USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > History of the city of Cleveland : its settlement, rise and progress > Part 15
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34
17,054
1870
66
66
92,825
1880
160,141
1882
185,851
1883
194,684
1884
66
200,429
1885
205,446
1886
214,013
1887 Estimate of City Directory
239,226
1860
43,838
1881 Police Enumeration.
167,413
226
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
In the "Official List" will be found the names of all city and many county officials from 1836 to November, 1887. It has been thought proper, however, to give a list of mayors from the city charter to the present. They were as follows:
John Willey 1836-1837
Joshua Mills 1838-1839
Nicholas Dockstader 1840
John W. Allen
1841
Joshua Mills.
1842
Nelson Hayward.
1843
Samuel Starkweather
1844-1845
George Hoadley
1846
Josiah A. Harris.
1847
Lorenzo A. Kelsey
1848
Flavel W. Bingham.
1849
William Case
1850-1851
Abner C. Brownell
1852-1854
William B. Castle. 1855-1856
Samuel Starkweather 1857-1858
George B. Senter
1859-1860
Edward S. Flint.
1861
I. U. Masters
1862-1863
Herman Chapin
1864-1867
Stephen Buhrer.
1868-1871
F. W. Pelton.
1872-1873
Charles A. Otis 1873-1874
N. P. Payne
1875-1876
W. G. Rose 1877-1878 R. R. Herrick 1879-1882 John Farley 1883-1884
George W. Gardner 1885-1886
B. D. Babcock 1887
227
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
EDUCATION IN CLEVELAND.
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
N 7 0 feature of thecity of Cleveland is more typical of the city itself than the public schools. The present chap- ter as well as the present work, is but an expansion of the phrases that describe the three great periods into which the history of the city may be divided : SMALL BEGINNINGS, a LONG PERIOD of SLOW GROWTH, and a HALF CENTURY Of CONSTANT PROGRESS, culminating in large and fair propor- tions.
I .- BEFORE THE CHARTER, 1796-1836.
The men who began the Cleveland settlement brought with them not only their New England education, but also their New England ideas about education. So we are no way surprised when tradition tells us of a school of five pupils when there were but three families on the ground. Who taught this first school, and where, as well as its precise date, can now never be ascertained. Neither from history nor tradition do we hear any intima-
228
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
tion of any other school until the year 1814, when we find one taught by a Mr. Capman; a name and nothing more. Mrs. Abigail Wright, who died at an advanced age on the West Side in 1880, used to relate that, when a girl of sev- enteen, she came to Cleveland in 1815, on her way to Ridgeville, now Lorain County, she put up at the log cabin of a Mr. Shepard, whom she had known in Ver- mont. Shepard told her that the people of the village wanted a school; he and his wife counted up twenty chil- dren that would attend, and they urged her to stay and teach one. Some of the neighbors added their solicita- tions to Shepard's, and she was disposed to accept the invi- tation; but the proposition did not meet the views of her father, and she went on with him to her destination. No doubt there had been several "schools" before 1815, but of necessity they were small, of short duration, and irreg- ular.
The first public record relating to education now ex- tant, and probably the first one ever made, is an enact- ment of the Trustees of the village of the date of January 13, 1817, to the effect "that the several sums of money which were by individuals subscribed for the building of a school-house in said village shall be refunded to the sub- scribers, and that the corporation shall be the sole proprie- tor of the said school-house; which said subscribers shall be paid out of the treasury of the corporation at the end of three years from and after the thirteenth of June, 1817." Then follows a schedule of the subscribers, twenty-five in all, their subscriptions ranging from $2.50 to $20.00 each, and aggregating $198.70. Evidently the original purpose
229
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
was for the corporation and the subscribers to build the school-house together ; the latter had already paid in their money; but for some reason now unknown that plan was abandoned, and each of the two parties went on his own separate way. The Trustees now proceeded to build a school-house, the first ever built on the site of the city- an old-fashioned 24x30 school-house, just such a one as was once common in all the northern States, and just such as can be found in some parts of the country to-day -in a grove of oak trees on the lot now covered by the Kennard House, and facing St. Clair street. However, the schools taught in this house were practically private schools; the Trustees gave the rent to such teachers as were engaged from time to time, the teachers charging such tuition fees as were agreed upon, save in the cases of children who were unable to pay tuition, who attended free. How the Trustees contrived to build this house is a. mystery. The first mention of a school-tax in the legisla- tion of Ohio is found in the first general school law of the State, enacted in 1821, while it was not until 1838 that the law authorized a tax for the purchase of lots on which to erect school-houses. The village contained a popula- tion of two hundred and fifty in 1817; and it is nowise difficult to imagine what the schools taught in the St. Clair Street building were, especially if one has seen the pioneer or semi-pioneer schools of Ohio or other State. It was said in 1876 that several persons were still living who learned to read in this primitive school-house, and it is possible that some such are living to-day.
The subscribers who retired from the partnership with
230
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
the corporation, together with other citizens, not content with the village school, went on to build, also on St. Clair street, directly opposite the village school-house, a school- house of their own, called first the Cleveland Academy, and afterwards the Old Academy. This was completed in 1821, a brick building two stories in height, containing three or four school-rooms. The picture of this building, still extant, together with the traditionary descriptions, show the Academy to have been a structure of which a young Ohio village of three hundred or four hundred peo- ple, in 1821, not containing a single wealthy man, might well be proud. The teachers in the Academy were kept in their places by tuition fees. Mr. Harvey Rice was one of them. The village school and the Academy went on side by side a dozen years or more, citizens exercising their own choice as to the one that they patronized. All this time, too, or at least for much of it, there were various primary schools in different parts of the town, kept up, of course, at the private cost of those who used them. Apparently the corporation had exhausted its interest or power, or both interest and power, in building the humble school- house of 1817; at least, we hear nothing more of it in the educational field until 1830, when the Trustees repudiated a "supposed contract " for purchasing the Academy that had been entered into by some one representing or pre- tending to represent them, the ground of said reputation being that no corporation tax had been levied to pay either the principal or the interest that the purchase would incur.
Mr. S. H. Mather, in a communication to Mr. Freese,
231
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
found in his ' Early History of the Cleveland Public Schools', thus describes the origin of the first Cleveland free school :
"A Sunday-school was organized in the old Bethelchurch, probably in 1833 or 1834, a kind of mission or ragged school. The children, however, were found so ignorant that Sunday-school teaching, as such, was out of the question. The time of the teacher was obliged to be spent in teaching the children how to read. To remedy this difficulty and make the Sunday-school available, a day school was started. It was supported by voluntary contributions, and was a charity school in fact, to which none sent but the very poorest people."* This school was continued on this basis until the city, in 1836, assumed the charge of it and made it a city free school.
The foregoing is a meagre sketch of the educational work done in Cleveland down to 1836. But we urge in extenu- ation that the materials for a full sketch, even if we had space to use them, do not exist. If we had a full account of the schools and education of those years, the small part played by the corporation would be even more striking than it is here made to appear. However, we must re- member that, although the Legislature often conferred addi-
* A different account is given in 'Cleveland, Past and Present,' 1869, p. 257. "The first public school of Cleveland, the Cleveland Free school, was established in March, 1830, for the education of male and female children of every religious denomination and was supported by the city. It was held for years in the basement of the Bethel church, which was then a frame building measuring 30x40 feet, situated at the corner of Diamond street and Superior Street hill." From what sources this very particular account is drawn, we cannot say ; the one given in the text is found in the public school publications, and it rests on the direct testi- mony of Mr. Mather.
232
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
tional school powers on local authorities in the years be- tween 1821 and 1836, said powers were still exceedingly small as measured by the standard of to-day. The present State Commissioner of Common Schools, Honorable E. T. Tappan, says very appositely: "The laws previous to 1838, and to a less extent after that year, contemplated that a large portion of the district school expenses should be paid by voluntary contributions. It was made the duty of the district treasurer or directors to keep an account of such moneys, and they were held responsible for their proper expenditure."
II. - THE SCHOOLS ORGANIZED UNDER THE CHARTER OF 1836.
Cleveland became a city in April, 1836. Sections XIX to XXIV of the charter relate to common schools. The Common Council was authorized to levy a tax of not more than one mill on the dollar on the tax duplicate of the city for the purchase of school sites and building school-houses, and an additional mill for the support of a school in each of the three wards into which the city was divided, for a term not less than six months, accessible to all white chil- dren not under four years of age; the Council should fix by ordinance the commencement and termination of the school year, and determine the time and duration of vaca- tions; it should also appoint every year a board called the Board of Managers of Common Schools of the City of Cleveland, in which the detailed administration of school affairs should vest. This Board of Managers, for example, should makeregulations for the government of the school;
233
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
examine and employ teachers; fix the salaries of teachers, subject to the approval of the Council; make repairs on school-houses and furnish supplies, but subject to the con- sent of theCouncil when the repairs and supplies together for a school-house amounted to more than ten dollars a year, and should certify to the Council all expenses incurred in support of the schools. These were very meagre powers certainly, compared with those of the Cleveland School Board to-day. Hereit should be remarked that at no time, from that day to this, has any attention been paid, in ad- ministering the schools of Cleveland, to disabilities imposed by law upon colored children, whether by the charter of 1836 or other law; the schools have always been as open and free to colored children as to white children, and such a thing as a "colored " public school has never been known in the city. Furthermore, in 1848 all children less than six years of age were excluded from the schools of thecity by especial enactment of the Legislature.
It is clear that the charter contemplated a system of free public schools. In May the Mayor sent to the Common Council a communication in relation to the subject, and in June it was resolved, "that a committee be, and is hereby appointed, to employ a teacher and an assistant, to continue the free school to the end of the quarter, or until a school system for the city should be organized at the expense of the city." This "free school" was the charity school in the Bethel already mentioned. A few extracts from the proceedings of the Council will show the progress of events.
June 22, 1836, an ordinance for the levy and collec-
234
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
tion of a school tax was presented; September 22, fol- lowing, the report of Mr. Gazalay, the principal of the Bethel school, was submitted, showing an enrollment of two hundred and twenty-nine children the previous "quarter," and that the expenses of the school were $131.12; October 5 the Council appointed J. W. Willey, Anson Haydon, and Daniel Worley the first Board of School Managers; March 29, 1837, this Board reported that it had continued the common free school another "quarter" at an expense of $185.77, urging the need of a more liberal outlay for schools, and pressing the great need of school-houses; and in April following the second Board was appointed, Samuel Cowles, Samuel Williamson, and Phillip Battles. At this time the Bethel school was the only one belonging to the city, and the city did not own a single school building (for we hear no more of the house of 1817) or lot on which to build one As the pop- ulation of the city in 1836 was five thousand, and as the number of youth of legal school age was more than two thousand, it is not probable that the total attendance of children on schools of all sorts was less than eight hun- dred. It is, therefore, plain that the private primary schools and the Academy, were, in 1837, the main educa- tional reliance of the people. But in due time the Council passed a school ordinance which, as it is the first one of the kind in the history of the city, we quote entire :
An ordinance to provide for the establishment of Common Schools.
SECTION 1. Be it ordained by the City Council of the city of Cleveland, that the School Committee of the Council is hereby authorized to pro- cure, by lease, suitable buildings or rooms for the use of the city, to be
235
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
ccu pied as school-rooms, as hereinafter provided, under the authority ofthe city ; provided, that such buildings or rooms shall be appropriated by the Board of Managers of Common Schools. The expense of the lease of the same shall not exceed one-half the amount which the City Council is authorized to appropriate annually for the construction of buildings for school purposes.
Section 2. The School Committee of the Council is further authorized and instructed to provide, at the expense of thecity, the needful apparatus and furniture for the buildings or rooms thus provided, and the added expense of which shall not exceed the limits prescribed in the first section of this act.
Section 3. It is further ordained that the Board of Managers of Com- mon Schools in the city is hereby authorized to establish immediately, in the premises provided aforesaid, such schools of elementary education as to them shall seem necessary, and procure instructors for the same. The term or session of such schools shall commence on the 24th of July inst., and continue four months, to wit: till the 24th day of November next.
Section 4. It being provided that such schools are to be supplied from the revenue of the city set aside for such purposes, so that the ex. pense of tuition and fuel in said schools shall not be permitted to exceed said specified revenue.
Passed July 7th, 1837.
The Board of Managers proceeded at once to organize the schools and set them in motion under this ordinance. That was fifty years ago, and since that time the schools have fairly kept pace with the growth of the city.
The First Annual Report of the schools of Cleveland was madein April, 1838. It shows the following among other results: Three school districts; six schools the first term, and eight schools the second term ; a school year of about eight months; three male and five female teachers the second term, the first paid forty dollars per calendar month, and the second five dollars per week; eight hundred and
236
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
forty names on the registers, with an average attendance of four hundred and sixty-eight; alocal school levy of half a mill, and a total school income of $2,830; teachers' sala- ries, both terms, $1,509.44. The Managers say the boys and girls have been taught separately, save in the two "child's schools," or schools for the youngest scholars ; that the schools have been "inspected" and the teachers "ex- amined" as the charter requires; and that a census taken under their direction the previous October contains the names of 2,134 persons in the city between the ages of four and twenty-one. They state the possible school income for the next year at $4,300, which will support twelve dis- trict schools. Such a number of schools, they say, will accommodate an average of seven hundred and twenty pupils, which is a third of the whole number privileged to attend. Unfortunately, however, these anticipations for the ensuing year were not fully realized. The report for 1839 says "the common English branches of education" had been taught in all the schools, and that considerable progress had been made in the higher branches, as History, the Natural Sciences, etc., in some of them. It is plain that the Board construed the ordinance under which it acted, liberally, for that spoke only of an "elementary education." A programme that has been wafted down from the year 1840, shows that the History of the United States, Algebra, and Natural Philosophy were taught in addition to the common branches.
All this time the city did not own a single school-room, but in 1839 the Council bought the Academy on St. Clair street for six thousand dollars. The same year the Coun-
237
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
cil, in the face of strong opposition, began to build two school-houses, one on Prospect street and one on Rock- well street. The Prospect Street building is still used for school purposes, the oldest school-house in the city. These two buildings, completed in 1840, together with the Acad- emy, accommodated but twelve teachers and six hundred pupils, while the school statistics of that year show six- teen teachers and ten hundred and forty pupils. Of course, the city was still renting school-rooms. Some of the schools were ungraded, but at the principal buildings there were a Senior and a Primary department, each department having two schools, one for boys and one for girls. The programmes that have survived show much confusion in classification and in text-books. From 1840 to 1846 we know little of what was going on in the schools, but there was no doubt a steady expansion of the course of study and a steady improvement of the classification. Not a school-house built in that period is now standing; and such houses as were built, if any, were temporary structures.
In 1846 an important step forward was taken. George Hoadly, Esq., on assuming the duties of Mayor of the city in the spring of that year, earnestly recommended to the favorable consideration of the Council the propriety of establishing a school of a higher grade-an academic department-the scholars to be selected from the common schools according to merit. A resolution in conformity with this recommendation was adopted by the Council, rooms were rented in the basement of the building now occupied by the Homeopathic College on Prospect street,
238
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
then a church, and there the school went into operation July 13, 1846, with Andrew Freese as principal. This was a school for boys only, and eighty-three attended the first term. Girls were admitted the next year. At first the high school was strongly opposed, some of its enemies declaring that it was illegal, and some inexpedient. Most of the heavy tax-payers, while claiming to be in favor of free schools, were not willing, they said, to pay taxes to support high schools or colleges. The subject was much discussed in public meetings and in the press, as well as in the Council; but the matter was never settled until the winter of 1848-49, when a law was obtained from the Legislature authorizing and requiring the Council to main- tain a high school. The Council now made the school a permanent part of the city system, but kept it well down to the point of starvation for a number of years, during which the average yearly expenditure for that purpose was but nine hundred dollars, the average attendence of pupils, however, running all the time, from eighty to ninety. In time the opposition slackened and the ap- propriations became more liberal. The lot on which the building now occupied by the Board of Education and the Public Library stands was purchased for this school, and a cheap wooden building was put up for its temporary accommodation in 1852. The present building was com- pleted in 1856, and it was the home of the Central High School until all the high schools east of the river were con- solidated in the beautiful building on Willson avenue, in 1878. It is worthy of remark that this school, established in 1846, was the first free public high school in Ohio; for more
239
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
than forty years it has done an invaluable work for the youth of Cleveland, teaching thousands and graduating hundreds of pupils. The successive principals of this school have been Andrew Freese, E. E. White, W. S. Palmer, Theodore Sterling, W. A. C. Converse, S. G. Wil- liams, Z. P. Taylor and M. S. Campbell, the last of whom has now presided over it very successfully for four years.
This school is now one of the largest high schools in the country, employing about twenty-five teachers and enrolling, on any given day, about eight hundred pupils. In the following paragraphs the first principal gives this picture of the school in its infancy :
All the work of the school was done by two teachers up to the fall of 1852, when an additional assistant was employed. The course of study embraced all the branches usually taught in high schools, excepting the languages, which were not added till 1856. With so small a teaching force, it was, of course, impossible to cover the exercises in any regular order of classification. As a partial remedy for omissions and breaks, classes were heard out of school hours, sometimes assembling after tea in the evening.
The necessities of the school were pressing, and the efforts put forth by teachers and scholars to supply them in part were courageous. This much, at least, should be said. In prosecuting the study of Natural Sci- ence, some illustrative apparatus seemed indispensable. The boys of the school supplied it. They purchased a few pieces from time to time, until the collection was worth upwards of five hundred dollars. They earned it. They earned it by giving lectures, chiefly upon topics in chemistry, by doing small jobs in surveying, and occasionally they secured dona- tions of money from their friends. They purchased materials and laid up with their own hands a small brick laboratory, and finished it off com- plete for their use. There is scarcely a principle in mechanical philosophy that they did not illustrate by machinery of their own construction; in- deed, the same may be said of nearly every other branch of physical sci- ence. For two or three years they published a small monthly paper.
240
HISTORY OF CLEVELAND.
This yielded a good deal of fun and some money. It was useful, too, in other ways.
For many years the schools had no uniform course of study, and the classification was very imperfect. In 1848- 49 we come upon this scheme: Primary, Intermediate, Senior, and High schools, each divided into three classes. Some progress had also been made towards a uniformity of text-books. Until 1841 there had been no general supervision of the schools save such as the Managers gave, but in that year the Council created the office of Acting Manager of the Public Schools. This officer was a mem- ber of the Board, was its secretary; as Acting Manager his duties were to provide fuel and supplies, to look after the repairs, and to exercise a general oversight of the dis- cipline and instruction of the pupils. He was paid a small compensation for his services. Charles Bradburn was Acting Manager from 1841 to 1848; George Willey from 1848 to 1852; James Fitch from 1852 to 1853. These gentlemen were all actively engaged in business or in pro- fessions ; but Mr. Bradburn gave, it is said, one-fourth of his time to the work, and Mr. Willey, who left some re- ports that are still worth reading, paid to the schools so much attention that his law partner complained that the business of the firm suffered in consequence. More than this, the Council was in the habit of appointing Visiting Committees of citizens that visited the schools and made careful report to the Board. A resolution now lying before us thus defines the duties of these committees: "That the Visiting Committees be requested to visit the schools in their respective wards, in concert, at some time
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.