History of Hendricks County, Indiana, Part 38

Author: Inter-State Publishing Co.
Publication date: 1885
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 786

USA > Indiana > Hendricks County > History of Hendricks County, Indiana > Part 38

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nents over the county. Its subscription price is $1.50, and its cir- culation is between 1,200 and 1,500. In the spring of 1885 it be- came financially embarrassed, and at present writing its future is uncertain.

Plainfield has had several papers, the first being Once a Week, founded by John A. Deem, in 1862. This was suspended after a short time. It was afterward revived by John N. Vestal, who gave it the name of the Citizen, and published it for some time. He then sold it to Charles S. McNichols, who issued a paper for a while under the name of the Tribune.

George V. Mechler, Nov. 11, 1880, issued the first number of the Plainfield Progress, which he ran successfully two or three years. Though a Democrat himself, he published it as an Independent sheet (being in a strong Republican locality) and was very success- ful. In fact, he became, so to speak, too prosperous, and in May, 1883, removed to Danville, to compete with the journals at the county seat. This was a disastrous step to him, and he was soon obliged so suspend. Immediately after his removal Horace G. Douglass and J. A. Fullen commenced the issue of a paper under the old name of the Plainfield Progress. But two weeks passed between the two papers, Messrs. Douglass & Fullen issuing their first number May 31, 1883. Mr. Fullen shortly withdrew, going West, whence he has, however, returned. Douglass retained con- trol until May 12, 1884, when he obtained an appointment at the Reform School, and sold the office to A. T. Harrison, the present editor and proprietor. The Progress was at first a five-column quarto, but was soon increased in size to six columns. It was po- litically independent, under Mr. Douglass, but Mr. Harrison has made it a Republican sheet. It is not rigidly partisan. The Prog- ress has made a general circulation in the southern part of Hendricks County, and in adjacent parts of Marion and Morgan counties.

North Salem is the only other village in the county that has been blessed with a printing office. J. J. and H. E. Hennon came from Rochedale, Putnam County, in July, 1884, and until March, 1885, published regularly the North Salem Reporter, a six-column quarto, independent in politics. In the month last mentioned the Messrs. Hennon returned to Rochedale.

JESSE W. RIDDLE, of the Republican, was born in Perry County, Ind., July 31, 1861, the son of James H. and Catharine (Goad) Riddle. The father is still living, a farmer of Perry County. Jesse

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was reared on the paternal farm, and received a good English edu- cation, first in the district schools and then in the Central Normal College, of Danville, where he graduated in June, 1883. He then followed teaching for two years at Pittsboro, this county, when in April, 1885, he entered upon journalism by purchasing a half in- terest in the Republican.

WILL A. KING, editor and proprietor of the Gazette, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, May 5, 1864, and is the oldest of the children now living of E. D. and R. A. King. At an early age he entered the printing office of his father, and became a thorough workman in the " art preservative of all arts." His father is an editor of over thirty-years experience, and under his careful guidance the son not only acquired the mechanical knowledge of the business, but became thoroughly competent to assume any position connected with the newspaper office. In 1882 he became co-publisher with his father in founding the Gazette, of which he is now the sole head. His conduct of the paper is highly commended by men of all parties. It wields a strong influence in its party, and has a circulation and advertising patronage largely above the average of county papers throughout the State. Mr. King is unmarried.

ARTHUR T. HARRISON, editor and proprietor of the Plainfield Progress, was born June 1, 1858, in Chesterfield, Madison Co., Ind., the son of John A. and Nancy E. (Diltz) Harrison. The father was a school-teacher for a number of years, but, removing to Anderson (the county seat) in 1859, he practiced law there until his health failed, a few years since. His wife died in 1863. Mr. Harrison was the leading lawyer in his county, and one of the ablest and best-known members of the legal profession in Indiana. He was a hard worker, and popular with all who knew him. He was Prosecuting Attorney from 1862 to 1866, two terms, and was a candidate for Representative in 1859; but, as a rule, he avoided politics. The son attended school at Anderson from his fifth to his fourteenth year, and then served two years as an ap- prentice to the printer's trade on the Anderson Herald. A term at school was succeeded by six months more on the Herald. At the earnest request of his father, he then entered the latter's office to study law. He was soon thrown upon his own resources, owing to his father's failure in health. He was admitted to the bar in June, 1879, and to practice before the Supreme Court in 1880, on motion of Judge Walter March, of Muncie. He then practiced law in Madison County until March, 1883, the last year in part-

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nership with J. F. McClure. His inclinations all the time led him toward journalism, and during 1878-'9 he was local editor of the Madison Herald. In March, 1883, he went to Bement, Ill., where for nine weeks he ran the Gazette for the owner. Returning to Muncie, he worked on the Daily News until May, 1884, when he came to Plainfield and purchased the office, business and good will of the Progress, which he has since very creditably conducted. Mr. Harrison was inarried Sept. 11, 1883, at Mooresville, Morgan County, to Miss Clara Davis, daughter of Joshua M. and Rachel (Demoss) Davis. In politics Mr. Harrison is a zealous Republi- can. He and wife are active members of the Methodist Episcopal church.

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CHAPTER IX.

-- MISCELLANEOUS.

EDUCATIONAL .- PROGRESS IN METHODS AND IDEAS .- THE SCHOOLS OF HENDRICKS COUNTY .- CENTRAL "NORMAL COLLEGE .- PUBLIC BUILDINGS .- REFORM SCHOOL AT PLAINFIELD .- OLD SETTLERS' SO- CIETY .- AGRICULTURAL STATISTIOS .- AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES .- HENDRICKS COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY.

"That people which has the best books and the best schools is the best people; if it is not so to-day, it will be so to-morrow." These words, from the pen of the French educator and statesman, Jules Simon, deserve to become a household quotation the world over, for no more potent nor expressive truth was ever uttered. Of course all progress and education is not derived from the study of books, and as Hosea Ballou has said, "Education commences at the mother's knee," and every word spoken within the hearing of little children tends toward the formation of character; but at the same time no other one agency is so powerful as the common school in developing a nation of self-governing people.

The citizens of this county feel a just pride in their progress in educational methods, which have fully kept pace with the advance- ment in wealth and the development of material resources. As soon as the county was sufficiently settled to enable any neighbor- hood to open a school, a school-house was provided and the services of a teacher secured. Often a room of a private house was occupied, and sometimes the deserted cabin of a squatter became a tempo- rary school-room, in which the old-time masters, who worked on the tuition plan, flourished the rod and taught the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic. The first school-houses built were structures of the rudest kind, such as no pioneer would be content to occupy as a dwelling. Built of logs, with floors and benches of puncheons, with a huge fireplace and a stick and mud chimney, they were little calculated for comfort or convenience. Window-glass was too expensive an article to be used in the con- struction of a school-house, and therefore greased paper was (435)

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substituted for it. The writing desk was a notable feature in every school-room. It generally extended across one end or one side of the room, and was made of a slab, held in its place by wooden pins. For architectural effect, probably, certainly not for conven- ience, it was fastened high up on the wall, and the pupil, in order to use it, must climb upon a high wooden bench and sit there without a support for his back or his feet.

Of the qualifications of the teachers of those days, the less said the better. Many were accounted good teachers who, in these days, would be unable to secure a certificate even of the third grade. Yet the most of them put to the best use the little talent and less training they had, and succeeded in planting good seeds in the minds of their pupils. Some of the best minds this county has produced were those of men whose whole school education was received in the log school-houses of the pioneer days.

The progress of education here is only a miniature reproduction of what has taken place more slowly among all civilized nations. In recent years improved methods of mental culture have aided the teachers in securing better results. The primary object of edu- cating children is not that they may escape labor thereby, but that they may labor more intelligently. Children should be taught that employment leads to happiness, indolence to misery, and that all trades and professions whereby an honest livelihood is main- tained are honorable. Right living is the end to be achieved, and it is the workers that do the most good in the world. The man who constantly and intelligently : thinks, is above temptation. The women who honorably labor in the various trades are to be pre- ferred and honored above those who sit with folded hands. It is education that makes duty more apparent, lessens toil and sweetens life. It is by true education that the moral responsibilities of the human family are better understood.

Methods are now sought for and followed in the school-room. The child's capacity and character are better understood now than in the pioneer days. The rod is laid aside, and children are no longer forced under the lash to order and apparent studiousness. Fretful and cruel teachers are giving way to those who love chil- dren, and again will mankind draw nearer to the millennium through the influence of the law of love. In this age better at- tention is paid to hygiene and ventilation in the school-room. Houses are lighted, aired and warmed in a rational manner. Since the introduction of the "automatic " school desks there need

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be no more disagreeable seating in our school-rooms. The inventor of this desk will have a reward in the blessings of the countless thousands of healthy men and women who, in this generation, as children, are comfortably seated in many of our best schools.

New and better studies have been added to the course of study in our common schools within the last decade. Now, the child is taught to apply what he learns, directing his course of study in the line of his mental activity, cultivating the good, and re- straining the evil propensities. The time was, not far back, when only a limited knowledge of "'reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic," could be acquired in the common schools. The highest aim of the youth of the pioneer days was to write a fair hand, spell orally, and solve mathematical puzzles. This age is moving in a better educational sphere. The change was of course gradual. It was a long struggle of ignorance and bigotry against education, in which the latter has been crowned the victor. But few teachers cling to the old theory. Little by little they are growing away from the old system. A few teachers, who do not improve, are yet votaries at the shrine of their idols-the birch, the dunce-cap and other old fashioned methods. But,

"Too weak the sacred shrine to guard,"

they must soon yield to the new education, and enter the conflict against error and for a better educational life.

In this struggle for better methods, opinions covered with age and honors have been marched off the stage of human action and supplanted by facts and principles which have cost years of toil to discover, and more years to establish. To the close student and observer this theory is new only in its application to our schools. It is the normal or natural method. This is the theory of education that antedates all others. The ancients taught by objects, when but few of the most wealthy men of that day could afford books. In fact, text-book knowledge is a new thing to the world. The first teachers gave instruction orally. They were, by the force of circumstances, independent of text-books. To this excellent plan has been added the written method. Then, it was principally by observation that pupils received instruction. By placing the objects before the pupils the teacher could easily reach their minds by his lectures. In this age blackboards, spelling- tablets, slates, charts and other school apparatus is in general use in our best schools. In the schools of to-day, it is through the 28

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eye that a mental picture is formed from the printed page which children draw upon paper or boards from the ends of their fingers. Well qualified teachers do not think of depending upon text-books at their recitations, but rather imitate the ancient normal methods. In order to meet the demand for better qualified teachers, normal training schools have been established in this and other States. The teachers' institute is also an outgrowth of the demand for teachers of a higher standard. Now, true education is admitted to be the drawing-out and developing of that which the child already possesses, instead of the old crowding theory of pioneer days.

There is perhaps no question which can so deeply interest the people of a county as that of obtaining teachers of known and tried ability. In the period of the early settlement of this county almost any one could teach. That time, with all of its rude school appliances, has rolled away. The claims of to- a can no longer be met by appliances of even a decade ago, for ex- perience is beginning to show that teaching, like every other de- partment of human thought and activity, must change with the onward movements of society, or fall in the rear of civilization and become an obstacle to improvement. The educational problem of to-day is to obtain useful knowledge-to secure the practical part of education before the ornamental, and that in the shortest time. An intellectual life of the highest culture is what is called for in a free country like ours. An intelligent man is better qualified for any of the duties of life than an uneducated person. This is an admitted fact. In truth, a free nation's safety is wrapped in the intelligence of its citizens. Only an educated people can long sustain a free republic ; therefore it is the duty of the State to educate that her free institutions may stand through all ages as sacred and endeared monuments of the enlightened people.

Education sweetens and hedges in the family circle and drives away frivolity and gossip from a community, protecting the members from the inroads of vice and immorality. It is the strong bulwark of education that binds the nation of 56,000,000 people together for advancement that she may shine in the near future the brightest star in the constellation of governments. Rapid strides have been made in education within the last half century, but the field of improvement is yet boundless, and the

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work of education must still go on, and make perhaps greater changes than those from the time when

"The sacred seer with scientific truth In Grecian temples taught the attentive youth, With ceasless change, how restless atoms pass From life to life, a transmigrating mass,"

to that of to-day, when men's thoughts are directed to the inves- tigation of what they see around them.

THE SCHOOLS OF HENDRICKS COUNTY.

BY T. R. GILLELAND.

If the different conditions of society in different countries, and the different parts of the same country, and of different individ- uals in the same community are the result of chance, then the study of history can do no good and can only have for its object the mere gratification of idle curiosity.

But if these are not the result of chance, then the events and facts of history, whether they concern individuals, communities or nations, must be the consequence of antecedent causes and are the developments of time, depending upon a fixed law.

This being true, we are able, through a knowledge of the past, to provide, in a degree, for the contingencies of the future. Therefore a clear insight into the past is the best view we can get of the future.

Herein is the value of history, which should be known, because . whatsoever happened aforetime happened for our instruction.

During the last generation the leading conflict was one.of muscle ; during the next, it will be a conflict of thought.

The early pioneers of Hendricks County laid wisely and well the foundation upon which future society was to be builded. They fully realized that in such a country as this their scattered numbers would by natural growth and immigration soon become a teeming population, and that by their strong arms and strong, faith in the future, this howling wilderness would ere long be changed into a fruitful field of harvest, and that their struggles with nature's obstacles for the benefit of posterity would bring to their chil- dren wealth and leisure, which must cause them to forsake the simple lives and frugal habits of their fathers and mothers, and live far different lives, and engage in very different pursuits and avocations, in which without education and moral training they could never be successful. They also believed and acted upon the

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idea that the most valuable entailment which any people can leave to posterity is intelligence and virtue.

No better class of emigrants ever peopled a new country than those who made the first settlement in Hendricks County in the year 1820.

Of the early schools and school-houses many interesting remi- niscences are told. Beech was the educational timber of the times; out of the trunks were built the school-houses, and limbs in the hands of the teachers furnished the unanswerable argument in most cases of discipline, and served to brighten the ideas and quicken the thoughts of dull pupils of both sexes. The houses were the log cabins, sometimes without floors ; a huge fire-place in one end of the house in which was kept a burning log heap supplied the heat. The windows were made by sawing out a log from one side of the house and placing in the opening a rude sash ; oiled paper was used in the windows as a substitute for glass. The writing desks were made of slabs and laid upon pins driven in the walls of the hut. The seats were made of puncheon, backles?, with legs so long that a child's feet were never per- mitted to touch the floor. The teacher's emblem of wrath, when not in use, lay upon two pins in the wall near the teacher's chair. The teacher was usually master of the situation 'in everything except the subjects which he was required to teach, and many a venturesome youth came to grief for reaching a little beyond the teacher's ken in the scholastic field.

In the summer of 1823, less than three years from the time the first ripe ear of corn was gathered by civilized hand in Hendricks County, two school-houses had been built, one of them in Liberty Township, half a mile south of Cartersburg, and the other on Thomas Lockhart's land in Guilford Township, and William Hin- ton (the writer's uncle) and Abijah Pinson were engaged in the work to which Hendricks County owes her greatness. In this way, in every neighborhood, the earliest settlers made the best possible provision for the education of their children, and every winter in the rude log cabin, with its greased paper windows, its dirt or split puncheon floor, its rough hewn benches, and its huge log- heap fire, the pioneer teacher had his flock of eager learners around him.

And, looking back from this period to that time it seems, from what we know they accomplished, that greater efforts very nearly made up for their want of educational facilities.

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A day's work in school then was not five hours, but from sun-up till sun-down. Right or wrong, it is impossible to make an old man see that greater progress was not made by pupils under. this old regime than at present.

From that day until this, with the development of the country, the moral and educational interests have moved onward, until to- day it may be said that our school system is the greatest success of any public enterprise.

The schools ran along on about the same pod-anger style which prevailed from the beginning until about 1870, when there was an awakening and a looking up which burst into a blaze of enthusi- asm in '73, when the county superintendency was instituted. At that time imperfect classification was all the organization which it Was thought possible to accomplish in the district schools. But about four of our teachers had ever received normal training, and these but a term or two. Gradation and a course of study had not been dreamed about. These two things and normal-trained teach- ers and their selection by the officials and not by the rabble were the four beacon lights which our most efficient County Superin- tendent, J. A. C. Dobson, believed in and worked for during his ten years of service, and I feel that I may say he has been justified by his faith through his works.

---

A higher course of study has been adopted by the county board for pupils who have completed the common-school course.

Graduation from the common-school course has been so much encouraged and materially increased by the skillful manipulation of A. E. Rogers, the present Superintendent, that last year there were seventy graduates.

The last log school-house disappeared from Hendricks County more than twenty years ago.

There are in the county 108 school buildings, or three more than one for every four square miles.

Of these buildings fifty-four are brick and the others are frame; some of them are elegant buildings; all can be made comfortable in any kind of weather. The number of sittings are sufficient for the accommodation of every child in the county at one time. In the fifty-four brick houses are eighty-nine rooms, accommodating 4,000 of 7,082 children of the county.

Included in the. number of schools are sixteen graded schools which furnish employment for fifty-four teachers. The whole number of teachers employed in 1884-'85. 147

Number of male teachers. . 85

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Number of female teachers. 62

Enumeration 1884. 7,082

Enrolled in the schools 1883-'84. 5,836

Average daily attendance. 4,375

Average number to each teacher. 31

Per cent. of enrollment on enumeration 83

Per cent. of attendance on enrollment .. 73

Amount expended for special purposes 1883-'84 $57,621.15

Amount expended for tuition purposes 36,682.71

Total expenditures .. 94,303.86

Trustees' valuation of school property. 151,400.00

Average daily wages per teacher 1884-'85. 2.86

In addition to the facilities for instruction in the public schools we have located at Danville the Central Normal College and Com- mercial Institute, which was organized September, 1876, with only forty-eight students in attendance. Of these, thirty had been students under the same teachers in other institutions. From the first, the school has steadily improved in numbers and increased its facilities, until it is now one of the popular schools of the country.

We have, also, Central Academy, located at Plainfield, an insti- tution of great promise, which furnishes such literary instruction as is generally given in High Schools of our cities, joined, how- ever, with a larger amount of Christian teaching than is common in such schools.

What of all this ? Much every way. When I try to think baek through the sixty-two years of Hendricks County's school history, review my own brief experience, the trials, failures and successes, memory becomes crowded with incidents that tell of mutations, progress, development. We see our county rising from infancy to manhood. Our fathers looked forward to a grand culmination of all the appliances embraced in their wise system. The log cabin has passed away, and the frame or brick building has taken its place.

The old, rickety and rough bench, without a back, has given place to the elegant desk and settee. Instead of the untidy school- room, with its puncheon floor and miserable furnishings, we now have the tasteful edifice, supplied with all the educational appli- ances that utility and educational economy can furnish. Old things have passed away, and all things have become new. The county is rising in strength and power, and will make no backward mnove. Her rich soil, her wealth, her railways, her newspapers, her cen- tral commercial position in the industries and exchange of the State, her industry and prosperity, all tell what her future must be. May her sons and daughters be worthy of their sires. If so

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History of Hendricks County, Indiana, Part 38

Author: Inter-State Publishing Co. Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Number of Pages: 786

Author: Inter-State Publishing Co.
Publication date: 1885
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 786