USA > Indiana > Vigo County > History of Indiana from its exploration to 1922, Vol II > Part 32
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not then, for instance, a common belief that a black- smith would be a more useful citizen, and ultimately a better blacksmith, for having a college education. In fact there was great admiration then for the plain, self-made man who had only a common school educa- tion or less; men like Jackson, Harrison, Taylor or Lincoln. College men were not preferred on account of their training. In the constitutional convention of 1850 were only a few graduates and they were not leaders on that account. When Governor Wright handed the keys of Indiana university to President William M. Daily, August 2, 1854, he demanded in the name of the state an institution that would edu- cate the sons of Indiana to be "farmers, architects, artisans, engineers, mechanics, botanists, geologists, in a word useful men." He urged that a model farm be added to the equipment. What he heard from President Daily was a sermon on the duty of the state to give each of its sons a liberal education, that is, an acquaintance with the classics, with the beau- ties of antiquity. There is no attempt made here to settle this question, much less even to imply that a college should fashion its curriculum to agree with public opinion, but merely to point out that the head of the state and the head of the state university were about 1,000 years apart. It should be kept in mind, however, that the people were with the governor.
Even in the field of utilitarian education there was no agreement. It has already been noted how Governor Wright spoke in the name of the people for
in matters of religion. There are here Congregationalists, Old School and New School Presbyterians, Dutch Reformed, German Reformed, Seceders, Covenanters, Campbellites, Methodists, Wes- leyans, Dissenters, Old and New School Baptists, Two Seed Bap- tists, Seventh Day Adventists, Unitarians, Lutherans, Moravians, Quakers, Episcopallans, Dunkers, Universalists, Infidels, Mormons, Millerites, Millennarians, New Lights."
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trade schools. President White, of Wabash, an un- bending classicist, thought the western colleges ought to turn out a pious ministry, to furnish young men of sound scholarship to take charge of the schools of the state, to introduce and maintain sound scholar- ship.15
Caleb Mills, a professor in Wabash, took up or perhaps originated, the idea of his president that the chief duty of colleges was to train men for teaching. He would have abolished the state university, partly because of its non-sectarianism, and partly to pre- vent the waste of funds. Four different times in his public addresses he recurred to his plan for a state university. He would have had the state Assembly create a corporation to be styled the "Regents of the University of Indiana." This board was to take the $30,000 worth of buildings at Bloomington, sell them to some denominational school, put the money with the endowment fund and annually distribute the income to those colleges which would maintain a normal department. These colleges would be han- dier, since there would be one in each section of the state; they would be much better supervised, because each denomination would carefully watch over its schools with a pride in keeping it equal to or better than the others. While this scheme would greatly improve the colleges themselves, its principal advan- tage would be in furnishing competent instructors for the common schools and seminaries. Four times Professor Mills outlined in detail his favorite plan, the plan then used in New York state.16 The crying
15 Charles White, Essays, 224: "These three services for the west, the creation of eminent scholarship, the improvement and extension of primary education, the establishment of a superior and Christian civilization, constitute the grand design and effort of western colleges."
16 Indiana Historical Society Publications, III, 423, 471, 522,
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need of the state was public school teachers. "What," he continued, "has the state to show for at least the $60,000 it has actually paid during the last eighteen years? How many teachers of common schools, how many principals, has the state college furnished ?"
From what has been said it might be inferred that the work of the colleges through this long period had been in vain. Such was not the case entirely, though judged by the University of Michigan which in the late sixties enrolled 1,200 students, they were not very successful. They sent a few, about one hundred, well-trained men into the state each year. As the institutions grew older their alumni became more of a factor in society, college traditions took root and colleges entered on a period of comparative pros- perity.17
The period under discussion, from 1840 to 1875, corresponds roughly to the time when individualism
571: "The University should consist of such colleges as will adopt a course of study satisfactory to the Regents, furnish an annual report of their receipts and expenditures, the number of their faculty and students, actual amount of study accomplished by each class, the course of study required for admission and graduation, the number of volumes in the college and societies' libraries, the value of their apparatus and cabinets, permit a com- mittee of the Regents to attend and assist in conductiong the annual examination, and create a professorship, styled 'Professor- ship of Normal Teaching.'"
17 The Fort Wayne Gazette, October, 1873, in an able article, attacked the pollcy of founding so many financially poor colleges in the state. Its conclusion was that in the competition for students they were lowering the standards of education. Com- menting on this, the Indianapolis Journal of Oct. 31 said: "It would be much better for the cause of thorough education in this country if the number of colleges was cut down to one-fourth or one-fifth of the present number, and the standard of scholarship in those remain elevated." The other side of the argument was shown in the reply by the president of Wabash.
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was the rule of men's lives in Indiana.18 Co-opera- tion, agreement, division of labor, expertness were not acceptable terms in the communities. Conflict, struggle, opposition, contention and competition were the conditions of social and individual progress. The preacher laid the cudgel to the back of every church but his own; the business man made and han- dled only "none other such" goods; and likewise the professor stood out so stoutly for his own college and system that he advised the young man to attend his own college or none at all. It seems never to have occurred to them that they might all prosper at once, that the field was ample for their united activities; but rather as was the case in all lines of activity, the prosperity of one was thought to be at the expense of the other.
Lastly, the political condition of the people of In- diana was not conducive to flourishing colleges. Par- tisan politics crept into all social relations. There was considerable antipathy shown by the earlier in- habitants of the state for the eastern teachers. New England was a synonym for abolitionism, commun- ism, and ecclesiasticism. So far did the partisan spirit go that when Henry Clay was invited to address a literary society at the state university the trustees ordered the engagement canceled. Demagogues played on this feeling for personal purposes.19
18 Dr. Cyrus Nutt, in Indiana School Journal, 1868, p. 476: "The tendency of the age has hitherto been toward the excess individualism. State institutions of learning, where the youth of all classes, parties and sects come together, reciting In the same classes, to the same professors, and mingling in the same literary societies and reunions, tend to allay prejudice, smooth asperities, annihilate sectional biases, and promote the harmony and frater- nity of the whole commonwealth."
19 The following rather lengthy quotation Is from an article written by Judge Samuel T. Perkins for the Richmond Jefferson- ian and copled in the Indianapolis Sentinel. Judge Perkins was
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§ 182 THE CHANGING CURRICULUM
The first important problem with the colleges was the reorganization of their curriculum to suit the western environment. The demands came from sev- eral sources. First of these was the demand that the colleges prepare teachers for the public schools. Caleb Mills, of Wabash, himself at the head of a nor- mal department, was the leading advocate of this change. He maintained that a college should not draw public support unless it performed public func- tions, of which training teachers was the most nec- essary.
a native of Vermont, reared in Massachusetts, sat on the supreme bench of Indiana from 1847 to 1866, taught law at Northwestern and Indiana universities and for forty years was prominent In the history of the state:
"INDIANAPOLIS, April 20, 1857.
DEAR JEFF :- I see by the last number of our School Journal that Mr. Hurty, of your city, has been appointed agent of the State Teachers' Association, in place of E. P. Cole, late of this city. The change is unimportant, as both of the men seem to be self-important, rabid, Kansas screeching Abolitionists. Such ap- pears to be Hurty's character, as given in the Richmond papers- such, I infer, to be Cole's, from his flings at the South in the School Journal-a publication unworthy, from its partisan bear- ings, of the patronage of the people of the State. The truth is, the success of our attempt to establish free schools in this State is likely to be endangered by the efforts of Aholitionists to convert them to partisan purposes. The teachers of our children are mostly picked up by that old school Abolitionist, Slade, of Vermont, and shipped out here, from that great cesspool of treason, free- sollism, Abolitionism, Atheism, and a Kansas-screeching and adul- terous clergy, New England, the section that voted for Aaron Burr and Fremont, and against their country in the War of 1812; while the Republicans here manœuvre to get them employed in the schools, and secretly stimulate them to teach their isms in school, and insult those children of Democrats who will not swallow them. There are, I wish to say, some good and patriotle men and women in New England, but Slade don't ship them out here."
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In 1852 the state university prepared to open a normal department. It was intended entirely for teachers' training. A model school was provided for in one of the rooms of the college building where actual teaching might be observed and done. This was originally intended for both men and women but in 1853 it was decided to turn the women over to the Monroe County Female seminary for training. This work at the university stopped in 1856 when Dr. Daniel Read, who had had the work in charge, re- signed. In 1865 it was attempted to revive it under D. Eckley Hunter, superintendent of schools of Bloomington, but no students enrolled. Again in 1869, under G. W. Hoss, former state superintendent, the work was attempted and a few students enrolled. The president of the university was not in sympathy with the work and there was no money to pay for it.
Wabash, under Professor Mills, and some other colleges gave attention to this field but without satis- factory results. The city superintendents and state school officers despaired of any relief from that direc- tion and turned their attention to the General Assem- bly in the hope of getting a school free of all college traditions. This was provided for by act of Decem- ber 20, 1865.2º It doubtless would have been estab- lished sooner but for the depleted treasury and the Civil war. When established the money for its main- tenance was taken from the state tuition fund and money for the erection of the first buildings from the proceeds of the sale of the location. This new school squared pretty well with the democratic opinions then prevalent. The entrance conditions were not
20 Laws of Indiana, Special, 1865, ch. XXXVI: "That there shall be established and maintained, as hereinafter provided, a State Normai School, the object of which shall be the preparation of teachers for teaching in the common schools of Indiana."
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borrowed from Yale or Princeton but fixed by statute. There were four of these: the applicant must be six- teen years of age if a girl, eighteen if a boy ; must be in good health; must be sound morally; and must promise to teach in the public schools. No sectarian tenets were to be taught.
The governor promptly appointed a board of trustees for the normal, which organized, January 9, 1866. Advertisements for bids for the location were inserted in the Indianapolis Journal and Herald (formerly and afterward the Sentinel), with the warning that it would take $50,000 to secure the loca- tion, and the first locality offering that would most probably get it.21 On the fifteenth of the following May the bids were opened. There was only one. Terre Haute offered $50,000 cash and a building site worth $25,000. The offer was at once accepted but the work of constructing the buildings dragged along slowly. Not till January 6, 1870, did the school open, and then in an unfinished building and with twenty- one students. But the work was found to be good and the problem has been to provide teachers and accommodations with the scanty resources it has usu- ally enjoyed.22 The teachers were chosen for their professional ability rather than for their scholastic, though scholarship has never been lacking. With the establishment of the State normal school the demand for normal departments in colleges abated.
The independent normal schools filled a gap in our system caused by the incomplete work of the sec-
21 Indiana School Journal, 1866, p. 121: "The board of trustees shall locate said school at such place as shall obligate itself for the largest donations; provided: First: That said donations shall not be less, in cash value, than fifty thousand dollars. Second: That such place shall furnish reasonable facill- ties for the success of said school."
22 State Superintendent's Report, 1870, p. 87.
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ondary schools and the general need of prepared teachers. Their greatest work has been in the prep- aration of teachers for the common schools. Their predecessors were the so-called normal institutes of the sixties and seventies. Many of these normals were temporary, lasting ten weeks. They usually afforded training in the common branches, a few of the high school subjects and some forms of peda- gogy. In many parts of the state there were not pre- paratory schools to fit prospective students for col- lege entrance. Under these conditions a few of these normals became permanent institutions.
One of the earliest of these was the Central nor- mal college, founded at Ladoga in 1876, by W. F. Harper and Warren Darst. In 1878 it was removed to Danville where it has since remained. At times there were as many as 800 students enrolled.
The Northern Indiana normal, now Valparaiso university, was founded in 1873 by H. B. Brown. This in some respects is the most remarkable educa- tional institution in the state. Until recently, when it little needed it, it has had no financial assistance from any source. From an enrollment of 200 it has grown to over 5,000. It teaches everything and its only entrance requirements are health and energy. It has reached the great middle class in a way that no other institution of the state has. It has fulfilled the ideal of the independent normal. The Tri-State normal, at Angola, Marion normal, Southern Indiana normal at Mitchell, the Muncie institute and others have from time to time occupied parts of this field of education. The multiplication of state high schools has rendered much of their work unnecessary, but from 1875 to 1900 they performed a remarkably valu- able service without any expense to the state.
Contemporaneous with this demand for training teachers came a demand on the colleges for training
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craftsmen. The farmers began asking for aid almost as soon as the first college was established. Under Governor Wright and James D. Williams, the latter an active member of the state board of agriculture, the farmers became insistent. But only when there was a considerable endowment in sight did any of the colleges show any alacrity.23
After the death of President Andrew Wylie in 1851 there was a loosening of traditions at Indiana university. Dr. Wylie had stood firmly for a classi- cal school under ecclesiastical leading strings, much to the disgust of many friends of the university over the state. The times were demanding new duties of the university and the new board was on evidence of it. A committee of the new board reported a plan for a course in agricultural chemistry, under the di- rection of the professor of natural sciences ; a normal department under Dr. Daniel Read; a course in the- oretical and practical engineering in connection with the course in mathematics ; and an articulation of all this work into a "Scientific" course which would lead to the A. B. degree, the same as the classic course.
Under the lead of John I. Morrison of the univer- sity board the General Assembly, June 17, 1852, in a long act of sixty-one sections, reorganizing the uni- versity, ordered the establishment of a normal school, where teachers should be trained without tuition charge, and an agricultural department. The law was a dead letter, however. There was no man to take charge of the university in the emergency. The op- portunity passed and never returned. With it went
28 It is sometimes stated that Wabash, Franklin and Hanover in early days had manual training. This is true in a sense. The boys could go out among the neighbors and hoe corn and cut cordwood at "two bits" a day, but the work was hardly educa- tional.
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also a large proportion of what little interest the people had in its welfare.24
Nevertheless in the catalog of 1853 there ap- peared announcements of the "Normal Department and Model School," "Agricultural Department" and the "School of Theoretical and Practical Engineer- ing."25 These continued for a number of years num- bering among their students about one-half the total enrollment.
Failing to get what they wanted the farmers turned to congress where there appeared a pros- pect of a land grant in aid of agricultural educa-
24 Laws of Indiana, 1852, p. 504: "Such trustees shall estab- lish a normal department for instruction in the theory and practice of teaching, free of charge, of such young persons (male and female), residents of the state, as may desire to qualify themselves as teachers of common schools within the state, under such regulations as such board of trustees may make, in regard to admitting, (to) kind, and time of delivery of lecture in such department, and the granting of diplomas therein, and such regu- lations shall be incorporated in the annual report of the trustees to the General Assembly. Such trustees shall also appoint (estab- Ilsh) an agricultural department in such university, under proper regulations, which shall likewise be set forth in their annual report."
25 Catalog of 1853, p. 15:
"AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT
In this department are embraced natural philosophy and chemistry, both organic and inorganic, including an account of nutrition, growth, and respiration, in the vegetable and animal economy, and analyses of soils, and manures, ores, marls, &c., as connected with agriculture. The course also includes mineralogy, geology and botany.
SCHOOL OF THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL ENGINEERING
This school is connected with the mathematical and chemical departments. It proposes, besides the collegiate course in mathe- matics and natural philosophy, to afford instruction in the theory of roads, railroads, canals, and bridges, the laws of heat and steam, theory and construction of the steam engine, and topo- graphical surveying."
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tion.26 This donation was accepted by the General Assembly, March 6, 1865.27 A board of trustees was appointed to sell the land and carry out the bequest. It is not necessary here to detail the proceedings by which Purdue university was located at Lafayette. John Purdue's magnificent gift of over $200,000, the gift of a one hundred acre farm and a donation of $50,000 by Tippecanoe county added to the land grant, which netted about $200,000, enabled the board to start with over one-half million dollars. The school was opened, September 16, 1874, with thirty-nine students. Purdue university was at first divided into four schools: natural science, engineer- ing, agriculture, and military science. This school has completely dominated the field of technology in the state. Gradually, but steadily, as the state has awakened to its value, the work has been broadened and strengthened until it is one of the best schools in its field and one of the most aggressive agents of progress in the state.
The only competitor of Purdue in the field of technological training has been Rose Polytechnic in- stitute. This is a high grade institution, though it does not rank at present as a standard college. It was founded by Chauncey Rose, of Terre Haute, in 1874, and opened in that city nine years later. It is
26 United States Statutes at Large, 37th Congress, ch. CXXX : "The interest of which shall be Inviolably appropriated, by each state which may take and claim the benefit of this act to the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the me- chanie arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the states may respectively prescribe, In order to promote the liberal and practical education of the Industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life."
27 Laws of Indiana, 1865, ch. XLV.
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composed of three schools : mechanical engineering, civil engineering, and chemistry. It maintains a four year course.28
The building of railroads and the consequent en- largement of commercial activity in the fifties caused a demand not only for training in engineering but for commercial training. Corporations, banks, rail- roads, factories and all industries carried on with allied capital had need of systematic and accurate records. In 1857 Thomas J. Bryant and H. D. Strat- ton opened a commercial college in Chicago. They had at the time similar colleges in operation at Buf- falo and Albany and Cleveland. These were the well-known Bryant and Stratton institutions, one of which came to be established in each of the principal cities of the country.
It seems to have been about 1859 before one was opened in Indianapolis. Its advertisement is almost a fixture in the Indiana School Journal from that date. In 1856 Jeremiah Behm was conducting a commercial college in Evansville. According to the advertisement in the School Journal, it had been go- ing four years and getting better all the time. City Superintendent E. C. Cole, who visited it, said it was doing thorough work. The course of study included penmanship, bookkeeping, mercantile arithmetic, business correspondence, detection of counterfeits, political economy, science of accounts, agency, part- nership, bills and accounts and some actual business. The course required from ten to twenty weeks; the tuition was $25. Little change seems to have been made in this field since that time except the addition of shorthand and typewriting.
The natural sciences received scant attention by the colleges before 1860. There were two principal
28 Boone, History of Education in Indiana, 430.
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reasons for this. First and most important, the study of these sciences was associated with irreligion. The Darwinian theory was looked upon as directly contradictory to the Bible. Moreover, here in Indi- ana, the leading scientists were connected with New Harmony, reputed to be a welcome haven for infi- delity. Besides this, it was difficult and expensive to get men and apparatus to teach the experimental sciences.
Very little science, therefore, appears in the cur- riculums of the Indiana colleges before the Civil war. In the Indiana university catalog of 1843 it was an- nounced that civil engineering would be taught dur- ing the summer and that a laboratory had been erect- ed on the campus where lectures on chemistry and natural philosophy would be illustrated. These were especially recommended only to those looking for- ward to the medical profession. This was all that was offered till 1853 when the General Assembly or- dered an agricultural and an engineering depart- ment opened. A kind of hodge-podge mess was culled from all the fields of human knowledge for these courses.29 In what form or order it was presented
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