Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 21

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I > Part 21

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In 1838 a State Common School Fund of $200,000 was established, made up from various sources .. This sum was to be annually raised and distributed among the various school districts, in addition to the income from the lands and to the local taxes for schools. This law marks the beginning of general State taxation for school purposes. In 1842 this fund was reduced to $150,000, in 1851 raised to $300,000 per annum, and in 1853 abolished.

In 1825 a law was passed levying in every county a uniform tax of one-half mill on the dollar for school purposes. This, too, was in addition to the local township and district taxes. The rate of this levy was modified at various times until 1853, when the whole system of general taxation for school purposes was revised. The township and district taxes were left unchanged, but all other laws providing revenue for schools by taxation were repealed, and in their place " for the purpose of affording the advantages of a free education to all the youth of this State" a "State Common School Fund " was established consisting of the pro- ceeds of a tax of two mills upon the dollar on all taxable property. These pro- ceeds were to be annually distributed to each county "in proportion to the enumeration of scholars." This tax has since 1871 consisted of one mill on the dollar, but the valuation of taxable property has so increased that the proceeds have not diminished. In 1887 the fund from this source amounted to $1,678,561.12.

Since 1827 fines for many petty offences have, when collected, been paid over to the township treasury for the use of common schools. In 1887 these and certain local license fees devoted to the same purpose aggregated $372,685.62.

The following table shows the growth of the educational system of the State

140

EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS IN OHIO.

during the last thirty years. Complete figures for earlier years are not ac- cessible.

OHIO.

1857.

1867.

1877.

1887.

Number of School-houses

9,795.

11,353.

11,916.

12,589.

Income from land grants . . Common School Fund (State Tax) .

$137,533 21

$221,800 10

$233,660 62

$242,636 76

Fines, licenses, etc.

1,070,767 72 96,086 57

1,409,403 50 208,660 92

1,528,278 86

1,678,561 12 372,685 62

Sale of bonds

328,609 52

494,011 12

Local (township and district) Taxes

530,353 19

3,019,055 72

5,569,972 96

7,445,399 02

Total income (excluding bal- ances from previous year).

$1,834,740 69 $4,858,920 24 $7,875,904 06

$10,233,293 64

Total youth between 6 and 21 Average fund per capita . .

838,037 $2 19

995,250 $4 88

1,025,635 $7 68

1,102,721 $9 28

Total children enrolled in Schools .

603,347

704,767

722,240

767,030

Average fund per child en- rolled

$3 04

$6 89

$10 90

$13 34

THE BEGINNING OF THE SCHOOLS.

Few records of the primitive schools of Ohio have been preserved. Nearly everything else of interest, and much that is not, of the doings of the pioneers have been faithfully recorded in various places, while little has been said of the schools.

Ohio was made up of settlers from various parts of the East. . They generally came in groups and located in groups, and the educational and religious character of each of these groups or villages depended mainly upon the previous training and habits of the pioneers. As this training had differed in different ones of the old States so the educational development of the settlements in Ohio differed widely, and these differences have not even to-day entirely disappeared. In set- tlements planted by New Englanders schools almost immediately sprang up, while in those made by pioneers from some of the central and southern States education received far less attention at the outset.

The records of the Ohio Company show that on March 5, 1788, a resolution was adopted by the directors to employ "for the education of the youth and the pro- motion of public worship among the first settlers," "an instructor eminent for literary accomplishments and the virtue of his character, who shall also superin- tend the first scholastic institutions and direct the manner of instruction." Under this resolution Rev. Daniel Story was employed, and began his services as preacher and teacher at Marietta in the spring of 1789. In July, 1790, the directors appro- priated $150 for the support of schools at Marietta, Belpre, and Waterford. Again in 1791 money was appropriated by the Ohio Company to assist in main- taining schools in the same places and "to engage teachers of such a character as shall be approved by the directors."

Hildreth says that "notwithstanding the poverty and privations of the inhab- itants of the garrison, schools were kept up for the instruction of their children in reading, writing, and arithmetic nearly all the time during the Indian war."

215,382 10

14!

EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS IN OHIO.

The funds were provided partly by the Ohio Company and partly from the lank pockets of the settlers. Among the early teachers at Marietta were Jonathan Baldwin, Mr. Curtis, and Dr. Jabez True. In Campus Martius, a school was kept "in the winter of 1789, in the northwest block-house, by Anselm Tupper, and every winter after by different teachers." Among them was Benjamin Slocomb.

At Belpre, one of the first things done was to provide for teaching the children reading, writing, and arithmetic. Bathsheba Rouse, in the summer of 1789, and for several subsequent summers, taught in Belpre. She was the first woman, and probably the first person, who taught a school of white children in Ohio. In the winters a man was hired to teach the school. Among the first teachers at Belpre were Daniel Mayo and Jonathan Baldwin, the former a Harvard graduate, the latter "a liberally educated man." These schools like those at Marietta were supported chiefly by the contributions of the settlers.

In 1793 and thereafter schools, especially in winter, were "kept" in Waterford. In 1792, at Columbia, the first settlement in Hamilton county, a few miles above the present site of Cincinnati, a school was opened by Francis Dunlevy. Burnet tells of a frame school-house, on the north side of Fourth street in Cincinnati, as occupied, though unfinished, in 1794 or 1795. In the Western Reserve the first permanent settlement was made in 1796 and schools were probably started very soon, though the writer can find no record of any prior to 1802, when one was opened in Harpersfield. Among its first teachers were Abraham Tappan and Elizabeth Harper. In Athens, where the first pioneer built his cabin in 1797, a school was started in 1801 with John Goldthwaite as teacher. The school build- ing was of logs and was used for many years. Walker relates the following inci- dent of Henry Bartlett, the second teacher of this school. "On one occasion, when the scholars undertook, according to a custom then prevalent, to bar the master out, and had made all very fast, Mr. Bartlett procured a roll of brimstone from the nearest house, climbed to the top of the school-house and dropped the brimstone down the open chimney into the fire; then, placing something over the chimney, he soon smoked the boys into an unconditional surrender."

The foregoing cases serve to show that in most of the communities a school followed close upon the beginning of the settlement. The pioneers in general lived up to the full spirit of the famous ordinance, not simply because it was law, but because they knew the benefits of schools and desired their children to enjoy them.

These schools were not public schools in any true sense, and not free schools in any sense. The land grants were not yet available and school taxes were un- known. The teacher made an agreement to " keep school " a certain length of time, and those who sent children agreed to pay from one to three dollars for each child sent. The school was in reality a private school. The building in which a pioneer school was conducted, if a separate building was used, was ex- tremely simple and uncomfortable. It was generally from fifteen to eighteen feet wide and twenty-four to twenty-eight feet long, and the eaves were about ten feet from the ground. Built of logs, its architecture was similar to that of the log- cabin of that day even to the "latch-string." The floor was of earth or of pun- cheons or smooth slabs. In the more elegant buildings the inside walls were covered with boards, but the more common coating was clay mortar. The fur- niture consisted principally of rude benches without backs made by splitting logs lengthwise into halves and mounting them, flat side up, on four legs or pins driven into the ground. Desks similarly though less clumsily made were some- times furnished to the " big boys and girls." The room, or at least one end of it, was heated from an immense fireplace. There was no blackboard, no apparatus of even the rudest description to assist the teacher in expounding the lessons.

Reading, spelling, writing and arithmetic constituted the course of study, and in some districts as late as 1825 a rule was in force prohibiting the teaching of any other branches. Text-books were few. Murray's "Reader," Dillworth's or Webster's "Speller," Pike's "Arithmetic" and the "Columbian Orator " were the usual outfit of the teacher, and each of the pupils generally had one or more of the books in the list. Reading and spelling were the great tests of learning, and to have mastered arithmetic was to have "acquired an education," at least in the smaller districts.

142

EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS IN OHIO.

While all honor should be paid to those who maintained and those who attended these schools, and all credit given for the results achieved, it has been truly said that "schools worthy of remembrance between 1802 and 1820 were known only in the most enterprising towns. The mass of the people had privi- leges in such 'common' institutions as might be expected among communities in which school-teachers were tolerated but were neither examined for qualifica- tion nor encouraged for merit."

In 1821 the law was passed, already referred to as the first one authorizing taxation for the support of schools. This law was, however, simply permissive, and not until 1825 was any law adopted requiring the levying of taxes for school purposes, and providing for the appointment of school examiners. With these laws the schools began to improve. Still, in 1837, twelve years later, there were few public schools in Ohio. Fortunately in the latter year provision was made for a state superintendent of schools, and Hon. Samuel Lewis was appointed to the office. His three years of service produced an immediate and permanent effect upon the schools. In 1838, as a result of his suggestions, a law was framed that placed the schools of Ohio on a sure footing. It provided for a uniform system of schools, with county superintendents and township inspectors, and the state superintendent at the head to enforce the law and look after the general interests of the schools. Other laws were adopted in later years that supple- mented and amplified this, and made possible the present efficient schools.

In 1825 began the system of examining teachers before they were employed, but as lato as 1838 the law only required that they should be examined in read- ing, writing and arithmetic. These requirements have been raised from time to time by the addition of other subjects, but while the great majority of the teach- ers in the State to-day are thoroughly competent, the requirements and the methods of examination still permit many poorly-equipped teachers to practice upon the boys and girls in the rural districts.

In 1845 the first teachers' institute was held and in 1848 a law was passed pro- viding for the appropriation of money in each county for the purpose of having such institutes conducted. They are now held annually in most of the counties and are a great help to the teachers and hence to the schools. A long and per- sistent attempt, beginning in 1817, has been made to have the State establish one or more normal schools for the training of teachers. For various reasons all attempts have thus far failed, though nearly if not quite every other State in the Union has found such schools not merely helpful but necessary to the proper equipment of teachers for the public schools. There are in the State several pri- vate normal schools which seek to give training to teachers. The majority of them are in reality academies affording a general academic education and paying more or less subordinate attention to the normal department.

In December, 1847, was organized the State Teachers' Association, which has held annual meetings from then to the present time. While a purely voluntary association of teachers, it has in many ways been influential in improving the tone of education in Ohio and in bringing about wise school legislation. Among its officers and members have been enrolled the best-known names in Ohio educa- tional circles.

GRADED SCHOOLS.

In the early schools of Ohio, as of every other State, all the pupils sat and recited in one room and to a single teacher, and any systematic gradation or classification was impossible even if proposed. The chief impediment was the lack of suitable and sufficient school-buildings. Where two or more schools existed within a village or city the pupils were divided geographically, not by grades, among the several schools. Pupils of all ages and degrees of advance- ment sat in the same room. The first systematic gradation and classification of pupils in Ohio was in Cincinnati, between 1836 and 1840, by virtue of a special law, dividing the city into districts and providing for a building in each district. In each building the pupils were separated into two grades, studying different subjects and grades of work. This was followed in a few years by the establish- ment of a Central High Schod. Ir Cleveland the first free school was estab- Issued la 1834, and in 1840 the schools were graded. Portsmouth, Daywiz

143

EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS IN OHIO.

Columbus, Maumee, Perrysburg and Zanesville soon, by special acts of the Legis- lature, organized graded schools. In each of these places provision was made for from two to four grades of pupils; but, except in Cincinnati, no definite course of study, such as exists everywhere to-day, was adopted for any of the grades until about 1850.

No sketch of the educational progress of Ohio would be worthy of notice that did not describe the Akron law, which when extended to the whole State estab- lished the present system of free graded schools. The Akron law, passed in 1847, organized the town of Akron into a single district and provided for the election of one board of six directors, who should have full control over all the schools in the town. It authorized the board to establish a number of primary schools and one central grammar school; to fix the terms of transfer from one to another ; to make and enforce all necessary rules; to employ and pay teachers ; to purchase apparatus; to determine and certify annually to the town council the amount of money necessary for school purposes ; to provide for the examina- tion of teachers. In 1848 the provisions of this law were extended to other incorporated towns and cities. In 1849 a general law was passed enabling any town of two hundred inhabitants to organize as under the Akron law; this last law provided for the establishment of "an adequate number" of primary schools " conveniently located ;" a school or schools of higher grade or grades; for the free admission of all white children ; and that the schools must be kept open not less than thirty-six weeks in each year.

Thus was the State provided with a system of free graded schools, under which there should be uniformity in grading and unity in management. "By the close of the year 1855," says Superintendent R. W. Stevenson, " the free graded system was permanently established, met with hearty approval, and received high com- mendation and support from an influential class of citizens who had been the enemies of any system of popular education supported at the expense of the State and by local taxation."

ACADEMIES AND HIGH SCHOOLS.

Public high schools were not known in Ohio before the middle of the century. Long before that, however, many private academies had been founded to furnish an education superior to that given by the district school. The few colleges founded in the first half of the century also maintained preparatory schools, which, doing work similar to that of the academy, bridged over the chasm between the ungraded school and the college proper.

The Constitution of 1802 provided for the establishment of academies and col- leges by corporations of individuals, and from that time until 1838 public senti- ment appears to have crystallized into the idea that private seminaries were the proper and only necessary means for attaining an education higher than that of the common school. There was apparently felt no public obligation to afford educational facilities, beyond instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic, and, later, grammar and geography.

Accordingly in many places academies were started, either as private enter- prises or under the general sanction and control of religious sects. In these academies, many of which did excellent work and furnished superior advantages for those days, most of the men who for the past generation have been promi- nent in Ohio either finished their "schooling" or obtained their preparation for college. With the rise of the public high school most of these academies closed their doors, though & few broadened their courses of study and entered upon collegiate instruction. The history of these academies and an account of the good done by them is one of the most interesting as well as the most neglected chapters of Ohio's educational growth. Without them and without the influence of the graduates they sent out, the establishment of a State system of education would have been long delayed.

According to the best accounts Burton Academy, incorporated in 1803, was the pioneer among these institutions. Close upon it followed the Dayton Academy, which enjoyed a useful and prosperous career until the establishment of the high school in that city. In Cincinnati Kinmont's Academy, Madison Institute.

144

EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS IN OHIO.

Locke's Academy, Pickets' Young Ladies' Academy and others flourished. At Chillicothe, Salem, Springfield, Gallipolis, Circleville, Steubenville, Columbus, Norwalk and other places successful academies were maintained. Few of them are to-day in existence, though about two hundred are known to have been founded within the State. In the latest report of the State Commissioner of Schools but fourteen academies are listed, and of these two are connected with colleges as preparatory schools. Thus thoroughly has the public high school supplanted the private academy.

From an early date in the history of the State the governors were far in advance of public sentiment on educational matters. Some of them recom- mended the seminaries to a more hearty popular support, while others with a truer conception of the duty of the State advocated the establishment of high schools, in which instruction should be free, in place of or in addition to these pri- vate seminaries which were obliged to charge large tuition fees in order to maintain themselves. It was not until the years from 1845 to 1850, however, that the first high schools were opened in Cincinnati and Columbus. The experiment was so immediately successful that such schools became, in the language of a close observer, "a recognized necessity to the existence of the common school sys- tem." Even before 1845 a few "higher" schools had been started in smaller places, under authority implied in the law of 1838. Among these, and probably the first high school in the State, was one at Maumee, started in 1843-4.

To-day a high school, supported by public funds as a part of the common school system, is to be found in nearly every town and village in the State. While many children are unwisely withdrawn from school by their parents just when they are ready to take up this broadening high-school work, still a large percentage of the youth of Ohio avail themselves of the advantages offered. Late reports of the educational department of the State show the existence of about three hundred high schools, and the number is yearly increasing.

COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.

Ohio is pre-eminently a community of many colleges, the reports showing that it possesses more institutions claiming the title of college or university than are contained within any other State of the Union. While abundant opportunities for obtaining a higher education are thus afforded, there is little doubt that this almost abnormal prolificness has been at the expense of strength and high de- velopment of many of the colleges. A sketch, first of the.colleges supported by national endowment and State aid, and then of the older of the private and de- nominational colleges follows.

OHIO UNIVERSITY .- The Ohio Company, in its contract with the government, obtained a gift of two townships for the endowment of a university, "to be applied to the intended object by the Legislature of the State." The townships of Alex- ander and Athens, in Athens county, were selected for that purpose. In 1802 the Territorial Legislature chartered the American Western University, located it in the town of Athens and gave it the two townships. No steps were taken dur- ing the territorial days to organize the university, and in 1804 the charter was repealed and provision made for the establishment of Ohio University at Athens. The lands were appraised and many of them immediately leased on ninety-year leases. A revaluation was to be made once in about every thirty years, and a rental of six per cent. of each valuation was to be paid annually. The next year the law was modified in some parts, but the revaluation clause was not touched. When the time for the first revaluation came the Legislature was prevailed upon by a strenuous lobby of the lessees to declare that the intention had been to repeal the revaluation clause. As a consequence of this unfortunately legal action of the General Assembly, two townships of land are to-day under perpetual lease at an average rental of about ten cents an acre, the total income from rents amounting to about $4,500 per year. The annual income of Michigan University from a grant of the same size and kind is over $38,000.

The university was opened for students in 1809 and the first class was grad- uated in 1815, consisting of Thomas Ewing and John Hunter. These men bore the first collegiate degrees ever conferred in the Northwest Territory. In 1822 a

145

EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS IN OHIO.

full faculty was organized, consisting of five men. At the outset the old time classical course was the only one laid down, with a preparatory department or academy to fit students to enter the freshman class. Within recent years a sci- entific course (a course without Greek or Latin) and a normal course have been added. The latter is, so far as known, the only provision ever made by the State for training teachers. The university has once been obliged to close its doors for a few years on account of financial embarrassment, but now seems destined to continue its long and honorable career of usefulness. It is a State University in that its trustees are appointed by the Governor, and its scanty income is occa -! - sionally increased by all-too-slender appropriations from the State treasury.

MIAMI UNIVERSITY .- Under the contract between John Cleves Symmes and Congress one township of land was donated by the latter for " an academy and other public schools and seminaries of learning." Knowing that but one insti- tution of learning at the most could be maintained by the income from a single township, the Legislature chartered Miami University in 1809 and made it the beneficiary of the grant. The same unwise policy, as in the case of Ohio Uni- versity, was adopted in disposing of the lands, and the institution has received an annual income of but $5,600 from the grant. The college was located at Oxford, Butler county, and was opened for students in 1824. While it has always been crippled by lack of funds and has twice been obliged to suspend for periods of ten or twelve years, its influence has been great and its history notable. Taking into account its size and its misfortunes, " few institutions have done better work or sent forth so large a proportion of graduates who have become eminent in the various walks of life." Probably, however, no other college in America has ever been obliged to print in any of its catalogues a notice similar to the fol- lowing: "Tuition and room-rent must invariably be paid in advance and no deduction or drawback is allowed; and if not paid by the student it is charged to the faculty, who are made responsible to the Board for it." Like Ohio Uni- versity, it is a semi-State institution, its trustees being selected by the Governor, and its starving treasury receives occasional pittances from the State. The Uni- versity was reopened in 1885 after a lapse of twelve years, and whether it will once more regain the position it once held among Ohio's colleges is a question not yet easily answered.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 21

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006