USA > Indiana > Howard County > History of Howard County, Indiana, Vol I > Part 6
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and hard to get. Later timber sold for higher prices. It is doubt- ful if at any time the sale of timber in Howard county ever met a more needed want than in the few years preceding and the early years of the Civil war period.
EARLY ROADS.
The early roads of the county were made by felling the trees along the line of the proposed highway, cutting off so much of the tree as remained in the roadway, rolling or dragging it to the road- side ; so that the new road was full of stumps and it required a care- ful and skillful driver to miss the stumps ; ruts and roots could not be avoided. Swamps had to be bridged. This was done by cutting logs of various sizes, long enough for a single track, and placing them crosswise of the roadway and side by side the width of the swamp and throwing some dirt upon them to fill up the uneven surface. This dirt soon wore away and there remained the cor- duroy road. How rough and jolty it was to ride over this kind of a road in a farm wagon with no spring seat is not in the power of language to tell.
The pioneers did not, however, have as much use for roads as the modern inhabitants. They did much of their traveling on foot, a great deal on horseback, and not so much with wagons. It was no unusual thing for men to make long journeys on foot. Men who had moved to the vicinity of Kokomo from near Noblesville frequently visited the people of their former home, walking both ways ; going one day and returning another. The usual mode of going about in the settlement, either to the village, to the country church or to the neighbor, near or far, was to walk, mostly in paths through the woods.
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OF HOWARD COUNTY.
TRAVELING ON HORSEBACK.
The farmer usually went to mill on horseback with his grist in a sack swung across the horse's back. The preacher went from one preaching appointment to another on horseback; the attorneys and the judges went to the various places of holding court on horseback and the physicians answered the call of the sick in the same manner, with his saddle bags swung across the horse's back, before or behind him. The wagon was used to carry heavy loads and was frequently drawn by a yoke of oxen. All the methods of getting about were slow and tedious. An ordinary trip in those days required two days-one going and one coming. If done in one day it was far into the night when finished.
EDUCATION.
The pioneers did not neglect the education of their children. They provided as best they could log school-houses with rude slab seats and scant school supplies. The early schools were subscrip- tion schools and had a three-months' term in the year. The text- books were the elementary spelling books, readers and Talbot's arithmetic. The master taught his system of writing. The only classes were the spelling and reading classes. Each worked alone in arithmetic and writing. When out of copy the master set a new one. When one stalled in arithmetic, he or she went to the master for help. The old-time schoolhouse had no blackboard and the lesson could not be illustrated by blackboard exercises. In fact, there were no arithmetic lessons assigned ; each worked on as fast as he could toward the back of the book.
Those pioneer schools produced many excellent spellers. The school terms were short and the range of studies limited to orthog-
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raphy, reading, writing and arithmetic, yet they produced wide- awake, intelligent men and women.
A spelling school was held in the evening about once a week, at which nearly everybody in the district would be present and en- gage in the spelling contests. Sometimes a neighboring school would be present and there would be quite a rivalry as to which could excel in correct spelling. The contests took various forms, but the real test was as to who could spell the most words without misspelling one. In most cases those present were divided by two persons selected to "choose up," who alternated with each other in selecting from those present the ones they wanted on their side, un- til all were chosen; then each captain would take his company to the opposite side of the house, and standing in line, endeavor to spell the other side down first. The teacher or other person would pronounce the first word to one side, starting with the captain, and the second word to the captain of the other side, alternating sides and going down the line to the end, or foot, and beginning again at the captain or head. Whoever missed a word took his seat and did not spell again until the contest was finished. Whichever side kept a speller on the floor longest won.
At first the pioneers had not church houses, but religious serv- ices were held in the homes of the settlers. Preaching service was conducted by a traveling evangelist who happened along that way and stopped a while to hold meetings. There were also minis- ters among these early settlers, who combined the work of founding a home in the new country with that of preaching, working during the week and preaching on Sunday. Several religious denomina- tions sent workers into these new settlements, so that they were soon supplied with religious services.
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OF HOWARD COUNTY.
WILD GAME.
The woods all about the homes of the early settlers abounded in wild game, deer, wild turkeys, raccoons and squirrels, and it is said that it was no unusual thing for the church-going people to carry a rifle along for "emergencies."
The life of the pioneer was one of privation and endurance. Bravely and uncomplainingly, even cheerfully, they bore it. They helped each other in the time of need without the thought of pay or reward. Open-handed hospitality was on every side. The hard- ships of their pioneer life seemed to have united them in a common sympathy. They lived a broader, more sympathetic life than their present successors. They visited with each other freely and shared their meals and had all things more in common than now. There was less of envy and jealousy, less disposition to take an undue ad- vantage of their neighbors than in more recent times. For the most part they were strong and hardy and the adverse conditions of their lives only seemed to make them broader and more sympathetic. Ofttimes in their struggles they would have their money all spent and would be compelled to go out into the older settled communities to earn some money with which to buy the few necessities of their lives. Much of the trading with the local merchants was done with produce of various kinds. Money was exceedingly scarce. The trade was of necessity largely barter. The local merchants traded for hides, wild meat, wild honey and anything they could take to other markets and dispose of. Oxen were largely used as the teams for work, because they were cheaper in price, could be fed and kept more cheaply than horses and were supposed to move around in the mud more easily. The pioneers had no fruit except as they hauled it into the new settlements. However, they early planted orchards in the new country, and within a very few years
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there was a plentiful supply of apples and an abundance of smaller fruits.
MAIL IN PIONEER DAYS.
Those pioneers did not have free rural delivery of the mail at their cabin doors each day. Indeed, we are told that in those days they had no stamps nor envelopes, and that it cost eighteen and three-quarters cents to carry a letter across the state, and it was paid for when received. There were then no daily papers contain- ing all the news of the world up to the hour of going to press, with all the latest market quotations and, delivered to all parts of the settlement on the day of publication. Instead there was a small weekly folio published at New London about 1848 and called "The Pioneer." From it we learn that the pioneers of the early times dis- cussed the public questions of their day quite as vigorously as pub- lic questions are now discussed. The pro-slavery men and the Free- Soilers were more vigorous and forcible in enforcing their beliefs than the average modern citizen. The temperance and the anti- temperance forces did not lie down together in peace.
CHILLS AND FEVER.
Among the many disagreeable features of the new country, and by no means the least, was the chills and fever. From mid- summer to early winter ague was well-nigh universal, hardly a per- son escaped being a victim. There were also many cases of bilious, malarial, intermittent and other kinds of fever resulting from the swampy country and stagnant water all about. Quinine was more staple than flour. The doctors were more than busy administering quinine, Dover's powders and calomel. In many families there were hardly enough well ones to nurse the sick ones. It is said that it was as much a custom among the people then to get ready for the
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OF HOWARD COUNTY.
ague and fever as it is for us now to prepare for winter. Happily, with the draining of the country this condition has been eradicated.
With the passing of the conditions which produced the hard- ships and disagreeable features of the pioneer life, the life itself passed away in its entirety. Would that the virtues could have re- mained without its disadvantages and unpleasant parts.
HOWARD COUNTY SCHOOLS.
The early schools of Howard county were very poorly equipped in every way. The houses were the primitive log cabins furnished with slab benches with no backs for seats; for writing desks there was a broad board or boards fastened to the wall sloping sufficiently high for the larger pupils to write upon; the smaller ones did not need it. The room was lighted by a narrow window or windows extending along the entire side. The house wam warmed by wood fires in the huge fireplace, the teacher and the larger pupils cutting the wood morning and noons.
Those were the days of subscription schools, that is, the par- ents or guardians subscribed a given number of pupils at so much each for the school term, usually three months. The teacher ordi- narily boarded with different families in the district, spending a week in one family, the next week in another, and so on until he had passed around, the board was a part of his compensation. The teachers as a class were not very learned. Many of them had not secured any training in grammar, and physiology was an unknown science to all except the most learned doctors. Arithmetic and spelling were their specialties. In arithmetic they were especially strong in single and double rules of three, and yet had they been asked to define proportion it would have been a dead language to them. Decimal fractions and square and cube roots were beyond them. As was the custom of the times they were past masters in
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the use of the rod or rather the long, green switches cut from the neighboring trees. A big switch was an indispensable part of their equipment for the day's work. They were workers and required the pupils to work.
The contrast between the school system or want of system of that time, and the present is very great. It must not be supposed that this difference is wholly due to the different conditions of a new and older settlement. These did affect it to a greater or lesser ex- tent, but the school system in Indiana prior to the taking effect of the revised constitution in 1851 was quite different from that in force since.
THE OLD SYSTEM.
Under the old system there were three trustees instead of one as now, yet the three had less power and latitude in the management of the schools than the one has now.
The civil township was required to conform as nearly as possi- ble to the congressional for the reason that the general government had given to the state the sixteenth section in each congressional township for school purposes and the township trustees were given the control and management of the school lands and the funds arising from the sale of the school lands. The school lands could be offered for sale, when five residents of the congressional township petitioned the trustees or trustee to order an election by the voters of the township on the question of offering them for sale, a township local option proposition. If a majority voted to sell they were ac- cordingly offered for sale. Within ten years these lands had been sold realizing about twenty thousand dollars. This sum constituted the permanent common school fund of the early years; the interest on this fund was available for tuition purposes and any tuition fund in excess of this was raised by a direct tuition tax. Under the old
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OF HOWARD COUNTY.
system when the trustees thought it necessary to build a new school- house, it was necessary to refer the question to the voters of the township, and if the majority voted to build, the house was built ; but if the majority voted no, the house was not built. It did not matter how great was the need there was no appeal. It frequently happened under this rule that communities without a school house and with a large number of children of school age refused to vote for the building of the much needed school house. In illustration of this, this incident is vouched for by a reputable citizen. In a township in another county there was no school house. The better and more progressive citizens asked for the building of a school house, and the matter was referred to the voters of the township. A citizen with several children of school age, but none of whom had ever been in school and whose proportionate part of the cost of the house would probably have not exceeded seventy-five cents, worked all day at the polls against the building of the house and he was joined by a sufficiently large number of like spirits to defeat the school house proposition.
FREE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM,
In the matter of erecting school houses, the referendum feature was a failure and in the revised state constitution it was left out. The progressive citizenship favored a free public school system, but were opposed by a large conservative element who contented that the expenses would be burdensome and to make it practical would neces- sitate putting too much power in the hands of the school officers.
The general government had given the people an example of generosity in caring for the education of the people and that policy was adopted by the state; and the constitutional convention of 1850-I which adopted our present constitution declared "knowledge
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and learning generally diffused throughout a community being es- sential to the preservation of a free government, it shall be the duty of the general assembly to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual, scientific and agricultural improvement, and to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of common schools, where- in tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all."
That there should be a common school fund, from which there should be an interest income sufficiently large to almost insure free tuition they followed the foregoing declaration with this provision :
"The common school fund shall consist of the congressional township fund and the lands belonging thereto; the surplus revenue fund; the salime fund, and the lands belonging thereto; the bank tax fund, and the fund arising from the one hundred and fourteenth section of the charter of the State Bank of Indiana; the fund to be derived from the sale of county seminaries and the moneys and property heretofore held for such seminaries; from the fines assessed for breeches of the penal laws of the state; and from all forfeitures which may accrue; all lands and other estate which shall escheat to the state for want of heirs or kindred entitled to the inheritance ; all lands that have been, or may hereafter be, granted to the state where no special purpose is expressed in the grant, and the proceeds of the sales thereof. including the proceeds of the sales of the swamp lands granted to the state of Indiana by the act of congress of the twenty-eighth of September, one thousand eight hundred and fifty, after deducting the expense of selecting and draining the same; taxes on the property of corporations that may be assessed by the general assembly for common school purposes."
To perpetuate these provisions for free tuition they provided further that, "The principal of the common school fund shall remain a perpetual fund, which may be increased, but never shall be dimin- ished, and the income thereof shall be inviolably appropriated to
OLD NORTH COLLEGE.
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OF HOWARD COUNTY.
the support of common schools, and to no other purpose whatever."
In 1865 the legislature divided the common school fund as provided for above, taking out the congressional township school land and the money derived from the sale of such lands, making these the "congressional township school fund" and providing that "it shall never be diministed in amount, the income of which, to- gether with the taxes mentioned and specified in the first section of this act, the money and income derived from licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquors, and unclaimed fees, as provided by law, shall be denominated the "School revenue for tuition, the whole of which is hereby appropriated, and shall be applied exclusively to furnishing tuition to the common schools of the state, without any deduction for the expense of collection or disbursement."
The first section of the act referred to is "There shall be an- nually assessed and collected as state and county revenues are as- sessed and collected, sixteen cents on each one hundred dollars of taxable property, real and personal in the state, and fifty cents on each taxable poll, for the purpose of supporting a general system of common schools."
In 1875 the fees from licenses to retail intoxicating liquors were changed from this fund to the common school fund of the county where paid.
The setting apart of one section of land in each congressional township had its beginning in May, 1785, when congress passed an - act for the survey of the Northwest Territory in which it was pro- vided that this territory be divided into tracts six miles square called congressional townships, thus making them the units for future or- ganization ; the townships were directed to be subdivided into tracts one mile square to be called sections.
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A SETTLED GOVERNMENT.
In 1787 congress passed the famous ordinance for the organ- izing of a settled government for the Northwest Territory ; the most important act of the last continental congress. It was in fact "the most notable law ever enacted by representatives of the American people," and to insure its perpetual enforcement, it was not left as a mere act of congress, which could be repealed at a subsequent ses- sion, but its six main provisions were made articles of solemn com- pact between the inhabitants of the territory, present and to come. and the people of the thirteen states.
No man was to be restricted of his liberty excepting as a pun- ishment for crime; life, property and religious freedom were pro- tected by just and equal laws. A clause, which several western states have copied in their constitutions, declared that "Religion. morality and knowledge being necessary to good government schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." To this end one section in every township was set apart for the support of common schools, and two entire townships for the establishment of a university in this territory.
County supervision has come to be what it is today through a long process of development. As early as 1818 the general assem- bly made it the duty of the Governor to appoint for each county a seminary trustee. The duty of this officer was almost entirely con- nected with the financial problem. In 1824 the law provided for the election of three trustees in each township and placed the examining of teachers and granting licenses among their duties. The exami- ners were school men and the meager test covered the subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic.
In 1830 the law provided for a school commissioner for each county who looked after the funds of the local school corporation and was elected for three years.
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OF HOWARD COUNTY.
In 1833 in addition to the school commissioner for the county and the three trustees for the township, provision was made for the election of three sub-trustees in each district to hold office for one year. These district trustees examined applicants and employed teachers. The law of 1836 made it legal for any householder to em- ploy a teacher in case of failure to elect district trustees. In 1837 in addition to all these officers and with only a slight modification of their duties, the circuit court was authorized to appoint annually three examiners whose duty it should be "to certify the branches of learning each applicant was qualified to teach."
During the next ten years no change was made in the county system.
CHANGES IN SCHOOL SYSTEM.
In 1847 Caleb Mills, state superintendent of schools, urged as an essential of the schools, efficient supervision, both state and county. The school law of 1849 abolished the office of county school commissioner, retained the three school examiners in each county and the three township trustees, but substituted one sub- trustee in each district for the three formerly. This law also pre- scribed the minimum length of the school term and made the length of term of all the schools in the township uniform.
The constitution of 1851 left the county school machinery practically as the law of 1849 left it, and so it remained until the sixties. The law of 1861 substituted one county examiner for the three that formerly held office in each county. The examiners under this was appointed by the county commissioners and held office for three years. This law made all examinations public and prohibited the granting of licenses upon private examinations. Prior to this an applicant for license could have an examination whenever he hap- pened to find one of the examiners at home. This law further pro-
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vided that the examiner of each county shall be the medium of com- munication between the state superintendent of public instruction and the subordinate school officers and schools; they shall also visit the schools of their respective counties as often as they may .deem it necessary during each term, for the purpose of increasing their usefulness and elevating as far as practicable to the standard of the best ; advising and securing as far as practicable uniformity in their organization and management and their conformity to the law and the regulations and instructions of the state board of edu- cation and of the state superintendent of public instruction, and shall encourage teachers' institutes and associations. The law of 1861 was a great advance in the educational system of our state.
In 1873 the office of county superintendent was created and that of examiner was abolished. This law provided that the "town- ship trustees of the several townships shall meet at the office of the county auditor of their respective counties on the first Monday of June, 1873, and biennially thereafter and appoint a county superin- tendent." This act did not create a new office, it merely changed the name of an old one and enlarged its powers.
The term was for two years and carried with it no educational or professional requirement for eligibility.
In 1899 the term was extended to four years and required the holding of a thirty months' teacher's license, or a life or professional license to be eligible.
Since 1873 supervision of the country schools has meant some- thing in Indiana. The teachers are required to pass rigid examina- tions for which the questions are provided by the state board of ed- ucation and the examining and grading of the manuscripts may be done by the county superintendent or the state superintendent. The county superintendent makes systematic supervision a large part of his work. The rural schools have been graded ; the standard of effi-
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OF HOWARD COUNTY.
ciency has been constantly raised ; and through the good work of the county superintendent the children are receiving advantages equal to those of the towns and cities.
The common school teacher is a teacher in the district schools of the county or in grades in the towns and cities.
LICENSE TO TEACH.
The standard of granting licenses to teach in the common schools has been advanced from orthography, reading, writing and arithmetic with a private examination to a rigid public examination in orthography, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, English grammar, physiology, United States history, scientific temperance and the literature and science of education.
A general average of eighty-five per cent. and not falling below seventy-five per cent. in any one of the ten items nor in success en- titles the applicant to a twelve months' license. A general average of ninety per cent. and not falling below eighty-five per cent. in any one of the ten items nor in success entitles the applicant to twenty- four months' license. A general average of ninety-five per cent. and not falling below ninety per cent. in any one of the ten items nor in success entitles the applicant to thirty-six months' license.
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