USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Memoirs of the Miami valley > Part 49
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At an earlier date, Judge Patrick Goode had taught in the Buckeye schoolhouse, which stood on the lot given by Mr. Starrett for school purposes. Rev. Maltbie also taught school, in a frame house situated one door west of the Sidney house of recent years, from 1843 to 1845.
The Sidney male and female academy was established about
* Occasionally spelled in earlier works "Cahoon."
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THE STORY OF SHELBY COUNTY
1843 by Rev. William McGookin,* in a brick house on Poplar street, the place serving the McGookins as a residence as well as school- house. The building was afterward remodeled into a hotel-the Union house-and is now the Hotel Metropole, operated by William Shine. The instructors in the academy were Mr. and Mrs. Mc- Gookin, Miss D. E. Bankroft, Miss M. R. Crowell, Miss M. A. Abbott, Mr. J. M. Lippincott and Mr. John Neal-the latter a teacher of vocal music. The young men's department provided an extended course of study where students might prepare to enter the junior year of any of the best colleges. The tuition was not exorbitant, and many pupils were enrolled, the figure of one hundred and fifty- four students being recorded in all departments, in 1849-50. This school, especially in its higher department, undoubtedly served an admirable purpose in the years that intervened between its estab- lishment and the opening of the Sidney union school in 1857. We find no mention of the date of its close, however, and conclude that its patronage fell away when the high school privileges were made free ; while several of its teachers had left it, previous to that event. Mrs. McGookin taught the primary classes in the institution, and was reputed to be severe to the point of cruelty in the discipline of young children ; notwithstanding which, the McGookin academy had its defenders to the last, among its pupils.
The Starrett school lot was "the east half of lot 105," and was destroyed or removed when the new Union school building was erected, the new and larger structure requiring the entire lot and also the contiguous lot on the north. The Buckeye school, as it had been called, was a free school, although some pupils paid tuition fees there. No child was refused admittance, and it was only because of insufficient school funds that tuition was accepted. During the period of building, from late in 1855 to January, 1857, the pupils formerly accommodated there were taken to the township school, which stood at the right of road near the point where Ohio avenue comes out on the Wapakoneta pike. The teachers there were Miss Crowell and Ben LeFevre-the latter very young, not more than seventeen. Mr. Hamlin Blake, who attended this school until the Union school was completed, remembers among his schoolmates there, Mary Nutt and Ed. Newton and H. John Nutt; the John Johnston children, the Allen Wells children, the Doering children, and, in fact, most of the town's children. Mr. Blake had previously attended a very select private school taught by Miss Jennie Murray, at the Murray family home on Miami avenue, at the north side of the alley, near the Presbyterian manse. The school was on the second floor of Miss Jennie's father's wood-turning plant, and though Miss Jennie sometimes had to go down and lubricate the machinery of the lathe to stop the creaking, the school was an excellent one, where not only the "three R's," but good morals and fine deportment were imparted. The Misses Murray were accomplished ladies, closely related to Gen. James Murray, one of Sidney's most talented sons.
* This name is remembered also as McGoogan.
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MEMOIRS OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
Another school contemporary with the academy, though of later establishment, was taught at the corner of Ohio and North streets, in a brick building which is still in use as a coal office, the north end accommodating the Kraft blacksmith shop. Two rooms in the second story were fitted up, for school purposes, by Mr. Paumpelle,* a native of Paris, France, who taught in one room, while Miss Crowell, formerly connected with the McGookin acad- emy, presided in the other. The first floor of the building was devoted to the manufacture of plows,; an industry which must have had quiet moments, else the sessions of the school were conducted under difficulties. Mr. Paumpelle was a cripple, as the result of injuries received in childhood, but was, nevertheless, a polished scholar and linguist, well trained in English, and an accomplished penman-also a very good teacher. Miss Crowell spent a long life as a local instructor, and is still remembered by the elder citizens of Sidney. There was great rivalry between the pupils of this school and those of the McGookin academy, and there are stories of old- time contests between the factions, which were fought out after school hours with snowballs or other missiles, the girls standing at safe distance to cheer the battling boys on in a fight which was never settled.
At the corner where the postoffice building was erected in 1917-18, a stove foundry stood in that old day of the two schools, in which the youngsters found much entertainment, and where, doubtless, some of the Sidney boys imbibed a working knowledge of and a liking for metal manufacture.
Dingmansburg and East Sidney maintained schools of their own until after the establishment of the Union school system in 1857. A small brick house at the foot of Orbison hill accommodated one of these, taught in 1848 by Albert Wilson (afterward Dr. Wilson), and later by Martha Crowell, until the opening of the Union school, Miss Emma Kelsey being a teacher there, also. Miss Crowell became Mrs. George Burgess, of Troy, Ohio, and Miss Kelsey married John Fry, of Bellefontaine.
The Catholic church parish opened a school in 1855, and have maintained a parochial school ever since, developing, as the times demanded, into a regularly organized graded school which conforms to public educational standards.
A state law passed in 1853 provided for the establishment of schools for colored children; but no separate school was built for them until 1878, and that was abandoned in 1895, as the "Black Laws" had been repealed in 1887.
It will be seen that only partial data concerning any of the early schools has been preserved, but enough is told to establish the fact that they were practical, if primitive, and that a general and reason- ably steady progress was made toward the standards of the present.
Philanthropic encouragement to public education was given from time to time, beginning with the Starrett school lot reserva- tion. William Covil, who came to Sidney from England, dying in
* Or Pampel. t The Kingseed shop.
-
.
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THE STORY OF SHELBY COUNTY
1842, bequeathed to the common schools of the village a piece of land, which, being leased for ninety-nine years, has ever since aug- mented the public funds for the maintenance of schools. Gideon Wright, who died in 1860, also bequeathed $500, to be invested for educational ends, a condition of the bequest being the grant of "one perpetual scholarship in the schools of the district, to the descend- ants of the said Wright." This will must have been framed a number of years previous to the death of the testator, who could not have realized when he wrote it, that the day of universal educa- tional privilege was so near at hand. For, after the passage of the school law of 1849, the graded free school system began to be agi- tated; and the first board of education, with six elected members, had built and opened the first Union school building while Mr. Wright was still living.
All this did not become a fact in a day, however. Public opinion in Sidney was by no means united, and even after the election of the board, stormy sessions were experienced by that body before all was decided upon in connection with the radical new move. . Not all at once could the standards of the older days be changed. We can only conjecture the corner store eloquence that supplemented the battles of the first board, and the arguments exchanged between self-elected leaders of public thought ; or imagine that the discussion pierced the locked doors of the lodges, and penetrated the gentle privacy of the ladies' sewing society meetings-while it is almost certain that it raged within the faculty of the academy, to whom the public high school spelled finis.
It meant, practically, the end of the era when little people learned the rudiments at mother's knee to escape the rigors of school discipline, and the relegation of the old sledge-hammer methods, of forcing knowledge into young and tender brains, to the rubbish heaps of the past, along with the antiquated text-books which were chosen by parents and teachers according to their own tastes or prejudices, or were forced upon them by the exigencies of pioneer bookstores. In the system decided upon by the board of education, primary learning, it is true, still began with the alphabet, the most abstruse entrance possible to select; but McGuffey's Series was a long cry from the gloomy shades of the "New England Primer," which had been a popular wedge into the realm of literature in earlier days. A mute relic of the pioneer infant's rocky road to learning has been preserved in a copy of the old book, edition of 1825. Surviving the difficulties of the alphabet and the dark valley of the "a, b, c's," the little student emerged into the half light of the old classic,
"In Adam's Fall We sinned, All;"
learned how
"A Dog will Bite A Thief at night,"
and that
"The idle Fool Is whipt at School."
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MEMOIRS OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
On through the pages the tiny thumb-nail woodcuts endeavored to beguile the infant with the assurance that
until the final fact,
"My Book and Heart Shall never part," "Zaccheus, He Did climb a Tree His Lord to see."
was mastered. After which was reached the well-earned diversion of the Westminster shorter catechism, the night of which is amelio- rated by the insertion, on the final page, of Dr. Isaac Watts' cradle hymn. Poor babes! Without that touch of human kindness at the end, what a dreary path it was up the Parnassus slope, even if the gentle hand of a mother guided the halting footsteps. The little thumbed and yellowed copy in question bears the inscription, in faded ink, "Eleanor I. Willson, Book bought in Xenia"; and little Eleanor Isabel has added her own printed signature to the fly leaf. Her book and heart shall never part, indeed, for the fluttering, tender, time-stained leaves are still telling the story of little hands that turned them, and innocent eyes that conned their sober pages -long ago closed when the student grew old and tired in life's long school, and went home to rest in God's acre.
What a great day it was in the village when the Union school, which had taken a full year to build, was finished at last, and dedi- cated to "the noblest service of the young." At a date when com- pulsory education had not been dreamed of, it spoke loudly for the esteem in which popular education was held by the majority, that a pioneer town should have been able to throw off the shackles of every-day drudgery necessary to make a town out of a wilderness, shake itself loose from prejudice, and plan and build a structure which then was far in advance of other towns of its size, and ac- counted one of the best in the state. There was equal eloquence in the fact that under these circumstances five hundred and twenty- nine pupils were on hand, eager to seize the enlarged educational advantages offered.
The old building is still in constant use, filled to capacity with the grandchildren of the little lads and lasses of 1857, but showing small traces of the passage of seventy-two years. It seems likely to stand at the old familiar corner, Miami and Poplar, until it reaches the century mark, and is today an upright, strong and creditable building.
There was not at first a regularly organized high school course, but advanced studies were introduced and taught as rapidly as students called for them, a four years' course being arranged within a few years.
The school opened early in January, 1857, with seven working departments,* Rev. Joseph Shaw occupying the position of first
*An ambitious student had the opportunity for more advanced study then than now, particularly in the classics. History, Latin and English were pursued much further than in the present high school course.
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THE STORY OF SHELBY COUNTY
superintendent, at a salary of $800 a year. The assisting teachers were: J. W. Driscoll, teacher of mathematics; Harriet H. Chapin, teacher of grammar department; Louise L. Knox, fifth department ; Mary A. Nettleton, fourth department; Hettie W. Paxon, third department; Mattie R. Crowell, second department; Minerva F. Arnett, first department; M. Eva Shaw, teacher of music.
Prof. Shaw served only two years, his unexpired time being filled by Ira W. Allen. W. H. Schuyler followed, being assisted by Mrs. Schuyler as teacher of Latin and German. The records of the school show that Jennie K. Cummins and John B. McPherson com- pleted the schedule of advanced studies in 1862, and Prof. Schuyler suggested a form of diploma, and appealed to the board for a recog- nition of these pupils, but from a lack, either of funds or enthusiasm, no diplomas were provided, and as a consequence the first graduates of Sidney high school were turned out into the world minus creden- tials. Several succeeding classes met the same treatment. In 1863, Miss Clara Conklin and W. Judkins Conklin closed a creditable four years' record ; and close upon them in the next five or six years came Lucinda Frazier (Mrs. Lu Horr), Byron W. Joslin, Hamlin Blake, B. F. Martin, Mr. Turner, Mr. Fielding, Mary Elizabeth Clauson (Mrs. Rebstock), Mr. Hutton and others, none of whom received diplomas, yet who finished the course, attended college, took degrees and honors, and filled, with or without sheepskins, positions of honor and responsibility all their lives. Miss Cummins herself became a member of the board of education in after years, and had a part in conferring diplomas no more deserved than those denied to the first classes. Judge John McPherson's reputation has for many a year shed honor on his native town from his high position in Philadelphia. Clara Conklin graduated from Delaware university, taught in Cor- nell college, Iowa, in Detroit high school, and lastly in her own alma mater, Delaware, where she occupied the chair of English for years preceding her death. Mrs. Horr (Lucinda Frazier) became a college graduate, and afterward taught, as did also Hamlin Blake, and others of the same class, being granted certificates upon exami- nation shortly after leaving school in 1864.
B. S. McFarland had become superintendent in 1863, S. S. Taylor succeeding him for the ensuing two years, after which N. L. Hanson, an able instructor and executive, served until 1868. W. L. Catlin next filled the position for one year, being followed by a succession of trials, among whom were J. M. Allen, H. T. Wheeler and J. D. Critchfield, of Mt. Vernon, A. S. Moore at last completing the year. Following this, Prof. Harper, George Turner and R. E. Page each served one year ; A. B. Cole, four years ; Van Baker, three years; J. N. Bearnes, three years ; P. W. Search, five years ; M. A. Yarnell, four years; J. L. Orr, one year ; and E. S. Cox, three years or more. Prof. Hard followed, being succeeded in 1902-3 by Herbert R. McVay.
Under Mr. Moore and Miss Clara Goldrick, in 1870, was gradu- ated the first class sent out from Sidney high school with formal honors. A manuscript history, written in intimate fashion and read at the first reunion of the high school alumni society (held in Monu-
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MEMOIRS OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
mental hall in 1878), by Miss Florence Conklin, describes this notable event with vivid humor.
The class consisted of eight members, whose aspirations were expressed in the sentiment, 1
"Through the vistas hope is building The path of life is seen."
The first number on the program was the class song, "Pulling hard against the stream," and the first heart to palpitate at being called to the ordeal of delivering a graduation essay was Miss Ella Carey (Mrs. John Henry, Indianapolis) ; the others being Miss Alice Conklin (Mrs. R. O. Bingham), Miss Anna Duncan (Mrs. John Mccullough), Miss Kate Vogel (Mrs. Dr. Stipp), Edward A. Steeley (a practicing physician of Shelby county), and David Oldham, long known as one of the most astute lawyers of the Shelby county bar, and distinguished for his business sagacity. Mr. Oldham received the first diploma delivered by the president of the board.
May 31, 1872, the high school graduated a rather remarkable class of twelve members, ten of whom became teachers within a very few years, and one of whom became a bride within a very few weeks. Several of them are still prominent members of Sidney society, and two or more are still counted among Sidney's best teachers. The commencement took place in Union hall, a large building similar to the Thompson building at the corner of Ohio and Poplar, which occupied the sites of the First National Exchange bank and the Deweese building, on the north side of the public square. The strength of the hall was so severely strained on the occasion that a second commencement was never held there.
In 1873, under the superintendence of Prof. Page, the com- mencement exercises were held in the United Presbyterian church on the south side of the public square (an edifice afterward torn down to make way for the Daily News building.)
The class of '75 was the first to make use of the Opera house (in the O. J. Taylor building at the corner of Main and Poplar) for the graduation. Subsequent to 1875-6-7, the commencements were held in Monumental hall until that location was permanently rented to the Odd Fellows, about 1897 ; since which the churches have been the scene of graduations until the new high school auditorium pro- vided a better and more suitable place. So many of the classes following the first are still familiar figures in society and business, that it is impossible and needless to recite them all; and it is suffi- cient to say that the output of the Sidney high school has been sin- gularly creditable to the institution and to themselves. Not all of the high aspirations uttered on the platform by the graduates and echoed in the hearts of waiting underclass students, have been real- ized ; but, successful or no, the lives of them all have been better for the glowing hopes they cherished. The world's criterion of success is, for that matter, not final ; in the Higher Tribunal aspirations will be weighed.
In 1880 was built the first of the ward schools, to relieve the over-crowded condition of the central building. The new school-
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THE STORY OF SHELBY COUNTY
house contained two rooms, which were first taught by Mrs. Lottie Throp and Miss Clara Epler (now Mrs. William A. Perry). The building, still in use, stands at the corner of South Main and Clay streets. In 1883 the increase of attendance called for additional teachers and the removal of the eleventh and twelfth grades from the Central school to rooms located respectively in the Piper building on the east side of the public square, and in the second floor of the Monumental building, where the east end was partitioned off from the apartments then devoted to the G. A. R. post. The building of the second and third ward schools relieved the conditions at the Central school after a few years, and the high school classes were again accommodated there for a term of years. The second ward school was first opened in a little white brick house, where Mrs. Lottie Throp taught for a year or two, moving temporarily to "the wigwam," a wooden shack thrown up to serve while a new building was erected on the site of the little white brick. Again the school system threatened to burst its jacket, and the fourth ward building, just completed, became for four or five years the headquarters of the Sidney high school, a temporary wooden structure, popularly called "the barn," being added to the accommodations.
It took some time to convince Sidney that a new high school building was imperatively needed, and the great street demonstra- tion in which the entire school enrollment and their teachers took a part and which rather dramatically brought out the facts of the situation, should be a matter of historical record, for by that, as much as anything, all Sidney was awakened to a realization that it was growing up.
Growth, however, is not signified alone by figures, in regard to Sidney schools, but to the development of modern educational methods and departments of study and division of courses in re- sponse to the general progress of education.
The new Sidney high school building, which stands on the site of the old Presbyterian burying ground, east of the church, is ex- ponent of the most modern ideas in school construction. It is ample ; it is substantial; it is fire-proof. If the new temple of learning is thought too utilitarian to appeal to the art sense of many observers, it is undeniably well set, the site, overlooking the Miami river, beyond the bottom levels, and the fine hills across the stream, being sufficiently elevated to relieve the otherwise "squat" effect of its architecture.
There were many who objected to the use of this site, to which public attention was directed on account of the disuse of the ceme- tery and its contemplated removal to Graceland, upon the very reasonable ground that a high school should be placed away from the center of population of the town, and preferably far enough out to provide ample athletic fields and room for expansion of the build- ing itself. However, these were overborne. The low river flats east of the cemetery, occupied up to a few years ago by a row of abject and depressing tenement houses, the old plow works, the long disused city gas reservoir, and the junk dump of Jacob Solomon, beckoned the school authorities with the promise of the athletic field without which critics could not be answered. There were the
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MEMOIRS OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
usual difficulties in the way, but through the generosity of Mrs. Julia E. Lamb, the land whereon the tenements stood was purchased, her gift amounting to $7,500.00 in money, but also giving the impetus of hope and courage that raised enough more to complete the work, which has cost, to date, about fifteen thousand dollars. This addi- tional money was raised in various ways-entertainments by the school children, penny offerings, public moneys to the extent of two thousand dollars, a gift of one thousand dollars from Mr. William E. Harmon, and several smaller gifts. It would be too much to expect that all this could be done without some criticism and some grumbling, and several pauses. But the object was accomplished at last, and has been performing its beneficent purpose for three or four years, each of which has seen some decided steps taken toward completion of the equipment of playground and athletic field. Two fine tennis courts are located at the rear of the building, as well as the ground especially allotted to the little people, which is equipped with all the attractive apparatus for children that can be accommo- dated, the spot furnishing an ideal place for safe amusement of children during the summer months, under the supervision of com- petent attendants.
The athletic field, upon which so much work has been expended, to clear it from the waste and dangerous debris accumulated through a half century of dumping, affords a cinder running track of one quarter mile extent, tennis courts, a football gridiron, and a base- ball diamond. The terraced slope from the upper level to the field provides a natural amphitheatre which may some day be developed into a concrete stadium. The river bed opposite the building has been reclaimed for a swimming ground, and the sum of five hundred dollars has been expended in clearing and improving it to make it safe and available for a bathing beach. It has the advantage of water uncontaminated by any sewage. The school building, a model for its capacity and cost, has a fine auditorium seating about eight hundred people, and is in frequent requisition for all sorts of public occasions, and for entertainments. On the wall hangs a bronze medallion portrait of Mrs. Lamb, executed by a well-known New York sculptor at merely nominal cost to the children of the public schools, who voluntarily provided the sum as a testimonial to their benefactress.
The present superintendent, H. R. McVay, who has enthusias- tically worked to perfect the playground, in addition to other strenu- ous duties, is about completing his seventeenth year in Sidney-by far the longest term of service ever given by one man. It has been, too, a period of sweeping changes, made in conformity to the modern educational trend. The junior high school was started in the Sidney schools in 1903, and was already in operation with only minor elab- orations necessary, when, two years ago, it became the official order of the day in all the schools of Ohio. Manual training was inaugu- rated as a part of the school course down to and including the sev- enth grades, in 1907, domestic science for girls being adopted at the same time. A thorough business course is offered the boys and girls in the high school, of which many students take advantage.
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