are marked differences in actual administration is, of course, true. These will appear in the more detailed consideration fol- lowing.
One other fact should be mentioned in these general con- siderations. "A civil township and the school township of the same territory are distinct corporations, and each must
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THE PRESENT SYSTEM.
sue and be sued in its own proper corporate name, and neither can sue in the name of the other or that of the town- ship trustee. So also a civil town and the school town (or city) are distinct corporations." The management of the schools is not a new function bestowed upon the civil or municipal corporation, but the function of an independent and distinct corporation existing for school purposes alone. Each such corporation is, therefore, entitled to receive and expend its proper school money, employ its teachers, and manage its schools independently of any control by any other such corporation. The trustee of the civil township and the trustee of the school township are, legally, two persons. In the incorporated towns and cities the two sets of functions are referred to and performed by different offi- cials. .
1. Administration in Townships.
By an act of March, 1889, township officers, including trustees, are elected (on the first Monday of April) for a term of four years. But no person is "eligible to the office of township trustee more than four years in any period of eight years." This selection of trustee by popular vote brings the office into politics, as any other civil office. Its most ob- jectionable features appear in the performance of purely educational duties, which, while legally distinct, are not readily separated either in official practice or public judg- ment from those incident to the civil office.
Unlike the earlier system, the present provides one trustee only (not three) in each township, and so simplifies greatly the machinery. But it is, perhaps, the most pronounced instance of centralizing of power known to our Common- wealth. As a civil officer he is required, speaking generally, to manage the finances of the township. Besides, he is offi- cial inspector of elections; is custodian of the ballot-box; boards the election officers; takes the voting census; is over- seer of the poor, to whom he may give temporary aid; may commit neglected girls to the female reformatory ; may sue for abandoned wife or children; may administer oaths; is
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UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
fence viewer; assesses the commutation road tax; controls road hedges; nominates drainage commissioners and repairs public drains; registers dogs, and manages the dog fund, re- imbursing for sheep killed; has charge of the unsold school lands; and makes various reports to the county commission- ers, to the County Superintendent, and the State Bureau of Statistics.
As a school officer he is expected to perform in general all the duties which the earlier township board-particularly the clerk and treasurer-was held responsible for under the old law. Specifically, the trustee of each township is made respon- sible for the establishment and convenient location of a suffi- cient number of schools for the education of all the children therein; he may abolish or change school districts; he locates and erects all houses throughout his township; pur- chases and is responsible for the care of all school property ; levies all local taxes, both for building and tuition; disburses all revenues, amounting in the aggregate throughout the State to millions of dollars annually; takes the enumeration of school-children; acts as local agent in supplying the needed school-books, under the recent law; employs and pays teach- ers; directs the gradation of schools and the establishment of higher departments; is the sole manager and responsible head of the township school; controls the township library ; has general charge of the township institutes; and makes or directs, or directs to be made, all reports touching the town- ship schools. Besides, the several trustees of each county co-operate as a county board of education, and select the superintendent of schools.
Indeed, it would appear that, touching all these matters, whether of the civil township or the school corporation, the power of the trustee is practically autocratic. Patrons may petition, and the county board may recommend, and the superintendent may advise, and even the county commis- sioners may demur, but, except in unimportant particulars, the authority of the trustee is absolute.
Even this irresponsibleness of power, however, is less ob-
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THE PRESENT SYSTEM.
jectionable than the unwarranted mixing of unrelated func- tions in the duties of a single officer. Whatever it may be in practice, in theory it is now generally conceded that county superintendents, city superintendents, the State Su- perintendent, members of the State Board of Education, and occasionally of municipal boards even, should be selected because of some recognized fitness for the performance of their prescribed school duties. The present need of a rural school is for a professional administration of the local school system-an administration that is impossible with numerous and responsible school duties attached, as an afterthought, to an office already overburdened with civil affairs, however ably the office may be conducted. It is to be hoped that the school may, at no distant day, have its own appropriate officer.
A word should be said, perhaps, of the school director. The district is not a corporation; only a part of one. Yet its taxpayers (that is, heads of families) are required to meet annually and elect one of their number as director of the district. Such officer has general charge of the school-house and property therein, under the direction of the trustee, makes repairs as ordered by the voters of the district, pro- vides fuel, presides at school meetings, and acts as the organ of communication between the inhabitants and the township trustee. He is the local agent of the trustee and is under his orders.
2. Incorporated Towns.
A second kind of school corporation is the incorporated town, co-ordinate with the township, and receiving and ex- pending its own funds.
There are 247 such incorporated towns in the State, in each of which the board of trustees elects, annually in June, one person to act as school trustee for a term of three years. The trustees so chosen constitute the school board of the town, having in general the same functions as the single trustee in each township. They are independent of school meetings, may employ their own special superintendents and
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UNDER TIIE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
teachers, but make all statistical reports to the county super-
intendent, and can only employ licensed teachers. The schools of the towns are subject to visitation by the County Superintendent (except the trustees employ regularly their own superintendent), and their teachers are required to attend the township institutes, the annual county institute, and to use the prescribed course of study.
3. Cities.
Indiana has fifty-seven cities which constitute a third and quite distinct class of school corporations. In general their organization of schools is the same as in the townships and towns. The trustees in each city are three, as in the towns, but are appointed by the Common Council, to whom they are responsible. The several trustees constitute the school board for the city, but do not individually represent their own wards.
While the township is empowered by law to levy both the local building and tuition taxes, in cities and towns the latter may be recommended by the school trustees, but can only be levied by the civil authorities.
Another difference between the system in the city and that in the townships has already been mentioned in the discussion of the last paragraph. The city, as the town also, may hire a special superintendent, to whom the immediate control of the schools is assigned, and who becomes the executive and counselor of the board.
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THE PRESENT SYSTEM.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE PRESENT SYSTEM (Continued).
III. THE COMMON SCHOOL.
As developed in Indiana, the State's school system in- cludes elementary and secondary schools, a special school for the training of teachers, two institutions for superior instruction, schools for the training of the defective and wayward classes, school and township libraries, county and township institutes, etc. In legal phrase, and by common usage, the term "common school" is made to include ele- mentary and secondary schools only. Editions of the Com- mon School Law include also legislation with reference to teachers' institutes and free libraries, and, in a separate section, the acts in force relating to the State Normal School.
Common schools exist in the form of (1) rural ele- mentary schools; (2) township graded and union schools; (3) town and village schools; (4) city elementary schools; and (5) high schools.
1. The Rural Elementary School.
The importance of the topic will be apparent when it is remembered that nearly four fifths of the school-children of the State receive all the scholastic training they get * from the country schools; that the principal supervision exercised by the State Department is over these same country schools ; and that the field of the County Superintendent's duties is the country and village system, chiefly ungraded, employ- ing more than seventy-eight per cent of the teachers of the State, and receiving more than four millions of the five and a quarter million dollars annually expended upon the State's schools. The rapid growth in number of these schools, their efficiency, the dignity of their management, and the public
* Sec Report for 1876, p. 79.
10
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UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
confidence they command, is an interesting feature in the history of education in Indiana.
In 1855, of about seven thousand districts, more than a thousand, or fifteen per cent, were entirely without schools; four years later the delinquent districts numbered but eleven per cent, and in 1866 but three per cent. At the close of the first year of county superintendency, and for the seventeen years since, more than ninety-nine per cent of the organized districts of the State have annually maintained the full term of school. The State has at present about 9,500 dis- tricts, the number varying somewhat, now larger, now smaller, with the shifting of population, the closer school management, the centralization of control, the varying school accommodations, and the introduction of union and graded schools.
From the first attempts at a system in Indiana the rural school has worked at a disadvantage as compared with the administration in cities. Notwithstanding they were given the same legal status under the new Constitution, such schools have existed, and continued to exist, under very unequal conditions. Then, as now, the wealth being in cities, degrees of culture and efficiency could be had in their schools that lay beyond the reach of the districts. Prior to 1850, though the only school legislation was in favor of the townships, the only schools were in the towns; and after 1852 the equal legislation made the unequal privileges only less glaring.
For the same reason, re-enforced by others, perhaps, the rural districts have, not in other generations only, but in the present as well, not in Indiana alone, but in other States, had uniformly shorter terms. So that, as respects formal training, the city does as much for the boy before he is six- teen as the country district can do for him during his minor- ity.
For obvious reasons, also, in the suburban schools teach- ers have a more uncertain tenure of office, and, at the best, more brief. It may sometimes be the teacher's preference
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THE PRESENT SYSTEM.
that this is so, sometimes the patrons', sometimes the school officials'. Whatever the real cause, it operates as a rule that the city system affords to the teacher such opportunities for continued service as the township does not. Short terms and changing and unequal employment have greatly hindered the farmers' schools and the development of rural life. Of course, along with all these must be remembered the fact that the sparse populations make school-going inconvenient. Long distances, and unimproved roads, and small schools, and short terms, and poor and changing teachers make the school uninviting to the indifferent and of minimum service to even the most earnest and studious.
Of course there are regenerative conditions in rural life. The out-of-school influences cultivate some wholesome habits. The relatively simple domestic and social life, the strong naturalism and corresponding freedom from artifi- ciality, the exacting industrialism, and limited leisure make the training of youth in the outlying districts to be less con- ventional than in the cities, but, in general, more disciplinary. But this is not because of the schools; it is rather in spite of them.
The policy that has done most, perhaps, to reclaim the country school from its low estate, and endow it with the elements of permanency and helpfulness, is that which finds its expression in gradation, concentration, union schools, graduation, township high schools, etc .- movements full of suggestion to the teacher.
A. EARLY ATTEMPTS AT GRADATION.
A graded school is one in which the pupil's advancement is measured by, and estimated in terms of, a course of stud- ies, graded and distributed as a means of culture, and taken as a standard. "As a mechanism, the graded system de- mands that pupils of the same grade attend school with regularity, and that they possess equal attainments, equal mental capacity, equal vigor, equal home assistance and opportunity, and that they be instructed by teachers possess-
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UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION, 1851-'91.
ing equal ability and skill."* That is to say, this is the ideal condition. That it exists in perfection no one supposes, but its approximation may be found in all best schools- first, those in the centers of population.
The advantages of the graded system have been sum- marized as follows: (1) It economizes the labor of instruc- tion; (2) it reduces the cost of instruction; (3) it makes the instruction more effective; (4) it facilitates good government and discipline; (5) it affords a better means of inciting pupils to industry. Perhaps it should be said that the system be- comes necessary because of the fact of the gradual unfold- ment of the child.
The graded system is very general in the United States -more so than in England or most continental countries. But this is only true, in any extended way, of cities. The country school in the United States makes progress here but slowly. A few States have done creditably.
After some little attempt in cities thirty years ago, the next effort to be noted in Indiana was among the better private schools. A class of academies flourished from 1850 to 1870 that, with a course of instruction, separate class- rooms, and a number of associated teachers, gave, for this State, almost the first proof of the real efficiency of system- atic, graduated lessons and exercises. The better country and village schools-a few of them-soon made like at- tempts. But the movement was not popular. Perhaps opposed because not understood.
As early as 1847 Lewis Bollman had advocated the grad- ing of country schools, but up to 1856 the State educational department could claim a graded system of schools in not more than half a dozen of the seven thousand school corpora- tions, and these the superintendent described as " passing through the experience of infancy, struggling with the diffi- culties incident to new enterprises, contending with preju- dices, battling with selfishness and those time-honored usages
* E. E. White.
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THE PRESENT SYSTEM.
which often induce a skepticism in educational matters that is exceedingly hard to overcome." Time only, and the suc- cessful administration of a few schools bold enough to insist upon a regulated course of instruction, could overcome the common prejudice. Graded schools must justify their claims.
2. Provisions of the Law.
In the mean time the law had recognized the graded school, and provided for its incorporation into the State's system. While not obligatory, the law was very liberal.
A. GRADED SCHOOLS.
After having provided for and enumerated the duties of the township board, section 19 of the law of 1852 provided that "Such board may establish graded schools or a modifi- cation thereof where such establishment is practical and convenient, and in such case they shall so classify the chil- dren of their townships as to secure to all equitable partici- pation in the advantages thereof." This was included, un- changed, in the revision of 1853, to which Superintendent Larrabee, by way of comment, added that under its generous provisions the trustees might " authorize the teaching of any branches of science, literature, and art which public interest and public opinion may require." But a "graded course " seemed poorly understood.
In the law of 1855 the provision had been reduced to the legalizing of "graded schools or such modification of them as may be practicable." In commenting upon the clause, however, Superintendent Mills explained * that, "in such case, the districts might embrace the pupils classed in the primary and secondary departments, and the grammar and high-school pupils might be taught at a school located at some central point in the township." This affords an early emphasis of the policy to make and administer the schools of
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