USA > Ohio > Ohio's progressive sons; a history of the state; sketches of those who have helped to build up the commonwealth > Part 24
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This law was a complete reor- ganization of the Ohio school sys- tem, and, in addition to providing for the present classification of township districts and cities and villages, contained provisions for separate schools for colored chil- dren, county boards of examiners for teachers and for school libraries. Subsequent legislation has followed in the main the classification made in this act.
On the 27th of March, 1884, a law was passed providing that the term of the Commissioner would begin on the second Monday of July fol- lowing his election, instead of the second Monday of January. This change was made in order that the Commissioner's term might termi- nate, approximately, with the school year.
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The State Commissioner of Com- mon Schools has supervision of the school funds to the extent of appointing examiners in cases where misapplication or fraud in the management of the same makes it necessary.
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The development of the public high schools of the State is interesting and suggestive. In the early days of the State there were many private academies, some of them incorporated insti- tutions. All the larger centers of population, such as Cincinnati, Dayton, Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo and other places, enjoyed the benefits of the old-time academies, long before the formation of public high schools. At times during the carly half of the first century of Ohio's Statehood, there were many who advocated public high schools in place of those academies. Governor Worthington, as early as 1817, recommended that a high school be established at Columbus at public expense, for the thorough education of poor boys for the work of teaching. This recommendation he renewed during the next session of the General Assembly. The law of 1825, cited under the discussion of elementary schools, it will be noted, does not anywhere deny other branches of study besides the com- mon school subjects. It was often the practice in the early days to em- ploy teachers who were capable of instructing in Latin, Algebra, Nat- ural Philosophy, Engineering and other advanced studies. Conse- quently, the people were prepared for the advent of the public high school, but the legislative bodies of the State did not respond immedi- rrt ately with necessary provisions for the inauguration and maintenance of that system. It was not until 1853 when the first general high school law was framed. From then up to the present time a continuous OLD WOODWARD SCHOOL CINCINNATI progress has been made, and this From an old Wood Cut branch of the State's educational institutions has flourished and become of incalculable benefit to the people. Nearly one thousand high schools are now maintained within the confines of Ohio, a remarkable show- ing, when we compare it with the statistics of 1860, which show but two hundred public high schools to be in operation in the whole United States at that time.
In the high school legislation passed by the session of 1902 there are many matters worthy of note. In the first place, the high school is defined.
Section 4007-2 reads as follows : A high school is hereby defined as a school of higher grade than an elementary school, in which instruction and training are given in approved courses in the history of the United States and other countries. Composition, Rhetoric, Eng- lish and American Literature, Algebra and Geometry, Natural Science, Political or Mental Science. Ancient or Modern Foreign Languages or both, Commercial and Industrial Branches, or such of the above-named branches as the length of its curriculum make possi- ble. and such other branches of higher grade than those to be taught in the elementary schools and such advanced studies and advanced reviews of the common branches as the Board of Education may direct.
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Under this law there are three grades of high schools, the first grade being equiv- alent to a four-year high school; the sec- ond being equivalent to a three-year high school, and the third to a year high school. All schools of a lesser rank are denominated elementary schools. By law, the State Commissioner is authorized to classify all high schools and issue commissions under the seals of his office.
Despite the earnest recommendation of Governor Worthington, in 1817, numerous ***** resolutions of teachers' associations, and the recommendation of every State Com- missioner of Schools for fifty years, it was not till March, 1902, that Ohio finally com- mitted herself to the work of training teachers at public expense. On the 12th of March, 1902, the bill of Charles F. Seese was passed by both houses of the Seventy-fifth General Assembly, authoriz- ing the establishment of two Normal Schools, to be located at Oxford and Athens. The law reads as follows :
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Section I. That there be and are hereby created and established two State normal schools, to be located as follows: One in connection with the Ohio University, at Athens, and one in connection with the Miami University, at Oxford.
Section 2. The Boards of Trustees of said universities shall, not later than September, 1903, organize at their respective institutions a normal school which shall be co-ordinate with existing courses of instruction, and shall be maintained in such a state of efficiency as to provide proper theoretical and practical training for all students desiring to prepare themselves for the work of teaching; said normal schools, in each case, being under the general charge and management of the respective Boards of Trustees of said universities.
Section 3. To enable the Ohio University and the Miami University to organize and support said normal schools, there shall be levied annually a tax on the grand list of the taxable property of the State of Ohio, which shall be collected in the same manner as other State taxes, and the proceeds of which shall be made part of the "Ohio and Miami Univer- sity Fund," as already provided for (O. L., Vol. 92, pp. 40-41). The rate of such levy shall be designated by the General Assembly at least once in two years, and if the General Assembly shall fail to designate the rate for any year, the same shall be for the said "Ohio and Miami University Fund," one-thirtieth (1-30) of one mill upon each dollar of the valua- tion of such taxable property.
Section 4. The said "Ohio and Miami University Fund," as herein described, shall be distributed and paid annually, seven-twelfths (7-12) thereof to the treasurer of the Ohio University upon the order of the President of the Board of Trustees of the said Ohio Uni- versity, and five-twelfths (5-12) thereof to the treasurer of the Miami University upon the order of the President of the Board of Trustees of said Miami University.
Section 5. The Governor is hereby authorized and required, within ninety days after the passage of this act, to appoint a board, to be known as the State Normal
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School Commission, consisting of four judicious citizens of the State, not more than two of whom shall be of the same political party, who shall serve without compensation, and whose duty it shall be to make investigation upon the need and advisability of the future establishment by the State of one or more additional normal schools, and to consider in v hat manner and to what extent existing educational institutions other than those now supported by the State can be made more active and effective in the better training of per- sons for service in the public schools.
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Section 6. The State Normal School Commission shall, prior to the meeting of the Sev- enty-sixth General Assembly, make full report of its findings and investigations to the Governor who shall upon the organization of the General Assembly transmit to it said report with such recommendations as he may deem proper.
The State Normal School Commission, appointed by Governor Nash, consisted of the following gentlemen : Chas. F. Thwing, Cleveland: John L. Zimmerman, Springfield; Will- iam F. Pierce, Knox County, and Chas. L. Swain, Cincinnati.
The schools promptly arranged to open their doors for the reception of students at the beginning of the academic year of 1903. Faculties were chosen and the curriculums
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planned. During the first year of these schools about twelve hundred students attended. The first law re- lating to the use of text books in the schools of Ohio was passed on the 22nd of April, 1885. It required Boards of Education to adopt text books and prohibited any change in the same within five years, except by a three-fourths vote. A provi- sion was also made authorizing boards to provide free text books. On the 28th of April, 1890, an amendment to this law was passed providing for a School Book Board. composed of the Governor, State Commissioner of Common Schools. Supervisor of Public Printing and two persons appointed by the Gov- ernor. This board was authorized EDWARD SCHOOL BUILDING TROY to pass upon all books used in the schools, and to fix a price upon the same not to exceed eighty per cent of the publisher's wholesale list price, and in case no sat- isfactory books could be secured, the board was authorized to receive bids from publishers and authors for furnishing text books, and report the result of the same to the next session
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of the General Assembly for action thereon. On the 4th of May, 1802. the last mentioned law was repealed, and a new law enacted changing the membership of the "State School Book Board" to the Governor and Secretary of State, with the State Commissioner of Com- mon Schools as Secretary. The principal provisions of the former law were retained, with further provisions in regard to publication of text books by the State and a reduction in the maximum price of seventy-five per cent of the wholesale price list.
TENNIS COURT, UNIVERSITY SCHOOL CLEVELAND
A law was passed on the 27th of April. 1896, making the State Commissioner of Com- mon Schools a member of the State Book Commission, together with the Governor and Sec- retary of State, and the main provisions of the former law were retained, and similar provi- sions are also embodied in the new School Code, enacted by the Seventy-sixth General Assembly.
The public school buildings of the whole State are a reflection of the wonderful growth in all directions attained by the great State of Ohio during her century of Statehood. While in former years, owing to the sparcity of population, lack of necessary funds and the paucity of educational ideas, the original school house was limited exclusively to the purpose of elementary education, naturally the edifices were plain and unornamental, reflecting the conditions which governed them. But with the growth of population, ever increasing
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wealth, broadening of the mentality of the people, these conditions kept pace with the times, and, consequently, today the edifices devoted to the all-important subject of education are models not only for the original purposes of their construction, but as well in regard to com- fort, sanitation and ornamental beauty. The school grounds are also prettily arranged for their respective purposes, especially in the smaller towns and country districts, where the ground is not so confined as in the larger cities of the State. The tendency at present is in the direction of treating the buildings as educational workshops, rather than places having simply so many rooms devoted to school purposes. Libraries, laboratories, provisions for
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physical exercises and gymnastics are hardly ever overlooked in the newer structures, and some of those most advanced are actually supplied with bathing facilities. In some schools large concert halls are retained for purposes of entertainments, with stages, equipped with wings, sceneries, curtains and general theatrical paraphernalia. The artistic instincts of the children in many places are fostered by the school itself. Flower beds are laid out on the school grounds, tenderly cared for by the children, who compete in different plots for beauty of effect, prizes being offered to those who show the most artistic taste. These gentle influ- ences for beauty are reflected in the homes of the pupils, and consequently are considered to be of great value, as they promote a love of nature and natural beauty, as well as a knowl- edge of plant life.
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From small beginnings the public school has developed into an institution of magnifi- cent proportions, great in its power for good, thorough in its system of teaching, and of which the people of the great State of Ohio can eminently be proud.
Private Educational Institutions
Among the many private institutions devoted to the cause of education in Ohio, the University Schools of Cleveland. Columbus and Cincinnati are the most worthy of mention. These college preparatory schools have done much good in the field of education and fully deserve the patronage given to them. The UNIVERSITY SCHOOL of Cleveland may well be placed in the front rank of the institutions of its kind in the country. It is now in the sixteenth year of its history, and both in its standards and methods it is recognized as one of the educational forces of the Middle West. In its begin- nings it established a new type of secondary school, and many of its characteristic features have been copied in somewhat similar schools in Detroit, Cincinnati and Asheville.
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL
The school is the outgrowth of a Manual Training School established by the leading citizens of Cleveland at a time when this department of educational training was in its infancy in this section of the country. So well pleased were the parents of Cleveland boys with the earlier school, that it finally became natural and possible to establish a complete school, on broad lines, and on so substantial a basis that the school has attracted the attention of educators in many of the older States.
The school has acquired an enviable reputation not only in its college prepara- tory curriculum, sending its pupils to the leading American colleges with a prepara- UNIVERSITY SCHOOL COLUMBUS tion which has often given the school a first rank in the entrance examinations, but the school has also sustained valuable elementary courses in Manual Training, carrying these courses along side by side with the ordinary text book courses, in such a way that all boys, even those of a literary and classical turn of mind, have been required to gain skill in the use of their hands and in the use of tools, in well-equipped manual train- ing shops. Its graduates have entered Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Princeton, Williams and other colleges and universities, maintaining conspicuous rank in these higher institutions, and widely advertising the somewhat unique character of the school.
Seldom has a more complimentary tribute been paid to any institution than that which waspaid to this school by Dr. Reichel, President of University College of North Wales, who visited our American institutions in the fall of 1903 as a member of the Alfred Mosely Edu- cational Commission. In the very complete and elaborate report published by this commis-
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sion, the Cleveland school is the only college preparatory school to which extended refer - ence is made. Many Manual Training Schools in the country were visited by the members of this commission, but in his professional tour among the secondary schools, Dr. Reichel was anxious to find some school of first rank where the liberal course of the so-called classical curriculum was regarded incomplete unless it included a proper proportion of manual train- ing, physical culture and the elements of science. With a conservative regard for the old type of education, based upon the classical standards, Dr. Reichel and many of his fellow educators in England have been anxious to establish the fact that technical training has a strong educational value, and that it must be employed to vitalize and complete the old-time courses in language study.
At University School in Cleveland, Dr Reichel claimed to find the somewhat unique educational principle which he sought, and the professional endorsement received by the school in his personal tribute richly corroborates the theories and the educational system which have appeared in the history of this school.
In recent years the executives of the school have still more intimately correlated its manual training work with the mathematical courses in the regular curriculum, thinking that manual training is not an end worth seeking for its own sake in a school which sends practically all its boys to the colleges and universities, but a subject which adds a real sig- nificance to all of the mathematical and scientific studies of a school, making them doubly effective.
In its new laboratories the school comes to recognize also the value of teaching even to young boys in an elementary, and at the same time in a very thorough way, the begin- nings of a knowledge of the natural world and its material forces.
The school was originally a day school, and it is still sustained chiefly through the generous sup- port of Cleveland citizens. Yet by its own record the school has drawn to itself a number of ambitious stu- dents from various towns and cities in the State, and now maintains a boarding department, with dormi- tory provision for some forty or fifty pupils.
The UNIVERSITY SCHOOL of Columbus was founded in 1899, when Mr. Frank Theodore Cole, a noted educator of the State; Prof. Abram Brown, for many years prin- cipal of the Columbus Central High School, and Miss Alice Gladden es- tablished that institution. Prof. Brown became principal and Mr. SCHOOL BUILDING TIPPECANOE Cole Secretary of the school, which was located at 106 East Broad street. The institution flourished from the beginning. At the end of the first year of its existence Miss Gladden withdrew. The school then moved to 187 East Broad street, into a building especially altered to suit its requirements. In the fall of 1901, Mr. Brown returned to high school work and Mr. Cole became principal, and still con-
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tinues in that position. The school has had the assistance of a number of educators of note, and has done much good in its particular field of labor. Of the students who enjoyed the benefits of a thorough preparatory training in the University School of Columbus, a great percentage have entered the most renowned universities of our country ; Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartsmouth, Amherst, Williams, Middleburg, Massachusetts Institute of Technol- ogy, Cornell, Columbia, Smith, Wellesley, Wells, University of Pennsylvania, Alfred, Western Reserve, Case, Wooster, Marietta, Ohio Wesleyan, Ohio State, Kenyon, Cincinnati Law School and others. The work done in the University School of Columbus has been of high grade, and its future prospects are very bright.
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The youngest preparatory school of its kind in the State is the University School of Cin- cinnati, founded in 1903. While the institution is still in its infancy, its future work is well outlined and it is modeled after the University School of Cleveland.
While Ohio is blessed with splendid educational institutions supported and fostered by the State, she has also within her confines many private schools, outside of the preparatory institutions mentioned above, and many of which for thoroughness of teaching enjoy a reputation second to none in the United States. These schools are diversified in their teachings, and work along lines of special attainments. There are schools for the teaching of the Deaf: the Stammerers and Stutterers; Music; Ladies' Academies; and some splen- did institutions devoted to technical knowledge. Among the latter an extended article
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ART MUSEUM ROOKWOOD POTTERY SCENES OF CINCINNATI
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should be written in reference to the leading technical school in the State, the Ohio Mechanics' Institute, located at Cincinnati, whose destiny is presided over by that well known educa- tor, John 1 .. Shearer.
The men who founded this school are dead, but their names will be honored as long as the city stands and the early struggles of the "Queen City" are recounted to the rising generation. On November 20, 1828, the constitution was adopted, and on February 9th of the following year the institute was incorporated under the laws of the State of Ohio.
Dr. J. D. Craig, who had been giving scientific lectures in connection with Dr. John Locke, called a meeting of citizens, formed a commitee, and secured the incorporating act.
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The names of those who assisted him are Thomas Riley, Lyman Watson, William C. Anderson, David T. Disney, George Graham, Calvin Fletcher, Clement Dare, William Disney, William Greene, James Brewer, Jeffrey Seymour, Israel Schooley, and Elisha Brigham.
For twenty years the school occupied various habitations; the City Council chambers, the old College Building on Walnut street, the Enon Baptist Church (1830), a private school room, and then the famous Trollope's Bazaar on East Third street. In this latter home (in the year 1838), under the auspices of the institute, were founded the "Cincin- nati Industrial Exhibitions," through which the city became known to the whole country as an industrial center.
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Until the great "Centennial" in 1888, the institute devoted a large share of its efforts to the cause of Cincinnati's business prosperity In February, 1838, a Mechanics' and Citi- zens' Ball was held at the National Theater, and $2,400 was raised for the benefit of the school. In 1839 the institution purchased Mrs. Trollope's "Folly," as the bazar had been styled; $10,000 was the price. Again the institute was unable to hold its property, and in 1847 the bazar reverted. The present home of this grand old institution is over fifty years old, the corner-stone being laid on July 4, 1848.
To recount the many important events with which this time-honored structure is asso- ciated would fill several volumes. It is the gift of many donors. From twenty-five cents, a day's labor, a load of lumber, a keg of nails, to the gifts of thousands of dollars made by Miles Greenwood and Marston Allen, ranged the contributions that finally cleared the
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indebtedness. In the year 1900 it was completely remodeled, two additional stories built upon its substantial walls and fitted up with every modern convenience.
The purpose of the institute has been from its very beginning the education of the skilled workman. Since 1856 technical class instruction has been carried on, so that more than 17,000 students have gone out to enrich this and other cities by their superior train- ing. There are now more than one thousand students in departments which are of great practical ability in a city dependent so largely upon its manufacturing industries. Machine design, architectural drawing, trade designing of every description, technical chemistry, mathematics, physics and applied electricity, the modern languages, industrial economy, painting, wood-carving and modeling, manual training in a great variety of branches, together with the essentials of a good English high school education, are taught by a corps of twenty-five eminent specialists.
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For many years the class instruction of the institution was limited to evening hours ; now day and evening departments are maintained.
The Ohio Mechanics' Institute founded the first public library in the city, and the pres- ent Public Library of Cincinnati had its first home in the institute building. The Board of Education also occupied quarters at the institute for a time. The signal tower of the Fire Department was also located on the building for many years.
In 1856 "The School of Design of the Ohio Mechanics Institute" was founded, and it was so successful that it led to the introduction of drawing into the public schools.
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COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
The Ohio Institutions of Higher Learning
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Magnificent Gifts for Educational Purposes. - The First College West of the Alleghenies. - Universities Fostered by the State. - Private and Denominational Universities. - Splendid Educational Opportunities Ohio's Pride.
HE ordinance of 1787, which created the Northwestern Territory, also pro- vided for the establishment of institutions of higher learning ; consequently, T sixteen years before Ohio was admitted into the Union as a State, the far- seeing framers of that great historic ordinance anticipated and provided for collegiate education in this territory. The influence of that ordinance has been without any doubt, of the greatest consequence and importance to the fame and development of the State of Ohio, for by its provisions it arranged a perpetual revenue for educational purposes. A clause in this ordinance reads as follows: "No more than two- complete townships should be given perpetually for the purpose of the university to be laid off by the purchaser or purchasers as may be (so that the same shall be of good land), to be applied to the intended object by the Legislature of the State." As there was a superabundance of land, and as the country was pretty sure to fill up rapidly, such an endowment was supposed to be the most staple and almost certain to increase greatly in value. The history of many land grants for education shows, however, that while the expectation of increase in value has been realized, the beneficiaries have not derived the full benefits from this increase, owing to the fact that to obtain immediate and necessary funds they have been compelled to sell part, at least, of the grants. The distinction of being not only the oldest college within the present State of Ohio, but as well the first institution of higher learning west of the Allegheny Mountains, supported by a public land endowment, belongs to the Ohio University, located at Athens, in 1804. Since that time more than forty universities have been founded in Ohio, and they reflect the spirit of the State in its development. They are not operated on a uniform plan, but rather conform to the requirements of the particular territory in which they are located, or a particular denomination, creed or race. Within the borders of the State can be found an institution of learning which is a sample of nearly every variety of college known to the American people.
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