USA > Indiana > Howard County > History of Howard County, Indiana, Vol I > Part 7
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Until 1852 there was much local confusion in school matters due to the fact that the law contemplated that the civil township should conform to the congressional township which in fact it did not. The civil township really conformed to local conditions and the convenience of the people so that for the most part a congres- sional township was divided among two or more civil townships and thus the school lands or the money derived from the sale of such lands would rightfully belong to more than one township. With the reorganization under the new constitution this difficulty was
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done away with. The three township trustees were continued until 1859 when one trustee was substituted for the three. By law he has charge of the school affairs of the township. His duty is to locate conveniently a sufficient number of schools for the education of the children therein : and builds or otherwise provides suitable houses, furniture, apparatus or other articles and educational appliances nec- essary for the thorough organization and efficient management of the schools. When a township has twenty-five common school graduates, he may establish and maintain in the center of the town- ship a township graded high school to which all pupils sufficiently advanced must be admitted. If the township does not maintain a graded high school, the common school graduates are entitled to transfers at public expense to a high school in another corporation.
It is the duty of each township trustee and each city school trus- tee to furnish the necessary school books, so far as they have been adopted or may be adopted by the state, to all such poor and indigent children as may desire to attend the common schools.
As a protection to the township against excessive or ill advised expenditures of public money the legislature passed a law in that in each township there should be an advisory board of three mem- bers elected by the voters of the township to hold the office for two years. They are to meet annually on the first Tuesday in September to consider the various estimates of township expenditure as fur- nished by the trustee for the ensuing year which they may accept or reject in part or in whole. These meetings are public and are open to any tax payer who desires to be heard on any estimate or pro- posed tax levy.
STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.
In 1843 the state treasurer was made superintendent of com- mon schools ex-officio. The treasurer was chosen because his duties
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were financial rather than educational ; the preservation and manage- ment of the school fund being the chief requirement of the office. He was required to make annual reports to the general assembly. showing the condition and amount of funds and property devoted to education; the condition of colleges, academies, county semi- naries ; common schools, public and private ; estimates and accounts of school expenditures and plans for the management and improve- ment of the common school fund and for the better organization of the common schools, but his chief duty was to look after the finances.
The new state constitution created the office of superintendent of public instruction by popular election. In 1852 the general assembly directed his election and fixed his salary at one thousand three hundred dollars. There were no educational or professional requirements for his eligibility. The people, however, have been careful and fortunate in electing men who were able and active in ed- ucational work.
The superintendent has charge of the system of public instruc- tion, and a general superintendence of the business relating to the common schools of the state, and of the school funds and school rev- enues set apart and apportioned for their support. At the request of the school officials it is his duty to render, in writing, opinions touch- ing all phases of administration or construction of the school law.
THE FIRST STATE ROAD.
The state board of education was first organized in 1852 and consisted of superintendent of public instruction, the governor, the secretary, treasurer and auditor of state. In 1855 the attorney general was added. In 1861 the board was changed to cosist of the state superintendent of public instruction, the Governor, the presi- dent of the state university, the president of the state normal, and
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the school superintendents of the three largest cities in the state. In 1875 the president of Purdue University was added. In 1899 three men to be appointed by the governor were added. These men must be prominent citizens, actively engaged in educational work, and one at least must be a county superintendent, and no one to be appointed from a county already represented on the board. E. E. Robey is at present ( 1908) a member of the board as a county superintendent.
The board is responsible for all examinations of teachers and makes all questions used in their examinations which are for the fol- lowing grades of license :
One, primary license, one year, two years and three years; two, common school license, one year, two years and three years ; three, high school license, one year, two years, three years and five years ; four, professional, eight years ; five, life state license.
In addition to making the questions, the board conducts the ex- amination and grades the manuscripts of applicants for professional and life state licenses.
The board is also the state board of school book commissioners. As such it adopts text books for the common schools for periods of five years. When a contract has been made with a publisher the books are secured for the public by a requisition of the county super- intendent for the number of books needed in his county, upon the state superintendent, who in turn, makes requisition upon the con- tractor for the number of books needed in the state. The county superintendent thus becomes the agent for the sale of the books and makes his reports to the various contractors.
The state board of education, in order to keep some uniform standard of efficiency in high schools has established certain require- ments in the work which entitles high schools to commissions. These commissions carry with them exemption from examination for en- trance to the freshman class in the higher institutions of learning.
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L'pon the recommendation of the state superintendent, members of the board inspect the work of the high schools and determine whether the requirements for commissions have been met.
The work of the board has resulted in a perceptible increase in the efficiency of the high schools ; since all schools want the commis- sion and when once obtained every effort is made by the school offi- cers, teachers and patrons to retain it.
COUNTY BOARDS.
The county boards of education are composed of the county superintendent, the several township trustees and the heads of the boards of trustees of town and city schools. They are not officially charged with duties ; the purpose appears to be that by meeting and discussing the various school interests they may be able to intro- duce better and more uniform methods in their several schools.
The teachers are required, by law, to attend a township institute in their township once each school month. The purpose being, by the addresses and discussions, to awaken greater interest among the teachers in their work, to impart new and improved methods in teaching.
The minimum length of the school term in any school corpora- tion in a year shall be six months and the trustee is directed to levy sufficient tax to raise the money necessary to do so, provided he does not exceed the legal tax limit.
The law fixes the legal minimum wages that shall be paid teachers and any violation of this law subjects the violator to a heavy penalty.
The amount of money collected and distributed for tuition in Howard county for the year 1908 was :
Common school revenue, thirty thousand eight hundred and 7
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thirteen dollars and fifty-three cents; congressional township rev- enue, one thousand three hundred and twenty-three dollars and forty cents ; tuition from local taxation, forty-one thousand four hundred and eighty dollars and fifteen cents; received from liquor license, two thousand nine hundred dollars; received from dog fund, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine dollars and sixty-five cents ; total, seventy-eight thousand three hundred and ninety-six dollars and seventy-three cents. The amount collected for the city of Kokomo, thirty-seven thousand five hundred and forty-three dol- lars and sixty-two cents ; the amount for the county outside of the city of Kokomo, forty thousand eight hundred and fifty-three dol- lars and eleven cents. The amount of special school tax levied and collected in 1908 was forty-nine thousand three hundred and ten dollars and twenty-one cents; the amount collected for the city of Kokomo was twenty-two thousand six hundred and thirty-six dol- lars and thirty cents ; the amount collected for the county outside of Kokomo was twenty-six thousand six hundred and seventy-three dollars and ninety-one cents. The whole amount of school money, tuition and special for Howard county for the year 1908 was one hundred and twenty-seven thousand, seven hundred and six dollars and ninety-four cents.
PRESENT DAY CONDITIONS.
In this county there are seventy-two brick school buildings and six frame buildings.
There are one hundred and seventy-two teachers of the various grades employed in Howard county, and the total number of chil- dren of school age in the county is eight thousand five hundred and twenty-five.
The past sixty years has witnessed such a wonderful material development and advance in Howard county that its magnitude is
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almost beyond belief; and the educational advance is equally great if not greater. From the rude and scanty furnishings and almost chaotic want of system of the early schools, the change has been to large and commodious houses almost all built of brick, well heated and well lighted and equipped with the best of school furnishings. The organization from the state superintendent and state board of education down to the township and even the school district is so perfect that it constitutes a machine. the parts of which fit so well and work so harmoniously that they would delight a mechanical en- gineer.
An educator of today whenever he refers to our school system at once becomes enthusiastic. He declares that we have the finest school system in the world, that we have a school fund so large and so well managed that tuition in the common schools is practically free; that our schools are so well graded that by easy stages one passes on up through the high schools to the higher institutions of learning. The people, too, are proud of their schools. The people our our neighboring state, Michigan, point with justifiable pride to their great state university at Ann Arbor with its learned professors and its thousands of students attracted from all lands and they give it generous support. The people of Indiana are no less justified in their pride for their excellent school system. They get closer to the masses of the people. The people of Michigan have good common schools, but their specialty is their great university, which only the few can reach, while ours comes to the masses and prepares the many for the ordinary affairs of life. In this symphony of praise there comes a discordant note.
TOO WELL ORGANIZED.
It is suggested that the system is too well organized : that it has become a machine, where all are treated to the same process; that
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material for this educational process is intelligent beings with very different mental equipments and that the purpose of an education is to lead out, develop and train the natural gifts and powers of the student ; to stimulate him to independent thinking and research, and to avoid the mechanical mental processes.
Whether these suggestions are opportune it is not the province of the historian to say. In reviewing the school history of the past sixty years of our county, certain facts stand out prominently. Many students in the early schools with their two months' training became excellent spellers, good readers and penmen and acquired a practical knowledge of arithmetic that was surprising, and later the "old normal" in the late sixties and early seventies sent out from its school rooms men and women who stand out now living or in mem- ory for their learning, and sound original thinking, men like John WV. Kern, J. Fred Vaile, J. O. Henderson, Bronson Keeler, O. A. Somers, L. J. Kirkpatrick, A. B. Kirkpatrick, Professor W. A. Greeson, Professor John B. Johnson and scores of others of that date. To one looking over the personnel of those who have had their education in the schools of Howard county the period referred to seems to have been the golden age of school work in this county. The fact also is prominent that at that time there was less of the close organization than at the present time. The teacher of that time had much freedom and many of them had strong personalities which was impressed upon the pupils.
Whatever differences of opinion men may entertain of the merits or demerits of this close organization and the tendency to ma- chine work in our schools all are heartily glad that so abundant means are provided for the education of the youth of our county.
The men of middle age watch the passing along of the school wagon with its load of happy noisy children going to or from school protected from the storm and mud or deep snow, and remember
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again that he walked long distances to school often through rain storms and deep mud or else through the blizzard and biting cold and is glad that the children of today are not subjected to the like hardships.
ROADS IN HOWARD COUNTY.
The Indians had no roads. Their highways were paths or "traces" through the forests, over which they traveled on foot or on their ponies. The white man, of necessity, must have roadways over which to travel with his wagon and team. His first roads were but temporary affairs. They built them the nearest ways and where they were the least difficult to construct. Farmers' lanes formed important links in them, but after the lands were surveyed and township, range and section lines were run out and established they began to locate the roads on these lines, and many of the former meandering roadways were abandoned. These for several years were dirt roads, or, more correctly speaking, mud roads, during most of the year. They were built by the supervisor, who "warned out" all the able-bodied men of his road district between the ages of twenty-one and fifty to work the roads each spring from two to four days for no remuneration save the public good. This service was never enthusiastic.
These roads were often impassable in places detours were made around such places by going out and over the adjacent farms. As the farms were ditched and public drains constructed the roadbeds became drier and the roads became good much sooner.
There were no gravel or macadam roads constructed in How- ard county before 1867, so that for more than twenty years the people had to be content with dirt roads.
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HOWARD'S FIRST STATE ROAD.
The first state road located in the county was the Burlington and Marion state road from Burlington, in Carroll county, to Ma- rion, in Grant county. The report on this road was made to the commissioners at their June term, 1845, by Thomas A. Long. one of the commissioners appointed by the legislature to do this work The road as reported by them was one and one-half miles in Carroll county, twenty-nine and one-fourth miles in Richardville county and eleven miles in Grant county. This was a winding road. changing its course fourteen times in Carroll county and sixty-four times in crossing Richardville county. In passing through Kokomo it entered at the west end of Sycamore street and passed out at the east end of this street. There were two state roads reported at the September term of the commissioners' court: The Kokomo and Michigantown state road, by David Foster and George W. Snod- grass, commissioners. This road began at the southwest corner of the public square in Kokomo and ran south in Buckeye street to the bluffs of Wild Cat creek, thence southwesterly to the north bank of Wild Cat creek, crossing at the rapids, thence in a general southwesterly direction, zigzagging back and forth, finally reach- ing Michigantown. The other road was the Peru and Canton state road from Peru, in Miami county, to Canton (Tipton), in Tipton county. This road came into Kokomo from the northeast in the general direction of the Lanby gravel road until it intersected Union street : thence in Union street to the southeast corner of the Dona- tion, thence south on the line of Union street to Home avenue. thence southeast on the line of Home avenue almost to Kokomo creek, thence easterly and southeasterly, through the Purdum, the Dyas and other farms, to the intersection of the line of the Albright gravel road. The Logansport state road was laid out
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OF HOWARD COUNTY.
a little later. The outline map of this road from the Cass county line to Kokomo shows wet prairies, ponds and sloughs almost the entire way. The general direction of this road was from the north- west to Washington street in Kokomo, and Washington and Walnut streets afforded entrance to the town proper.
FIRST GRAVEL ROADS.
The first gravel roads in Howard county were toll roads. The traveler upon these roads must always go prepared to pay fare or toll, and at frequent intervals were toll-gates, or toll-houses, and the inevitable pole swung across the passage in front of the toll- house, ready to be pulled down in front of the luckless rider or driver who attempted to pass without first settling with the keeper. It did not matter how great the hurry, the urgency of the call or how fierce the storm, toll must be paid. It did not matter that it was a public highway, that had been cut out of the forests twenty years before by the supervisor and the men of the road district, and had been worked by them every year since, a gravel road company could occupy it to the exclusion of these very men who had made the road, and by doing additional work, compel every one traveling with horse and vehicle to pay a toll for the privilege of passing over it. The land owner whose lands had been appropriated was not re- spected in this operation.
The law permitting this seizure said, "The Board of County Commissioners of the several counties of the state are hereby au- thorized to give their consent to the appropriation and occupation of any such state or county road or other public highway over and upon which any company may locate any such road."
The law permitting the formation of gravel road companies was, "Any number of persons may form themselves into a corpora-
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tion for the purpose of constructing or owning plank, macadamized, gravel, clay and dirt roads, by complying with the following re- quirements": Then followed the usual requirements of stock com- panies. Whenever they had subscriptions for stock to the amount .of five hundred dollars per mile they were permitted to file their articles of incorporation in the recorder's office and to become known publicly as a corporation. It is true that the toll gravel roads were not very paying investments from a pecuniary standpoint, and were built largely by public spirited men whose main purpose was to have good roads for travel the entire year. The grievance of the other party was that the road, whose right of way he had given, and upon which he had spent much labor and which was his only or main outlet from his home, was wholly occupied by the company and he was compelled to pay, willing or unwilling, for the privilege of pasisng over it.
The Kokomo & New London gravel road was the first gravel road built in the county and was built under this law.
It was commenced in 1867 and was completed in 1870, being three years in the building ; is ten miles long and cost twenty-seven thousand dollars. It connected the county seat, Kokomo, with the then metropolis of western Howard county, New London, and passed through Alto and the future West Middleton, and was the main thoroughfare to the southwest. The city of Kokomo paid two thousand dollars toward the building of this road and indi- viduals gave thirteen thousand dollars to assist in its building. The leading citizens in forming the company to build and manage this . road were Captain Barny Busby. Dr. E. W. Hinton, Isaac Ram- sey, Jonathan Hansell, Josiah Beeson, Shadrach Stringer, Samuel Stratton, C. S. Wilson, Joseph Stratton, Hiram Newlin and Rich- mond Terrell, a splendid company of men. This was continued as a toll road until the growing sentiment for free roads caused the
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OF HOWARD COUNTY.
legislature to enact a law permitting companies to sell their roads to the county.
OTHER GRAVEL ROADS.
The other gravel roads built by companies organized a little later under the same or similar laws were: The Kokomo and Greentown gravel road, reaching from Kokomo to Greentown, eight and two-thirds miles long and mostly on the south side of Wild Cat creek. This road was commenced in 1869 and finished in 1874, and cost twenty-three thousand, two hundred and eighteen dollars. Vaile avenue was the western end and a toll-gate. stood where a brick business building now stands at the intersection of Union street. The leaders in the building of this road were Raw- son Vaile, Noah Carter, J. W. Smith, William T. Mannering, Ves- pasian Goyer, Paul Miller, Clarke Boggs and N. J. Owings. This continued a toll road like the others until the growing free gravel road sentiment made it possible to sell out to the county, and it is now a free gravel road.
The Kokomo, Greentown and Jerome gravel road was organ- ized in 1869 and was completed in 1871 at a cost of thirty-eight thousand dollars. It extends from Kokomo, running east on the north side of Wild Cat creek, through old Vermont, to Greentown, and thence to Jerome, a distance of twelve miles, and is a promi- nent eastern thoroughfare. The active friends of this road were David Smith, Andrew Patterson, C. C. Willetts, Rossiter Gray, Jacob Brunk, Barnhart Learner, D. S. Farley, John S. Trees, Jona- than Covalt, E. P. Gallion, W. M. Sims, J. R. Curlee and Milton Garrigus. This road is now a free gravel road, the toll system go- ing with the others.
The Kokomo and Pete's Run gravel road was organized in 1869 and completed in 1871 at a cost of thirty-three thousand, fifty-
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eight dollars. It is eleven miles in length and is popularly known as the Jefferson street pike, beginning at the west end of Jefferson street and running directly west. It is the principal thoroughfare for the west end of the county toward Burlington and Delphi. The active citizens in the building of this road were H. W. Smith, James McCool, Israel Brubaker, Michael Price, S. D. Hawkins, D. B. Hendrickson, Thomas M. Kirkpatrick and others. This, too. is now a free gravel road, after a prosperous series of years as a toll road.
The Wild Cat gravel road was commenced in 1869 and com- pleted in 1871. This is popularly known as the West Sycamore street pike, and begins at the west end of Sycamore street and runs west along Wild Cat ten miles, costing twenty-two thousand dol- lars. The principal friends and managers of this gravel road were Judge N. R. Linsday, William B. Smith, N. P. Richmond, Isaac Hawk, Silas Grantham, S. E. Overholser and Thomas Dimmitt. This road parallels the Petes Run gravel road and at no point is it far from it. It is built over hills and through bottoms. making it both more expensive to build and to keep in repair, and has besides been unfortunate in having the collection of the assessments en- joined and then being reassessed. The legislature then repealed the law authorizing the collection of gravel road taxes, making a combination of adverse conditions its friends were not able to overcome, hence they abandoned it.
The Deer Creek gravel road was commenced in 1873 and com- pleted in 1875, at a cost of fifteen thousand dollars. The road be- gan at the north end of Smith street and extended north five miles to the Miami county line. The active workers in securing this gravel road were William Kirkpatrick, John Davis, J. M. Leeds, Jesse Swisher, William Mills, Jacob Early and John W. Lovin.
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OF HOWARD COUNTY.
These were the only roads constructed under the company sys- tem. One of them reached the southwestern part of the county and did a good business ; one reached the north line of the county and did a fair business ; two paralleled each other closely both to the east and west and one of each pair did not pay.
PUBLIC ROAD SENTIMENT.
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