USA > Ohio > History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I > Part 80
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THE FIRST PUBLIC SCHOOL-HOUSE
had meanwhile been erected, upon a site at the southwest corner of Walnut and Fifth streets, which had been bought of James Guthrie and Edward Shippen, for $2,100. In 1829-30 the building was put up, at a cost of about $7,500. It was of brick, three stories high, forty feet on Fifth by ninety-four on Walnut street, with the lower story of the front (on Walnut) consisting of four heavy brick pillars, connected by arches and surmounted with stuccoed columns reaching to a heavy cornice at the roof. It made a quite imposing front, and the building was doubtless, in Mr. Casseday's words, "an extremely credita- ble ornament to the city." The seating capacity of each floor-one for each department-was about two hundred and fifty pupils.
This building was put up, says Timothy Flint, in his History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley, in order to serve as "a kind of model school for a general system of free schools." Mr. Flint calls it "a noble edifice, taking into view its object."
In this pioneer public school-house the new school opened, under the Principals aforesaid, on the first Monday in September, 1830. Its cost the first year was $5,682, and three hundred and eighty pupils were enrolled, so that the building was far from full. Colonel Durrett continues:
They were required by the rules of the school to be at their books from 8 o'clock in the morning until 12 o'clock, and from 2 o'clock to 6 o'clock in the afternoon from Aprit to October, and from 9 o'clock in the morning until 12 o'clock, and from 2 o'clock until 4:50 in the afternoon from October to April. The holidays were every Saturday and Sunday; one week from Christmas to January 2d, the Fourth of July and Easter-day ; and the vacation was four weeks from August Ist to September Ist. No catechism was allowed in the school and no form of religious belief permitted to beinstilled into the pupils. The school-books used have long since gone
411
HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
out of date, but it will be interesting to the teachers and pupils of our day to know what were then used. The follow- ing is the list copied from a pamphlet account of the school, printed by Norwood & Palmer in 1830:
"Grammar department-First, reading, American first class-book and National reader; Second, spelling, Walker's dictionary, abridged; Third, English grammar, Kirkham's last edition ; Fourth, rhetoric, Blair's lectures, abridged ; Fifth, composition and dictation, red book ; Sixth, geog- raphy, ancient and modern, Woodbridge or Worcester ; Seventh, verbal and written arithmetic, Colburn's; Eighth, book-keeping ; Ninth, declamation ; Tenth, Whelpley's Com- pend of History, linear drawing, mathematics, as far as plane and spherical trigonometry and algebra.
Female department-Cards for alphabet, spelling and easy reading, Fowle's spelling book, Blair's reading exercises, in- troductory to National reader ; National reader and Ameri- can first class book ; Walker's dictionary, Smith's edition ; arithmetic, Colburn's first lessons and sequel ; Blair's lectures on rhetoric, abridged Worcester's edition; geography, Par- ley's first lessons, and Woodbridge ; Kirkham's grammar, last edition; writing.
Primary department-Alphabet, spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic as far as practicable."
LOUISVILLE COLLEGE.
The act of 1830, for the conveyance of one- half the property of Jefferson Seminary to the city, was "for the purpose of purchasing a suit- able lot and erecting a suitable building for a High School in the city of Louisville, which High School shall be open for the children of the citizens of Louisville, and for the children of all those who shall contribute to the taxes of said city, and may be supported out of the taxes of said city or from the joint aid of the taxes and tuition fees of the schools." The transfer was not regularly made for fourteen years, or until April 7, 1844 ; but by agreement of the city au- thorities and the Trustees of the Seminary, the building and a sufficient tract about it became the property of the city, and an academic school was organized in it under the ambitious name of Louisville College, with the following Faculty : Rev. B. F. Farnsworth, President and Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy and Politi- cal Economy ; John H. Harney, Professor of Mathematics, Natural Science, and Civil Engi- neering; James Brown, of Greek and Latin Languages and Literature, and Leonard Bliss, of Belles Lettres and History. Mr. Farnsworth was appointed tutor in the Preparatory Department, and two professors' chairs, that of Modern Lan- guages, and that of the History and Science of Commerce, Manufactures, Agriculture, and Me- chanical Arts, were not filled.
. An annual appropriation of $2,000 was made
for it, which, with the tuition, was expected to be sufficient for its maintenance.
There were seventy pupils in the College the first year. At this time seven free schools were also in existence-four for boys, taught respective- ly by Messrs. D. M. Gazley, S. M. Latimer, Joseph Toy, and Elijah Hyde, and three for girls, taught by Lucy Rogers, Lydia Rogers, and H. Cutler, with an assistant in each school. Samuel Dickinson was "School Agent" or Superintend- ent, with a salary of $800. Mr. Gazley, of the grammar school, was paid $900; the others, ladies and gentlemen alike-a very good sign for the period-received $750, except the assistants. Tuition was $1.50 per quarter, $2 in the gram- mar school. The number of pupils was some- thing over one thousand.
The "College" had a moderately successful existence of a decade, and then, in 1840, was regularly chartered. The corps of instruction was now thus organized : John H. Harney, Pres- ident and Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy; Noble Butler (recently deceased, after nearly a half-century's pedagogic service), Professor of Ancient Languages ; William H. Newton, Professor of Moral Philosophy, Rheto- ric, etc .; and L. Lewinski, Professor of French Language, etc.
In the same year Mr. James Harrison, the veteran Louisville native to whom we have so often alluded, carried a measure through the City Council for the free tuition in the College of thirty pupils, to be selected by competition from the grammar-schools of the city. A singular misunderstanding resulted from this well-meant scheme, which Colonel Durrett thus describes :
Some difficulty afterward arose as to the paying of the tuition fees of these free pupils, and in December, 1842, the treasurer of the college presented his bill to the city for $200 for one quarter's tuition, which was razeed down to $1 33. 3373. but finally paid the following March in city script at the rate of $40 per year for each pupil.
By a provision in the charter of the University of Louisville in 1846, the College was made the academical part of the University, so that, to this extent, the latter was the lineal representa- tive of the old Jefferson Seminary. The history of this department will be further noticed here- after in this chapter.
THE COMMON SCHOOLS AGAIN.
When Louisville College was incorporated, fourteen other public schools were going in the
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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
city. Two additional buildings had been opened in 1836, on Jefferson, between Floyd and Pres- ton, and at Grayson and Tenth. Each school in them was divided into boys' and girls' depart- ments. In the former Mr. S. R. Latimer and Mrs. M. Cutter were principals; in the latter Mr. J. G. Evans and Miss Lucy W. Rogers. The next year a primary was started in Portland, in a hired room, and the next another near Fergu- son's saw-mill. By 1840 three more of the kind had been opened-at Green and Eleventh, Wal- nut and First, and on Preston. Colonel Durrett furnishes the following table of the schools and teachers of 1840 :
Kind of School.
Location.
Names of Teachers.
Primary. . .
Portland ..
[ A. Lincoln and Mary Hoyl.
Primary. . .
Green and Eleventh
Mary Gillighan.
Grammar ..
Tenth, between Walnut and Grayson
S. W. Burlinghame.
Grammar .. Tenth, between Walnut and Grayson
J. H. Fairchild.
Grammar ..
Walnut and Fifth.
James McBurnie.
Grammar ..
Walnut and Fifth.
Martha Wilder.
Primary ..
Walnut and Fifth ..
Susan Lurton.
Primary. ..
Walnut and Fifth
Virginia Corlett.
Primary .. .
Walnut and First.
Miss F. D. Lecompl.
Grammar. Jefferson, between Floyd and
Preston
William Ruter.
Grammar .. [efferson, between Floyd and
Preston
S. S. Moren.
Primary .. .
Preston street.
L. E. Priest.
.
Primary ..
Ferguson's Mill.
James Minter.
Night ... .
Walnut and Fifth.
James McBurnie.
The total attendance in these schools was 1,297 ; average, 948. The Grammar-school Principal at Fifth and Walnut received $900 a year ; the School Agent $800 ; all other Princi- pals $750, and assistants $400.
May 27th of this year, the monitorial system and tuition fees were abolished by the Council, from the Ist of September following. In some cases, also, books were supplied to poor pupils at the cost of the city. Primary schools con- tinued to be opened from year to year, in differ- ent parts of the city, as needed ; and in 1845 fifteen primary and five grammar departments were open, with an aggregate altendance of 1,750 and average of 1,375. Teachers now were : In the grammar schools, Messrs. R. Morecraft, J. McBurnie, and J. M. Lincoln, and Miss Rodg- ers and Mrs. R. Low ; in the primary, G. D. Hooper, H. Murphy, J. Toy, G. W. West, R. T. Cosby, F. Seidt, H. A. Beach, J. Beaman, H. Storts, B. Lloyd, J. Rhodes, J. Chapin, Misses E. Harrison, M. Lecompt, and Gilligan, Three
new primary schools were added within the next five years.
Colonel Durrett gives the following sketch of educational affairs in the city in 1850:
The schools then opened at 8 o'clock in the morning from April to October, and at 9 the balance of the year. No pupil was admitted who had not been vaccinated, and the teachers were allowed to inflict corporal punishment when nothing milder would do. School was opened in the morning by reading a portion of Scripture, and the female schools always closed with singing. In the female departments every Wednesday afternoon was devoted to music and sewing.
SCHOOL BOOKS IN 1850.
In the grammar schools the following books and exercises were required: Writing; reading, with definitions, Good- rich's new series of readers; grammar, Butler's; spelling; arithmetic, Colburn's mental and Davies' written; geography, Mitchell's; composition; elements of geometry; book-keep- ing, by single and double entry; history, Goodrich's primary series; natural philosophy; algebra, Harney's; geometry.
In the primary schools the pupils were expected to be pre- pared to enter the grammar. A printed copy of the rules and regulations of the schools at this time gives the follow- ing as the qualification of pupils who had passed through the primary schools and were ready for the grammar: "They must be able to spell and define readily and correctly; to read in Goodrich's Fourth Reader fluently and understandingly, and to write a fair hand. They must be acquainted with the stops and marks and their use in reading; with the Ro- man numerals and common abbreviations; with the multipli- cation table and all the tables of weights and measures. They must understand perfectly Colburn's Mental Arithmetic through the tenth section, and in practical aritlimetic must have a thorough knowledge of numeration, addition, sub- traction, multiplication, and division. In geography they must be familiar with Mitchell's as far as through the ques- tions on the map of the United States."
THE CITY CHARTER OF 1851,
referring, in part, to the Louisville College, which had been merged in the University of Louisville, provided that "no fees for tuition shall ever be charged in said academical department of said University, in said High School for females, or in said public schools of Louisville." The free principle in education was thus again recognized and prescribed in important legislation. This charter furthermore, in Colonel Durrett's abridg- ment of its terms, placed the property of the public schools and their management in two trustees from each ward in the city, to be elected by the qualified voters of their respective wards, and provided that all free white children over six years of age should have equal rights of ad- mission in the schools. It required the opening of the academical department of the university in the building on the University square, which had been erected with the money arising from the sale of the old seminary property, the erect-
413
HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
ing of school-houses in each ward in the city, and in 1852 the establishment of a female high school in a central part of the city. To maugu- rate and maintain the public schools thus re- quired, the charter authorized the levying of a tax of not less than twelve and a half, nor more than twenty five cents on each hundred dollars' worth of property assessed in the city, and ap- propriated the city's portion of the State school fund, and all fines and forfeitures in the city courts, and all escheats of property in the city. And in addition to the funds that might arise from these sources, the city council was author- ized to pledge the credit of the city to the amount of $75,000 to enable the trustees to secure the necessary school-houses and inaugu rate the free school system provided for by the charter.
NEW SCHOOL-HOUSES.
In this year John H. Harney, formerly Presi- dent of the College, was President of the Board of Education, and Gabriel Johnston, Secretary. The school fund from all sources amounted in May to $16,502.53, and it was estimated that $75,- ooo would be needed for new school-houses in the several wards, as required by the charter, and $30,000 (reduced in July to $22,000), for cur- rent expenses of the schools. The old property at Fifth and Walnut, including the first of the public school-houses, was cut up into three par- cels and sold for $11,610.75, and three other properties for about $10,000 in all. Bonds to the amount of $75,000 were issued by the city January 1, 1853; and from all sources $107,- 506.85 were realized, with which three three- story brick buildings, 61 x 69 feet, were erected in 1852, in the Second, Fifth, and Tenth wards ; two more of similar height, but 60 x 93, the next year, in the Fourth and Ninth wards, with two two-story brick buildings, 46 x 59, in Montgom- ery street and in Portland, and a one-story brick, 25 × 44, in Shippingport. Colonel Durrett thus continues the annals of local school-house con- struction :
In 1857 a three-story brick, 60 x 90, was erected in the Seventh ward, on the corner of Fifth and York streets; in 1865 a three-story brick, 63 x 80, was erected on Duncan street; in 1866 two brick buildings, 64 x 81, three stories high, one in the First ward, on Cabell street, and the other in the Third ward, on Broadway; in 1867 one three-story brick, 54 x 87, on the corner of Madison and Seventeenth streets; in 1868 a four-story brick, '66x 77, on the corner of Walnut and Center; in 1870 one-story brick, 30 x 50, on Ful-
ton street, and a three-story brick, 54 x60, on Gray street, between First and Second; in 1871 a three-story brick, 54 x 87, on Main, between Jackson and Hancock, and an- other, 54 x 32, on the corner of Kentucky and Seventeenth streets; in 1872 a one-story wooden building, 20 x 4r, in Ger- mantown; and in 1873 the present Female High School, 78 x 146, four stories high, was erected on First, between Walnut and Chestnut. School-houses for colored children were afterwards erected, to be hereafter noticed.
The city raised for these buildings $100,000 in 1854, $120,000 in 1865, $80,000 in 1866, $100,000 in 1867, $50,000 in 1869, and $85,000 in 1870; total, $610,000. The school-tax grew from twelve and one-half cents on the $roo to thirty cents.
In a subsequent paragraph the Colonel brings the history of new school-houses down as fol- lows:
In addition to the school-houses heretofore named as hav- ing been built under the charter of 1870, one was erected in 1877 on Grayson street, between Twenty-second and Twenty- third, and another on Overhill street, between Broadway and Underhill, both first-class brick buildings, three stories high, and containing the average number of a dozen school-rooms each. The Second-ward building was also enlarged this year to double its original capacity, and now has twenty-four school-rooms, capable of accommodating twelve hundred pupils.
PROGRESS.
The Colonel furnishes a graphic sketch of the growth of the school system in the city under the first Board of Education :
The trustees under the charter of 1851 began with the five grammar schools and eighteen primaries inherited from their predecessors under the charter of 1828, and ended with four intermediate, fourteen district, and four branch schools, most of them in large buildings equal to several of those with which they started. They began with a registry of 4, 303 pupils, and closed with 13,593. They began with an annual income, fixed by taxation, equal to $3,850.80 from the State, and $12,651.73 from the city, making a total of $16,502.53; and they closed with $28, 520.48 from the State and $123,013.75 from the city, making a total of $151,539.23. They began with forty-three teachers and assistants, to whom was paid in the aggregate $16,050; they ended with two hundred and sixty-seven teachers and assistants, whose annual salaries ag- gregated $164,265.17. They began when there were only eight wards in the city, having a population of less than forty-five thousand; they ended with twelve wards and a pop- ulation of over one hundred thousand. During their term the teaching of German and object-teaching were introduced into the public schools, and a normal school had a temporary existence.
THE NORMAL SCHOOL.
A temporary school for training teachers was organized, as just noted, under the charter of 1851, and placed in charge of the well-known writer and lecturer on pedagogic topics, Professor William N. Hailman, afterwards Professor of
414
HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
Physical Science in the Boys' High School, and now at the head of the German-Ameri- can school in Detroit, Michigan. This earliest normal department here was not made perma- nent; but in 1870 a fresh report was made to the board in favor of such an arm of the work, to be opened in a house on Jefferson street, between Jackson and Hancock, and to consist of a train- ing-school proper, with intermediate and primary departments for exercise of the pupil-teachers, something after the old monitorial plan. The recommendation was adopted, and the school opened with a class of thirty, which by and by in- creased to fifty. The supply of young teachers thus far exceeding the local demand from year to year, the school was closed in 1878; but a smaller department of the kind, with a single teacher, is now maintained in the Girls' High School.
THE COLORED SCHOOLS.
The third and last charter adopted for the city March 3, 1870, contains the following section :
Neither the General Council of the city of Louisville nor Board of Trustees of said schools shall suffer children of the African race to become pupils of said schools with white chil- dren, and the said General Council and Board of Trustees shall keep as a separate fund the school tax levied by said city and paid by persons of the African race within said city, and shall apply and use said school fund or tax so paid by persons of the African race in the education of the children of the Afri- can race residing within said city or who pay a school tax in said city, and such fund to be used alone for the educational benefit of the children of said African race.
September 22 of the same year, Colonel John D. Pope, Chairman of the Committee on Col- ored Schools in the Board of Education, report- ed an accumulation of the fund for such schools in or due the treasury of the Board, to the amount of $4,828.85. The opening of three schools for colored children was therefore recom- mended-one in the African Methodist church on Center street, another in the Colored Baptist church on Fifth, and a third when a proper place could be found for it. The measure was adopt- ed, and schools were opened accordingly, with Susie Adams, E. C. Grece, and Ada Miller, teachers on Fifth street, and Sallie Adams, M. A. Morton, and John Arthur on Center. All were colored people, and received, the principals $40 a month, first assistants $30, and second as- sistants $25. Buildings have since been erected for similar schools at Sixth and Kentucky, Breck- nridge and Jackson, on Magazine, between Fif-
teenth and Sixteenth, Lytle and Twenty-eighth, and Pocahontas and Elm streets.
On the 5th of October, 1873, the Colored High School at the corner of Kentucky and Sixth streets was dedicated-the first building of the kind in the State. Many of the most promi- nent citizens of Louisville were present on the occasion. The building is of brick, in the American renaissance style ; three stories, with basement ; eleven commodious school-rooms, with six hundred sittings, and a chapel, 32 by 51 feet. Its cost was $25,000. The teachers and official visitors are generally selected from the colored population. There were now three other public colored schools in the city, with about one thousand pupils.
Our authority adds the following statistics and other facts:
The attendance of colored children in these schools the first year after they were inaugurated was 457 ; the second, 1,093; the third, 1,234 ; the fourth, 1,487, and so on, gradu- ally increasing until they now number 2,077. They are un- der the immediate control of the Committee of the Trustees on Colored Schools, who each year appoint seven colored visitors to assist them in looking to the interests of the schools. The principal of the Central School, corner of Sixth and Kentucky streets, gets a salary of $1,080 ; of the Eastern, corner of Breckinridge and Jackson, $900 ; of the Western, on Magazine, between Fifteenth and Sixteenth, $900. Teachers of the first grade get $500, second class as- sistants $450, third class $400, and fourth class $310. Dur- ing the last year J. M. Maxwell was Principal of the Central School, J. M. Ferguson of the Eastern, W. T. Peyton of the Western, E. E. Wood of the Lytle-street, and Mrs. J. Arthur of the Pocahontas-street school, all of them colored teachers. The houses which have been erected for these schools are in every respect equal to those built for the white schools, and they are given as good teachers of their own race and as ample facilities for acquiring an education as can be afforded. While the amount raised by taxation from colored people in the State was only $1,440.90 at the last re- port, the amount expended by the Trustees for colored schools in the city was $17, 183.30 for the payment of their teachers only.
The establishment of these schools in 1870 is held to put the finishing touch to the system of free public education in the city of Louisville.
THE HIGH SCHOOLS.
The Male and Female High Schools were both opened to students April 7, 1856. Prof. J. C. Spencer, of New York, was engaged as Principal of the latter, with Miss Laura Lucas as Assistant. He took charge in September of the same year, when Mr. M. W. Harney became teacher of ancient languages, and W. N. Hailman of the modern tongues. Subsequently Prof. William
415
HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.
F. Beach was Principal and teacher of mathe- matics.
At the opening of the high schools, sixty girls, all from the female grammar-schools, entered the one, and forty-two boys, likewise from the gram- mar schools, became members of the other.
There were this year 91 teachers-27 males, 64 females-in the public schools ; a total regis- tration of 6,066 pupils, of whom 4,159 were members at the end of the year, and 2,903 were examined ; and an expenditure for the schools of $46,668.20.
Vocal music was taught in the public schools in 1855-56, with Prof. Louis Tripp as the prin- cipal instructor, and Mr. John Harney assistant. It has since became a perinanent feature of pub- lic instruction here.
THE FEMALE HIGH SCHOOL.
In 1873 the new Female High School build- ing, a superb edifice on First Street, near Chest- nut, was completed. Its construction was under discussion by the School Board in 1870, and the next year the site of the old school-house was definitely fixed as the site of the new. It is con- sidered by the Louisville people, in the words of Colonel Lucas, compiler of a pamphlet on city affairs, as "the most complete structure of its kind and dimensions in this country, or perhaps in the world." He gives the following descrip- tion of it :
The main building is seventy-eight feet front by fifty-four feet six inches deep, and three stories in height, with a base- ment and mansard stories. The rear building is fifty-four feet six inches wide by seventy-eight feet long, with a semi- octagonal projection to the rear of this thirteen feet six inches wide by twenty-seven feet long. The basement story is eleven feet high in the clear, the principal story fourteen feet six inches high, second story fifteen feet six inches high, third story fourteen feet, and mansard story fourteen feet high. In the rear building the basement and principal stories are of an even height with the same stories in the main build ing, while the second story is occupied by the chapel, which is twenty feet high at the sides and thirty-five feet high in the center. The basement story is occupied by cloak and play- rooms, laboratories, steam-heating, fuel-rooms, etc.
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