SCHOOLS --- AN ACCOUNT FROM THE FIRST ONE TO THE PRESENT DAY --- A COMPARISON OF THE IMPROVEMENTS --- SUNDAY SCHOOLS AND THE FIRST FREE SCHOOLS --- DIFFICULTIES ATTENDING EDUCATION AT AN EARLY DAY --- THE CHANGES OF FIFTY YEARS --- DISCUSSIONS OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM---STATISTICS, ETC.
SCHOOLS.---In preceding chapters we have given a general account of the first feeble, but heroic efforts here to establish and maintain the cause of education among the rising generation. We use the word education in the common acceptation of the term as synonomous with schools. Our forefathers had no "free," or State schools, and the result was they employed only teachers who were willing to work for very small pay and "board round," as they expressed it in their written contracts. To "board round," meant the teacher would, at his own discretion, divide up his time among the families of the pupils, and thus they would all contribute their equal share of the keep of the teacher. The writer has a distinct recollection of how the different young men who taught the schools of those days would adjust this problem. He would select some boarding place where there were the most pretty girls and the fattest table fare, and by helping get wood of an evening, making fires in the cook-stove, and sometimes, we blush to say, a flame in the eyes and heart of the buxom belle of the ranche, he would almost be one of the family, and here he would stay, and the less comfortable places were but little annoyed by his presence, while the very poor never once would see him on their premises. But, in justice to the best farmers, we believe there was never any complaint from them on account of this inequality in the "board round" of the different teachers, and in return the other patrons were never known to complain if this favorite's family's children had all the teacher's partiality---especially the big girls.
The first, and for that matter, the only real "free schools" our people ever had were the Sunday schools, that were invented about sixty-five years ago in this part of the world. They were originally much better institutions than the same things are now. They came in response to the great need and demand of a pioneer people, who were sparsely settled over the broad land and who were too poor to import school teachers or build splendid houses for school rooms, and further they had but few books for their children, and hence their families had not the necessary facilities often to teach the children at home to read and write. We said the schools then were better than they are now. We are convinced that this is true upon an investigation of their mode of management of the early schools and a comparison with the manner now. The original idea was to enable the chileren to learn to read and write---not to fill with foolish dogma and to proselyte to some special church. In these early Sunday schools, the only lessons were to learn to read and spell, and the only mark between that and the secular school was that the exercises were opened with a prayer and song, suitable to the sacred day. Here the whole family assembled, and young and old participated in the exercises of the day.
The scattered condition of the inhabitants over a large area of country, the difficulties of travel through the prairies in consequence of the luxuriant growth of vegetation, with paths only leading from one neighbor's cabin to another, made it very difficult for children to get to school alone. In the fall the prairies were swept by fire---adding another danger. In winter, travel was hindered by lack of bridges on either large or small streams. The latter at that time rose to a much greater height and remained up longer than now. These troubles, together with the great respect we had for wolves and other wild beasts, made the procuring of an education impossible.
But the difficulties enumerated were not all they had to contend with. If the common school happened to be in winter, two-thirds of the children were not sufficiently clothed and shod to attend. And, again, should the school be in summer, when it was suitable for them to go on account of the weather, all the boys large enough to work could not be spared by their parents, for the reason that all were poor and must work. Our work was not then done on large farms as at present, but on "truck patches" such as cotton, flax, turnip and all other kinds of patches that we have now, and a corn patch of five to fifteen acres. In the latter part of the summer, they would commence clearing a good-sized turnip patch, and so add patch to patch until after many summers they had considerable farms, say forty acres. Our poor sisters could not be spared by our mothers if they were only high enough with a wheel-peg in their hands to turn a spinning wheel and draw a pair of cotton-cards. Poor girls, they had no one but their mothers for music teachers, and good teachers they were, too. All the daughters graduated in their profession---manufacturing from the raw material taken from the cotton patch, picked out the seeds with the fingers---carded and spun four cuts per day, and so followed up the profession until the copperas stripe appeared in the cloth, and the maple-bark-colored hunting shirt was perfected into a garment. Great skill was exercised in cutting garments, five yards being allowed for a dress pattern for a grown woman, not that five yards was a scant pattern, but the main point was to save some portion of the five yards to use when the garment was found to retrograde, not exactly bustle attachments as it is the custom at the present day, but rather the reverse, to strengthen the garment, to make it pass through a certain period of time to make a connection with the fruit of the loom, which was periodical.
But in slow process of time our people came to possess what we now call free or public schools, and for fifty years the only question that has concerned the advocates of schools has been to get enough of it. True, they sometimes talk about the quality of the thing, and you can generally hear much of graded schools, magnificent and costly schoolhouses, and high-salaried teachers, and the county that has these in the greatest abundance, plumes itself and brags mightily upon its wonderful strides in civilization. Fifty years has witnessed a wonderful change in this country on this subject. The rise and spread of the public schools has has been almost a marvel, and already it has in some portions of the country been pushed to what many think is a legitimate conclusion, namely, a demand for compulsory education. And all over the land now we hear the cry for this summum bonum. It is powerfully advocated by the leading school teachers and school men in the country. The schools are free, say they, that is the people of Illinois, for instance, are taxed annually about $10,000,-000 to support free schools, and now the great question is how to compel the people to send their children to these free schools. A kind of compulsory freedom, as it were. And, American-like, the whole thing has been pushed to its utmost extremity from the beginning, and in the midst of all this wild clamor for more, more, more, of this the only entirely good thing on earth, reading and reflecting men were recently startled by an able scholar and strong writer, but not a teacher, propounding, in the North American Review, the ominous proposition, which he sustains with a strong array of facts and figures, "Are the Public Schools a Failure?" He boldly says they are, and appeals to the United States Census Reports for proof of the premises he lays down. This article started a warm discussion in the public press, the school teachers taking up the gauntlet with eagerness and great ability, and then the friends of the writer in the Review stepped forward boldly in his defense, and it is no uncommon thing now to pick up a daily paper and read there able and sometimes savage editorials denouncing the whole scheme of public schools as they are now taught, and arraigning them severely, and as many good people believe, justly.
The school men say, "Give us compulsory education, then, indeed, will we show the rich fruits of our public schools." To this is answered: "You have had public free schools already more than a generation, and show us what you have done." They claim it is no answer to say look at our fine schoolhouses all over the land, or the many teachers, and the building all crowded. These, of themselves, are nothing. They are not responsive to the question, cui bono? that is, where is the good in advancing our civilization. And they triumphantly quote this passage from the greatest writer on political economy the world has yet produced, as follows: "How do we measure the progress of our civilization, by work and thoughts of our great geniuses who discover new truths in the mental or physical laws, new and useful inventions in the arts and the promise and expectancy of others still greater to follow these---by the freedom of the people---freedom from oppression and government meddling---freedom from errors, freedom from prejudices, and freedom from superstitions."
These discussions are a healthy sign of the times. They call the attention of the people to the question of supreme importance to men in this life. If it results in getting the people---the masses, so to speak---to once really understand what is education, it will have done more for mankind than have all the public schools in christendom. That is, it will put the people in the way of taking matters in their own hands---for the people are always wiser than their State government---and evolving from this chaos of inanity a system of real schools where brains will be trained and developed, and not a hothouse yielding largely vagabonds and tramps.
Freedom of discussion, and freedom for men to do their own thinking sometimes, are of themselves good schools, probably the best in the world.
It is to be hoped that the future of the schools in the county may be as full of promise as the past has been prolific of the growth and increase that has come here in the sixty years since the first log cabin was dedicated to the purpose of education.
The School Commissioner in 1860, E. A. Johnson, reports total school moneys received $7,681, and that he paid out $7,907.
County School Commisioner, 1864, Calvin A. Cooper, reported total amount of money received, $7,068.
In 1868, J. B. Mabry was County Commisioner, and reported the whole school moneys for distribution that year at $8,958.31.
William A. Vernon was School Superintendent, and retired from the office in 1873.
F. M. Wollard elected in 1873, and was succeeded by Ben F. Meeks, and at the end of his term Z. B. West was appointed by the board to serve one year, and in 1882 was elected for the term he is now serving. His report for 1883 shows the following: Number males under twenty-one in the county, 6,039, number females, 5,985. Total under twenty-one years of age, 12,024; number of males between the ages of six and twenty-one, 3,928; number of females, 3,834; total between those ages, 7,762. There are two school districts in the county that have no schools. Total number of schools in the county is 121, and of these five are graded schools. Total number of teachers employed, 199. There are 112 schoolhouses, two brick, 101 frame and fourteen log houses. Four districts have libraries. There are two private schools, and in these are fifty-eight pupils and three teachers. The highest monthly wages paid any male teacher being $125, and the lowest $!6; highest monthly wages paid female teacher, $40, lowest $16. Total amount paid male teachers, $!7,079; total paid females, $8,356. Total amount of district tax, levy for the year, $20,693. Total estimated value of school property, $76,508. There are reported as illiterate, between the ages of twelve and twenty-one years, thirty-one. The "incidental expenses of treasurers and trustees" is reported, $96.31. Amount of interest paid on district bonds, $1,247. Total expenditures for the year $35,880.10. The County Commissioner reports his total compensation for the year ending June 30, 1883, at $641.75.
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