The development of the free public high school in Illinois to 1860, by Paul E. Belting...

Front matter

Class i J r\ ^-^ ^

Book__ ^

PRESENTED BV

Contents

Pakt I — The Academy.

CHAPTER. PAGE.

I. Historical Background —

Part II — The Common School

VII. The Apprenticeship System —

Features; Indenture Records; Relation to Slavery 90

Vni. The Free School Law of 1825—

Pro-slavery Struggle; Provisions; Authorship; Influence of Jefferson ; Free School Districts ; AnnuUment— Support of Common Schools Afterwards ""

CONTENTS— Concluded.

CHAPTER. PAGE.

TX. The Movement of 1835— 108

Political Platforms; Survey of the State; Memorials; Proposal for Normal Schools — Teachers — Wages.

X. Some Agencies that Aided in the Development

and Establishment of the Common School — . . . 120

Leaders; Literary Agencies; Institutions; Conventions.

XI. The Free School Law of 1855— 141

Defeat of Free Schools in the Constitutional Convention; Provisions; Attitude Toward Free Schools.

Xn. The Beginninsfs and the Characteristics of the

Free Public High School by 1860— 155

Gradation; Reorganization of Acadamies; High Schools Subjects of Study; Admission to High School; Taxation; Public School Boards.

XTTT. The Establishment of the Free Public High

School— 174

Township High Schools; School Districts Under Special Charter; School Districts Established by General Law Legal Decisions.

XIV. A Summary of Some Earlier Influences Affecting

Later Development and Practice 187

XV. Summary and Conclusion 195

CHAPTER I. Historical Backgrotj:^?©

Migration and Settlement.

Illinois was first organized as a county of the State of Virginia in 1778. The legislature of the mother state gave the territory the name of Illinois, appointed John Todd the first lieutenant governor to take charge of its civil and military affairs but ceded the territory to the confederation m 1784. In 1809, Illinois was organized as a separate territory with Ninian Edwards, Chief Justice of Kentucky, the governor, appointed by President Madison. This office Mr. Edwards held until he was elected to the United States Senate in 1818, at which time Illinois became a state populated by emigrants from the older states.

Migration from the eastern to the western states has usually followed the parallels of latitude. Illinois is an excellent example of such a tendency. The State is about four hundred miles in length, and the parallels which bound it on the north and south include between them the Atlantic States from New Hampshire to North Carolina. Northern Illinois, therefore, was settled by people from Massachusetts and other New England and eastern states, while southern Illinois got its population from Virginia and the South.

The southern half of the state with the river and timber areas was settled first. The pioneer hunter was driven farther inland by a second class, the small farmer, who, m turn, had to advance before the large land-owner whose purpose was to cultivate the land, build a home for a big family, and become a permanent resident of the country.

From Kentuckv, Tennessee and Virginia came the more enlightened class of southerners, among whom were such leaders as Reynolds, Edwards and Coles. These men possessed great political wisdom and legal talent often rising to positions of importance and prominence in the State and

Nation. Their followers were keen, intelligent men, both progressive and conservative at the same time. All classes, however, were kind and hospitable to stranger and friend alike, but once aroused, they were "bitter, vindictive and passionate opponents in business or politics. Strong in their conviction and prejudices, persistent in the maintenance of existing ideals and institutions, they were the champions of justice, equity and freedom of speech and action."^

The ''poor whites," so called, came from the Carolinas and Georgia. They were usually ignorant, obstinate, and shiftless.^ To gain their desires, many times dishonest and unscrupulous means were used. Wages were low and times were hard so that in the bitter struggle to earn a livelihood, ruthless measures were often adopted, without regard for principle. Some of them therefore, constituted one of the elements in the lawless gangs that harrassed places in the wealthier districts of frontier society.

Until 1830, Illinois was almost entirely settled by men from the South who brought with them their political ideals, laws, manners, customs and traditions. It was southern law that formed the model for the territorial code. They were the ones who made the constitution of 1818. Slavery was a southern institution which the convention of 1824 tried to adopt. The first free school law which was passed was southern in origin but it was also the South which caused its revocation.

Instead of a gradual settlement by classes as had been in the south, the hunter, the small hold-farmer, and the large land-owner, men of all classes came rapidly to every part of the State, and especially to the north after 1830. With steam navigation came the merchant, the farmer, the artisan, the preacher and schoolmaster, each equipped to contribute his share in creating a new civilization immediately in the new country. Dwellings, business houses, factories, churches and schools were erected at the same time. Danger from Indian Wars was over, the prairie land needed no clearing, hence the only requisite before wealth could come as the result of industry, was the means of transportation to furnish a market for products.

• Harris, Negro Servitude in Illinois, p. 16. ' Bog-gress, Settlement of Illinois, p. 123.

The Causes for Migration.

At least two reasons induced people to migrate to Illinois. The first were general, influences that affected tlie whole country. The second were local, influences that afl'ected special regions.

Many of the American people have shown a restless and migratory spirit.' Ever have they been dissatisfied with existing conditions which they thought could be improved_ in a country where farms were cheap and land was fertile. AVith reasonable labor a better living, at least, could be made.

Business men had in several instances failed at home. The wilderness West offered a place of refuge for them. Farm laborers with low wages had learned how to farm. The western lands presented an opportunity for some of them to make a better living. Comparative land values were influential. Large tracts of land could be had in the West cheaper than small farms in the East.

ATter 1820, western lands sold for $1.25 per acre in plots as small as 80 acres, both of which were decided inducements for western settlement. The Foote Resolution in the House in 1829 was an inquiry which sought to find out whether the sale of public lands so rapidly was advisable because the laborers in the East were going West, thus taking them from infant industrv which ought to be protected. Even Henry Clay, in 1834, Reported unfavorably the advisability of ceding public land to the state in which it lay because the older states would lose by migration much of their population and wealth in land rewards offered by the new states.

Moreover, the new settlers painted glowing pictures of the western pioneer. The latter sent letters and circulars to the East showing the wonderful advantages in the new Utopia. Restless and dissatisfied easteners began to feel that the day when all western land was taken up was at hand. Speculators sent exaggerated reports of rapidly growing cities. Plots of new towns were shown in the East, unsold lots were offered at high prices. Newspapers showed the advantages the West held for the laborers and small farmers with little capital. * Soon products from the West would under-sell home produce in its own market.

» Abstract of seventh census, 1850, p. 15, showed that nearly 23% of the white Inhabitants of the United States at that time had migrated from the state in which they were born.

* Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, March 24, 1846.

Competition among the eastern states for improvements to benefit their cities gave easy communication to the West. Frequently inhabitants along the routes of travel were stimulated to move. Many of those along the canals who remained were undersold in their own markets by the westerner. Either they had to sell and go West or reduce their standard of living.

When the water routes, the Erie Canal, the Great Lakes and the Ohio River, were navigated by the steamboat, inconveniences were reduced and the cost of transportation was within reach of the poorest. An important factor in the rapid settlement of the West, therefore, was steam navigation: ''Of all the elements of prosperity of the West, of all the causes of its rapid increase in population, its growth in wealth, resources and the improvement of its immense commerce and gigantic energies, the most efficient has been the navigation by steam. ' ' *

Lastly, speculation in western land from 1834 to 1840 was one element in the period of financial depression the country over. Sometimes eastern speculators, believing fortunes were to be had in western land, bought lots at high prices, though these were still under water or in the woods. Laborers were also involved in the depression. Combinations and unions were formed by laborers in some of the principal industries.^ High wages were demanded to meet the higher prices which were 85 per cent higher in October, 1836, than in April, 1834.® Strikes resulted from the refusal to grant higher wages with a ten-hour day, and several of the principal cities had labor troubles from 1834 to 1837.^ Employers could not meet the laborers' demands. The hours were reduced, then wages, but prices remained high. The New York Era, September 5, 1837, says, "we can state on the best authority that in the eastern states nine-tenths of the factories have been stopped and the same proportion of men, women and children thrown out of employment. ' ' Riots occurred, but the most noticeable result was that the "army of the unemployed went West to

* Memorial of People of Cincinnati, 1844, p. 28.

' Philadelphia, Boston, Hartford, Washington, Trenton, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, Natchez.

take up the heritage of the poor man, cheap hinds in a new country. ' ' *

Of the local causes for migration, curiosity drove many of the New Englanders up the rivers of their own states in the earlier times and later, the desires for better land sent many of their descendants across the mountains to Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois. The soil of New England was no match for the fertile plains of the West. A number of the younger men, desiring a higher standard of living went West. Finally, New England increased rapidly as an industrial section from 1840 to 1850. Wages were good and prices were high, but the foreign immigrant who began to come at that time made economic and social conditions more unbearable to the American laborer. Large numbers of the latter went West to escape, if possible, the increased limitations placed on life.

Extremely hard times were experienced in the Middle States from 1834 to 1840, as the result of high prices, low wages, and the closing of factories. Taxes were high at the same time, especially among the farmers in New York, duo to the construction of the Erie Canal. The margin of profit was partly erased by the competition of w^estem farmers. Morover, property was being concentrated in the hands of large land-owners, which made rents higher than the cost of land in Illinois.

One of the greatest causes in sending _ the southern emigrant North was slavery. Free labor in the South received 121/2 cents per day in 1832 f hence the white man was unable to compete with black labor. Cotton, which took much of the substance from the soil, was continually demanding new land. Moreover a growing slave population crowded out the small land owners and the landless.

Moreover some of the southern states had a complaint against the tariff legislation of 1824 and 1828. Because of it he said that merchants were ruined, laborers were out of work, grass was growing in the streets, houses were falling, the price of real estate was low, rents were nothing, fields were abandoned and interest rates were high."

•House Doc. — Debates — 22 Cong. I. Sess., p. 3154. , ^ . . ^ ^^

"Senate Debates — 22 Cong. I. Sess., p. 80, which was the beginning of the nullification disputes.

Finally, Ohio and Indiana, states that had been members of the Union for a generation or more, sent settlers to eastern Illinois from 1840 to 1860 because there was not enough good land to divide with the sons in the family who desired to establish homes of their own. These youths moved West to the rich plains of Illinois where they were content to stop to make their fortune."

Economically, the settlement of Illinois has been characterized, therefore, as an attempt chiefly on the part of the American farmer and laborer to widen the market and raise the standard of living by taking advantage of the free western lands.

Kailroads and lake traffic made Northern Illinois feel itself a part of the North Atlantic States. Wagon roads and river routes created the same feeling in Southern Illinois for the South. Consequently, the institutions in the two sections closely resembled, in origin, those with which the settlers were acquainted in their home states. Northern Illinois developed the free, common school system ; Southern Illinois clung to the academy and select school. Secondary education in the North, like the East, began to become democratic ; in the Soutli it was aristocratic. Sectionalism, then, from the transportation period on, changed from East and West to North and South.

The Northiuest Ordinances.

The ordinances of 1785 and 1787, besides being instruments of government, constituted the first charters of the public school system of the United States.^^ The former reserved the sixteenth section of every township of public land, "for the maintenance of public schools within the township." The third article of the latter said that ''religion," morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

" Niles Register, v. 52, p. 114. Some names of towns in the prairie district of eastern Illinois are like the same in Indiana and Ohio. Earlier prairie settlers frequently gave Ohio and Indiana as the state of their birth.

" After the cession of Virginia's claims to the northwestern territory was executed various plans of government were drawn up the next tliree years. July 11, 1787, a committee of which Nathan Dane of Massachusetts was chairman, reported a plan of government for the territory northwest of the Ohio River. A slavery clause was added and the bill became a law July 13, 1787. Congress accepted the mode of government in 1789.

April 18, 1818, Congress offered to Illinois for acceptance or rejection.

"1. That section numbered sixteen in every township, and when such section has been sold, or otherwise disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto, and as contiguous as may be, shall be granted to the state for the use of the inhabitants of such township for the use of schools.'*

2. ' ' That all salt springs within such state and the lands reserved for the use of the same shall be granted to the said state, and the same to be used under such terms and conditions and regulations as the legislature of said state shall direct; provided the legislature shall never sell nor lease the same for a longer period than ten years at any one time."

3. ''That five per cent of the net proceeds of the lands lying within such state, and which shall be sold by congress from and after the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and nineteen, after deducting all exjDenses incident to the same, shall be reserved for the purposes following, viz : Two-fifths to be distributed under the direction of congress in making roads leading to the state; the residue to be appropriated by the legislature of the state for the encouragement of learning, of which one-sixth part shall be exclusively bestowed on a college or university."

4. ''That thirty-six sections or one entire township, which shall be designated by the President of the United States, together with the one reserved for that purpose, shall be reserved for the use of a seminary of learning, and vested in the legislature of the said state, to be appropriated solely to the use of such seminary by the said legislature." "

These provisions laid down by congress were accepted by Illinois, August 26, 1818, in a convention assembled at Kaskaskia.

The first three sections of the compact were carried out and a resolution, "that a select committee be appointed to draft a memorial to the President of the United States, requesting him to designate 36 sections of land in the State of Illinois, to be reserved for the use of a Seminary of Learning in said state, in pursuance of the fourth article of the

M Constitution of niinois, 1818, p. 22.

compact between the United States and the state of Illinois," was sent to the President in 1822. *

Although land grants were made on the basis of townships or subdivisions of them, local government was managed by a county commissioners' court of three which resembled that of Virginia except that the Dlinois commissioners in each county were elected at large by the people. ' ' The commissioners had a narrow range of discretionary power; but there was no power given to communities to control local affairs or to enact by-laws in promotion of neighborhood interests. ' ' "

However, there was the germ in these congressional grants of land for school purposes, capable of becoming a highly organized township system under proper conditions. Deeds to land were given by the authority of the township. The government of the United States had set aside for the people of every township a section of land, the proceeds from which were to constitute a permanent township school fund. The State, moreover, made the township a body corporate and politic for school purposes, and gave the inhabitants of each township the right to maintain free schools near the middle of the nineteenth century. But the first school districts of the state followed boundaries that were laid out to meet the needs of a locality rather than following the lines of the surveyed township. The first attempts for the education of the children of Illinois are illustrated in the following chapter.

* The President authorized Gov. Coles to select the 36 sections. The latter reported to the legislature, Dec. 4, 1826, that he had chosen 26, and would soon designate the other 10 sections.

"Ulinois Intelligencer, Sat., Dec. 14, 1822.

CHAPTER 11.

Early Education in Illinois.

Frontier settlements in the United States generally have had two classes of people: the one, made up of the strong, the honest and the adventurous; the other, made up of the weak, the shiftless and the vicious. The former were always desirous of providing those opportunities for their children which the parents had missed themselves; the latter were the parasites who tried to exist with the least possible exertion. Nowhere does this contrast stand out so sharply, as it does in relation to education. In the absence of established school systems, individual leaders provided what education they could for the youth. Very often the parasitic, itinerant individuals thought that teaching was the easiest means of existence. Accordingly, bombastic speeches and alluring advertisements were made by the soldier-of-fortune teachers to attract tuition pupils to their high-sounding, fashionable schools. A made to order education could be given to any child so long as the tuition was paid. Quick of growth, popular in name, entertaining in methods of teaching, these institutions preyed on the frontier communities.

Nevertheless, the indomitable, thoroughly honest, intelligent and far-sighted missionary preachers and political leaders planned to start aright a system of education. It is true that their ideal, usually, was the academy, an institution in practice, primarily, for the education of leaders. But in theory, at least, its advantages should be such that the ideal government created by the constitution could be maintained by educating every child. From 1806, when the Vincennes Academy was established, to the time when the free public high school was established, the great argument advanced for the education of the people was that the government of the people, for the people, and by the people might not perish from the earth. Had free government in Illinois depended on free educational provisions and opportunities for the common man in the early period, it most surely would have perished. Either leaders like Coles and Peck were educated in the states from whence they came, or a few academies in the centers of population in the frontier districts instructed such leaders as Eeynolds and Bateman. On the whole, the educational system of Illinois, from 1800 to 1835, was conducted on a purely individualistic basis.

Among the earliest plans for education in Illinois was that presented to the English King and Council in a petition by Leyman, a leader of a colony, to settle on the Mississippi about 1765. He says, '' Another step I would propose to be taken which must have great effect towards Accomplishing the design, is that of a Colledge, or Publick School, to be Established in some proper place in that Country, and empowered to give honorary degrees, in Order to instruct the Children of the English, French and Indians, and amongst the honorary Arts, the Art of Agriculture, or Laws of Vegetation should be taught and on Account of their knowledge and Skill in that as well as in other Arts, they should receive Honorary Degrees, and have a sufficient tract of Land appropriated to the use of the Colledge, and the pupils kept to work on the Land a certain number of Hours every day, which would instruct them in the Theory of Agriculture, and enure them to Labour at the same time and if it once toucht their ambition would soon Eradicate from their Minds, the Prejudice the Indians who generally have imbibed, that it is disrespectable for their Men to Work, which at present is an impediment to their Industry. And Occasions there leading in the Intervals of their Hunting, Lazy, Indolent and Unhealthy Lives, and if this plan should Flatter the Ambition of the Indians, so as to meet with their Approbation, I think it promises the best Effects : for what cannot be done by Force of Infant Education when you have a fair Chance for it, by obtaining the Free Consent both of the Parent and Child, or what reformation is to be despaired of, when Clothed, Lodged and Fed, alike according to the English Fashion, but in the Cheapest manner, which may likewise have a haijpy Effect on the Nations from whence they respectively come. Several things Encourage me to believe that such an Attempt, would be attended with Success over and above the Great Force, there is in Infant Education Amongst all Mankind." ^

However, "the opportunity of these pioneers to educatetheir children was extremely small. If the mother could read, while the father was in the corn field, or with rifle upon the range, she would barricade the door to keep off the Indians, gather her little ones around her and by the light that came in from the crevices in the roof and sides of the cabin, she would teach them the rudiments of spelling from the fragments of some old book. After schools were taught, the price of a rough and antiquated copy of Dilworth's spelling-book was one dollar, and that dollar equal in value to fiva now. ' '

''The first school ever taught for the American settlers,. was by Samuel Seely in 1783. Francis Clark, an intemperate man came next. This was near Belief ontaine, in 1785. After this an inoffensive Irishman by the name of Halfpenny,, was employed by the people for several quarters. Spelling, reading, writing and the elements of arithmetic, were all the branches attempted to be taught, and these in a very imperfect manner."

"Following him the late pious and eccentric John Cl^rk, a preacher of the gospel, taught the youth of these settlements gratuitously. He was a good scholar, of Scotch descent and education, and initiated the young men of that day, not only in the rudiments of an English education, but in several instances in mathematics, natural philosophy and the Latin language.""

Governor Reynolds said that "in the county of Randolph there was not a single school, or school-house in 1800, except John Doyle, a soldier of the Revolution under General Clark,, might have taught a few children in Kaskaskia at or after this period."

' ' In the settlement of New Design, an Irishman, not well qualified, called Halfpenny, at this period instructed some pupils. This school was the only one amongst the Americans at this early day. In the American Bottom, perhaps a school

'111. Hist. Coll. V. 2, The New Regime, 1765-1767, p. 272. 2 Peck, J. M., Annals of the West, p. 707.

inight have existed, but not long at a time. Under the guidance of the Clergy in the French villages at rare intervals, schools were established, but their numbers and efficacy were limited. ' "

The scarcity of schools, the opportunity for instruction, the dearth of books, and the ambition of some youths, who later were the pioneer leaders, were depicted by Governor Reynolds in these words: ''Before any common school was established in the settlement, where my father resided, I mounted a horse nearly every evening during the winter, and rode about a mile and a half to the residence of James Hughes, to study under his guidance the arithmetic. Mr. Hughes, although he was raised in the backwoods, and was filled with fun and frolic, was a man of strong mind, and a benevolent heart. He took great pleasure in teaching me arithmetic, and during this winter I studied the most important principles contained in the treatise."

''We had not the least idea when a school w^ould be established in the neighborhood; and I was advancing in years ; so that it was a matter of necessity to study with Mr. Hughes,"

"This was the first step I took towards an education, since we immigrated to Illinois. I attended to my ordinary business on the farm during the day, and in the evenings after the stock was fed I studied arithmetic with Mr. Hughes. In a few years after, schools were established in most of the colonies."

"In the New Design Robert Lemen, an aged and respectable pioneer of Illinois, taught a school. Others were opened in Goshen Settlement, and other colonies."

"About the year 1805, a small school was formed in the settlement, where my father resided. I was a scholar at this humble institution during part of the winters, and the wet days, we could not work on the farm, for one or two years while we remained in the settlement. At times the school was not kept up for want of teachers. The scarcity of school books was also a great inconvenience to the scholar."

"As soon as I commenced the study of arithmetic with Mr. Hughes, I commenced also an ambition and a small en-

* Reynolds, My Own Times, p. 37.

tliusiasm for education generally. This disposition induced me to study and read almost every book I could obtain. It must be recollected at that day in Illinois, not a man in the country, professional or otherwise, had any collection of books that could acquire the name of a library. There were some books scattered through the country but they were not plentiful. Although my father was a reading man, and possessed of a strong mind, yet as far as I recollect, he brought with him to the country no books, except the Bible. Many of the immigrants acted in the same manner as to books. ' '

''One exception I remember was: That John Fulton, who settled in the vicinity of my father, brought with him Rollin's Ancient History. " My father loaned it, and I read it day and night at the times 1 spared from labor. This was the first history I had ever seen, and it gave me a new field of mental existence. ' '

' * I made arrangement with my father to go all one winter to school. I had raised a colt he gave me, and I gave it to a man to work in my place on the farm, while I attended school. ' '

''At this school I studied reading, writing and arithmetic. I revised my studies of arithmetic I had commenced with Mr. Hughes. It was my energy and ambition more, I presume, than my capacity : But I learned rapidly — so my teachers always reported. ' '

"At that day, neither grammar, geography, nor books of science ever appeared in schools. And no branch of mathematics was taught except arithmetic. The custom of the day was also to study the lesson aloud. Each one in the school read out at the top of his voice if it suited the convenience of the scholar. This unenviable habit is changed at this day."

' ' My father purchased a few books, and among them was a treatise on geography. This was a good work in four volumes, and presented a tolerably good geography of the inhabited giolDe. In this work was also contained a sketch of astronomy, and particularly, the solar system. This study surprised and astounded me. It was incomprehensible to me how it was possible, that the knowledge of the heavenly bodies could be obtained. I reflected on this science with all my humble abilities, and became well instructed on it, so far as that short sketch afforded me the means. My father understood the general principles of astronomy tolerably well, and instructed me considerably in addition to the treatise mentioned above."*

About the time Illinois was admitted as a state in the Union, educational conditions and opportunities were scarcely better than those which Reynolds described. An article in the Illinois Intelligencer, September 5, 1816, says that "at least one-third of the schools were really a public nuisance, and did the people more harm than good ; another third about balanced the account, by doing about as much harm as good, and perhaps one-third were advantageous to the community in various degrees.