History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 75

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942

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" I. The degree of Bachelor of Arts is conferred on students who complete the studies in the course of arts and pass the examinations in the same.

" II. The degree of Bachelor of Science is conferred on students who complete the studies in the course of science and pass the examinations in the same. This degree may be conferred also on students in special studies whenever the special work done shall be deemed by the faculty a full equivalent for the part of the scientific course which may have been omitted.

" III. The degree of Bachelor of Philosophy is conferred on students who complete the studies in the course of philosophy and pass the examinations in the same.

" No Bachelor's degree will be conferred on any person who may not have studied at least one year in this university.

"IV. (1) The degree of Master of Arts, Master of Science, or Master of Philosophy will be con- ferred on any student who shall have taken the cor- responding Bachelor's degree at this university, on the following conditions: (a) When such student shall have pursued a post-graduate course of study for one year under the direction of the faculty, have passed a satisfactory examination, and have presented an approved thesis on some one of the subjects chosen for examination ; or (b) When, after not less than three years from the time of receiving the Bachelor's degree, such student shall have given satisfactory evidence of having been engaged in some literary or professional pursuit, and shall present to the faculty an approved thesis on some subject of research. (2) Any of the above-named Master's degrees may be conferred on any person who may have taken the corresponding Bachelor's degree at any other institu- tion authorized by law to confer such degree, when he shall have given to the faculty satisfactory evi- dence of scholarship, have pursued a post-graduate course of study under the direction of the faculty, and have presented an approved thesis on some one of the subjects chosen for examination.

" V. The degree of Doctor of Philosophy will be conferred on graduates of this university or of any other institution authorized to confer Bachelor's de- grees, who, by special study in some department of science, literature, or philosophy, may have obtained eminence as original investigators, and shall present to the faculty a meritorious thesis based on such investigations.

" VI. The honorary degree of A.M. or LL.D. will be conferred occasionally on persons who, in addition to possessing fair scholarship, may have obtained eminence in some pursuit or profession."

In 1876 the university authorities determined to remove to the present location, ou the west side of the handsome suburban town of Irvington, where strong inducements were offered by the citizens, and the sale of the old site, then entirely surrounded by the busi- ness and residences of the city, and largely enhanced in money value, would help to place the institution firmly on its feet. New buildings were erected, a fine " Campus" laid out, and the work kept moving

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on steadily and successfully in spite of the change. Soon after the removal some of the trustccs sought to change the school into a more rigidly sectarian exclusiveness, and confine the tuition wholly to mem- bers of the Christian Church, the denomination which had originated and supported it, and which had rc- garded it as a denominational school. This so far succeeded as to force out two or three of the best- known professors, and would probably have made the institution wholly sectarian but for the interference of Mr. Butler, who saw, if its injudicious friends could not, that this was not the day, nor this the community, to turn back a liberal revolution to old- time bigotry and exclusiveness, and the mischievous action was reversed. But not without some ill effect lingering, and possibly not wholly lost yet. The old site, the gift of Mr. Butler, has been partially sold out in city lots ; but part has been retained, and, with the building, is now occupied by the City Orphan Asylum. The following is the faculty :

Harvey W. Everest, LL.D., president; Allen R. Benton, LL.D., William M. Thrasher, A.M., Cath- arine Merrill, A.M., Scott Butler, A.M., Oliver P. Hay, A.M., Hugh C. Garvin, A.M., Demarchus C. Brown, A.M., Virginia K. Allan, Letitia Laughlin, librarian.

Contemporaneously with the larger institution a German-English school was maintained for a number of years on East Maryland Street, east of Virginia Avenue, and several smaller schools of the same kind have been carried on in different parts of the city, and are still. Though German is now taught in the city schools, it does not serve the purpose of German children who have to be taught in the German language the use of English.

There are five Kindergartens in the city, all of the last three years. One is in the Riverside Chapel, corner of McCarty and Chadwick Streets ; one is at No. 134 West Ohio Street, under Miss Steiger; another is at No. 443 North Meridian, under Miss Jane M. Moore; the fourth is at No. 224 Broadway, under Miss Ella D. Oakes; the fifth at No. 456 North Meridian, Miss Alice Chapin, principal. There are two schools of the Sacred Heart, one for girls and one for boys, connected

with the Franciscan Convent, on Palmer Street, and besides these there are some ten other Catholic schools, of which an account is given by Rev. Father O'Don- noghue, in his statement of the Catholic institutions of the city. Schools, as intimated in the chapter on churches, are maintained in connection with the German Evangelical Lutheran Church on New Jer- sey Street, south of Merrill, and by one or two other German Lutheran Churches. The Indianapolis Classical School for Boys is carried on by Mr. T. L. Sewell on the northwest corner of North and Alabama Streets, and a similar school for girls is maintained by the same man at the southcast corner of St. Joseph and Pennsylvania Streets. A female seminary of high character, conducted by John H. Kappes and wife, on North Pennsylvania Street, till last summer, was given up by them to go to some remote Western region. Mr. Hadley, and Mr. Rob- erts at one time principal of the high school, have for some years maintained an academy of excellent repute, which seems to fill much the same place and need that the old seminary did. Colored schools are now mainly or wholly carried on in connection with the city school system.

The first Commercial School was opened here by Mr. William McK. Scott, who maintained it with moderate success for some years, and during about a year, in 1851, as noted in the general history, kept up a reading-room in connection with it, intending to make a library a part of the plan ; but the public would not sustain it. Since then there have been but few and brief intervals without a commercial college. Sometimes there have been two or three together. The oldest and best known was Bryant & Stratton's, which Mr. Bryant has recently revived after an absence from the city of several years. Mr. W. W. Granger also has a commercial school in effi- cient condition in the upper story of the Vance Block. Of law and medical schools an account is given in the chapters touching those topics. The only theological school is that, if it can be called so, offered by the post-graduate course of Butler Univer- sity. A serious if not strenuous effort was made to induce the Legislature to locate the Agricultural Col- lege here. The location was practically put up at

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auction, to raise means enough to create a competent endowment with the avails of the land-grant made by Congress, and Indianapolis bid high. The late James Johnson made a munificent offer of land west of the city, but within the township, and other offers were made with the obvious superiority of a central situation here; but Mr. Purdue offered a fine site and a liberal cash endowment, which were just what the college needed, for the honor of putting his name to it, and thus Indianapolis lost it. Attempts have been made, or rather discussed, to remove the State University here from Bloomington and to remove Asbury University here from Greencastle, but notb- ing more than talk ever came of either suggestion, or ever will, now that a disastrous fire in the State institution has failed to stir it, in spite of strong sug- gestions in the papers up about the capital ; and Asbury has been permanently and munificently en- dowed by Mr. De Pauw, the citizens of Greencastle, and the Methodists of Indiana, and has changed its name to that of its benefactor.

The City Schools .- The education of the city is so nearly absorbed by the free-school system that no apology need be made for tracing here the history of it fully and authentically in the official reports of the managers in 1866 :

" During the Legislative session of 1846-47, the first city charter, prepared by the late Hon. Oliver H. Smith, for the town of Indianapolis was intro- duced into the General Assembly. It would have passed without opposition as a matter of course and courtesy, had not a well-known member from this town, Mr. S. V. B. Noel, presented as an amendment Section 29, which provided that the City Council · should be instructed to lay off the city into suitable school districts, to provide by ordinance for school buildings, and the appointment of teachers and su- perintendents ; and, further, that the Council should be authorized to levy a tax for school purposes, of not exceeding one-eighth of one per centum of the assessment. The amendment met with a vigorous and determined opposition from several influential members, whose arguments carried weight; and the amendment was in peril, when a prudent and useful member, who advocated all sides on vexed questions,

moved to still further amend by providing that no tax should be levied unless so ordered by a vote of a majority of the town at the ensuing April election, when the ballots should be marked 'Free Schools' and ' No Free Schools.' The charter, thus amended, became a law.

" An animated contest ensued in the town, and at the first charter election the school question became the overshadowing issue. The opposition was thin and noisy. The friends of free schools were quiet, but resolute, and on the day of election were by no means sanguine of the result. A citizen, who was to a considerable degree a representative of the learning, jurisprudence, and capital of the town, the late vener- able and eminent Judge Blackford, was earnestly cheered as he openly voted a ballot indorsed ' Free Schools.' The cause of impartial education triumphed by an overwhelming majority.

" The population of Indianapolis was then about six thousand. City lots and building material were cheap and abundant ; but the valuation of property (for taxation) was low, and twelve and a half cents on a hundred dollars produced but a slender revenue. The proceeds of the tax were carefully husbanded, and economically invested, from time to time, in school lots and buildings. Lots were purchased and houses built in seven wards of the city, and teachers ap- pointed, who received their limited compensation from the patrons of the schools.

" For a period of six years the records show pay- ments made by the city treasurer for lots and buildings, but none for teachers' salaries. Previous to 1853 the schools were managed by trustees in each of the school districts into which the city was divided. The schools had no central head, and no organization out- side of the several districts. In January, 1853, the Council appointed Messrs. H. P. Coburn, Calvin Fletcher, and H. F. West the first board of trustees for the city schools. At their first meeting, March 18, 1853, they elected ten teachers for the city schools, and ordered that they receive two dollars and twenty- five cents a scholar for the term, to be paid by the parent or guardian. April 8, 1853, it was ordered that the Sixth Ward lot be graded. It is interesting to note that thirteen years elapsed before the grade

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was made. April 25, 1853, the first free schools were opened for a session of two months. On this date a code of rules and regulations, prepared and reported by Calvin Fletcher, was adopted. These rules were comprehensive and well matured, and constitute the basis of the code now in force in the schools. May 14, 1853, occurs the first record of the payment of salaries to teachers.

" From this time forward the receipts from city taxation and the State school fund by slow degrees increased, and the schools flourished and grew in favor with all good citizens. Early in 1855, Mr. Silas T. Bowen was appointed superintendent of the schools, with instructions to visit and spend a day in each school every month, and to meet the teachers every Saturday for review of the work done, instruction in teaching, and classification. His contract with the board called for about one-third of his time in the discharge of these and other duties. It is clear, from the arduous labor performed, that the schools got the best of this bargain.

" March 2, 1856, Mr. George B. Stone was ap- pointed superintendent. All his time was given to the schools, and they were conducted with vigor and success. The schools were fully and generously sus- tained by the public. The revenue, in great part de- rived from local taxation, was sufficient to sustain them prosperously during the full school year. But this period was of short duration. Early in 1858, the Supreme Court of the State decided that it was unconstitutional for cities and towns to levy and collect taxes for the payment of tuition. The effect was most disastrous. It deprived the city schools of the principal part of their revenue, and in spite of gen- crous efforts on the part of a portion of the public the free-school graded system, which had taken ten years to build up, was destroyed at a blow. The su- perintendent and many of the teachers emigrated to regions where schools were, like light and air, com- mon and free to all, with no constitutional restrictions or judicial decisions warring against the best interests of the people.

" Then commenced the dark age of the public schools. The school-houses were rented to such teachers as were willing, or able from, scant patronage,

to pay a small pittance for their use. The State fund was only sufficient to keep the schools open one feeble free quarter each year; and, in 1859, even this was omitted for want of money. (The schools remained in this crippled condition, improving hardly at all, till after the outbreak of the war. Then a new set of Supreme Court judges succeeded to that bench, and virtually reviewed and reversed the disastrous deci- sion.) The Legislature then made provision for more efficient and prosperous schools, and fuller taxation for their support.

" During the last five years (from 1861 to 1866) the schools have been rapidly gaining in length of term, and in general prosperity and usefulness. We cannot here give even a condensed statement of the successive steps by which this improvement has been accomplished. The schools during the last two years have been in session the usual school year of thirty- nine weeks. Considering the ten years required to develop an efficient system of schools, previous to the judicial blotting-out, and the slow growth of the nine subsequent years, it is hoped that no further disaster will occur to set them back another decade, but that they may go on increasing in strength and vigor, and each succeeding year be stronger and better than the last."

In April, 1854, an enumeration of the school pop- ulation was taken by order of the board of trustees. The number of persons in the city between the ages of five and twenty-one was found to be three thousand and fifty-three. The number enrolled in the schools was eleven hundred and sixty, with a daily average of eight hundred and one, all about evenly distributed among the seven wards into which the city was then divided. At the high school, conducted upon a rather low grade for lack of proficient pupils to go higher, were one hundred and fifteen children, in the old seminary, under the direction of Mr. E. P. Cole, who served at one thousand dollars a year.

The school fund fell off in June, 1858, after the decision of the Supreme Court, till the balance in the city treasury belonging to the schools was only twenty- eight dollars and ninety-eight cents. At that time Mr. Thomas J. Vater was employed to take care of the school property, a good deal of which was, or soon

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became, vacant from the paralysis of the system, and was often abused by the riotous occupancy of tramps, thieves, and strumpets. Mr. James Green was ap- pointed school director in September, 1858, at a salary of five hundred dollars a year when employed, and two hundred and fifty dollars in vacation. In term time he was to give half of his time to his school duties. In April, 1859, the school fund had accu- mulated to three thousand five hundred and forty- seven dollars for the current expenses of the schools, and in June the amount belonging to the tuition fund was three thousand three hundred and seventy-seven dollars. In order that the accumulation of means, in the crippled condition of resources made by the court, might be sufficient to maintain the schools ef- fectively when they were opened, the opening was put off till February, 1860, just two years after the calamity that had overtaken them. Teachers to the number of twenty-nine were appointed, at salaries from one hundred dollars down to fifty dollars a quarter. The high school, killed in 1858, was not resurrected till August 18, 1864.

In June, 1861, the first board of trustees, com- . posed of a representative of each ward elected by the voters of the ward, was organized. Previously three trustees had been elected by the Council. In 1865 the law was again changed and the trustees elected by the council till 1871, when a board of school com- missioners was created, each commissioner to repre- sent a school district. The first districts were the nine city wards, each ward making one; but the commissioners, being authorized to change the distriets when they deem it necessary, have made eleven. The commissioners hold office three years, and have com- · plete control of all taxes, revenues, outlays, buildings, teachers, libraries, apparatus, grounds, everything appertaining to the school system, but they must ac- count every year to the county board for their receipts and expenses.

At the close of the winter term, 1861, the schools remained closed till February, 1862, continuing in session then for twenty-two weeks. Professor George W. Hoss was appointed school director, to serve dur- ing the school term, giving one-half his time to the schools, at a salary of five hundred dollars per annum.

Twenty-nine teachers were appointed at the following rates of pay, being an increase on the previous sala- ries : Principals of grammar schools, one hundred and fifty dollars a term of eleven weeks ; assistants of same, seventy-five dollars. Principals of interme- diate departments, seventy-five to eighty-five dollars a term ; and teachers in the primary schools, fifty to sixty-eight dollars. The aggregate compensation of teachers for the two terms was four thousand six hun- dred and fifty-eight dollars. Miss Nebraska Cropsey, the present and for a number of years past superinten- dent of the primary department, first appears among the teachers in 1862. She has been in the schools twenty-two years continuously, and always most effi- ciently.

Owing to the pressure of taxation, by reason of the war of the Rebellion, the annual levy made in March, 1862, was reduced to three cents on each one hundred dollars valuation, and thirty cents on each poll. The same spring, by order of the trustees, shade-trees were planted on all the school property. In October of this year Professor Hoss was appointed superintendent. He was required to give one-fourth of his time to the schools for the quarterly pay of sixty-two dollars and fifty cents. The next term of the schools opened in November, 1862, with twenty-eight teachers. The salaries were fixed at the following prices for each day's services actually rendered : Principals of the grammar schools, two dollars and fifty cents per day ; assistants, one dollar ; principals of the First, Third, Fourth, Sixth, and Seventh Wards (one-story buildings), one dollar and twenty- five cents per day ; principals of the First, Second, Fifth, and Eighth Wards (two-story buildings), one dollar and fifty cents per day ; primary and secondary principals, one dollar and ten cents ; and all assistants, eighty-five cents a day. A few months later an in- crease of twenty per cent. on the above salaries was voted.

In the spring of 1863 the trustees levied a tax of fifteen cents on the one hundred dollars. The pay- roll of twenty-nine teachers for the quarter ending May 2, 1863, amounted to two thousand eight hun- dred and thirty-four dollars. On the 29th of Au- gust, 1864, the trustees, by resolution, defined at

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HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

length the duties of superintendent, fixed the salary at one thousand dollars a year, and elected to the position Professor A. C. Shortridge. The ineome arising from special taxation and the apportionment from the State tuition fund now rapidly increased, so that the schools, in spite of the rapid inerease of the number of pupils, were kept open during the usual school year of thirty-nine weeks. In August, 1864, the high school, which went down in the crash of 1858, was again organized in the school- house on the corner of Vermont and New Jersey Streets, and placed in charge of W. A. Bell, at a salary of nine hundred dollars a year. Mr. Bell was for some years presi- dent of the school board.

WILLIAM ALLEN BELL was born near Jefferson, Clinton Co., Ind., Jan. 30, 1833. His father, Nathaniel Bell, settled in Michigantown, in the same county, when young Bell was only six years of age, and the village and vicinity continued to be his home until he was twenty years old. His early education was ob- tained in the common school, and at the age of eighteen he taught his first

school of sixty-five days for one dollar per day and board himself. He likes to recall the inaugural address of Horace Mann upon

the opening of Antioch College at Yellow Springs, Ill., in 1853, at which time he entered the prepara- tory department of that institution, from which he was graduated in 1860 with a standing above the

own resources to defray the expenses of his college average of his class. Dependent entirely upon his

course, he met this necessary obstaele with a will to succeed by engaging in outside work and teaching during his vacations and in connection with his

CH. ABell

studies. Upon leaving college he went to Missis- sippi as a teacher, but the breaking out of the war caused his return the same year. In 1861 and 1862 he had charge of the schools at Williamsburg, Ind., and in the summer of 1863 he was chosen principal of the Second Ward school at Indianapolis. Upon the organization of the present city high school, in 1864, Mr. Bell was made its principal. In 1865 he was superintendent of the schools of Richmond, Ind., and the following year resumed the principalship of the Indianapolis high school at an increased salary, which position he filled ereditably until the close of the school-year 1871. During the last four years of this time he served as school examiner for Mar- ion County, and in the summer of 1870 visited Europe. On July 20, 1871, Mr. Bell married Miss Eliza C. Cannell, a woman of high literary attainments, a native of · Waterford, N. Y., who had efficiently served as first assistant teacher in the city high school for five years prior to her marriage.

In August, 1871, he became sole proprietor and editor of the Indiana School Journal, and has devoted his time and energies largely to its interests since, thereby increasing its size, improving its char- acter, and more than quadrupling its cireulation. Iu his hands the Journal has been a power for good, and Indiana teachers have reason to be proud of it. In 1873, Mr. Bell was president of the Indiana State Teachers' Association, and since 1873, over ten years, he has been a member of the Indianapolis School Board, of which time he has served seven consecu- tive years as its presiding officer. His praetieal knowledge of school work has made him a most val-

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uable member of the board, and his long gratuitous service cannot easily be repaid.

Since his connection with the Journal Mr. Bell has spent much time in traveling over the State doing school work, and his efficient school labors in teachers' institutes and lecturing tours have reached eighty-nine out of ninety-two counties in the State. His editorial writings are perspicuous, and have a remarkable adaptedness to his purpose and his read- ers, and have exerted a pronounced influence upon school legislation and methods. Whether in the school, the church, or in any other field of labor, Mr. Bell is known as a faithful and conscientious man, and his candor, earnestness, sociability, and high moral and Christian worth have won for him a large circle of friends.

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 75

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 942

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942