USA > Indiana > Vigo County > History of Indiana from its exploration to 1922, Vol II > Part 31
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no pavements. Indianapolis put down its first pave- ments, of pine blocks, in 1870. Some of the business streets were laid with boulders, but it took some imagination and more city pride to call such improve- ments pavement. It was not till 1888 that Indian- apolis had a "vulcanite" paved street.22 These ex- periments revealed the fact that paving streets was a business which needed expert supervision. As a re- sult of these early failures the General Assembly later put this work under control of a city board.
Slowly the muddy lanes of the cities gave way to paved streets. The big, four-horse freight wagons disappeared. The rows of horses that formerly stood at the edge of the streets in front of the stores were accommodated in the livery-barns; the slop puddles in the side ditches were removed by the sew- ers; the hitch racks which in all county seats encir- cled the courthouse squares in the forties and fifties were declared nuisances in the eighties and nineties ; lawns and shade trees appeared; but just as it seemed that beautiful streets were in process of real- ization the telegraph, telephone, gas, light, and water companies asked and received permission to use them. Since then the race has been fairly even be- tween the cities building streets and the utility com- panies tearing them up.
The cities remained dirty until the end of the cen- tury. During the two decades from 1890 to 1910 great progress was made from a sanitary standpoint in the improvement of streets and alleys, but with the approaching solution of this question there ap- peared one of equal difficulty arising from the use of soft coal in the factories. Dense clouds of black
22 Dunn, History of Indianapolis, I, 309. For a most inter- esting account of the growth of Indianapolis, see Meredith Nich- olson, The Provincial American, 57, seq. Read, also, Booth Tark- ington's The Turmoil.
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smoke hovered over the manufacturing centers and a ceaseless sprinkle of soot falls, usually covering all parts of the cities as the wind shifts from one quarter to another. The assistance of the General Assembly has been invoked but no great relief obtained.
The commercial development of the cities dates principally from the period of the Civil war. The growth was augmented very largely by the building of the railroads. Previous to 1850 the business cen- ters were on the rivers or the Wabash and Erie canal. New Albany, Indianapolis, Madison, Lafayette, Fort Wayne, Terre Haute, Logansport, Evansville, Jeffer- sonville and Vincennes, the ten largest, ranging in size from 9,395 to 2,070 and ranking in the order given, were, with the exception of the capital, all on the Ohio river or on the Wabash and Erie canal. The business of these cities and towns was that of distri- bution and thus depended for its success on superior facilities of transportation.
In 1832 it was stated that Madison, then the most important town in the state, had in March and April alone imported not less than $120,000 worth of mer- chandise. One merchant "imported" from the "low country" (New Orleans) 200 bags of coffee, 100 hogsheads of sugar, and 50 hogsheads of molasses. New Albany at the same time was credited with a printing office, sixteen dry goods stores, nine grocer- ies, a ship chandlery store, two drug stores, a hard- ware store, twenty saloons, an ashery, a rope walk, three ship yards, two boat yards, two iron foundries, a brass foundry, a steam engine factory, a finishing shop, and a merchant flouring mill of one hundred barrels capacity.23 These were the leading business centers of that time, the one in commerce, the other in manufacturing.
23 Indiana Gazetteer, 1833.
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In 1850 pork and flour were the leading products of the state. The pork business centered in Madison and the flour business in the towns and cities of the north part of the state.24 New Albany was still the leading manufacturing center with Madison and In- dianapolis struggling for leadership in distribution. Indianapolis had seventy-six dry goods stores, twenty-four groceries, fourteen wholesale houses, one hundred and six shops for mechanics, four brew- eries, and seven hotels, the latter more properly called boarding houses. Madison was then building, at a cost of $30,000, the first hotel established in the state.
Lafayette had twenty-seven dry goods stores and twelve wholesale establishments. Fort Wayne, Log- ansport, Terre Haute, and South Bend were also en- gaged almost exclusively in the distribution business, wholesale and retail.
The cities mentioned in the list above held their places, though changing their ranks frequently, until the rise of the manufacturing towns in the last decade of the old century and the first of the new. Of the cities of the latter class, Terre Haute, Brazil, Clinton, Linton and a few others took advantage of the opening of the coal mines; Muncie, Anderson, Alexandria, Kokomo, Elwood and others are the gas belt towns; Bedford and Bloomington have profited by the opening of the Oolitic stone quarries ; Indian- apolis, Evansville, Fort Wayne, South Bend and Gary enjoy the combined advantages of location, good transportation facilities and a cheap food sup- ply. Economic conditions must be considered in ac- counting for the growth of cities but there is also a personal element in many cases accounting for a
24 Indiana Gazetteer, 1850, p. 39. New Albany had the largest merchant flour mill.
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large part of their growth and enterprise. One readily associates the DePauws with New Albany, Lanier with Madison, Mccullough, Hanna, Hamilton and Bass with Fort Wayne, the Studebakers and Olivers with South Bend, the United States Steel Corporation with Gary, Haynes with Kokomo and the Heilmans with Evansville. These men are or were only leaders. Fame, no doubt, has not always been just in pointing out city builders but the fact certainly is true that a city owes more to the charac- ter of its citizens than to its economic circum- stances.25
Indiana cities contain few architectural features. The great majority of the buildings are only build- ings and nothing more. Cheapness and utility are too apparent, but a turning point seems to have been reached. The old-fashioned red brick dwelling at least has been discarded; the equally old-fashioned Dutch county courthouse has given way to a simpler style with here and there traces of sculptural decor- ation. However, it is doubtful if there is another courthouse in the state more attractive architectur- ally than that at Paoli, which dates from the first half
25 Streightoff, Indiana, 127: "In every city, and more partic- ulariy in the larger ones, the offices are valuable, not for the salaries, which ordinarily are small, nor for social prestige, as scant recognition is given the politicians by cultured circles, but for power. Although its power has been iessened by the creation of the Public Service Commission (in 1913), it is possible for a city government to pester a public utility almost without limit or to grant it favors of tremendous value; it is possibile to make life miserable for some manufacturers or to allow them with impunity to violate conservative regulations; it is possible to enforce the laws against the maintaining of houses of ill-fame and the gambling dens or to ignore their existence; it is possible to make contracts decently favorable to the city and to enforce their terms or to enter agreements that give individuals immense profits for shabby work that will need extensive repairs within a few years, and so afford additional private gain at public expense."
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of the last century. Among the cities of the second and third class the high school buildings are most noticeable. In the same class are the new libraries and postoffice buildings, most of which approach the simple classic style. Most of the churches now in use were built fifteen or twenty years ago and have few attractive features so far as the buildings them- selves are concerned. A few, built recently, have followed the old English cathedrals as models.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE COLLEGES
§ 178 EARLY ATTENDANCE
The founding of the pioneer colleges of Indiana has been sketched briefly in a former volume. Not much space was given them because they seem to have occupied very little space in the minds of the pioneers. The graduating class of 1857 in the state university numbered fifteen. No graduating class exceeded this in number until 1874. The total num- ber of graduates in the first thirty-one classes, from 1830 to 1860, inclusive, was 205, an average of less than seven. The roll of students was not as long as the curriculum. Even after the Civil war attendance was small. The report of 1866 shows a total enroll- ment of 233. The whole alumni up to that time was 253 in the literary department and 177 in the law. There were seven members of the faculty.
The attendance at Notre Dame for 1866 was 400. The alumni numbered forty-five and there were twenty-five members of the faculty. Butler college had 210 students, an alumni numbering fifty-six and a faculty of five. Earlham college had an enrollment of 178, an alumni of twenty-three and a faculty of eleven. Union Christian college at Merom had 115 students and four alumni. Earlham in 1869 had thirty-nine alumni. Wabash in 1868 had an alumni of 105, with an enrollment in the college of 66. As- bury in 1870 had an enrollment of 344 and a total alumni of 423. Of these fifty were in the ministry, thirty were teaching in colleges, 59 were physicians,
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129 were lawyers, 121 were farmers and tradesmen. Franklin college had ninety students, twenty of whom were in college classes. Moore's Hill reported seventy-seven doing college work in 1870. Harts- ville university had an enrollment of 215, where, though not specified, about one-half of the students were in the preparatory departments.
Enough statistics have been given to show that down to 1870 the colleges were not largely attended. There were enough colleges but students were not forthcoming. Evidently the people were not patron- izing them. In 1840, or at any time previous to 1850, poverty might have been pleaded as an excuse, but during the fifties and after the Civil war there was abundance of means. Yet one does not have to seek far for the causes for the neglect of the colleges.1
§ 179 SECTARIANISM
One of the chief difficulties must be sought in the religious character of public opinion. Even here there were two more or less contradictory beliefs. In the first place nearly all professors, college presi- dents, and ministers were united in the belief that teaching Christian morals was the chief concern of colleges.2 By this time most of the Protestant churches were content to entrust primary and even high schools to non-sectarian teachers, but when it came to colleges the strictest care should be observed that teachers were orthodox. It was felt that young
1 Indiana School Journal, 1859, p. 60: "There is not a college or university west of the Allegheny mountains that would have much to boast of in a comparison with the Phillips Academy In New England, the New York Free Academy, or the Philadelphia High School."
2 Charles White, Essays in Literature and Ethics, 8: "The design of the few suggestlons which I shall make now will be to establish and commend this proposition-That Religion is an Essential Part of All Education."
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men introduced for the first time to the science and literature of the world were in imminent danger of losing their way religiously.3 The college presidents insisted on absolute independence of mind, but when analyzed it always turned out to be the independence which frankly accepted the dogma of some church. Love of truth was a prime requisite of the scholar, but it must be Christian truth. The last of the labors of men of independent minds was the encouragement and diffusion of religion in the community.ª The western colleges were intended to be, as their eastern predecessors had been, hand maidens of the church. They were capable, and it was their duty to support and invigorate the church, to build up a superior christian civilization. Christianity was the spice with which every lesson was to be flavored, the sol- vent in which each was administered.5
Intellectual power, to be a blessing, must be com- bined with morality, that is, with Christianity. The Pierean stream should mingle its waters with the fount of Siloa ; the flowers of Parnassus should lead to the grapes and olives of Zion. The one chief text
3 Barnabus C. Hobbs in Indiana School Journal, 1856, p. 113: "Religious education is of the greatest possible value. It lies at the foundation of good society, good laws, and good government. A sound morality should be at the core of all learning. The beauty and potency of Truth-honest, unsophisticated Truth-a religious sense of right and duty, should be forever held up before the mind of every student."
4 Charles White, Essays in Literature and Ethics, 60. Dr. White was president of Wabash. "Being regarded so generally as the grand indispensable conservative, nothing remains for me but to point to the encouragement and diffusion of religious faith, the element of so much of our blessedness as the high service and privilege of all our citizens of independent minds. Frankly, firmly, everywhere, such men will appear as the friends and supporters of truth and religion, fearless of sneers, of the charge of bigotry, of the loss of patronage, of office, of honor."
5 Ibid, 204, 209.
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book was the Bible. All other texts, all other liter- ature was subsidiary.6
Even so late as July 11, 1860, when he was in- ducted into the presidency of Indiana university, John H. Lathrop could say that all literary and edu- cational institutions, if they are to be safe, must house under the wings of the church. Education had always been the proper work of the priesthood and it was necessary that it be restored to them again. The pulpit was the natural ally of the college.7 It was no more customary to have a layman preside over a college than over a church. "I make these several points, in illustration of the true rule of the university appointments. The doctrine is, that the priest in the temple of science should have been early dedicated to the service of the altar," said the presi- dent, in announcing his policy. Each departure haz- arded the gains of civilization. Dr. Lathrop was a graduate of Yale, saturated with the scholasticism of that section. He was the only layman, if he might be called one, who presided over the university until the coming of Dr. David Starr Jordan, January 1, 1885. A most curious illustration of the relation of spirit- ual and natural laws is given by Dr. Cyrus Nutt, who succeeded Lathrop at Indiana in 1860, when he urged that prayer would arrest the laws of nature.8
6 W. M. Daily, Inaugural Address, Indiana University, 1854, p. 17.
7 Inaugural Address, 33: "If Moses' seat, in our literary synagogues, is to be occupied, not by those who enter In at the door, but by those who climb up some other way; if it be so, that the priest in the temple of science must be chosen from among those who are strangers to its mysteries, let us go back again to the clerical profession ; for it is manifestly and distinctly true that the ministrations and the discipline of the pulpit are far more germane to the processes of education than are those of the bar."
8 Cyrus Nutt, Prayer Gauge, 14.
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This insistence of clerical control of the schools was not entirely to the liking of the western people. Many of them were prejudiced against an institution which had driven their ancestors from their homes. All of them were firm believers in the complete sep- aration of church and state. For the most part they believed in public education. Here then would be a renewal of the old conflict which they had once won. The ecclesiastical enemy driven out the back door was trying to return by the rear. It is sufficient to state that attendance at the colleges never greatly improved until the advent of the normals broke the ecclesiastical grip. It was common observation that colleges were a failure.9
9 Charles Barnes, Indiana School Journal, I, 69: "That there are reforms needed in our American colleges, none will deny. That they have heretofore failed to meet the wants of both the practical man and the scholar is equally plain." Mr. Barnes, 1856, was superintendent at New Albany, and president of the State Teachers' Association, editor of the Journal, and candidate for state superintendent on the Republican ticket. See, also, E. P. Cole, School Journal, II, 328: "It were bootless, now, to inquire Into the motives inducing the establishment of so many institutions -certainly more than are needed. But to us it is a matter of regret that the energy and influence which created these six had not all centered upon the State University; and the money employed in building up the remaining five been otherwise directed into the great channels of Christian benevolence. We will not say that better men could have been employed to fill the chairs of instruction. This would be unjust. But we can say that one institution, upon which all the energies of the state were centered, would necessarily have been better supplied with the appliances for aid and illustration in teaching, and the student going forth from her walls better trained. These, perhaps, are fruitless speculations, and certainly will not be sympathized in by all."
Boone, Education in Indiana, 406: "The relation of the church, as an educational agent, to the state and the family, other similar agents, was, in the earlier years, far more than now, a fruitful source of divided control in education, the occasion of weakling schools, dependent control, apologetic teaching, and
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This general ecclesiastical quality in colleges, which all avowed, was not the most troublesome. While all college men stood for an orthodox Chris- tian basis for a college, each implied that his own church was the orthodox society that should control. At this date one cannot appreciate the asperity which existed between the denominations. There was not enough charity in one faction or denomination to concede that members of another might be saved. With this feeling prevalent one can account for the number of unendowed colleges added from time to time to the already impoverished list.1º The war among the creeds was usually more acrid and per- sonal than that against unbelievers.
In accounting for the opinions of the college men themselves one must consider their collegiate training, which in most cases had been theological or had been received in the east, where little distinction was made between the college chair and the church pulpit. The travellers from the east in Indiana long after the Civil war remarked on the uncultured ap- pearance of Indianians. When O. H. Smith admitted to some men at the Mansion House hotel in Cincin- nati in 1836 that he had been elected United States senator they laughed at him. The city could not have produced a half dozen men his equal, but he looked, no doubt, as if he needed a missionary. It is not far wrong to say that the college men of Indiana
pretentious plans. It has given Indiana almost a score of colleges, or would-be colleges, all of whose students could at any time have been as well taught by one-half of thelr combined faculties, and whose aggregate endowment prior to 1870 yielded less than $100,000 annual income."
10 In 1866 Indiana had 12 seniors, Northwestern 6, Asbury 11, Wabash 9, Indiana Female 20, Union Christian 3, Hartsville less than a dozen, Valparaiso Female about 10 .- Indiana School Journal, 1866, pp. 304, 349.
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before the Civil war thought the native Indianians needed salvation far more than education.
Then at this time, 1850 to 1875, there was a battle raging throughout the west that threatened, as church-men believed, the very foundation of religion itself. The Universalists were waging the fight with vigor and success. Every day its victims were drop- ping from the class roll and even the pulpit. Protes- tant ministers threw themselves into the fight with fury. In other interdenominational struggles there were a few neutrals but not in this. Every one was against the Universalist. Also a spirit of agnosticism was springing up in the west, a revival of eighteenth century rationalism. The fact that it was most af- fected by young men in or recently returned from college made it necessary to look very narrowly for the opening by which it entered. When the natural sciences with their theory of evolution found a place in the curriculum, it was soon decided that by that gate heresy had entered in. Since few scientists were ministers it was necessary to have a president of the college who could smother what heresy appeared, either gently or forcibly as the case demanded.
It was urged against the state university that it could not teach religion and therefore should not teach at all. If by religion is meant sectarianism, it was answered, then the charge is true; but if by religion is meant the fundamental doctrines and morals of Christianity, it not only can but does teach it.11
§ 180 CLASSICAL EDUCATION
Religion, however, was not the only difficulty. The college, the professor and college learning, all in all and as a whole was a great joke to most Indian-
11 President Cyrus Nutt, Indiana School Journal, 1869, p. 12.
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ians before 1880. A professor, if honest and able, was an object of pity, because he had not undertaken some public service where his efforts would have been appreciated. He was generally condemned for wasting in useless pursuits endowments that might have been put to a profitable use. If a professor were dishonest he was drummed out of the community just like an immoral preacher. Lapses that would not have excited neighborhood gossip in a layman were magnified into state scandal if done by a professor.
This general quality the professor absorbed from his work. In the pursuit of antiquated and useless knowledge, it was assumed, they had become anti- quated and useless themselves. In New England the preacher and teacher, being one and inseparable, dressed alike. So in the west the professor wore a clerical suit.
Not only his clothes but his curriculum came from the ecclesiastical schools of New England or Prince- ton. The course of study was built around Christian ethics. The curriculum was so constructed as to lead to what was called a liberal education. The under- graduate course was to be strictly disciplinary. It must rest on the classics and mathematics, the two pillars of the great edifice of human learning. These were the only pillars it could stand upon and if any
Sampson ever overthrew one of these he would wreck civilization.12 No trace of what the pioneers would have called the practical was found in the cur- riculum. There was demand everywhere for sur- veyors yet up to the middle of the nineteenth century only the theory of the subject was taught. One can- not be serious even yet thinking of a half score of brawny youths with huge bare feet and one suspend- er each, crooning over Greek paradigmns while all the people of the state, beside, fought the equal bat-
12 Inauguration Speech, W. M. Daily, 1854, p. 16.
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tle with the primeval forest, swamps, and wild var- mints. The freshmen course at Indiana for 1831 consisted of "Greek Testament, Minora, Majora, 1st Vol., 2nd Vol., commenced, compositions in English and Latin, Greek Thesis." There were doubtless a richness of expression and a flood of enthusiasm thrown into those Greek theses. It will be noticed that during the whole year these freshmen studied nothing but Greek.
It does not seem necessary to carry this statement further to show the utter disparity between this old Trivium and Quadrivium course of study and pio- neer Indiana.
The settlers of New England doubtless were more or less inoculated with the traditions of medievalism but the settlers of the Ohio valley were not affected. This system of education was imported ready made and it has remained an open question to the present whether or not it was a misfit. The fact remains that as long as the colleges of Indiana offered only a "liberal education" they were not crowded.13
§ 181 SOCIETY AND POLITICS
Still another obstacle in the way of the early col- leges was the heterogeneous character of the state citizenship.14 College education, even now, is sought in most cases for its general culture. As such it rests very largely on tradition or public opinion. It was
18 The best discussion of the college curriculum available is by Samuel B. Harding, Indiana University, 34, seq.
14 Charles White, "Western Colleges," In Essays, 209: "The elements to be constructed into a social organization here are extremely diverse and heterogeneous. This country is settied by emigrants from every state in our Union, commingled with English- men, Frenchmen, Swiss, Poles, Danes, Norwegians, Russians, Swedes, Germans, Welsh, Irish, Scotch, Spaniards, Portuguese, Itallans, Africans, Asiatics. The population is still more divided
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