USA > Ohio > Ashland County > History of Ashland County, Ohio > Part 28
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The difficulties that today so persistently face our city superintendents may, perhaps, find solution in the careful study of the educational difficulties and differences of that older day. With this very interesting and important prob- lem we have, here, nothing to do. Before the state was admitted into the Union, schools were opened at Athens, perhaps the first in Ohio, based upon the charter issued by the territorial government between 1790 and 1800. When, in 1802, state government came into existence, this charter was repealed, and a charter issued by the new government, in 1804, fixing a state university at Athens. From this institution, the first college degree of A. B., granted in the northwest, was issued in 1815, to John Hunter and Thomas Ewing. Burton Academy at Burton in Cuyahoga county, so near as the writer can ascertain, was the first of, since then, nearly or altogether three hundred academies and seminaries that have flourished in our state and passed away. Of all these there are not likely
more than eight or ten in healthy condition today. We do not wish to more than note the fact of their existence; their history would fill volumes; but we do wish to emphasize the influence which these educational institutions of the second class exerted. through all classes of society, and over all social and civil interests.
Unlike the colleges, academie influence is chiefly local, reaching every class of society within the range of its patronage. With the colleges, they were, for more than fifty years, the only hope of anything worthy the name of intel- lectual culture. In many places in the state, from 1830 to 1840, graded schools were started. There was one high school opened in 1840, but until 1850, except in Cincinnati, graded schools, such as are now found in every village, were un- known. The graded course had no prominence until in the '60s. This very im- perfect sketch of Ohio's school condition at the beginning of, and up to the middle of the nineteenth century. shows the influence the academy exerted of state educa- tional interest ; further, that without the academy, Ohio's educational status could not be at all what it is today. The story of these academies told, as it should be. would be one of the most interesting and instructive chapters in our history. The character and personnel of the men engaged in the work; their equipment for that work : their environment ; the influence they exerted upon it; the results attained through the rude and meager resources at their command- all this would form one of the most pleasing and attractive views in our fast fading but picturesque past. Said one of the old leading southern Presbyterian divines to the writer a couple of years ago: "Had it not been for the small country academy of the south. the Confederacy could not have withstood the north a single year. They. really. furnished the army with such leaders as the Jacksons and the Johnstons. Hood. Bragg. etc. They officered the line and field. They supplied the people with their doctors. attorneys. their teachers. often their preachers. and were always a power for good. The character of the old south was framed and built in her old academies. How was it in this regard
HOOL, AUHLA
HIGH SCHOOL, ASHLAND
WALNUT ST. SCHOOL ASHLAND -O.
WALNUT STREET SCHOOL
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with you northern people ?" To answer the Doctor's query look back for a moment over the history of our glorious Buckeye state-its school and civil history. Dr. Waldon says "The character of the old south was framed and built in our old academies. They furnished our field and line."
Ohio has supplied, within fifty years, six presidents to the United States. It is the highest, the most powerful, the most honorable position in the world. Of these at least three owe the "framing and building" of their character directly to the academies of Ohio-all were cast in their mould. The greatest military leader of modern times; more than the peer of Gustavus Adolphus ; Turrene; Marlborough, Blutcher; Wellington; Von Moltke-Grant stands out upon the page of history, and will so stand for all time, a veritable thunderbolt of war; his two great lieutenants, Sherman and Sheridan, on the "'red blast of battle's lightning whirlwind," riding out to immortality-Ohio's academy boys. These three men in turn have won the highest military title known under our government. Their professional training was obtained in the military academy at West Point-their preparatory training in the eastern schools of Ohio. Of the nineteen major generals of the army of Ohio, thirteen were born and brought up under the same influences. Of the fifty-three brigadiers she supplied, forty- five were born and brought up under Ohio influence. Read over their names ; Grant; Sherman, the Ney; Sheridan, the Murat of American story; Custer ; Garfield; Buell; Hayes; Harrison; Stanley; the McCooks; Wetzel; the poet sol- dier, Wallace ; the Ewing brothers; what words shall we find strong enough with which to wreathe the name of Lincoln's leonine war secretary, Edwin M. Stanton ; to crown the head of his great treasure-finder, Jay Cook ? We need not con- tinue this Roll Call of Glory; to us they are household words, familiar and al- most as dear as the sacred terms "father" and "mother." It is a Roll great enough and grand enough to grace the "throne-room" of the proudest emperor. A roll of Glory for an Empire. Ohio wraps these names as a laurel chaplet im- mortal, round her queenly brows-her academy boys of sixty years ago. Her roll of statesmen; John Sherman; William Dennison; William Allen; William Mckinley ; John Brough; David Todd; Benjamin Wade; Joshua R. Giddings; Thurman ; Woods ; Mathews; Taft. Who at the Bar or in the Forum has ever
surpassed the incomparable Thomas Ewing ? When shall we hear again, equalled, the brilliant wit and entrancing eloquence of the immortal Thomas Corwin, a greater than whom, as wit or orator, the continent has not produced ? Who in absorbing intensity, on the stump, on the platform, or in the pulpit, the glorious preacher soldier W. H. Gibson ? Who shall more eloquently trace the
course of the starry galaxy than our professor General, O. M. Mitchell ?
Who
better translate the hieroglyphics traced by the finger of God in the shifting sands, or the mysterious history carved in the bosom of the rocks than our own Norton and Newberry. It is a son of Ohio who has harnessed the lightning. In Divinity ; in sculpture ; in painting; in literature, who are they to whom the children of Ohio, during all the first half of the nineteenth century, are not peer ? Yet these results incalculable in their force and sweep, are chiefly the fruits of a system that apparently has almost passed away-the academy and college of the past.
Of these academic institutions, Ashland county has had at least her full
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share. Within her limits she has liberally supported six of these institutions and during the greater part of their existence usually three were successfully supported at the same time. "Ashland Academy," founded in 1836, under the control of the late Lorin Andrews, gained a fame wide as it was deserved. When he resigned to assume the presidency of Kenyon College at Gambier, Ohio, the Academy was changed into the "Ashland High School" and until the pres- ent has been so maintained. The next academy established was the Savannah Academy, at Savannah, in a village in the northern part of the county. It was founded in 1858. After varying fortunes in the spring of 1865, Captain Elias Frauenfelter just returned from the army, was elected professor of mathe- matics and at once assumed his duties there. Under the influence of his inspiring enthusiasm the school almost immediately assumed a commanding and important character. In 1875, he resigned to take the chair of mathematics in Buchtel College, Akron, Ohio. This place, in a few years, he resigned to become superintendent of the Akron City schools, which place he filled with marked ability until his decease.
"Vermillion Institute" located at Hayesville, was first organized as a Bap- tist institution, but not proving satisfactory, it passed into the control of Wooster Presbytery. Dr. Diefendorf, then pastor of a church at Nashville, Ohio, was elected president of the school, and it soon became not only one of the most flourishing and successful denominational private schools in Ohio, but one of the largest and best Presbyterial schools in the country. Its term attend- ance sometimes reaching beyond six hundred students .. Dr. Diefendorf resigned in a few years, but the school not succeeding, he was reelected. Hẹ again resigned in 1868 to assume the presidency of Otto University at Nebraska City, Nebraska, and Professor John A. Simpson was by the Presbytery appointed his successor, but the institute not proving satisfactory under his care, he re- signed at the close of his second or third year, and his successors failing, in 1873, Dr. Diefendorf was recalled, but died before he succeeded in restoring it to its former reputation. Dr. Diefendorf may doubtless be regarded as one of the greatest educational forces of his day throughout this part of the state, though his rivals were such superb institutions as Oberlin, Kenyon and Dennison. His pupils were not limited to Ohio alone.
The old catalogue of "Vermillion" will show a strong clientage drawn from twelve or fifteen different states. Its influence is still widely felt, though thirty years have passed away since death called the Doctor from his work. It is likely there is not a county in Ohio, in which his "Boys" will not be found leading in their professions ; this influence reaches throughout the United States and extends into foreign lands. It would indeed be a pleasant task to record names of such men as Sheldon Jackson, the great modern apostle of the Indian; Hon. J. K. Cowan, late president of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad; Rev. D. K. Nesbit, D. D., late pastor of the First Congregational church, Peoria, Illinois ; Rev. M. N. Cornelius, D. D., late of the old South Presbyterian church, Washing- ton, D. C .; Rev. John H. Hartman, D. D., late pastor of Euclid Avenue Baptist church, Cleveland, Ohio .; Judge Thomas Beer of Bucyrus, Ohio-all men of much more that state wide reputation, and all of whom owe their uplift, their victorious enthusiasm, to his wise, sympathetic, inspiring care. Men, such as
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these, may be numbered by the score, running into the hundreds, who look back to the old Hayesville Academy-to Dr. Saunders Diefendorf, with inexpressible gratitude.
Before it be too late, another, more capable, than he who pens these defective broken lines, should record the honorable story of his great work.
Each of these three academy principals won more than state fame, by their ability, their attainments and their devotion to their high calling. Two of them, Professors Andrews and Frauenfelter, won positions somewhat commen- surate with their worth. Dr. Diefendorf died at his post.
Haskell Academy located at Loudonville, was built and generously devoted to the cause of education by the late N. Haskell, esquire, a public spirited banker of that enterprising little city. It had a very successful career while under the care of the late Dr. A. J. Scott, M. D., but after he resigned to follow in his chosen profession, the academy was closed,
We omit from this outline of Ashland county schools, special reference to the German Baptist College, located at Ashland. It is a most important member of this local group of institutions, showing healthy and vigorous growth, and giving flattering promise of future and continued usefulness. Its origin ; the course it has pursued within church lines; its educational influence has imparted to it a character of more than local or state interest. Within its own church organization, the college is, we believe, esteemed one of the chief educational forces at its command, and therefore passes the limit of our article. To its very able representative on the Advisory Board of this work, the Rev. A. I. Garber, we cheerfully and confidentially commend the full report of its history.
Green Town Academy, located at Perrysville, was one of the last of these school enterprises in Ashland county. We offer here the merest outlines of its history. Indeed to write the history of each one of the hundreds of Ohio academies is simply impossible. Their real history lies buried in the dust of quiet village graveyards-hidden away in hearts long since at rest. Parental love for "Little Jim, who was never contented except with his books." "Molly," "Bill," "Jenny"-gray haired grandsires and grandmothers now- the ceaseless longing, tugging at parental heart strings for broader and more generous opportunity for these than their present narrow limits and more nar- row surroundings could possibly afford-these were the resistlessly eloquent orators that officiated when the corner stones of these old academy buildings were laid.
We think it was this holy consecration of love that lifted these schools, so cramped and limited in means to such beneficient and far reaching influence, and to which the history of our great state, and of our incomparably broader national history, bears testimony. For several years before the enterprise in Perrysville was undertaken the need of a school of high character, which, at the same time should impart to the social life of the village healthful intellectual and moral impulse, was seriously felt. In September of 1865 a public meeting was called by T. W. Coulter, Esquire. By a previous careful canvass of the community, he had interested such sufficient number of citizens in the movement, as to warrant the opening of a select school for the coming winter; but before
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the appointed meeting Mr. Coulter died. He had, however, so aroused public spirit to the importance of the subject, that, at the meeting it was resolved to carry on the enterprise, and Miss Rosella Rice, Drs. J. W. Griffith and J. F. Johnston were appointed a committee to employ a teacher and secure a speaker to address a meeting set for the following October. Eugene Pardee of Wooster
was present and addressed the October meeting. Mr. James F. McCreedy of Hayesville, visiting with his sister, Mrs. J. F. Johnston, recommended J. C. Sample, at that time a student of Hayesville, for teacher. The opening of the school was set for the 14th of November, to be continued for a term of four months, and Mr. Sample was employed. The school opened at the appointed time with eleven students in attendance, but, during the term, forty-five names were enrolled. School was continued during the spring term. At a meeting of the citizens, shortly after the close of the spring term, a board of directors, constituted of Messrs. J. F. Johnston, J. W. Griffith, Judge John Taylor, A. N. Quick and S. B. Coulter, were elected and instructed to continue the school. The board organized by appointing Judge Taylor president and S. B. Coulter secretary and treasurer and Mr. Sample was employed for a period of two years at a salary of one thousand dollars per year. Through the two following years, 1867-68, the school grew rapidly in importance, enrolling at their close between seventy and eighty students per term.
At the close of the two years Mr. Sample resigned and G. W. Mays A. B., of Mahoning town, Pennsylvania, was chosen to succeed him. At the close of the year, Mr. Mays resigned, and Professor Sample was recalled to the principalship, and remained in charge until 1893, when he resigned in favor of Rev. E. Schultz of Hagerstown, Maryland. Rev. Schultz took charge, but at the end of the year he abandoned the school, and it was finally closed. The life of the school, thus passes over a period of thirty years. The greater portion of this time the yearly enrollment was from one hundred and fifty to two hundred students, as- suring a term attendance of from twenty to thirty for the winter term and often from seventy to one hundred for spring and fall. The school opened November 14, 1865, in the old Presbyterian church building, a house erected in 1836, but abandoned by the church to the school, in the spring of 1866. When Professor Sample resumed control in the fall of 1869, plans were prepared by the board looking to the erection of a building commensurate with the aims and character of the school. Elias Groff and A. N. Quick, the committee appointed to select a site, chose a block of five lots on the western limit of the village. Professor Sample purchased this location, and on it was erected the building at an approxi- mate cost of four thousand dollars. When Professor Sample resigned, the building was occupied by the Lutheran congregation of the village as their place of worship. After a service held in it on a November Sabbath in 1895. the building took fire and was totally consumed. The academy had completed its work.
During its existence between eight and nine hundred young men and women had come under its influence. The purpose of Professor Sample had been to establish and conduct a first class school of the second rank. He suc- ceeded. Students from Perrysville Academy entered a number of the strongest colleges of Ohio in the advanced years and maintained their places with honor.
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They also entered such eastern institutions as Lafayette at Easton, Pennsylvania, Harvard in Connecticut, Cornell in New York, with students from the best academies of the east, such as Philips Exeter Academy and Fort Edwards, and fairly divided the honors with their classmates. The college catalogue of Lafayette directly states: "Greentown Academy, located at Perrysville, Ashland county, Ohio, does work equal to the very best academies in the country." From among its own students were chosen the assistant teachers, "foreigners" being but twice employed.
W. H. Pritchard was teacher and assistant principal for years; C. C. Wolf and his brother N. M. Wolf were teachers in mathematics; A. A. Douglass, R. B. Rice, S. P. Baughman, S. F. Griffith, Miss Jennie E. Ayres, were valuable and efficient assistants along with others whose names we do not recall, all of whom in business or in the professions on which they entered have made honor- able mark. Of its assistant teachers, one died a full college professor. Two were academy principals; two have since served, each eight years as judges of court. One, after graduating at Harvard, died while serving his second term as county superintendent of schools for Brown county, Kansas. One, a graduate in the school of mining and engineering, Lafayette, Pennsylvania, has been for many years employed on government surveys in the west. Its students are honored members of all the professions. Among them, it numbers one college president; two foreign missionaries; seven ministers of the Gospel; from twenty-five to thirty attorneys; at least as many physicans; fourteen village and school principals; six judges of court; between four and five hundred of its young men and women have been or are school teachers, and how many have passed through college we cannot tell. Young men, from its class rooms, have, in this and neighboring counties, filled all the county offices from coroner and school examiner to the state legislature.
This purports to be a mere outline of the organization, the progress, the results of a single academy. At least eight thousand young men and women have come under the moulding influence of these five Ashland county institu- tions. Who shall measure this greater force. What an army must have passed out into society during the seventy-five years of the healthy existence of the three hundred Ohio academies to influence with their youthful enthusiasm and ambi- tion the advancing tide of civilization ! Again, who shall measure the effect.
ASHLAND COUNTY SCHOOLS.
Ashland county has from the first participated in the benefits arising from the liberal grants of land made for purposes of education within the limits of Ohio, and from the many acts passed by the general assembly to facilitate and direct the development of a uniform system of schools throughout the state. A more exhaustive history of these matters than is given in the preceding pages would not be profitable to the general reader; yet, as the foundation of all education in the state, no history of the schools of Ashland county should wholly overlook them.
Prior to 1821 the state had provided no common system of education, and,
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in the absence of authority to tax, schools were supported by the voluntary contributions of the people. Rude schoolhouses followed the erection of dwellings quite as rude, and no visions of the grander structures of the coming days wrought in the pupils' mind discontent with the mud-chinked cabin and its rough slab bench,-that glorious seat of learning !
Often the schoolhouse was delayed by the pressing needs of those who had yet to clear the way for Ohio's advancing civilization. The boy and his sire wrought side by side until a clearing was made, when the light of the school- master's face shone into it with a clear yet fitful ray, not quite so brilliant as those of the sun.
The teachers of Ashland county probably occupied a medial position, as to worth and intellect, between the Yankee teachers of the Western Reserve and those of southwestern Ohio. While the former were often men of culture, it is said of the latter that they "were selected more on account of their unfitness to perform manual labor than by reason of their intellectual worth," and were often "cripples, wornout old men, and women physically unable or constitution- ally too lazy to scotch hemp or spin flax." It was a common custom throughout the state to employ male teachers for a winter term and females for a summer term.
It was not to be expected that moral suasion would be a dominant instru- mentality in securing discipline in the earlier times, when the near forests supplied sprouts which seemed divinely appointed to meet the ends sought in any well-ordered school. "Hickory oil was known to be a good lubricator for the mental friction of a schoolboy, and its use in liberal quantities by the master or mistress was rarely the subject of complaint or criticism on the part of parents."
The teacher, as in other parts of the country, sometimes "boarded round," an ingenious way of converting tuition into sustenance without the intervention of any other circulatory medium than the schoolmaster himself, or schoolmistress, as the case might be.
To the average schoolmaster of this portion of Ohio, in the days when culti- vated intellects were as rare as cultivated fields, no words apply more fittingly, perhaps, than those of Goldsmith :
"Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way With blossomed furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school. A man severe he was, and stern to view ; I knew him well, and every truant knew. Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face ; Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee, At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned. Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught,
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The love he bore to learning was in fault. The village all declared how much he knew : 'Twas certain he could write and cipher too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, And e'en the story ran that he could gauge. In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still ;
While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew. But past is all his fame : the very spot
Where many a time he triumphed is forgot."
In these primitive schools Dilworth's, Webster's, and the United States spelling books were used; for reading books, the Bible, Testament, and the English reader. Some were so stupid as to think that any book they possessed would do for a school reader. Daboll's, Jess', and Tike's were the arithmetics used, all of which were superseded, about the year 1827, by the Western Calcu- lator. It and Kirkham's grammar were the standards in these branches for many years. In writing metallic pens were unknown; it was an important item for a teacher to make a good quill pen. This will soon be one of the lost arts. The writing exercises were first a straight mark between ruled lines, next a single curve, then a double curve, and the letters taken singly, beginning with "o" and following with the simpler ones. Large hand was first taught, and then small hand. The teachers made pens and set copy. For the latter quaint precepts were used : "A Man of Words, and not of Deeds, is like a Garden full of Weeds." "Command you may your Mind from Play." "Desire Wisdom from Experience," etc. Windows were made in the old schoolhouses by having the space between the logs cut wider and a narrow sash inserted. This was made to extend to nearly the whole length of one side. Before glass had become plenty, oiled paper was used in place of it. On it the roguish boys marked in letters and hieroglyphics some of the vulgar ideas that were uppermost in their minds.
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