CHAPTER XI.

(RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE)

OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

We are indebted to Prof. W. R. Butcher of St. Clairsville for this sketch of the operation of our public school system in Belmont County.

The history of individual schools throughout the county appear in the history of the various townships in which they are located.

The history of the growth of the public school system in a county is so closely connected with its history in the State, that the story of the rapid progress of the public schools in Ohio is, to a great extent, their history in Belmont County.

In speaking of the Ordinance of 1787, Daniel Webster said, "We are accustomed to praise the law-givers of antiquity, we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus, but I doubt whether one single law of any law-giver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787." In this ordinance was embodied the oft-quoted clause, "Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." What this clause means to Ohio and how well she has carried out the wishes of those who expected great results from her school system, the schools of the present will answer.

The number of school houses in Ohio in 1901 was 13,174, employing 23,491 teachers. The total number of school youth in the State was 1,219.919, of which number 829,857 were. enrolled in the different schools of the State.

The oversight of the educational affairs of the whole State is entrusted to a Commissioner of Common Schools. The control of the different schools is vested by the State in local boards of education, and the teachers and their supervisors are agents of the State, getting their authority to teach from boards of examiners who issue certificates to teachers.

For convenience in managing affairs, the school district is the unit area of school organization and determines the bonds of the authority of a board of directors. It generally consists of a whole township or a whole municipal corporation. Sometimes communities are joined for educational purposes that are separate in other governmental affairs. There are township school districts, special districts, village districts and two classes of city districts.

The sources of school revenues are : First, the general State tax of one mill collected on the grand tax duplicate of the State, and distributed on the basis of the enumerated youth to all the counties for use in each school district; second, the annual distribution from the State sinking fund of six per cent. on all the irreducible State debt, the moneys going to those districts whence that trust fund was derived; third, the local levies made by the various school districts for school purposes; fourth, certain fines and penalties that, according to law, go for school purposes; fifth, the miscellaneous receipts of the boards from outside tuition, rentals and the like.

The irreducible school fund was derived from the sale by the Legislature of lands

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granted by Congress for school purposes; these appropriations comprised one thirty-sixth part of the State or something like 1,200 square miles. To this one section in every township was added the money received from the sale of certain "swamp lands ;" so that for common school purposes the State is bound, at present, to pay six per cent. on a little over four million dollars.

More than two-fifths of the total tax paid in Belmont County goes to the support of the schools. In round figures the past year $450,000 was collected as tax and there was expended in the county for support of the schools the sum of $191,429.04. The various townships and special school districts expended the following amounts on their schools as shown by their books in the auditor's office:

The above figures include all school expenses, as for example the cost in Bellaire includes an expediture of about $15,000 for new buildings.

The first schools in Belmont County were provided with funds by private or co-operative enterprise. The State Legislature took no action in relation to school appropriations until

1806 and then only slight action. As a result, the funds for conducting the district schools were, for the greater part, obtained by charging private tuition. Before a teacher would begin his term of school, he would canvass the district to see what amount of private tuition could be raised. Many of the teachers of those times worked on the farm in the summer and kept school in the winter. Of the quality of their farming, nothing derogatory can be said, but of their school-keeping, with a few exceptions, one would have to be very liberal, indeed, to say anything commendatory. Much learning had not made them mad, but much learning was not required. To be able to spell correctly, to know the arithmetic to the "single rule of three" and to write a good hand was deemed sufficient in most districts. Writing was made a great deal of ; it was their one accomplishment, and they prided themselves in it. Their writing was none of your running, semi-angular kind, but what an old farmer of the times happily described as "a round square hand." The textbooks used were "Pike's Arithmetic," "Kirkham's Grammar" and "Cobb's Speller." If an ambitious youth wished to go beyond the "single rule of three, he was compelled to tread the thorny paths of mathematical knowledge alone.

If the knowledge of the schoolmaster of those days was not the broadest in its scope, still he was the foremost man in this respect of the people among whom he lived.

But the public was awakening to the interest of education and in 1821 a long stride forward was made when the State Legislature passed the first general school law. In 1825, there were a "school" party and a "canal" party in the Legislature; one was intent on having schools and the other, canals. As neither party was able to carry its point alone, the two joined their forces and so gave the State both schools and canals. The greatest advance in school legislation was made in 1853, when the present school law, in its essential features, was enacted.

At that time, a number of men, afterward famous as teachers, lecturers, and authors of

140 - CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF BELMONT COUNTY,

school textbooks, were attracting public attention by the excellent work they were doing to advance school interests in the State. Prominent among these were John Hancock, Joseph Ray, Thomas Harvey and Eli T. Tappan. It was the work of such men as these that gave an impetus to the cause of education and made the public school system, as it exists today, possible.

There never was a time when the public school was in as flourishing a condition as at present. The log school houses that dotted the hills and vales of Belmont County more than half a century ago have given place to buildings modern in every respect, the school system is improving and the courses of study come nearer meeting the popular needs than ever before. Methods are more rational, discipline is more humane and the attendance more regular.

The Boxwell law has given the pupils of the rural districts an opportunity to obtain a high

school education. The term "high school" has been defined by statute and the high schools of the State have been divided into 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th class, according to the time given and subjects included in the course of study.

Belmont County has 16 township districts, 183 subdistricts and 11 special districts. The special districts are Martin's Ferry, Bridgeport, Bellaire, Barnesville, St. Clairsville, Belmont, Bethesda, Morristown, Flushing, Somerton and Powhattan. The value of school property in the county is $501,000. It takes 352 teachers to supply the schools. Of these, 205 are in the township districts and 147 in the special districts. The average monthly wages in the township schools is: men, $37; women, $34. In the special districts, men in the elementary departments, $53 ; women, $38. In the high schools, men, $73; women, $60.

The county examiners for 1902 are: James Duncan, Bridgeport ; James O. Porterfield, Demos ; and W. R. Butcher, St. Clairsville.