USA > Indiana > Vigo County > History of Vigo county, Indiana, with biographical selections > Part 54
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The able men who framed the first State constitution declared it the solemn duty of the legislature, as soon as circumstances might permit, to provide by law a general system of education, ascending in a regular gradation from township schools to a State university, wherein tuition shall be gratis and equally open to all. They di- rected that nearly all fines or assessments for neglect of duties by any citizen or official should go to the school fund.
Such were some of the advanced steps these framers of the funda- mental law of Indiana incorporated into the constitution of the new State, worthy, indeed, of making the name of every man who partici- pated therein immortal. These men were fresh from the great war for independence. Their immediate fathers had cast off the cruel tyrant's yoke and picked up the gauge of battle, placing their fortunes, honor and lives on the tremendous issue. They rebelled not against their
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country and its history and institutions, but against the individual, the king, the despot, whose chief ambition was to despoil them of every sacred human right, and the cry of " liberty or death " rang out over the land like the call of the archangel, and then came swiftly Lexington, and the shot was fired that was heard around the world. When our liberties had been so dearly won, the great and brave men naturally enough turned to their leader and " thrice did offer him the crown." But he who was 'incomparably greater than his age or time, had come to know that all men are born with "an equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." If he had known, could he have told them that a government for freemen is purely impersonal; that it has no existence except to aid them in founding those institutions that will remain for the equal, perma- nent good of all, the poorest and the weakest equally with the shrewdest and strongest, and that the basis of human happiness and welfare is the true education-that education alone that develops robust manhood, self-reliance and absolute liberty to every human being-could he have known and told them this, would not such marvelous wisdom have fallen upon dull ears, as men have to be pre- pared beforehand for great changes or great advances.
Thus in the history of the race for freedom men must make haste slowly, and this is equally true of education. We are now concentrating our attention too much on the hot-bed pressure of our schools for the education of the young in the not unnatural folly that all education is in the school-room and is over when the diploma is carried off. We believe the graduate is educated-the work done. This is something after the style of the ten-year-old little miss who in much distress exclaimed: "If my school and marriage were only over all my troubles would be at an end." If there are faults or fundamental mistakes in our young-life educa- tion, then it is very reasonable to say that the more we have of it the worse we are off. If in mature life the books we read bear no tendency to enlarge the mind and broaden and extend the view, then the chances are the more we read the less we are benefited, if we are not actually injured.
Men are now discussing with earnestness and great ability our systems of schools. It is not all men who are able to think for themselves who agree that we have perfected the great scheme and now nothing remains except to push it. We have free schools. Lest that term may be a little misleading, we have schools that are wholly supported by a public tax, where men are supposed to pay for the schools according to their wealth without regard to the num- ber of children they may have or whether any at all. They are State schools more properly-supported and controlled by the
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powers of the State. Then too the general government has a few schools, but these are mostly of a military or naval character. Private schools and religious schools and colleges and universities, some under religious organizations, and others under State and yet others that are legal corporations. Literary, medical, theological, military, industrial, scientific and classical, free and pay schools, sup- ported by patrons, by a public tax, by the wise benevolence of such great philanthropist as Peabody, etc., almost without limit and with- out number as well as kind and quality, that it would seem this age is truly the educational era. Even there are the white, negro and Indian schools, as well as of nearly every different nationality under the sun.
And the complaint goes up that the list of illiterates is rapidly increasing and States are passing tolerably stringent laws on the subject of compulsory education.
Well, it is the waters that are kept well stirred that remain fresh and pure. Just here as a part of the history of the cause of educa- tion in Vigo county, we are only concerned to see whether this generation has kept even pace in the great advance of this most important branch of life with that of the founders of the State and its institutions, and with those other branches of life and human progress.
January 9, 1821, a joint resolution was passed by the general assembly " to promote education." The preamble recited:
WHEREAS, The general assembly of the State of Indiana are [is] deeply im- pressed with the importance of knowledge and learning being diffused through the rising generation of the State of Indiana, therefore, Be it enacted, etc.
The act or resolution appointed a committee from leading men of several of the counties to draft and report to the next general assembly of this State, "a bill providing for a general system of education in a regular grade from the township schools," etc. And directing the governor to notify these gentlemen of their appoint- ment, and requesting their entering at once upon the discharge of the named duty.
January 2, 1819, the legislature passed an act containing the following proviso: "It shall be the duty of the different school teachers in every congressional township which has become incor- porated, on the said first Mondays in May and November in each and every year, to make out a certificate and swear or affirm to the same before some person authorized to administer oaths and affirma- tions of the number of scholars which have come to his said school since the previous return day, and hand the same to the treasurer and board of trustees aforesaid, which certificate or certificates shall govern the said treasurer and board of trustees in making the
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apportionment aforesaid." Then they inserted this very sensible provision: " No allowance shall be made for any scholar who is learning any other than the English language, or who does not reside in the proper congressional township."
In early times the settlers, as soon as there were enough in a neighborhood, would meet and agree upon the erection of a school- house and meeting-house combined. No subscriptions were taken up for either purpose, but the men all turned out, made a day of it, and by night the church and school would be completed, and then they looked out for a teacher, hoping to get one that could at least "read, write and cipher." In some localities this was placing the standard too high, and they would employ one who could go no farther than spelling and reading, but who was under the necessity of signing his name John "X" Smith. The most aristocratic were satisfied if the teacher could " cipher to the rule of three," while the youths might wonder how one small head could contain all he knew. The leading man in the neighborhood would " pass on the applicant for a school," and this was all the " certificate" needed. The school was made up by getting " signers," different prices being charged per month, dependent on the size or the advancement of the respective pupils. But the world was advanc- ing, and in time they came to teach by the singing method. This worked the best on geography, and the whole face of the earth was soon sung over in the night schools, all out of doors. Then came the writing master, generally another night school. What scream- ing eagles and flourishes he could make-marvelous man! But great and good as he was his fires paled before the "singing master "-he of the tuning fork and the "Old Missouri Harmony." Next to the stage driver he was the greatest man that ever rose, reigned and passed away. He always courted the belle of the neigh- borhood, and, for that matter, there was a general mixture of time and out-of-tune squawking and courting going on during the whole term. They imported the "square notes" in those days, and it was therefore much easier to tell whether a particular note in the music was either do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si-do or not. The great man married the belle, if she was getting a little old, and settled in the neighbor- hood as a "renter," if she was young enough she jilted him, and he went on his singing way to pastures new. All the schools of that day were subscription schools, payable by the month.
So far as the most ancient records throw any light on the subject, R. W. Gail was teaching school in Terre Haute in 1824. This fact is gleaned from Osborn's newspaper of that year, in which he adver- tised that he would be glad to receive "most kinds of produce in payment for tuition." It might have been possible in that day to
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have seen a well-grown youth on his way to the temple of learning with a sack of beans on his shoulder to pay his way. Some years ago a very ancient pioneer related that he paid the teacher in "warnuts" that he had gathered and packed on foot some miles from the walnut grove. But there was a "school master " here before Gail. This was James Thayer, and I am informed by Rev. W. M. Modesitt that he was the first to open a school in Terre Haute, or probably in the county. This gentleman extended his memory back in this line, and it produced the following remarkable fact: While the State at that time had nothing to do with educat- ing the children-paying no part of the tuition fees, and built no school-houses-in the face of the fact that no one was then rich and all were poor and struggling to make a start in the new country, yet there were no beggar children then as now, whose parents were so poor that they could not think of sending their children to the short chance terms of school then offered them. These primi- tive people had not then been taught to lean upon the State or the public to help them rear their young, or fit them for the struggle for life when they should go out from the parental roof-tree. Let this thought drop where it may, it is not wholly an idle one. The theory that the State is even more interested in the rising genera- tion than are the parents; that the State is stronger, wiser, and knows best, and can do best in shaping the young life, is rather a fascinating paternal-government conceit. But is there not another side to it after all? The value of true education is beyond price; beyond compare; the supreme thing in this life, but is this the reason that should compel intelligent men to accept, without ques- tion, the plausible theory that all education is a subject for the State to care for, pay for, and control? There were men here at the very beginning-before Vigo county was created even-as there are men here now, who gave their children all the advantages that the schools could give. There were a few, then, who had no apprecia- tion of any education, as there are people now, and who reared illiterates. But whether the comparative proportion was greater then than now, is only a guess. Is it a fact that the best people possible are the freest and most self-reliant people? What is true education ? Is the university graduate of necessity an educated person ? One of the early-day school teachers-he was more than that, as he may be called one of Terre Haute's foremost schoolmen- was Charles T. Noble. He not only was interested in the subject, but he interested others, and from the little early school he taught, lived to see the town grow into a noted place for its excellent schools.
July 4, 1827, patriotic men they were, Mr. Noble and Samuel
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Hedges published a joint card in the paper that is full of historic interest. Among other things, they said: "The subscribers, believing that schools in which youths are taught those branches that enable them to transact the customary business of life, are preferable to those Sunday-schools at which recitations of spiritual hymns and songs are the principle exercises, do hereby give notice that they will attend at C. T. Noble's school-room on Sundays of each week, and give instructions gratis in the branches usually taught in common schools, and in algebra. * * * Strict attention will be paid to scholars that may be entrusted to their care," etc.
In the latter years of his life Mr. Noble made a memorandum on the waste leaves of an old account book to this effect: "The first effort made in Terre Haute to erect a building for worship and school was by Judge A. Kinney, John F. Cruft, Elijah Tillotston, Moody Chamberlain, Thomas Houghton, Russell Ross, Enoch Dole, Mathew Stewart and John F. Cruft, who formed a joint stock company." This was put on foot in 1827. But little money was subscribed, one would subscribe so many days' work, hauling, brick- laying, or so many brick or lumber, or anything needed. The peo- ple literally all contributed their mite to this important building, and among Mr. Noble's papers is a bundle of old school-house re- ceipts. These are all in the writing of either Mr. Noble or Curtis Gilbert. In the list of stockholders are the heads of nearly every family.
It resulted in the building during the year 1827 of the old brick school-house on the northwest corner of Fifth and Walnut streets, now the Catholic Female Academy and church property. Judging ing by the date of the bills, it was not completed till 1831. Will- iam Ramage's bill for painting is dated June, 1831. This was the people's school truly, a proud monument to their devotion to the cause of education, and it placed Terre Haute in advance of the times.
From that first public school building the growth to our splen- did free-school system and many and splendid large brick school- houses was slow, but the advance was constant.
There were, in 1858, no " public schools." The following is a list of the private schools at that time: Old Seminary School, Sixth street, between Mulberry and Eagle streets; Female School, Mrs. Holmes, teacher; Classical High School, Moses Soule, teacher; Male and Female School, Miss Hersey, teacher; Male and Female School, Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, teachers; school, corner of Market and Oak streets; English and German schools, conducted by Ger- mans; Male and Female school (Sibleytown), Miss Trowbridge, teacher. A school-house had just been erected on the corner of Fourth and Mulberry streets.
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In 1831 the public funds provided for in the different sales of real estate had become sufficient to justify the steps that were then taken looking to the building and founding of a county seminary for the promotion of a higher education.
In September of that year the seminary trustees purchased of W. C. Linton, agent for the heirs of William and Joseph Montgom- ery, Out-lot No. 43, for the sum of $100, for seminary purposes.
By an act of the legislature June 12, 1852, to form a system of public free schools, the county commissioners, August, 4, 1853, authorized the treasurer, N. F. Cunningham, and auditor, Albert Lange, to proceed according to law and sell at the court house door at public sale, the seminary lot and building and the fixtures, situated on Out-lot 43, and to transfer the proceeds arising therefrom to the common-school fund. The property sold for $7,600 and the fixt- ures, $31.
The law of 1852 looked to the establishing of a permanent school fund in every county, Under this act, March, 1854, the re- port of the fund was as follows: Surplus fund, $11,268.10; con- gressional township fund, $39,877.23; bank tax fund, $1,125.19; saline land fund, $741.54; seminary, $181.74; sale of county sem- inary, $7,500; total, $60,693.70.
June, 1844, the county board contracted with William Naylor and William Wines to build the Vigo County Seminary. John King, Jacob Jones, Samuel Crawford, T. A. Madison and R. W. Thompson were appointed a building committee and to fill and grade the lot and receive the building. The seminary was on the ground where the normal now stands. It was owned by the city, and here the Terre Haute high schools were taught many years, and in this old school building many of the youths, now men and women of mid- dle age received their education and have bravely met the trials and struggles of life-many to triumphs, and the unfortunate few to defeat.
The First Graded Free School .- The first steps looking toward establishing a free graded school, independent of Harrison town- ship, may be dated January 21, 1853. At that time Moses Soule, Virgill J. Burnett, James Hook, Amory Kinney and Joseph Cooper, went before Squire Isaac M. Ray, and made oath that they faithfully discharge the duties of school trustees for the town of Terre Haute. The board being organized, it was voted to send the president there- of to Cincinnati and other cities where were graded schools to in- vestigate the subject and report. On March 8, following, the board met " at early candle light" and received the report of persons who had made the school enumeration. The report showed a population of school age as follows: Males, 615; females, 719; total, 1,324. A
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meeting was called to consider the question of levying a tax of 30 cents on $100, for school purposes. Then followed the pur- chase of the old seminary building by the city as related here- tofore.
August 25, 1853, the people voted to purchase the county sem- inary and levy the 30-cent tax, and the trustees proceeded in the business and at once engaged three teachers. But troubles came thick and fast to the board of trustees, enough indeed to make their official life a burden; injunctions and all other possible legal hindrances met them in their pathway. The work lingered. The records show the board paid a teacher $20 on account of the disap- pointments in not opening the schools in the spring. In the fall of 1853 the schools actually opened. The board purchased a dwelling on leased ground in the southern part of the city for the sum of $300. Two one-room houses were secured in the north part. This was the total of school-rooms in 1853. The seating capacity was about 250. September 12, 1853, the schools were opened with seven or eight teachers; this number was soon increased to twelve or thirteen. Total cost of school buildings in 1853-44 was $4,448. 31, and the salaries to teachers $33 to $41.50 for men. In August, 1854, the trustees suspended the schools till the first Monday in January, 1855, and agreed to rent the buildings (if applied for by suitable persons ) ; but they were not again opened at the time named.
Another act of the legislature, March 5, 1855, to better enable the establishment of free schools was passed; but there were no free schools taught during all this time. Injunctions were sued out, and the law was eventually decided by the supreme court to be unconstitutional, and thus matters remained until 1860. In the meantime the trustees proceeded to provide houses. A building was erected at the corner of Third and Oak streets (Ninth dis- trict) at a cost of $3,330. March 16, 1857, was commenced the erection of the building at the corner of Fourth and Mulberry streets; this cost, completed, $733.65. This was demolished in 1878 and rebuilt into its present form. During the time that the board could not open free schools they rented their buildings to parties to teach private schools. The houses were injured and the rents not generally paid. And to remedy this the board resolved to require renters to give security for rents as well as repairs. In 1858 rooms were offered J. H. Moore in House No. 1, containing four rooms, rent free for three months.
In 1860 dawned the new era for the free schools, and the trustees employed eighteen teachers for a five-month term; the total salary was $3,000, and rented such additional rooms as were necessary. There was then no school superintendent, and the trustees had to
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fill this part of the duties ex-officio. At this final effort was made to establish free schools. The buildings were the old seminary build- ing, which stood where is now the normal; the house in North Terre Haute of two rooms, the First district building and the one on the corner of Third and Oak streets.
In 1864 the 'Fourth district building was erected, one-half the capacity of the present, when the building in North Terre Haute was abandoned. In 1867 the buildings in the Second and Fifth districts were constructed, one-half the capacity of the present buildings. This year the county seminary was abandoned and became the normal grounds. The high school, which had been in the building at the corner of Fourth and Mulberry, was changed to rooms in the Normal Institute on its completion, where it remained until 1885, when it was removed to its present quarters-a magnifi- cent building on Seventh and Walnut streets, erected at a cost of $80,000, including the ground, $20,000.
In 1870 buildings were erected in the Third and Sixth districts, at the corner of Third and Farrington streets and at the corner of Twelfth and Ohio streets. In 1871 the Seventh district build- ing was built at the corner of Fourteenth and Second avenue. In 1876 this was replaced by the present building. In 1873 the Fourth district building was remodeled and its capacity doubled. In 1874 four rooms in the normal were leased for district school (Eleventh) and are now used. In 1875 the buildings in the Sec- ond and Fifth districts were rebuilt and their capacity doubled. This year the Mont Rose school building was purchased and became District No. 8, situated at the corner of Seventeenth and Franklin avenue. In 1876 the present building was erected in the place of the old frame mentioned above. In 1878 rebuilt the First district building in its present form. In 1886 the building at the corner of Thirteenth and Franklin avenue (colored) was built, and its capacity doubled in 1889. In 1886 leased a building for the Thirteenth district in the north part of the city, and in 1887 leased the build- ing at the corner of Eighth avenue for the Thirteenth district. In 1886 leased building on North Fourteenth for colored school. This was replaced in 1889 by a new building on the corner of Sixteenthi and Elm streets. The building on the corner of Second and Wil- son streets was leased in 1886, and this was replaced by the present building on the corner of Second and Crawford in 1889. In 1887 leased the ground on North Fifteentli street, which is the present primary school. The city owns ground near this on which it is intended to erect a building at an early day. The title has been secured for a building on the corner of Third and Seventh streets for a new building to be erected. The new building on the corner of Eighth and College streets is now being furnished.
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Total value of city school property is nearly $300,000. There are seventeen buildings ; total desks and sittings, 1889, being 5,519. This does not include all of the high-school building. One hundred and twenty teachers, of these 105 are women and fifteen are men; enrollment 5,012; expenses of teachers, 1889, $60,938.21; improve- ments for that time $16,067.16; current expenses $19,788.19.
The Terre Haute public library is a part of the school property, located at 7092 Wabash avenue. In 1889 it had 7,251 volumes; taken out, 42,791 books. This library was formed under the law author- izing a 2-cent tax on $100 for such purposes. It was started June 10, 1881. In May, 1882, they purchased a small library, paying $70 therefor.
School superintendents: William M. Ross, September 9, 1853, to July 4, 1854; James M. Moore, September 5, 1860, to March 17, 1862; Joseph W. Snow, September 1, 1862, to September 1, 1863; John M. Olcott, August 17, 1863, to September 4, 1869; William H. Wiley, September, 1869, serving continuously, is the present in- cumbent.
The trustees are appointed by the city council. At first for a term of one year, then two years and now three years. At this time they are allowed by the council a salary of $200. Sixty men have acted as trustees, many of them serving more than one term.
In the county, exclusive of the city of Terre Haute, there are 124 school buildings, distributed as follows:
Fayette township employes 13 teachers and has 11 buildings, two of these are brick and the others frame; 514 of school age.
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