USA > Indiana > Daviess County > History of Daviess County, Indiana : Its people, industries and institutions > Part 21
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SUGARLAND CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL.
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ing. Many good pictures are seen on the walls of the school rooms today. This was not true twenty years ago.
"In Daviess county there is a greater per cent. of the enumeration enrolled in the public schools than ever before. This is not true, though, of the rural elementary schools. The reasons for this are, that there was but one high school in the county twenty years ago, while today there is a high school in nine of the ten townships of the county. Pupils complete the work in the grades much younger and then enter high school or quit school.
"Not only is the per cent. of the enumeration enrolled greater today, but the per cent. of attendance of the enrollment is much greater than formerly. This is due in a great part to the compulsory attendance law. Parents, too. realize more than ever the importance of educating their children.
"In twenty years the personnel of the teaching corps of the rural schools has almost entirely changed. Of the one hundred twenty-five teachers in the rural schools of Daviess county then, seven are of the teaching force this year. Of this number, one is teaching in the same district in which he taught twenty years ago, but a new building has been erected since that time. This teacher has not taught in this district all these twenty years, although he has taught there several terms. On an average, the teaching force in the rural schools of the county changes every four or five years. Many quit teaching, and the great majority of the better teachers get more desirable positions. The rural schools are teachers' training schools for consolidated, town, and city schools. The beginning teacher of today is much better qualified than the beginning teacher of a score of years ago.
"In nearly every way, the elementary rural schools of the county are better than they were two decades ago. This has been brought about in the main by helpful school legislation. The compulsory attendance law is and has been a large element in this advancement. Attendance officers, many times, are not as efficient as they might be because they receive nothing for travelling expenses. The operation of the minimum term law has been an element in increasing the efficiency of the teachers. The law raising the qualifications for teachers has been a great help to the rural schools, although many for whom it did the most good, at first opposed it. The sanitary school house law has revolutionized the character of the school buildings that are erected in the rural districts. It has meant much to the physical welfare of the children. The medical inspection law and the uniform text- book law have each contributed to the uplift of the rural school.
"Today there are ninety-four rural elementary schools in Daviess county. This does not include the consolidated schools. Twenty years ago there.
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were one hundred twenty-one. Six of the ninety-four school buildings have two rooms. There are an even hundred teachers employed to teach in these buildings. Twenty-seven of these are teaching for the first time. As required by law, these beginners are high school graduates and have had a term or more of professional training. Only forty of the remaining sixty have taught more than three years. Many of this forty who have had four or more years of experience make teaching a secondary matter. As a result the children under their instruction do not get their best efforts.
"The township trustees, in nearly every instance, give more attention to the town, consolidated, and high schools in their townships than to the 'little red school house.' They equip the town, consolidated, and high schools better and appoint the best teachers to them. This course of action is causing many opponents of consolidation to favor it.
"The greatest need of the rural elementary schools is closer supervi- sion. Yet great advancement has been made along this line in the last half dozen years, because of the trustees, county superintendent, and state super- intendent. The trustees have made the principals of their consolidated and high schools the heads of all the schools of their townships. While these principals can give no direct supervision, their efforts in this direction in the township institutes are very helpful. The state course of study and bulletins sent out by the state superintendent have very materially aided in unifying the work of the district schools.
"Some of the teachers are making commendable efforts to present the subjects of agriculture and domestic science in a way that will be interesting and helpful to their pupils. The very great majority of the patrons are pleased that these subjects are being taught.
"Some of the things that are detrimental to the progress of the district schools are the practice of employing home teachers, irrespective of their qualifications; those holding the lowest grade of license, and personal and political friends."
EARLY WASHINGTON SCHOOLS.
It was a century ago that John Aikman taught the first school in Wash- ington. This was a "pay" school. This was the year before Indiana be- came a state. Aikman taught another school the next year, 1816. Thomas Howard, a Yankee schoolmaster, succeeded Aikman. The text-books then were not as varied as now. The most used book was the American Spelling Book. Some of the advanced pupils studied the English Reader and Pike's Arithmetic.
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Col. John Allen, with his large family, settled near Washington in December, 1816. Dudley Johnson, his son-in-law and an especially fine penman, was one of the hamlet's early teachers. About this time Cyrus McCormick taught a school in what was then the Presbyterian church. He is entitled to the distinction of being the first Latin teacher in Daviess county. This building stood just across the Bedford road from where the new high school building now stands. William G. Cole, Charles McIntyre and Isaac Heaton were other early teachers. To encourage his pupils, Heaton gave rewards of merit for especially good work. Some of his "Rewards of Merit," in water colors, are still kept as heirlooms in the fami- lies of some of his pupils.
Heaton's immediate successors were W. D. Shepard, a Scotchman by the name of Damerel, David McDonald, afterwards a judge of the United States Court for Indiana; Hiram A. Hunter, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, and Emanuel Van Trees. Miss Mary Cowardin assisted Hunter. Van Trees became one of the county's first clerks of the circuit court and. his records as such are models of neatness. Succeeding these were Patrick M. Brett, in 1831, Rev. John Graham and Rev. Calvin Butler. Brett was a great believer in the injunction, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." Graham was a Scotchman and a Baptist minister. He was an expert with the pen and a fine linguist. Butler was assisted in directing the boys and girls in the paths of knowledge during the year 1835 by Eliza McCoy. A Miss Bruner taught in 1836 and Mary S. Clapp in 1837.
From 1839 to 1850, a Miss Cummings, Sarah A. Osgood, Thomas Bal- low, a Miss Fisk, Josiah Peck, Mary Ann Bascom, Alice Belding and Michael Burke were the teachers.
During the next ten years the teachers were : Rev. F. Snell, an Episco- pal minister; William Chase, Samuel Gee, a Miss Cressy, Delight Weber and Sarah M. Jackson.
In 1861, C. P. Parsons, later of the Evansville high school, attempted to establish a young ladies' academy, but this resulted in a failure. Not long after this the women of the town made another attempt to found a secondary school, with Samuel Loveless as the principal. The result was the same as. in the first instance.
Other teachers after this date were Rev. Charles Cross, a Methodist minister ; Mrs. J. Blair Carnahan, Rev. James M. Berry, a Baptist minister ; a Mr. and Mrs. Howe, Rev. McCain, a Presbyterian; Howard Williams, Laura E. Agan and Mrs. Laura Clark.
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In 1864, Rev. John R. Phillips, a Welshman and a Baptist minister, was in charge. The following year he and Mrs. T. R. Palmer taught in a two-story building situated on northeast Fifth street. For the next few years Phillips had charge at the seminary. Rebecca Wirt and Anna S. Kennedy were his assistants.
Succeeding these up to 1874 were Edward Wise, the first county su- perintendent ; Tolbert Bartl, E. P. Cole and wife.
The year 1874 marks the beginning of Washington's graded school system. At that time John H. O'Neall, John Hyatt and Philip A. Spink were the school trustees. They appointed W. T. Fry as superintendent of the schools and Hamlet Allen, principal of the high school. Fry served as superintendent for three years. During this time there were seven sepa- rate school buildings, situated in different parts of the city. The old brick seminary, on East Walnut street, was the principal building. The grade teachers during these three years were George W. Morin, W. Hays John- son, Mary E. Barton, Laura E. Agan, Ophelia H. Roddick, D. M. Geeting. T. T. Pringle, John A. Geeting, Mrs. Anna C. McGuire, Laura F. Ladd, Sarah Agan, Emma Trimble and Wilson S. Davis.
SUPERINTENDENTS AND PRINCIPALS.
WV. T. Fry, the first superintendent, who served from 1874 until 1877, began the work of grading the schools. He was succeeded by D. Eckley Hunter, who served from 1877 until 1885. He was one of the prominent educators of the state and did much to advance the schools of Washington. Hunter was succeeded by William F. Hoffmann, who was the principal of the high school at the time of his promotion to the superintendency. The schools continued to advance under the superintendency of Hoffmann. W. F. Ax- tell, an Indiana University graduate and principal of the high school, suc- ceeded Hoffmann in 1894. Axtell directed the educational affairs of the city until 1913. when he was succeeded by Eugene D. Merriman, who is the superintendent at this writing.
Hamlet Allen, the first principal of the high school, is sometimes called "The Father of the Washington High School." and he well deserves this title. He organized it and has served as its principal twenty-six years. He was principal from 1874 until 1879. He was succeeded by T. G. Alford. who served during the year 1879-1880. Robert C. Duncan and William J. Vickery were Alford's successors. They served but a year each. In 1882 William F. Hoffmann was elected to the principalship. He served until
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1885, when he was promoted to the superintendency. William F. Axtell succeeded Hoffmann and served until 1894, when he again succeeded Hoff- mann, but this time as superintendent. Hamlet Allen was again elected to the principalship in 1894. He served continuously in this position from that date until 1915.
SCHOOL BUILDINGS.
The advance from Washington's log school building in 1815 to her splendid modern high school building of 1915 marks her progress not only in the educational field, but along other lines as well. During this century of progress Washington has used nearly all kinds of buildings for school purposes. Sometimes it was a log building, sometimes a frame, sometimes a brick. Sometimes the building was erected to be used for school purposes, sometimes it was intended to be used as a place of worship, sometimes for a dwelling place, and sometimes for a place of business. Until the erection of the high school and grade building on Walnut street in 1876-77, the old seminary building, which stood on the same site, was the most pretentious structure for school purposes that Washington had ever had. This graded school building was a splendid brick structure, three stories in height and a basement. It was built in 1876, at a cost of forty thousand dollars. Such a building now would cost more than twice that amount. This building was destroyed by fire in 1897.
At once the trustees began planning and erecting what is now known as the Junior High School building. This building is on the site of the seminary building, which was torn down, and the high school and grade building, which burned in 1897. It is located at the northwest corner of Walnut and Northeast Seventh street.
To better provide for the needs of the high school, the present com- modious and modern high school building, at the corner of Walnut and Sixth streets, was erected in 1912-1913, at a cost of about sixty-five thousand dollars.
The Southside grade building was erected in 1896, at a cost of about twenty-five thousand dollars. It is a brick building, two stories high, with a basement, and has nine rooms. It is a handsome structure. located on Southeast Third street and Southside avenue.
The West End grade building was greatly damaged by fire in 1890. It was remodeled and repaired to meet modern requirements. It is a brick
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structure of two stories and contains nine rooms and a basement. It is lo -- cated at the southwest corner of Van Trees and Northeast Eighth streets.
The colored school building is located on West Walnut and Ninth streets. It is a brick building, two stories high, with two rooms. It is not a. modern structure.
PROGRESS OF THE SCHOOLS.
As has been stated above, the Washington schools have made great progress in so far as the buildings are concerned. In other ways they have made equal advancement.
In 1874 there were eight hundred and twenty-seven pupils enrolled, with an average attendance of three hundred and fifty-seven. In 1914, forty years later, there was an enrollment of one thousand four hundred and seventy-seven, with an average attendance of one thousand two hundred and forty-two. In the high school in 1874, there were forty-five enrolled and forty years later there were two hundred and eighty enrolled. There were seven in the first graduating class and fifty-four in the class of 1915. Seven hundred ninety-two have graduated from the high school. In 1874 there was one high school teacher and in 1914 there were fifteen.
The course of study has been extended until it includes the regular classical course, which prepares its students for entrance into the best uni- versities, and a department of manual training, domestic science, music, art, and a business course.
The school has made an enviable record in athletics as well as along literary lines. Its football team has won the state championship twice and its track team has done equally as well.
In 1874, Hamlet Allen constituted the high school faculty. In 1914. it consisted of Hamlet Allen, geometry; Edith Wood, Latin; C. C. Rhodes, German and chemistry; H. A. Sass, history; Wiley Hitchcock, science; Leland Burroughs, English; Madge Yenne, English; Grace Rust, algebra; Ethel Reeve, cooking; L. H. Moorman, manual training; Mrs. Elizabeth Merriman, sewing; Mary Wright, commercial course; May E. Robinson, art; V. E. Dillard, music; Carl McWilliams, agriculture.
THE ELNORA SCHOOLS.
Elnora is one of the newest towns of the county. The development of its school system is, therefore, a thing of recent years. "Owl Town" had never had a school. The few pupils who lived here were distributed
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among the nearby schools of Elmore township, the Nugent district taking the most of them. There was no school in what is now the town of Elnora until 1887.
In the latter year Harvey Manning, trustee of Elmore township, estab- lished district No. 9, and built a one-room frame building, and appointed R. W. Wadsworth as teacher. This building still stands and is being used as a boarding house. The enrollment the first year was seventy-two, and the average daily attendance was forty-two. The following year the build- ing was enlarged and Lee Wadsworth and Emma Allen were appointed teachers.
Albert Malone and Ella Crosby were the teachers for the year 1889-90. The enrollment for this term was one hundred and one, with an average daily attendance of sixty-one. In the autumn of 1890, J. Sherman West- hafer took charge of the school. Westhafer was appointed principal for the following year. The enrollment for the year 1891-92 was one hundred and thirty-two, and the average daily attendance was eighty-five. Two teachers were employed.
At the beginning of the school year 1892-93 the town took over the school. Westhafer was retained as principal by the town school board for one year, when he was succeeded by Hiram I. Williams, of Raglesville, who was principal for one year, and he was succeeded by J. S. Westhafer. During the year 1894-95 three teachers were employed.
In the year 1895 the south half of the present school building was erected. Ida Campbell was the first principal in the new building, serving from 1895 to 1898. Up to this time the school work done here was similar to that done in the district schools. Under Miss Campbell's administration a more systematic classification of pupils was made and the beginning of a high school course was introduced. Pupils were required to form lines and march into the building in an orderly manner; this was a new departure in school management, and met with objections on the part of patrons. Under the charge of Principal A. O. Fulkerson in 1898-99, the organization work of Miss Campbell was extended and the course of study was augmented by additional high school work.
Roland D. Winklepleck was elected principal in 1899 and served one year. The teaching force was at this time increased from four to five teach- ers. Elementary Latin, civil government, general history, physical geogra- phy, English and algebra were the only high school subjects taught at this time.
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Fenton B. Williams was principal from 1900 to 1902, and little change was made by him in the high school work. The enrollment was increasing rapidly at this time, and six teachers were employed for the year of 1901-2. Robert J. Core was appointed assistant principal in 1901, remaining in that capacity for three years. The principal and assistant had charge of the high school work and the eighth grade.
In 1902 J. E. Garten became principal for a term of two years. The high school work was extended by Garten until it included three years of work; the length of the school term now was one hundred and twenty days, and the annual salary of the principal was three hundred and sixty dollars.
Robert C. Harris, now of the manual training high school, Indian- apolis, was principal for the year of 1904-05, and Wiley Hitchcock, now of the Washington high school, was assistant principal. For the first time pupils were graduated from the high school in 1905, the graduates being Milton B. Nugent and Ada Bair. Dean M. Inman was chosen principal in 1905 and Wiley Hitchcock assistant principal; the period of school attend- ance at this time was lengthened to one hundred and forty-five days.
In 1906 the teaching force was increased to seven teachers. Dean M. Inman was employed as superintendent and Charles McMullen as principal of the high school. The high school course was made to conform to the requirements of the state board of education for commissioned high schools. For the first time two teachers devoted their entire time to the high school, the enrollment in the high school at this being twenty-three pupils, while the length of the term was extended to one hundred and sixty days. Inman and McMullen were in charge until 1909. In 1908 the high school was certified by the state board of education.
For the year 1909-10 Clyde T. Amick, of Scipio, Indiana, was employed as superintendent and Charles McMullen as principal. At this time music and drawing were added to the course and the high school was commis- sioned.
In 1913 a new steam-heating system was installed and a basement room fitted up for a manual training shop, the work in manual training being confined to the seventh and eighth grades. In 1914 an additional room was built to be used by the domestic science classes. The enrollment in the high school for the year 1914-15 was fifty-six pupils, a gain of one hundred and forty-three per cent. since 1906. The year 1915 completed the sixth year of Amick's services as superintendent of the Elnora schools. Charles McMullen retired from the schools in 1915 after serving nine years as principal.
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THE ODON SCHOOLS.
The following sketch of the Odon schools was prepared for the most part by James E. Garten for The Odonian, the annual issued by the grad- uating class of 1915 of the Odon high school :
"A frame school house was built in the year 1850 on the south side of what is now East Main street, Odon. It was not very large, as every stick of timber that went into it was hauled from the saw-mill at one load. The first teacher was a knight of the birch named Shelby.
"At that time the McGuffey readers and spelling books and the Ray arithmetics were just beginning to come into use. Then it was necessary for a teacher to know how to make goose-quill pens. History and physi- ology were yet to appear in a course of study. The three R's were com- monly massaged into the pupil's system, with a liberal anointing of hickory oil. The youth of that day was taught to read in a loud declamatory tone of voice, and to spell huge words without batting an eye or gaining the faintest glimmering of their meaning. But it was in practical life that he gained his real education. He found that plowing in stumpy ground strengthened and increased his vocabulary; that playing marbles and seven-up developed the mathematical faculty; and that nothing is such a stimulant to English composition as writing letters to a fellow's best girl.
"It was still more than two generations to the nearest concrete sidewalk. Odon was not Odon at all, but Clarksburg, and the postoffice was not even Clarksburg, but Clark's Prairie. A single street, now Main street, with a few houses and one modest store comprised the entire town. The nearest railroad was at Bedford. The first buggy was yet to be made. Young couples went joy-riding in ox-carts. Clothing was homespun; books were few, and too much respected to be widely read; there were deer and wild turkeys in abundance on the prairie south and west of the town.
"After one brief term of service the school house was destroyed by fire,. and it was not until 1856 that a building was erected to replace it. The second school house was built on the hill north of Main street and a short distance west of the first. It was a larger and more ambitious structure than its predecessor. Capt. Z. V. Garten and the late Howard Crooke, who were then in business in Clarksburg, contributed all the material for the building, and Miles Reynolds and Captain Garten did the carpenter work. The school house was to be used for religious services and all public gath- erings, as well as for all educational work. It witnessed the advent of Spen- cerian steel pens, desks made to seat two pupils each, maps and globes.
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"In 1873 a two-story brick building was built. It stood beside and east of the old frame structure. This building had but two rooms at first, which were much longer than they were wide. It took a hefty kid to throw a paper wad from one end of his school room to the other. The door was in the south end of the building opening into a small hallway. Henry B. Kohr was the first teacher to preside 'up-stairs,' while Alexander O'Dell was in charge on the first floor. There was no effort made to grade the schools except by the readers used. Harvey's English Grammar, Ray's Third Part Arithmetic and Anderson's History of the United States were being used about this time.
"It was early in the eighties that the school building underwent some modifications. The door in the south end was closed up, the lower room was divided by a partition, and two doors were placed on the west side. One of these admitted into what afterward came to be known as the inter- mediate room and the other opened into the primary room and gave admis- sion to the stairway."
As near as can be ascertained, the first group of teachers was S. B. Boyd, now editor of the Daviess County Democrat, principal; Mary Camp- bell, intermediate, and Clarinda Wilson, primary. Among the early princi- pals were Caleb O'Dell, Hugh Funkhouser, J. W. Stotts, Joel Danner and W. J. Johnson. Johnson was succeeded by Ezra Mattingly. It was Mat- tingly who decided to hold some commencement exercises. The common branches, algebra, physical geography, civil government and bookkeeping comprised the first high school course. It was but one short year in length. The text-books used were Ray's Higher Arithmetic, Schuyler's Algebra, Anderson's Manual of Civil Government, Bryant and Stratton's High School Bookkeeping, Holbrook's Grammar and Heuston's Physical Geography.
"The First Annual Commencement of the Odon Public Schools," as the program reads, was held at "Stoy's Opera House, Saturday evening, March 31, 1888." This was the biggest educational event that Odon had ever seen. A commencement speaker was not employed, but each candidate for a diploma recited an original essay, called a "final." The teachers that year were Ezra Mattingly, principal; John B. Crooke, intermediate, and Clarinda Wilson, primary. Mattingly remained as principal until 1890, when he was succeeded by William Tipton. Tipton served as principal but one year. His successor was Thomas Benton George. George was the last principal of the old building on the hill.
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