USA > Wisconsin > Rock County > Rock County, Wisconsin; a new history of its cities, villages, towns, citizens and varied interests, from the earliest times, up to date, Vol. I > Part 23
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Of free high schools there was then but one outside of Beloit and Janesville-that of Evansville.
The annual reports of our two district superintendents for the past five years sufficiently reveal the character and extent of our progress in this direction.
The number of district schools has remained about the same.
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HISTORY OF ROCK COUNTY
During the school year of 1903, in the first district twenty-eight teachers received from $20 to $25 per month, and thirty-four from $25 to $30 monthly for about eight months. Take out of that sum the cost of board and lodging and extra expense for books and dress, and the net cash return for each teacher seems to have been manifestly much less than that of the average farm laborer.
Both districts reported an insufficient supply of text-books and the need for those of later date. They also recommended the consolidation of small districts, the scholars from which could with less expense be carried daily to some larger and better central district school. Another effort has been to get teachers of better training and to help the poorer teachers to gain such improvement. The means proposed was a county training school to cost about $2,000 each year. Instead of this plan, however, the same end is sought by means of county teachers' institutes, which are now held each year during the summer vacation. There is also a county teachers' association which holds helpful meet- ings in the spring and fall. Some of the districts have built model modern school buildings such as that of Joint District No. 3, town of Center, and No. 3, Avon. The latter school house has hardwood floors, steel ceilings, neatly painted side walls, slate blackboards, and the latest type of school furniture and appa- ratus. In 1904 some sixty-one of the districts in the first county district made good improvements. In the second county district Avalon built a substantial two-story building at a cost of $1,800. In this district, about three miles southwest of Janesville, is the historic spot where the famous Miss Frances Willard spent her girlhood days and attended district school. That old school building, which had become quite dilapidated, was in 1904 well renovated without and within; a neat porch was made and the name "Frances Willard School" was placed over the door in attractive lettering. In 1904 the average monthly wage of teach- ers rose to $33. In that year 184 pupils from district schools were attending Rock county high schools (other than those com- prised in the districts) and were paying for tuition $3,312 each year for the four years of the city school course. There was general improvement throughout the whole of the second dis- trict, and especially in the towns of Turtle, Clinton and Bradford.
One thing which has contributed to educational advancement
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in this county is the central diploma examination system inaugu- rated in the year 1903. Previous to this the questions were sent to each teacher and she gave them to her pupils. She marked the papers and certified the results to the superintendent. This meant as many different standards as there were different teach- ers. Where a teacher had poorly taught and poorly prepared the pupils beforehand, she sometimes made up for it by coaching them on the questions and helping them in the examinations. The anxiety of teachers to have their pupils receive a diploma overcame, in many instances, their sense of personal honesty. The result was that many pupils went away to the high schools very poorly prepared. In some instances they were unable to do the work and were shoved back into the grades, to the humilia- tion of themselves and to the chagrin of their parents. There they were compelled to pay their own tuition, instead of having it paid by the town, and must also pay for their board. This entailed an extra expense on their parents which would not have been necessary had they remained in the home school until they had properly finished their work.
But the new system of examinations has changed this condi- tion. All the pupils now write at some one of seven places in the district. Places most convenient for the greatest number of applicants are chosen. Each pupil is given a letter and a number, which he puts on his paper. His name, number and letter are sent to the superintendent. The committee which marks the pupil does not know the name of the pupil, but simply his letter and his number. This arrangement is equally fair for all. These papers are then marked by a committee consisting of one rural school teacher, one graded school teacher and one high school principal, all the papers in one branch being marked by one person. They return the standings to the superintendent, and those who have met with the requirements are given diplomas. This system seems to be as nearly impartial a one as it is possible to get. The results, in the main, have been very satisfactory. For some years the high schools have complained of the country pupils being unprepared for high school work, all the failures of the rural teacher as well as their own being charged to the rural teacher. Since 1903, however, things have changed. We send them pupils that are prepared, so far as an examination can test their preparation, and it is now "up to the high school" to con-
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tinue the work. We are holding them responsible, and not they us, for their failures. Pupils who have been sent to high school from this district, says Superintendent Hemingway, have been able to do the work satisfactorily. For the past two years, among the pupils entering the Janesville High School, the best average scholarship has been shown by those coming from the rural dis- tricts. This is the highest kind of a tribute to the present system of diploma examinations. Of course, to be fair, I must add that the rural schools send nearer their best than their average pupils, while the city schools probably send more nearly their average scholars.
In the year 1903 a state law was passed which requires all children between the ages of seven and fourteen, and all those between fourteen and sixteen, who are not lawfully employed at home or elsewhere, to attend school at least twenty-four weeks of each year, if living in the country, and thirty-two weeks, if in the city. For the year 1905 the average attendance of pupils in the first district was reported as being 115 days per pupil. Of the 2,836 children of school age then in that distriet, some 240 did not comply with the compulsory attendance law. That law makes parents or guardians responsible, and for neglect to observe it they incur a fine, which may range from $5 to $50. It says that school boards in eities of 10,000 population or more shall appoint a truant officer, and that the boards of lesser cities and of villages and districts may do so. As amended, it makes the county sheriff truant officer for the county, with the power of appointing deputies.
Another law for the improvement of our schools, passed by the Wisconsin state legislature of 1904-5, makes it the duty of the county superintendent to call one or more school board conven- tions each year. At the first of these, held August 17, 1905, seventy-five out of eighty-two school districts were represented by 133 school officers, and the various problems connected with the conduet of district schools were profitably considered. An- other recent change tending toward more efficient administration is the following : For many years it has been the duty of the town treasurer to keep back ten cents for each pupil of school age in his town, and with this money the town elerk was to purchase library books for the several districts. In the winter of 1904 and 1905 that law was repealed and a new one made which
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requires the county treasurer to withhold that money and the county superintendent to spend it for the books mentioned, and also to list and index all the books in each district library. The number of those books within the first district, representing about half our county, in 1905 was reported as being 10,858.
The reports for 1907 show that most of the district schools now keep a teacher one year or more, instead of changing every . term, as was common before. In the diploma examinations of the second district 133; pupils wrote and 49 finished the course. In the first district, No. 1, Spring Valley erected a new and modern school building. Including both high schools and rural schools, the male teachers for that year were paid an average of $80, and the female teachers, on an average, $40 per month.
The annual teachers' institute, held at Janesville, July 29 to August 9, included two classes of children from the city schools, which were taught by two city teachers, as models for the less experienced teachers present. The enrolment of teachers was 149, and average attendance 135, 52 of them being beginners. The average age of the teachers in attendance was twenty and one-half years. The Janesville High School now provides a special course for scholars who are intending to teach. As another sign of progress, academic dictionaries, supplementary readers and card indexes have found their way into many of the country schools.
The one law, however, which is doing and will do more for the district schools than any other, is that recently enacted law which provides a bonus of $150, to be paid in three installments, $50 a year for three years, to each district that keeps its school house and out-buildings in good repair, provides the needful apparatus, installs an adequate system of heating and ventilation, and employs an efficient teacher. According to the report of 1907, fifteen of the schools in the first district alone had com- plied with those requirements. This bonus is paid from the mill tax, to which Rock county is contributing more than she receives. Our neglect to take advantage of that law aids those of other counties who comply with it, and gives us nothing in return; by meeting those conditions, however, we do only what ought to be done in every district, and at the same time get back a good part of the tax that we have paid.
At present the first district, which for the last five years has
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been under the charge of Superintendent Charles H. Hemingway, comprises 82 school districts, employing for the school year of 1907 119 teachers at an aggregate expenditure of $41,967. Of the 2,432 children between the ages of seven and fourteen years, 2,006 were in actual attendance. This district includes Edgerton and Evansville, each of which has a high school. The record of these comes within the history of those several towns. Footeville and Orfordville, also in this district, have each a graded school of the first class-that is, one employing three teachers or more (each has four) ; and Hanover and Fulton have graded schools of the second class, those of two teachers. One district in the town of Union transports its children, about fifteen each day, to a cen- tral school at Brooklyn. Thirty-two of the schools in this district have free text-books.
The second district, that of Superintendent O. D. Antisdel, comprises 86 school districts with 112 teachers for the past year, and includes the high school at Milton, where there are eight teachers and a principal, and the high schools at Milton Junction and Clinton. The work of some of the second district schools has recently taken prizes at the Wisconsin state fair held at Mil- waukee.
From these distriet schools have come some of our leading and prominent men, such honorable citizens as Mac Jeffris, Banker William Jeffris, Superintendent David Throne and Super- intendent Antisdel, with others equally useful.
While the number of schools remains about the same, there- fore, yet it is manifest that the quality of our country schools during the past thirty years has decidedly improved. This im- provement, however, has not been gained without most devoted labor on the part of the friends of those schools, especially such as Superintendent David Throne gave for nearly ten years, and such efficient service as the present superintendents are giving. To get better school houses, better text-books and better trained and better paid teachers has required a brave fight against the indifference and even hostility of too many of the parents; but the majority in favor of these improved conditions, though requir- ing larger expenditure, is steadily increasing.
From the state school fund the sum of $9,000 is now appro- priated annually and divided among the county superintendents of the state for the expense of teachers' institutes. This pro-
CHARLES B. SALMON.
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vides each of our two county districts with about $110 for that purpose. At the county teachers' institute for 1907 there was an average daily attendance of 150 teachers.
Rock county has now enrolled in its two school districts about 5,000 children who come within the provisions of the state com- pulsory attendance act. Of these a little more than 4,000 are reported in the year 1907 as having attended school for the time required by law. During that year also 231 teachers were em- ployed, at an expenditure of about $80,000. Our 168 distriet school sites and buildings are valued at $200,000. And there is another value besides that of dollars to be noted. At very many of the schools there have been public flag-raisings, which means that the school houses are each supplied with a flagpole and our national flag. On the Fourth of July and Washington's birthday, and Lincoln's, and on other national holidays, therefore, may be seen floating over nearly all our distriet schools the American flag. It gives assurance to all who see it that in those schools the children of every nationality are taught to love American liberty and are being trained in loyalty to the United States.
XI.
BELOIT SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL TEACHERS.
Early Beloit had two school districts. No. 1 was for the east side of the river, and No. 2 for the west. The beginnings of our schools life on the east side are well described in the following paper, prepared in 1897 by Beloit's distinguished townsman, now of New York city, Horace White :
"The first application made by this infant community to the legislative power for any purpose whatever was a petition for a charter for a seminary of learning. On the 11th of November, 1837, Major Charles Johnson and Cyrus Eames started to Burling- ton, Iowa, the then seat of the territorial government of the country now embraced in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, to obtain such a charter. In a dug-out they paddled down Rock river to the Mississippi, taking with them for provisions a supply of smoked suckers and cornbread, and then went by steamer to Burlington. They were successful and returned to Beloit with their charter on December 5 of the same year. It is needless to say that Beloit Seminary did not spring into immediate activity. Divers and sundry schools, both public and private, preceded it. According to the best information obtainable, the first school of any kind in Beloit was opened in the kitchen of Caleb Blodgett's house in the year 1838, the teacher being John Burroughs, of Orange county, New York. In the following year a school house was built by private subscription at the northeast corner of School and Prospect streets, and here the first public school was opened, under the charge of Hazen Cheney, who taught during the years 1839-40. He was followed by Hiram Hersey, Alfred Walker, Henry Brown and Samuel Clary in succession. In 1843 or 1844 a school was started in the basement of the Congregational church. This building had been erected in 1842, mainly by my father's efforts. As the Rev. Lucien D. Mears said, 'It was built with unpaid doctor's bills,' which means that some people here- about could not pay for Dr. White's services with money, but
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could pay with stone, timber. sand, lime and the labor of their hands and teams. That Dr. White was eventually paid by the other members of the congregation there can be no doubt, since these men were not in the habit of getting anything of value for nothing, least of all their church privileges, the most valuable of all things to them. One of the early services held in this church was my father's funeral. He died of consumption, December 23, 1843. The hardships of a country doctor's life in a thinly settled region, where he was compelled to drive long distances by day and night in a rigorous climate, with little protection against the cold, cut him off at the age of thirty-three. He was a native of Bethlehem, N. H., a graduate of the medical department of Dart- mouth College, a man of intellectual power and heroic mould. He shrank from no duties, and I am sure that no man ever performed greater services and sacrifices for Beloit than he.
"The school in the basement of this church, situated at the northwest corner of Broad and Prospect streets, was opened under the auspices of the Rev. Lewis H. Loss. This was the Beloit Seminary for which Johnson and Eames obtained the charter in 1837. I was one of Mr. Loss's pupils.
"My earliest recollections of school days, however, are not these. They cluster about an infant school on Race street (now 439 St. Paul avenue) kept by Miss Jane Moore, my mother's sister. She was 'Aunt Jane Moore' to all the young people in the town. From this I was transferred to the public school before mentioned, and in due time to the tutelage of Mr. Loss. The latter had for an assistant Mr. D. Carley. Mr. Loss was succeeded in 1846 by Sereno T. Merrill.
"Before the college proper began there were various teachers here, both male and female, whose names deserve respectful men- tion, although I do not remember exactly where all of them taught, viz .: Sarah T. Crane, Frances Burchard, Emeline Fisher, Philomela Atwood, Eliza Field, M. F. Cutting, Alexander Stone, Daniel Pinkham, Leonard Humphrey, Mrs. Saxby, Mrs. Dearborn, Mrs. Carr, Cornelia Bradley, Miss Adaline Merrill, Jonathan Moore, Ackland Jones and Horatio C. Burchard. The last named has since been a member of congress and director of the mint of the United States. Miss Bradley became the wife of Judge Hop- kins, of Madison, Wis., and Miss Merrill the wife of Dr. Browne, of Hartford, Conn. After the death of Mary Kimball Merrill, the
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able principal of the young ladies' department of Beloit Semi- nary, Miss Jane Blodgett (now Mrs. S. T. Merrill) and Miss Cla- rinda Hall had charge of a young ladies' school on Broad street, in a building which was afterward moved to State street and became the book store of Wright & Merrill; Miss Chapin (after- wards wife of Professor Porter) taught in this school in 1853.
"Mr. Humphrey was the son of the first rector of the Episco- pal church in Beloit, and succeeded his father in that capacity. Miss Fisher, a woman of great energy and executive talent, be- came the housekeeper of the Fifth Avenue hotel in New York. All, so far as I know, whether rich or poor, high or humble, were honest, earnest men and women, doing good and not evil in their day and generation. Happy shall we be if the same can be said of us when our fleeting hour is past." Horace White, 1897.
Among the very earliest of the teachers above named were Stone and Pinkham, who taught on Race street, and Mrs. Atwood and Mr. Cutting, whose names occasioned the first recorded Beloit joke : "Why is wood-chopping like our public school teachers ? Because they are Cutting Atwood." Let us hope that this expla- nation was wholly exoteric and had no esoteric meaning. Miss Adaline Merrill was the sister of Sereno T. Merrill, and with Cornelia Bradley taught in the Beloit Seminary in the old stone church, and later in the Middle College building, to which that school was moved in the fall of 1848. Miss Bradley was my teacher in 1851 at the old School street school house, and I remem- ber her as being both kind and efficient. Mr. Leonard Hum- phrey's school was held in a one-story brick building, which he had built, twenty by thirty feet, on the ground facing north on Public avenue, now number 534, and was called "the aristocratic school." In 1844 that edifice was bought by St. Paul's Episcopal church and used as its first church building.
The earliest school on the west side of the river was taught by Miss Foot in one room of a frame house, northwest corner of Third street and Roosevelt avenue, in 1848. The next school was kept in a small house on Fourth street about where the fire sta- tion is now, and was taught by Harriet Burchard and later by Sarah Burchard. Later (1852) a school was taught by Rev. Mr. Millet and wife in a little old plastered house on Merrill street on the hill; and next was a school in the house of John Saxby, on Railroad street, a little north of St. Lawrence avenue. Then the
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BELOIT SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL TEACHERS
stone house was built on Bluff street (now number 631), in which Mr. S. L. James was one of the early instructors. In the winter and spring of 1854 James W. Strong taught there, and later B. C. Rogers and wife. Other teachers were Mr. and Mrs. William Dustin and Miss Higby. That stone house had two large rooms and a small recitation room, but became crowded, and therefore about forty boys were provided with a store room in the old Cogswell building on the north side of East Grand avenue (now about number 220), and were taught by George Himes, a singer in the Baptist choir.
Another of those temporary publie sehool rooms was in the upper part of the old Mansion house (now Thompson's building). Then came the new publie school buildings on each side of the river.
In October, 1849, S. R. Humphrey, town superintendent of schools, published a notice informing the voters of Beloit that he had annulled the former arrangement of two school districts, and had combined them in one, to be called "Union Distriet No. 1, Beloit," comprising sections 22, 27, 34 and 36, and that part of seetions 23, 26 and 35, situated west of Roek river. October 23, John M. Keep was duly elected director of the district, S. E. Barker, treasurer, and S. Drake, elerk. One week later, however, as citizens of the west side had petitioned for a separate sehool, this district instructed the town superintendent, I. W. Thayer, to organize for them School District No. 2, ineluding sections 22 and 27, and all those parts of sections 23, 26 and 35, situated west of Roek river. Union School District No. 1 then appointed T. L. Wright elerk, S. T. Merrill and H. Hobart as a finance and build- ing committee, and March 10, 1851, engaged Herman Belden (or Belding) to excavate the cellar for a new brick school house at nine cents per cubic yard. The site chosen was in the city park, about in line with the south side of Publie avenue, and four or five rods east of Cellege avenue. Gates & Company built the stone basement walls at nine dollars per eord and, with Stephen Downer, laid up the three story red brick walls at $1.80 per yard. October 29, 1851, the late board of Union Distriet No. 1 were complimented for having ereeted a sehool building with only one-half as much of a debt for borrowed money as they had been authorized to ineur. The whole cost was $4,312.71. The old school building on School street had been sold to L. G. Fisher
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and Hazen Cheney for $355.00. The tax of 1850 provided $1,186.00 and that of 1851 $1,274.71, and they had borrowed $1,460.50 at 10 per cent interest from Milton Harvey of Cole- brook, N. H.
January 12, 1852. James W. Strong began teaching in that brick school house, associated with Mrs. Emmeline Fisher and Mrs. Carey. The house was thirty-six by fifty-four feet on the ground, and three stories high, with a basement. The corkscrew stairway from story to story for the girls was on the south side of the house and that for boys, on the north side. The three rooms were seated with wooden benches, seat and desk together, each accommodating two scholars, boys on the north side, girls on the south; each floor had a main room and one recitation room at the west side, connected with it by large folding doors. "The house is warmed," says a Beloit journal of 1852. "by an ample furnace in the basement. The first and second depart- ments are now opened, the latter under C. Childs, Esq., principal, and Mrs. Augusta R. Childs, with I. W. Atherton, Esq., and Miss Octavia A. Mills as teachers. This school comprises that portion of the village which is on the east side of the river and contains about three hundred scholars."
In 1855 William C. Dustin was principal of No. 1, with his wife as assistant; S. G. Colley, director; S. Hinman, clerk ; J. P. Houston, treasurer; A. J. Battin, superintendent of schools. In that year our old citizen, C. C. Keeler, Esq., then a boy of nine- teen, came to Beloit and applied to Mr. Battin for a teacher's certificate. While with considerable anxiety he was waiting to be examined for it, Mr. B. asked him if he had ever taught before. "Yes," replied young Keeler, "in Vermont." "Oh, well," said Battin, "if you were good enough to teach in Vermont you are good enough for Wisconsin," and wrote out his certificate with- out any further questioning. Young Mr. Keeler then taught a winter school three months, in the Rubles district, four miles west of Beloit, which was inhabited by a race of giants from Pennsyl- vania. But they were very peaceable young giants and gave no trouble whatever to Miss Lucy Ann Brown, who taught that school in the summer of 1853, when she was only seventeen years old. A later principal of No. 1 was James H. Blodgett (after- wards principal of the high school at Rockford, Ill., and now con- nected with the United States Census Department at Washing-
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