USA > Indiana > Rush County > Centennial history of Rush County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 28
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ordinance, and to take action against persons who were keeping unsanitary hog pens within the city limits. an- nouncing that he would have them declared public nuis- ances and thus abate them. The further provisions of the ordinance against garbage in the streets and alleys also were emphasized and notice given that the ordinance would be enforced. And thus the campaign against filth progressed. That it became effective with the passage of the years is fully apparent. for Rushville long has prided itself upon the neatness and cleanliness of its streets and alleys, while as for hogs on the streets or hog pens within the city limits-well, that abominable nuisance long ago passed forever. And, as in Rushville, so in the several villages of the county. Modern sanitation and general recognition of the necessity of maintaining proper con- ditions along this line have resulted in such improve- ments as hardly would have been regarded possible by those who patiently endured such conditions in this re- spect as those whose memories go back to the '50s and the '60s recall with regret. And the Rush County Medical Society, with unselfish devotion, is ever alert to further progress along this essential line.
CHAPTER XIV
THE SCHOOLS OF RUSH COUNTY
There are several communities in the county which lay claim to the honor of having been the scene of the first school taught within the confines of Rush county, so easy it is to confuse tradition with fact, but the best evidence at hand points to the conclusion that the first school that properly could hold the name was that organ- ized by Dr. William B. Laughlin, in the new county seat town of Rushville in 1822, not long after the place became a settlement following the adoption of the site as the county seat. This is the conclusion reached by John L. Shauck, former county superintendent of schools, and who is still actively engaged in school work, whose full review of the history of the schools of Rush county pub- lished in 1888, and revised by him for republication twen- ty years later, is accepted as authority on questions af- fecting school history in this county. This conclusion Mr. Shauck bases upon statements of Harmony Laughlin, a son of Doctor Laughlin and one of the pupils attending that first term of school, and further confirms it by a statement of Doctor Arnold, who has so frequently been quoted in this work, "than whom." Mr. Shauck says, "there is perhaps no better authority." Concerning this fact Mr. Shauck declares that "the city of Rushville was the scene of the earliest schools of the county. Scarcely had the smoke begun to ascend from the first settler's cabin in the surrounding forest ere arrangements had been commenced to educate the pioneer youth. Dr. Will- iam B. Laughlin was the prime factor in all matters that pertained to the general welfare of the community, and in school affairs he was long the unquestioned authority. He was a man of liberal education and possesed of all
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those qualities that adapted him to lead in all the business of a new country. Having a large family of his own he took early steps in his new home in the wilderness to give them the advantages of education. It is said that he lo- cated here in the winter of 1820-21. and that his family soon after appeared upon the scene. The town of Rush- ville was laid out in March. 1822, and being the capital of the recently organized county. immigration at once began. By the fall of 1822. several families had located here, and some were scattered around the adjoining country. In the midst of his manifold duties Doctor Laughlin undertook to instruct the children of the neigh- borhood, in addition to his own. For this purpose a log cabin was erected a few rods from his own house on the ground now (1888) occupied by the Presbyterian church (now occupied by the Improved Order of Red Men). It was there, late in 1822, that the first school in Rush county was taught. * Doctor Laughlin continued to teach there during the winters for several years, giving instruction in the common branches as the custom pre- vailed in those times."
In an admirable brief prepared for publication in the twenty-eighth biennial report of the Indiana state department of public education (1917). C. M. George, county superintendent of schools of Rush county, gives a different version of the story relating to the first school taught in the county. This brief contains so much in little that it is herewith reproduced as an introduction to the more detailed statement regarding the schools of the county. "The first school in Rush county," says Mir. George's brief, "was taught by Isaac Phipps in Noble township in 1820-21. This school was taught for the squatters in a log cabin on section 19, township 13 north, range 10 east. One of the early school houses is described as having neither chimney nor fireplace. It was heated by piling coals on a rock or mound of mud. The floor consisted of the bare ground.
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"The town of Rushville was laid out in 1822 and Dr. William B. Laughlin undertook in addition to his many other duties to instruct the children of the neigh- borhood together with his own children. In 1828 he opened a school for advanced pupils. The course of study included many of the higher branches, and was designed to prepare the students for entrance into college. This was the first school of the kind in the county.
"In 1838, the county commissioners purchased two lots in Rushville at the southwest corner of Third and Julian streets, on which was erected the county seminary. This school was maintained by private tuition until it was sold under the acts of 1852. The Fairview Academy be- gan to receive students in 1849. The Friends Academy at Carthage was a log cabin. Here Henry Henley taught a school in 1830 or 1831. The academy was a sectarian school, and was taught in strict conformity to the views of Friends. The academy was continued in various build- ings in Carthage as a sectarian school until 1879, when it was merged into the joint graded public school. The Little Flat Rock Seminary was built in 1856, and stood one-half mile south of the Little Flat Rock Christian Church in Noble township. It was a two-story building, and was presided over for several years by Josiah Gam- ble, who afterward was superintendent of the Fayette county schools. In 1847, Thomas B. Helm founded the Farmington Academy in a tavern now used as a dwelling on the northeast corner of the cross roads at Farmington. The United Presbyterians formed a stock company and established the Richland Academy in the village of Rich- land, which began its career of usefulness in 1855. It continued until 1861, when the principal, John McKee, recruited a company of soldiers which became Company K, Thirty-seventh Indiana Infantry. The buildings and grounds were sold April 29, 1885, to Richland township for public school purposes.
"Rush county claims the distinction of having the
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first consolidated school in the United States. William S. Hall, in 1876, abandoned five school houses and erected in the village of Raleigh, which is located in the center of the township, a graded school building. This building was opened in 1877, with JJ. T. Kitchen as the first prin- cipal. At the present time (1917) all the townships of the county have consolidated schools except Richland.
* * With consolidation has come better school build- ings. better equipment. longer term. a graded system. higher branches taught, better qualified teachers, closer supervision and more efficient work generally at slightly increased cost."
A CENTURY OF PROGRESS
In the introduction to the state report here alluded to, Charles A. Greathouse, then state superintendent of public instruction, observes that "the century has wit- nessed a marvelous development in everything that has made for efficiency and stability of education. But let us not underrate the value of the education conferred upon the pioneer boy and girl by the crude schools of a century ago. They served their purpose well and were the foundations upon which later generations have reared the magnificent system of public schools of today." And it is so.
The early schools of Rush county were like the first schools of most other counties here in the middle West, and the old settler has so often and so well told the old story of rude puncheon benches without backs, the writ- ing desk at the wall supplied with the goose quill pen, and the many familiar facts relating to the primitive schools that there hardly is call here for a description in detail, but lest the pupil of today, surrounded as he is by the con- veniences of school life provided in the well-furnished and fully equipped schools of this generation, fail to vis- ualize the little log school house in which his grandfather acquired the rudiments of a pretty effective education a
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little pen picture of the old school house in the clearing, together with a bit of detail relating to the manner in which such schools were conducted, may not be amiss. As Mr. George has set out above, some of these primitive school houses had a dirt floor, and were without a fire- place, the chill of the room being somewhat reduced by charcoal fires burning on the floor or in a brazier, formed by a big iron kettle set in the middle of the floor. Spellin', readin', 'ritin' and 'rithmetic constituted the curriculum. Text books were the rarity, usually one book being deemed sufficient for the entire family, the Testa- ment often being the only reader in the schools. Few of the pioneers had "cumbered" themselves with books upon starting on the trip into the wilderness and more often than not the schoolmaster's entire library was in his head.
In the genealogical records of the Hilligoss family, published at Rushville in 1913, there is a quite illumina- tive paragraph along this line touching on conditions in the family of Conrad Hilligoss, which came up here from Kentucky in 1824. There were ten children in this fam- ily, hence the schooling problem was one that had to be faced along with others of a pressing character. "The family library," this narrative goes, "consisted of one reader and two spelling books, which they studied after the day's work was done." Equally illuminative is a fur- ther bit of description: "When they moved to Indiana they cleared eight acres and planted it to corn and wheat. When the wheat was ripe they cleaned it with a turkey wing. Their clothes were washed by rubbing with the hands and batting them with a paddle on the top of a smooth stump. After a time a wooden washboard was bought, which was used by four families that had settled in the neighborhood of the little town of Vienna, where there was one store. Vienna is now Glenwood. There were many panthers in those days, and few people ven- tured out at night." With panthers lurking in the woods it perhaps was no difficult task to keep the children home
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evenings, and with no "movies" to tempt them out they perhaps became well grounded in the contents of that reader and of the two spelling books and thus were able easily to fall into the reading habit when conditions of living became less rigorous in their neighborhood. This lack of books in the early schools was, of course, a serious handicap, but the overcoming of handicaps was a part of the pioneer's job, and his children usually became quali- fied in the "rudimen's." Unhappily, the teacher oft- times was what the youngsters of today would call a "boob," and this was a more serious handicap to the ambitious youth than lack of books ; but again there were among these pioneer teachers men of true intent whose souls were aflame with the desire to hand on the torch of learning, and who came into the community with richly charged minds prepared to impart to their pupils the best they had. Rush county's record is rich in such instances and the influence of these men of ripe mind and over- flowing soul has been felt in all the succeeding genera- tions, and will continue to be felt.
Of course, no license was required of the teacher, and it has been said that anyone who could spell February and did not have anything else to do could teach school. The early teachers were strong on discipline and reli- giously followed the principle of "no lickin', no larnin', and upon the slightest provocation demonstrated that axiom. The man or woman-generally, however, a man -who felt the urge to become an instructor of youth would get up a written agreement, called a subscription paper, and pass it around among the people of a certain neighborhood for signatures. The agreement usually called for a certain number of pupils at a certain price the pupil, and when the required number was obtained the school would begin. The ruling price for a term of three months was $2 a pupil, the number of pupils to be taught generally not fewer than twenty. The board and lodging for the teacher was provided by the patrons of the
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school, each one in turn furnishing a share of entertain- ment during the term, or if the teacher preferred, which generally was the case, he might choose a boarding place and remain there during the term for a small compen- sation to the patron of the school, whose home was se- lected. Edward Eggleston's "The Hoosier Schoolmas- ter" of course is familiar to all Rush county readers, for the scene of that masterpiece of delineation and descrip- tion of pioneer conditions was laid in the neighboring county of Decatur, down in the Clifty neighborhood, it is said, and the conditions with respect to the schools there set out were perhaps equally typical of conditions in Rush county, so that for a more comprehensive descrip- tion of these conditions the reader is recommended to brush the dust off his old copy of "The Hoosier School- master" and read it again.
THE BUILDING OF THE PIONEER SCHOOL HOUSE
Even before the beginning of the school the first matter of importance, of course, was to provide a build- ing for the accommodation of the teacher and his pupils, but this was an easy matter for the pioneers. The set- tlers of a neighborhood would get together on a specified day and begin the erection of a school house at some point as nearly central as a site could be procured. This was always easy to obtain, as land was worth but $1.25 an acre and a suitable site could be found where the owner of the land, especially if he had children of a school age-and he generally had, for large families were in fashion in those days,-was only too willing to donate an acre or half an acre of his land for the purpose. With this detail of location fixed, the settlers would gather on a day for the "rollin' " of the logs essential to the structure and on another day for the "raisin' " of the same, and thus about the third day the school house would be completed. The typical pioneer school house in this region was made of round logs, or if the settlers were particularly nice about
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it they took the further trouble to hew the logs, as giving a better "finish" to the job; these logs were notched at the ends to form a mortised jointure and the spaces be- tween the logs were filled or "chinked" with sticks and daubed with clay. The roof consisted of clapboards, held in place by poles extending across the roof, called weight poles. The floor was of puncheons, or planks split from logs, two or three inches in thickness and hewed reason- ably smooth on the upper side-this, of course, in the days before the portable sawmills come lumbering in. The fireplace was about six feet wide, made of logs lined with clay or undressed limestone, if there chanced to be a quarry nearby. The chimney was made of stone and split sticks plastered with clay. A stout door hung on wooden hinges and was fastened with a wooden latch. A log was cut out of one side to form a long window and this open space was covered with paper greased to make it transparent. Long wooden pins were driven in the log under the window, and a broad plank was laid on these pins to serve as a writing desk. The seats were made of half a poplar log, smoothed with an adz and supported on legs driven into the round side. An unlooked-for splinter in these seats might often create an unexpected diversion in the school as some unhappy wight would feel its pierc- ing presence in his quivering anatomy.
The more formal diversions of the school consisted of ciphering matches, spelling bees, "town ball," Friday afternoon or evening "literary," and the barring-out of the teacher at Christmas time, to compel him to "treat," all occasions of excitement and merriment. The spelling and ciphering matches and the "literaries" would be par- ticipated in by the whole neighborhood and the excite- ment not infrequently would be accentuated by the ad- justment of physical as well as mental rivalries, these personal and private physical readjustments often as not terminating in a "free-for-all" fight that would clear the neighborhood atmosphere for weeks to come. But why
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continue this description ? It is a story that has oft been told, an inseparable part of the wondrous mosaic of our common life, the pattern of which is familiar to all. Yet it is well, "lest we forget," formally to recall to each re- curring generation the days of old and nothing is more important in making up a definite history of the county than the retouching of the old familiar picture of the little pioneer school. The history of these schools lives only in the memory of persons who received what little education they were fortunate enough to secure from teachers who are now sleeping in some secluded spot their last long slumber; but they more often than not, left behind a memory that has grown brighter through the lapse of years. The history of one Hoosier school is the history of all with different persons in direction and dif- ferent hardships to overcome, all based upon the immor- tal Ordinance of 1787, creating the Northwest Territory, which declared that "religion, morality and knowledge are essential to good government, and the happiness of a people, and that schools and the means of an education should forever be encouraged in the new territory." And it is so. The relays of the torchbearers are ever alert; the torch is never allowed to drop; the sacred flame is ever kept alive.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM
For many years the primary declaration embodied in the ordinance above quoted regarding the encourage- ment of schools was a mere "glittering generality," such "encouragement" as was given having little behind it to make it effective and each neighborhood naturally be- came a sort of a law unto itself in the matter of its schools. The action of the Federal Government in setting off to the cause of common school education the sixteenth sec- tion in each township was not given executive force and the provision was further complicated when the Indiana state constitution of 1816 provided that none of the lands
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granted by the general Government for school purposes should be sold before 1820. As a matter of fact. it is stated, none was sold until eight years later, so that there really was no public fund from which to draw for school "encouragement" until about the beginning of the '30s. The legislative act of 1824 provided for the organization of school districts, the appointment of three trustees in each district, and for the erection of "suitable" school houses apparently was executed or not. at the whim or discretion of such trustees as might be holding the offices at the time, and the provision of the law requiring the trustee to "examine" a teacher as to his qualifications generally was a farce, usually the whole matter being turned over by two of the trustees to the third, who was left to carry on the school in his own way, and who usually was wholly incompetent to "examine" the teacher. even if such an examination were made. the effect in general being confusion, maladministration and woeful neglect of the state's most important function, a situation that was years in clearing up. After 1833 the district trustees were elected by the voters of the districts. In 1836, any individual might hire a teacher and draw his part of the school fund for maintenance. Then, as Doctor Esarey, in his " History of Indiana" so vividly sets out. "there was only one more step that could be taken, and this was taken in 1841, when the qualifications of the teacher were left to the district trustees. It is not strange that under these circumstances the teaching profession disappeared. Men of high education and of great power filled the ranks of the preachers and lawyers, but the teacher of this period was not uncommonly the laughing stock of the neighborhood. While other institutions of the state were taking on efficient state-wide organization, the schools, under the ruinous idea of local self-government, were struggling hopelessly with unequal lengths of terms, incapable teachers, dishonest trustees, diversity of text- books, lax enforcement of school laws and school disci-
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pline, neighborhood quarrels over school sites, narrow views of education and lack of wise leadership. This sit- uation lasted until the revision of the school law of 1843. The latter date perhaps marks the lowest level of general intelligence ever reached in the state. The harmful ef- fects of the failure to organize were felt in all classes and fields of social life. Despairing of any relief from the public schools, the churches, each in its way, tried to solve the problem of popular education. Almost every preacher was a school teacher. The Catholics had a large number of fairly good schools, at which not only their own, but Protestant children received instruction. Hundreds of private subscription schools were founded and continued for uncertain periods. Such schools de- pended so completely on the teacher and local conditions that no history of them can be written. Any native of the state past the age of seventy can describe a pioneer school ; no one can describe the pioneer schools."
And the situation thus set out by Doctor Esarey was exactly the situation in Rush county during that period. The public schools were but grim jokes, save in excep- tional cases where men of wide vision chanced to get in control. Those who could sent their children to such of the local sectarian seminaries or academies as conformed in their form of instruction more nearly to the religious beliefs they held, and there were several such schools in the county, the seminary at Rushville, the Rev. D. M. Stewart's private school for boys, the Fairview Academy, the Richland Academy. the Friends Academy and the Flat Rock Seminary, all filling functions that properly devolved upon the state. The reminiscences of Barnabas C. Hobbs, one of the most effective factors in the salva- tion of Indiana's school system from the blight which had fallen upon it, gives a characteristic picture of conditions under the old trustee-examiner system. "The only ques- tion asked me at my first examination." wrote he, "was 'What is the product of 25 cents by 25 cents ?' * * We
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had only Pike's Arithmetic, which gave the sums and rules. These were considered enough at that day. How could i tell the product of 25 cents by 25 cents, when such a problem could not be found in the book ? The examiner thought it was 614 cents, but was not sure. I thought just as he did, but this looked too small to both of us. We dis- cussed its merits for an hour or more, when he decided he was sure I was qualified to teach school and a first- class certificate was given me."
A reminiscent letter from the pen of a woman whose grandfather was one of the pioneers of Rush county. and reproduced in the "Historical Sketch" by John F. Moses, says: "The two first schools I attended were taught in private houses. The first was in a vacant house on Isaiah Sutton's farm, the other in John Smith's kitchen. Both schools were taught by Uncle John Walker. He kept what was called a 'loud' school, that is, we were permitted to read and spell as loud as we pleased. The first one to reach the school house recited first. How we used to run when we saw the others coming, to beat them there, and boast of it if we were first. We had no bell, and had never heard of such a thing. When play time was over, the teacher would come to the door and cry 'Books!' and then such racing to the door! When we were seated, Uncle John would take a long beech switch and march up and down between the benches. If he caught anyone whispering or sitting idle, he gave them a tap. There were very few classes, for hardly any two had books alike. Dear Uncle John! how I love him vet, though he went home long years ago. He was a good teacher and a good man." In Elijah Hackleman's "Reminiscences" the fol- lowing additional sidelight is thrown upon conditions of that period : "My recollections carry me back to the time when spelling, reading and writing were about all that were required. I have seen the excitement of districts when other branches were attempted to be tacked on to these, and seen the frowns of patrons when such stuff as
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