(RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE) HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 175 every pupil. The boys occupied the east side, and the girls the west side, next to Vine street. William Wing was the founder and builder of this school. He died soon after this school was opened, and then Edward Wing, his son, took up the work and kept the school going for a long time. The house being well adapted to giving shows, or exhibitions, as they were called, Mr. Wing frequently gave that sort of amusement to his pupils and patrons. At one of these, Mr. W. P. Hulbert, then a mere lad, played the part of William Tell's son, to the late S. S. L'Hommedieu's William Tell, in the thrilling drama which introduces the exciting scene of shooting the apple off the boy's head. To the unerring aim of Master L'Hommedieu's arrow, and to the heroic bravery of Master Hulbert, who endured the ordeal without putting himself in range of the arrow, are we, perhaps, indebted for the present Gazette Building. This pioneer Wing school-house became one of the first schoolhouses of the public or common-school system. George Graham, a man who carries more knowledge of Cincinnati in his head than any man living, was one of the trustees of the common schools, and he rented this school building for the use of the Second Ward school. Here Mr. Graham appeared frequently as an examiner, for he was an active man in those days, and knew how necessary it was to inaugurate strict discipline. The common schools were new, and were not popular. The name "common" was distasteful. Mr. Graham personally examined every pupil in the schools. He popularized the system by causing all the teachers and pupils to appear, once a year at least, in procession through the streets, and soon had the pleasure of seeing the common-sch00l system regarded as one of the institutions deserving the highest esteem. The following Academies are enumerated in the Cincinnati Directory for 1831, the first year of the last half century of the city's existence: Academy of Medicine, Longworth, near Race ; Dr. Locke's Female Academy, Walnut, between Third and Fourth; A. Treusdell's, same neighborhood; Pickets', corner Walnut and Fourth; Kinmont's, Race, between Fifth and Longworth ; McKee's, College edifice ; Nixon's Logierian Musical, corner Main and Fourth; Findley's Classical, College edifice ; Nash's Musical, Fifth, between Main and Sycamore. Musical education already, it seems, had secured a firm lodgment here. We shall deal with it at some length in our chapter on Music in Cincinnati. Some of the above-named schools, and two or three schools not enumerated, had already received an appreciative notice from Caleb Atwater, who took this place in his tour of travel in 1829. He says in his book: Great attention is bestowed on the education of children and youth here—and the Cincinnati College, the Medical College of Ohio, the Messrs. Pickets' Female Academy, the four public schools, one under Mr. Holley, Mr. Hammond's school, and forty others, deserve the high reputation they enjoy. There is, too, a branch, a medical one, of the college at Oxford here located, and conducted by gentlemen of genius, learning and science—whose reputation stands high with the public. The year 1833 was a notable period in the history of education in Cincinnati. About this time the College of Teachers was founded, to which a full notice will be due presently. About the same year a popular female seminary was kept on Third street, east of Broadway, by the celebrated novelist, Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz, and her husband, a French gentleman of some culture and ability. At this time was also maintained here the celebrated young ladies' school of Miss Catharine Beecher, who had recently been principal of a successful seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, but had come west with or soon after her father, and established this school with her sister Harriet, afterwards Mrs. Stowe. Their Female Academy was on the subsequent site of St. John's Hospital, and was on a plan quite similar to that of later institutions of the kind. After a few years' teaching here they retired—one to marry Professor Stowe, and the other to become a missionary for female education for the west. The school was then placed in charge of Miss Mary Dutton, who had been an assistant of Miss Beecher at Hartford, and then here. She had after a time to give up the building for other purposes, and thought best to abandon the school. She went to New Hampshire, and there maintained a flourishing school for many years. Another distinguished personage comes to the front in 1836, in the simple mention, in the Directory of that year, of "O. M. Mitchel's Institute of Science and Languages, corner of Broadway and Third." The distinguished astronomer, orator and soldier was making his humble beginnings then. Shortly before this, in 1835, the city had been visited by another remarkable person, an Englishwoman, then in the fullness of her strong and brilliant energies, who appears to have made the most of the opportunities which Cincinnati afforded her for observations of things in the great American Republic. She gave an elaborate chapter in her subsequent book to Cincinnati ; and in that occurs the following paragraphs, which are mostly germane to our prese nt topic. They are the words of Harriet Martineau: The morning of the nineteenth shone brightly down on the festival of the day. It was the anniversary of the opening of the common schools. Some of the schools passed our windows in procession, their banners dressed with garlands, and the children gay with flowers and ribands. A lady who was sitting with me remarked, "this is our populace." I thought of the expression months afterward, when the gentlemen of Cincinnati met to pass resolutions on the subject of abolitionism, and when one of the resolutions recommended mobbing as a retribution for the discussion of the subject of slavery, the law affording no punishment for free discussion. Among those who moved and seconded these resolutions, and formed a deputation to threaten an advocate of free discussion, were some of the merchants who form the aristocracy of the place; and the secretary of the meeting was the accomplished lawyer whom I mentioned above, and who told me that the object of his life is law-reform in Ohio! The "populace" of whom the lady was justly proud have, in no case that I know of, been the law-breakers, and in as far as the "populace"' means not "the multitude," but the "vulgar," I do not agree with the lady that these children were, the populace. Some of the patrons and prize-givers afterward proved them-serves "the vulgar" of the city. The children were neatly and tastefully dressed. A great improvement has taken place in the costume of little boys in England within my recollection; but I never saw such graceful children as the little boys in America, at least in their summer dress. They are slight, active and free. I remarked that several were barefoot, though in other respects well clad ; and I found that many put off shoes and stockings from choice during the three hot months. Others were barefoot from poverty—children of recent settlers and of the poorest class of the community. We set out for the church as soon as the procession had passed, and arrived before the doors were opened. A platform had been erected below the pulpit, and on it were seated the mayor and principal gentlemen of the city. The two thousand children then filed in. The report was read, and proved very satisfactory. These schools were established by a cordial union of various political and religious parties; and nothing could be more promising than the prospects of the institution as to funds, as to the satisfaction of the class benefitted, and as to the continued union of their benefactors. Several boys then gave specimens of elocution, which were highly amusing. They seemed to suffer under no false shame and to have no misgiving about the effect of the vehement action they had beep taught to employ. I wondered how many 176 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. of them would speak in Congress hereafter. It seems doubtful to me whether the present generation of Americans are not out in their calculations about the value and influence of popular oratory. They ought certainly to know best; but I never saw an oration produce nearly so much effect as books, newspapers, and conversation. I suspect there is a stronger association in American minds than the times will justify between republicanism and oratory; and that they overlook the fact of the vast change introduced by the press, a revolution which has altered men's tastes and habits of thought, as well as varied. the method of reaching minds. As to the style of oratory itself, reasoning is now found to be much more impressing than declamation, certainly in England, and I think also in the United States; and though, as every American boy is more likely than not to act some part in public life, it is desirable that all should be enabled to speak their minds clearly and gracefully. I am inclined to think it a pernicious mistake to render declamatory accomplishment so prominent a part of education as it now is. I trust that the next generation will exclude whatever there is of insincere and traditional in the practice of popular oratory, discern the real value of the accomplishment, and redeem the reproach of bad taste which the oratory of the present generation has brought upon the people. While the Americans have the glory of every citizen being a reader, and having books to read, they cannot have, and need not desire, the glory of shining in popular oratory, the glory of an age gone by! Many prizes of books were given by the gentlemen on the platform, and the ceremony closed with an address from the pulpit which was true and in some respects beautiful, but which did not appear altogether judicious to those who are familiar with children's minds. The children were exhorted to trust their teachers entirely; to be assured that their friends would do by them what was kindest. IN EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-ONE the city had besides, the public schools—which had ten districts, with nine buildings, sixty teachers, and about forty thousand children—the Cincinnati college, Woodward college, Lane Theological seminary, the St. Francis Xavier Theological seminary, the Cincinnati Law school, and the Medical college of Ohio. In these were gathered about four hundred students, while fifteen hundred more were in the academies and seminaries, and five thousand in the parochial and private schools—about seven thousand in all not in the public schools. The College of Teachers was still doing very able and hopeful pedagogic work. THE WESLEYAN FEMALE COLLEGE. The original impulse which led to the organization of this still excellent and flourishing institution, was received from a series of articles in the Western Christian Advocate, in the fall of 1840, by Dr. C. Elliott, descriptive of his travels in the east, and calling the notice of the denomination strongly to the need of female education. From time to time, for many months, he continued to press the theme, until, on the fourth of May, 1842, a special meeting of Methodist preachers in Cincinnati was held at the office of the Advocate, to consult, as explained by Dr. Elliott, "on the expediency of taking measures to establish in this city a female institute of the highest possible grade." It was resolved that a public meeting should be called to consider the practicability of establishing in Cincinnati such an institute; and a committee of fourteen, headed by Dr. Elliott, was appointed to report a plan for it to the general meeting. On the twentieth of May the meeting was held in Wesley chapel. The main points of the plan reported by the committee are as follows: The contemplated institution should embrace all the branches of female education, from the highest to the lowest ; to such a degree as not to be exceeded, if possible, by any similar institution in the whole world. It should comprehend the following departments : 1. The common English department, embracing all those branches comprised in a thorough course of primary instruction. 2. The collegiate department, which should comprise a good collegiate course of instruction adapted particularly for females. 3. The normal department, in which pupils will be prepared to become efficient teachers for schools of every grade, particularly the common schools and female academies. 4. The department of extras, in which those various branches not necessary for all, yet useful for some, should be taught. A list of branches to be taught was recommended, which was prepared on a very liberal and enlightened scale for that day, embracing Hebrew and Greek among the languages, a pretty full course in the natural sciences, and an excellent range of Biblical studies. The plan further prescribed: The following are some of the general principles, or characters, which should designate the institution : It should be a Methodist institution to all intents and purposes, so that the principles of Christianity, as taught by the Methodist Episcopal church, would be constantly inculcated, and a full course of sound Biblical instruction should be learned by all; and all Methodist children should, without exception, go through this course thoroughly, in view of their becoming good Sabbath-school teachers after they leave the institution, and as far as their services are needed while they continue in it. Yet children whose parents do not approve it need not commit our catechisms nor receive our peculiar views; but they must conform to our mode of worship and general regulations. The ornamental branches, as music, painting, etc., will be pursued in reference to utility and the practical purposes of life, and in accordance with just but enlightened views of the pure religion of Christ. It will be desirable that the institution should furnish all the aid in its power toward the education of poor female children and girls, both for their individual benefit and the good of the public, in preparing them to be efficient teachers. The remaining paragraphs of 'the report affirm the necessity of a boarding-house, while admitting the attendance of children of the city as day pupils; set forth the advantages of Cincinnati for such a school; express a feeling of reliance upon receipts for tuition for the payment of tachers, while provision should be made for the education of poor girls; declare the necessity of such an institution to the Methodist church in Cincinnati, and the pecuniary ability of its members to provide for it; and call for a meeting of members and friends of the church, to adopt "immediate measures toward the complete and speedy establishment of a high female literary institute." This clear and intelligent report, in which the seeds of so many excellent things in female education were contained, was probably direct from the head, heart and hand of the enthusiastic Dr. Elliott, although signed by every member of the committee of fourteen. It was promptly adopted, and a committee of twenty-three was appointed, without the intervention of another meeting, to establish the school. Bishop Morris was chairman of the committee, and the following named gentlemen, in part representing their several churches, were the remaining members: Wesley Chapel—J. L. Grover, W. Neff, J. Lawrence. Fourth-street—W. Herr, J. G. Rust, H. DeCamp. Ninth-street—G. C. Crum, W. Woodruff, A. Riddle. Asbury—W. H. Lawder, S. Williams, G. W. Townley. Fulton—M.G. Perkiser, Burton Hazen, M. Litherberry. W. H. Raper, J. F. Wright, L. Swormstedt, C. Elliott, L L. Hamline, W. Nast, A. Miller. HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 177 The same year a small house on Ninth street was rented from Mr. Woodruff, of the committee; but it soon became too strait for the demands of the school, and the next year a large and beautiful building, the residence of Mr. John Reeves, on Seventh street, was obtained for its purposes, and another building was erected upon the grounds for occupation by the pupils. The Rev. P. B. Wilber, M. A., of Virginia, was engaged as principal; his wife, Mrs. C. Wilber, as governess; Miss Mary De Forest, assistant; Miss Emeline Tompkins, assistant in the primary department; W. Nixon, professor of Music. A thorough course of study was announced for preparatory and classical departments, extending through six years. The second session of the college, under these auspices, began in the new buildings in February, 1843, with a large increase of students, to whom many more .were added at the opening of the spring session. Meanwhile, during the winter, the State legislature had granted the college a charter, with all the powers and privileges necessary for an institution of the highest grade. Two more assistants, Miss Stagg and Miss Harmon, were added to the teaching corps, and arrangements for the purchase of philosophical and chemical apparatus were made. The year closed with highly commendatory reports from the examining committees, composed from the leading citizens of Cincinnati. Their good words for the infant college were published in the city papers, and did much to popularize the institution, as did also a published letter from Professor Merrick, in eulogy of the school. The college continued to prosper. The year 1844-5 closed with especial brilliancy. Rev. Mr. Finley, in his Sketches of Western Methodism, to which we owe the materials of this preliminary sketch, says: The commencement exercises of 1845 constituted a brilliant era in the history of the institution. They were held in the Ninth Street Methodist Episcopal Church, which was crowded in every part. B. Storer, esq., delivered an eloquent address before the Young Ladies' Lyceum, after which graduates read their compositions and received their degrees as mistresses of English and classical literature. The plan of the original proprietors [projectors?] was now no longer an experiment, and the female college from this point started out on its high and glorious career. It was presently necessary to provide further accommodations for the large numbers of pupils that flocked in from all parts of the country. A desirable property was offered on Vine street, between Sixth and Seventh, extending through to College street—a large and already tastefully ornamented ground, occupied as the residence of Mr. Henry Starr. It was purchased, and a spacious edifice erected thereon, sufficient for the reception of five hundred pupils. (This was nearly the site of the fine structure since erected and containing the public library. It is now occupied by the printing department of the Daily Enquirer.) In this the college took a new departure of prosperity, and in a few years the need was felt of still another building, which was put up and additional grounds secured. In 1851 the school had four hundred and thirty-seven pupils, from nearly all parts of the Union. Principal (then president) Wilber and Mrs. Wilber were still in charge, with fifteen assistants in the various departments of teaching. 23 The Hon. J. P. Foote, in his book on the Schools of Cincinnati, published in 1855, thus bears testimony to the worth of the young college: It has had since its foundation a uniform course of prosperity and usefulness, its greatest defect being caused by the high reputation which it has acquired, which brings more pupils to seek admission than can be accommodated, and, notwithstanding the want of room, the desire to receive as many of those who are anxious to obtain the advantages of the institution induces the managers and principals to receive sometimes too many; and though the extent of the buildings has been increased, the need of a further increase continues. Rev. and Mrs. Wilber were still in charge of the school, which had now four hundred and forty-two pupils. The report of the committee on education, made to the Cincinnati annual conference in September, 1880, thus speaks of the college: This institution has been in successful operation thirty-eight years. It has educated a large number of influential ladies, who, by their success in life, have reflected the highest honor upon the college. Some of these have distinguished themselves in the field of literature, others in the profession of teaching, and many more in useful departments of home life. This oldest college for women still offers, as in the past, every advantage for thorough and finished scholarship. The teachers are experienced and accomplished. They reside in the college, and devote their entire time to the care, culture, and improvement of the pupils. Especial attention is given to the selection of instructors, not only in regard to superior scholarship, but also to personal character and adaptation to secure the love and confidence of the students. JOSEPH HERRON. Among the noted teachers of the middle period of the history of Cincinnati was he whose name heads this section—the proprietor of a seminary for boys, which enjoyed considerable celebrity here for many years. A daughter of his, Mrs. Lucy Herron Parker, now a teacher in Chillicothe, Ohio, kindly sends us the following notice of her honored father: Joseph Herron, A. M., was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, in 1808, and came to Ohio with his father, who settled in Clermont county in 1816. Having gone as far in his studies as the public schools of that time could take him, he taught in that county from the age of seventeen to twenty-one, applying himself diligently all the while to master the higher branches of learning. In 1829 he went to Cincinnati, and taught in the public schools until 1837, when he was appointed principal of the preparatory department of the old Cincinnati college, whose building was destroyed by fire in 1845. He then opened a private school for boys and young men—Herron's seminary, which averaged two hundred pupils, and which he conducted successfully for eighteen years, until the time of his death in 1863. He was thus a leading educator of the youth of this city for thirty-four years, and I doubt if any other instructor has rendered such long service in that city. During this time hundreds of those who are now prominent business men and influential citizens were his pupils, and could testify to his ability and fidelity as a teacher, especially in the line of moral education. He was for many years one of the directors of the Young Men's Bible society, for a long time secretary of the Relief Union, for ten years superintendent of the old Bethel Sabbath-school; was one of the charter trustees of the Wesleyan Female college, and continued to be a trustee until his death. In all these works he was associated with the best citizens of Cincinnati, many of whom remember how active and useful he was in every enterprise which had for its object the real prosperity of the city and the highest welfare of the people. IN EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY it was estimated that there were probably fifty private academies and schools in the city, with at least two thousand five hundred pupils. The three colleges of the city were the Cincinnati, the Woodward, and St. Xavier. The medical schools were the Ohio, the Eclectic, the Physio-Medical, and the College of Dental Surgery, with 178 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. a total number of students amounting to about four hundred and fifty. The sole law school was a department of Cincinnati college, and had an average membership of thirty. Five theological schools were regularly established, and two of them in full operation--Lane seminary (New School Presbyterian), and the Presbyterian theological seminary (Old School). Three others—the seminary of St. Francis Xavier (Catholic), another Roman Catholic theological seminary, and a Baptist institution at Fairmount had been founded, but not yet formed their classes. There were also four business schools. The principal academies and private schools were the Young Ladies' Literary Institute and Boarding School, kept on Eighth street by the Sisters of Notre Dame, and the Ursuline Academy, both Catholic; the Wesleyan Female College, then on Vine street; the Cincinnati Female Seminary, Herron's Seminary for Boys, St. John's College (with college classes not yet formed), Lyman Harding's and Mrs. Lloyd's Seminaries for Gills, and the Classical Schools for Boys kept by E. S. Brooks and Messrs. R. and H. H. Young. The Catholics had also thirteen parochial schools, with an aggregate attendance of four thousand four hundred and ninety-four, and forty-eight teachers. The public schools numbered nineteen, with one hundred and thirty-eight teachers, and twelve thousand two hundred and forty pupils; and there were also three colored schools, with nine teachers and three hundred and sixty pupils. The whole number of schools of all kinds was reckoned at one hundred and two; teachers, three hundred and fifty-seven; pupils, twenty thousand seven hundred and thirty-seven. The Central High School had been established shortly before. The cost of public instruction for the preceding academic year was sixty-seven thousand eight hundred and eighty-four dollars—four hundred and ninety-two dollars per teacher, or five dollars and fifty cents a pupil. THE CHICKERING INSTITUTE. The Daily Gazelle for September 17, 1877, contains the following historical sketch of this renowned institution: It is thirty-three years since the principal of the well-known Chickering Institute first commenced his career as principal of one of the grammar schools of New England. Here he taught with marked success as principal of grammar and high schools for eight years. At the expiration of this time, on account of a generous offer made by Miles Greenwood, esq., he was induced to come to Cincinnati. This was in the autumn of 1852. After about eighteen months spent in private tutoring, Mr. Chickering opened a private school in the beautiful village of Avondale. Inducements were offered for him to establish his school in the city, and in September, 1855, "Chickering's Academy" was opened in the George street engine house, commencing with an attendance of thirty-seven, which, during the year, increased to fifty-one. The second year the school record showed an attendance of seventy-six. Each successive year the attendance continued to increase until the year 1859, when it was determined to build for the better accommodation of pupils. The site of the present building was purchased by the principal, and " Chickering's Academy" changed its name to " Chickering's Institute," with a full graded course of classical and scientific stivnes. The first year in the new building the school numbered one hundred and fifty-five, and within two years the numbers increased so rapidly that it was found necessary to add another story to the building. Ever since that time the school has had a most successful primary department for young boys. The whole twenty-five years of the school's history has been one of remarkable success in every respect. During the past sixteen years the catalogue has shown an average attendance of two hundred and fifteen students per annum. It is not only one of the largest (probably the very largest) private schools for boys in this country, but it is also one of the best managed and conducted in every particular. The catalogue of 1880 showed an attendance of two hundred and fifteen for the previous academic year. Graduates since 1855, two hundred and twenty; awarded diplomas since 1864 (when they were first given), one hundred and seventy-one; entered Eastern colleges or scientific schools since 1864, ninety-six; entered western colleges, thirty-three. Fifteen teachers are employed, among them Professor W. H. Venable the historian and poet, Mrs. Kate \Vestendorf the elocutionist, and other well-known persons. During the twenty-seven years of the history of the institute, Mr. Chickering has expended nearly four hundred thousand dollars upon its buildings, cabinets, and current expenses—a remarkable financial record, truly. IN EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE Miss Elizabeth H. Appleton, associated with Professor Horatio Wood, a New Englander and graduate of Harvard, opened a private school for girls. It was first on Fourth street, between Elm and Plum; then on Elm, between Fourth and Fifth. The school was maintained successfully until 1875, when Mr. Wood returned to New England and became a writer for the magazines; and Miss Appleton, after a European tour, became librarian of the Ohio Historical and Philosophical Society, which post she now holds. The other principal schools for young women and girls in the city were at this time Professor McLeod's, which had been removed from Tennessee to Cincinnati in 1853, upon the destruction by fire of the buildings it occupied in that State; Harding's female seminary; the Cincinnati female seminary, now in charge of T. A. Burrowes, A. M., and in a building of its own; and the Roman Catholic nunnery, which had been established for many years, and acquired a very extensive reputation. For boys there were Herron's seminary; St. John's college, formerly in charge of the Rev. Dr. Colton, but, too ambitious in its aims, it had been reduced to an academy, and was flourishing in charge of Charles Matthews, formerly a professor in Woodward college; R. B. Brooks' academy; J. B. Chickering's select school, now the Chickering institute; Professor Lippitt's institute; and several commercial colleges. A Pestalozzian school for both sexes had just been started by Dr. Cristin, formerly of the public schools, and a graduate of the Miami Medical College. The Mount Auburn young ladies' institute was founded in 1856, and prospered for nearly twenty years, when it closed for a time, re-opening hopefully in 1878. Its president is the well-known Christian worker, Mr. H. Thane Miller. Miss Armstrong, from the school formerly kept in the city by Mme. Fribel, also opened upon Mount Auburn a successful family and day school. Miss Clara E. Nourse's family and day school on West Seventh street was established in 1860, and has been eminently successful. > HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 179 Professor Bartholomew's English and classical school, at the corner of Fourth and John streets, dates from about 1875. KINDERGARTENS. In Miss Nourse's school building, on Seventh street, is the private kindergarten of Miss Helene Goodman, started in 1875. Other institutions of the kind are Miss Lizzie Beaman's, Miss Katherine Dodd's, and Miss Ida Stevens', which, with the free kindergartens and those attached to the Wesleyan female college and the Cincinnati orphan asylum, number thirteen in all in the city. The free kindergarten movement, so hopeful in its development and present situation, deserves a history by itself, and we take pleasure in extracting the following from the last report of the secretary of the The first meeting of the ladies interested in the establishment of a charity Kindergarten was held on the thirteenth of December, r879, This meeting resulted in the appointment of two committees, one for the nomination of officers and the other to draw up a constitution and decide upon the name of the organization. The second meeting was the following week, December t9th; the constitution and by-laws adopted, the name of the society being the Cincinnati Kindergarten association. The officers were then elected as follows: Mrs. Alphonso Taft, president; Mrs. Robert Hosea, treasurer; Mrs. J. D. Brannan, secretary. Committees upon instruction, finance, and publication were also appointed. On the third of January, 1880, a lecture was given at College Hall before the association by Professor Harris, of St. Louis, upon the Kindergarten as established in that city. During the months of January and February meetings were held fortnightly, either at the Hughes or the Woodward High school buildings, all of which were well attended, and there was a constantly increasing list of membership and a more active interest manifested in the school soon to he opened. Subscriptions were obtained, and the chairman of the instruction committee was authorized to correspond with Miss Blow, of St. Louis, in reference to a teacher for the Kindergarten. This resulted in the engagement of Miss Shawk, for four months from the first of March, and the decision was made to open the school at that time. After much search in various parts of the city, it was decided to rent rooms in the Spencer house, Front and Broadway, and three new committees were appointed—a house committee to purchase school furniture and apparatus. a decorative committee to ornament the rooms, and a visiting committee to recruit the pupils. About this time also a committee was appointed to investigate the subject of kitchen-gardens, as it had been suggested that a class in this work might be connected with the association. On March 2d the school was opened, and an informal meeting was held the same afternoon, when Miss Shawk was introduced to the members of the society. Six pupils were present at the opening of the school, and the number increased to fifty during the first fortnight of its existence. Early in April a reading was given by Mme. Fredin and Mrs. Hollingshead for the benefit of the school, and at this time the treasury contained about eight hundred dollars, thanks to the efforts made by many friends. The May meeting was rendered especially interesting by the presence of Miss Blow, who gave many details of her experience. On the twenty-eighth of May the children were given a picnic under the supervision of some of the ladies of Clifton, assisted by Mrs. Taft and others. During the month of June Miss Shawk was re-engaged for the ensuing year, and it was decided to close the school during July and August. In September the rooms were re-opened with a large attendance of pupils, and nearly the same assistant teachers. In November it was found that the treasurer held only three hundred or four hundred dollars, and further sums being necessary for the maintenance of the school, it was concluded to hold an entertainment in the Music Hall during Thanksgiving week. This was successfully given November 29th, by the children and teachers of the private kindergartens, and secured for the school over four hundred dollars. Another free kindergarten, to accommodate a more remote part of the city, has just (March, 1881) been started in the Exposition buildings, on Elm street. CINCINNATI COLLEGE. In the year 1815, as we have seen, the Lancasterian seminary was chartered as a college, with the privileges of a university. By the contributions of a few citizens it soon obtained an endowment which, sacredly preserved and judiciously invested, would have made the young institution in time enormously wealthy. General Lytle gave toward it ten thousand dollars' worth of land and a considerable sum in cash; Judge Burnet pledged five thousand dollars and other property to a large amount, while about fifty others, including citizens of the prominence of Ethan Stone, William Corry, Oliver M. Spencer, General Findlay, David E. Wade, John H. Piatt, and Andrew Mack, gave additional sums which carried the endowment up to fifty thousand dollars—certainly a large sum for those days and for a village not yet fairly out of the woods. The organization of a faculty of arts was effected, including a president, vice-president, professors of languages and of natural philosophy, and tutors. A liberal course of study, similar to that of other colleges of the time, was marked out. The college, with its elementary or Lancasterian department, went into very hopeful operation, and maintained itself well for a few years. In the graduating classes were Some young men who afterwards became highly distinguished, and it is said that young women also took their diplomas in some of the classes. But the college had by and by its share in the financial troubles that came upon the city, had to sacrifice all its property except the real estate it occupied, and when the building burned many years afterwards (in 1845) nothing was left to the institution but the bare ground. For a number of years the college existed only in name. In 1836, when the medical and law departments of the college were established, Dr. Drake and other public-spirited citizens who were specially interested in those, also sought a more thorough revival of the college by the re-establishment of its literary branch, or faculty of arts. This was successfully accomplished, with the following-named gentlemen as the corps of instruction: W. H. McGuffey, president, and professor of moral and intellectual philosophy. Ormsby M. Mitchel, professor of mathematics and astronomy. Asa Drury, professor of the ancient languages. Charles L. Telford, professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres. Edward D. Mansfield, professor of constitutional law and history. Lyman Harding, principal of the preparatory department. Joseph Herron, principal of the primary department. It was an exceedingly able faculty for the period, and worked together in harmony and efficiency for a number of years. Mr. Mansfield says of its head: Mr. McGuffey entered Cincinnati college with the full knowledge that it was an experimental career; but he came with an energy, a determination, and a zeal in the cause of education and the pursuit of high and noble duties which are rarely met with, and are sure to command success in any pursuit. His mind is more purely metaphysical, and therefore analytical and logical, than that of any one I have known 180 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. or whose works I have read. In his discourses and lectures before members of the college he disentangled difficulties, made mysteries plain, and brought the obtuse and profound within the reach of common intellects. Hence his Sunday morning discourses in the college chapel were always numerously attended, and his manner of treating metaphysics was universally popular. I thought then, and think now, that Dr. McGuffey was the only really clear-headed metaphysician of whom it had been my lot to know anything. In addition, he was a practical teacher of great ability. In fine, he was naturally formed for the chair of intellectual philosophy, and in Cincinnati college put forth, with zeal and fervor, those talents which were peculiarly his own. A large number of students—at one time as many as one hundred and sixty—gathered into the literary department of the college from year to year. It had no endowment, however—not even an available revenue from its valuable property; indeed, it had no revenue whatever, except from tuition; and that was never enough, in an institution of that class, to support a faculty of even moderate size and pay the incidental expenses of the school, which are apt to be large. Says Mr. Mansfield: Had the college been only so far endowed as to furnish its material apparatus of books and instruments, and also pay its incidental expenses, I have no doubt it would have sustained itself and been, at this moment, the most honorable testimony to the intellectual and literary progress of the city. Such, however, was not its future. After lingering a few years, its light went out ; the professors separated ; and the college name attached to its walls alone attests that such an institution once existed. After the decease of the literary department of the college, and the burning of the old building, an arrangement was made with the legal representatives of the First Presbyterian church, by which a title in fee-simple to the college lot was obtained, and a large and, for the time, elegant structure was erected thereon. This has since undergone various modifications, through another fire and the demands of business, but is still the property of the college corporation, and is mainly devoted to the purposes of literature and education. The lower store is rented for stores and offices; the second is occupied by the hall or audience-room of the building (formerly used by the Chamber of Commerce), and the literary and reading-room of the Young Men's Mercantile Library association, and the other two stories contain the collections of the Ohio Historical and Philosophical society, the School of Design of the University of Cincinnati, and the Law school, and various smaller schools and offices. The Law school is, and has been for many years, all that remains of the college, as an agency for formal instruction. It will receive due attention in a coming chapter on the Bar of Cincinnati. The college corporation is maintained, and receives and disburses the revenues from rents in the building and from any other source. ST. XAVIER COLLEGE. A parish school, about 1821, was established in connection with the first Roman Catholic church founded in the city. It continued about ten years, and was then merged, by Bishop Fenwick, into the "Athenxurn," a school of a higher grade, which was opened October 17, 1831. The three-story brick building erected for it, with its old-fashioned architecture and its modest cupola, and its Latin inscription, "Athenceum Religioni et Artibus Sacrum," inscribed in large letters upon its front, was quite inspiring in those days, but is now sadly dwarfed by the splendid and stately Catholic structures which neighbor it on either side. It stands an interesting relic of the middle period ab urbe condita, on the west side of Sycamore street, between Sixth and Seventh. Notwithstanding the interest the institution attracted, however, it did not prove a financial success, and in 1840 Bishop Purcell placed the property in the possession of the Jesuit Fathers, under whom it took another step up the classic heights, and became St. Xavier college. This, in 1842, was regularly chartered by the State legislature, and received the usual powers and privileges of a university. At that time, and for several years, the college maintained dormitories and a boarding department, receiving likewise day pupils from the city; but the former were closed in 1854. Corporal punishment was retained here with something like the old-time sternness; and this feature, the college historians hold, "induced many Protestants to prefer it to many of their own seminaries for the education of their sons." In 1867 a beginning was made of a new college building, and the structure partly erected, now occupied on the southwest corner of Sycamore and Seventh streets, in the close neighborhood of the Athenaeum. It is a superb brick edifice, sixty feet on Sycamore by one hundred and sixty-six on Seventh street. The centennial volume on Education in Ohio says: "The entire building, completed according to the design, will be a structure of architectural beauty and of great size, quite eclipsing the glory of the former Athenaeum, so honored in its day. The motto over its door, 'Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam,' grandly dedicates the whole." About one hundred and thirty thousand dollars were contributed to the expenses of this building by the savings from the management of the college finances; ten thousand dollars were given by one Catholic clergyman, and smaller sums by other priests and laymen; and so the institution was given a notable and worthy home. The instruction in this school is mainly classical and commercial. In the former course the classes commonly known in the colleges as freshman, sophomore, junior and senior, are here designated respectively as philosophy, rhetoric, poetry, and humanities classes. The degree of Bachelor of Arts is conferred at graduation, and only after two years more in literary pursuits or one year in the study of philosophy, is a graduate entitled to the degree of Master of Arts. The commercial course is designed to equip students thoroughly with the technicalities of a business career. The revenue from tuition—sixty dollars per annum for each student—constitutes almost the sole income of the college, which is enabled to exist comfortably upon it, since the professors are paid no salaries, although supported in all respects by the institution. About twenty teachers—nine scholastic and eleven lay brethren—constitute the college faculty. The number of pupils, year by year, is not far from two hundred and seventy in all departments; and the total number of graduates to 1876 was two hundred and thirty. The college library has about fifteen thousand volumes, many of them rare and valuable. The HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 181 museum is well equipped for purposes of illustration in natural history, and a good apparatus for teaching chemistry and physics is provided. Special teachers of music and drawing, residing elsewhere in the city, are employed by the college. The theological department, attached to the college, but having its home in a pleasant situation on Walnut Hills, was in operation for a time, but then discontinued, and a college class was substituted fin it. St. Joseph's college, at No. 269-71 West Eighth street, is a flourishing institution, founded October 2, 1871, chartered May 3, 1873, and maintained by the priests and brothers of the congregation of the Holy Cross. It is a Catholic school, but pupils of all denominations, or of none, are received. THE CINCINNATI UNIVERSITY. So long ago as 1806, an educational association was formed in Cincinnati, and the next year was incorporated, for the erection of a university. The procuring of an adequate endowment was a harder matter, however. Only small contributions could be obtained, and the legislature was appealed to for authority to hold a lottery for the benefit of the enterprise, after a custom then singularly prevalent. The application was granted, although contrary to the settled policy of the State then and since. Many tickets for the university lottery were sold ; but it was never drawn. Money enough had been obtained, however, to build a modest school-house; but this was blown down in a tornado on Sunday, the twenty-eighth of May, 1809, and with it vanished in air the hopes and very existence of the first Cincinnati university. The splendid institution of the same name now in process of formation is founded upon the beneficence of Charles McMicken. Mr. McMicken was a native of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, born in 1782; removed to Cincinnati in 1803, with his sole property in the clothes he wore, and the horse, saddle, and bridle used upon his journey; engaged in flatboating; became a merchant at Bayou Sara, Louisiana, but kept a summer home in Cincinnati; accumulated a fortune of probably more than a million of dollars; and died in this city, of pneumonia, March 3o, 1858, in his seventy-sixth year. He was not a man of liberal education, but prized it in others. A few years before his death he subscribed ten thousand dollars to endow a professorship of agricultural chemistry in Farmers' college, at College hill. The crowning act of his life was the preparation of a will, two and a half years before his death, under the provisions of which the university has received by far its greatest endowment. The sections of this elaborate document containing the grant and its conditions' are as follows: XXXI. Having long cherished the desire to found an institution where white girls and boys may be taught, not only by a knowledge of their duties to their Creator and their fellow-men, but also receive the benefit of a sound, thorough, and practical English education, and such as might fit them for their active duties of life, as well as instruction in all the higher branches of knowledge, except Denominational theology, to the extent that the same are now, or may hereafter be taught, in any of the secular colleges or universities of the highest grade in the country, I feel grateful to God that through his kind Providence I have been sufficiently favored to gratify the wish of my heart. I therefore give, devise, and bequeath to THE CITY OF CINCINNATI, and to its successors, for the purpose of building, establishing, and maintaining, as soon as practicable after my decease, two Colleges for the education of white Boys and Girls, all the following real and personal estate, IN TRUST FOREVER, to wit: 1. All that piece of land called the "Davenport Tract," and situated in the Parish of East Baton Rouge, on the River Mississippi, about fourteen miles below the town of Baton Rouge, in the State of Louisana, being about fifteen arpens in front and eighty in depth, and containing about twelve hundred acres. 2. All my property in the City of New Orleans, and Town and Parish of Jefferson, in the State of Louisiana, which, as well as that called the Davenport Tract, above devised, shall be sold by the said City as soon as it may be deemed prudent, and upon the most advantageous terms, at public or private sale; and the same, if sold at public sale, shall be sold in the months of January or February, for which purpose the said city is empowered to make the necessary conveyances. The said lands shall be sold upon the usual credits of one to three or four years, with a payment in cash, on account of the purchase-money, of ten to twenty per cent.; the balance of the purchase-money shall bear interest from the day of sale at the highest rate of conventional interest, which interest shall be secured in the Notes given, as a part of the principal sum, and the Notes after becoming due shall continue to bear the same rate of interest. The whole balance of the purchase-money shall be secured by a mortgage on the premises. 3. All the Tract of Land in Delhi Township, in the County of Hamilton and State of Ohio, containing one hundred and twenty-four acres and three-tenths of an acre. And I hereby authorize the said City to lease or sell the same, and also to sell any other property hereafter acquired by me, in the County of Hamilton and State of Ohio, or elsewhere, except—as hereinafter particularly stated—Real Estate in the said City of Cincinnati. 4. All my real estate in the City of Cincinnati, subject, first, to the payment of the legacies 'and annuities with which it is charged, which, as I have directed, shall be paid out of the rents and profits derived from the said estate. 5. All my real estate and personal property which I may acquire after the date of this my will, 6. All my Railroad Bonds and Railroad, Insurance, and other Stocks. All Notes, secured by mortgage on property I may hereafter sell. All moneys on deposit in any Bank, and dividends due at the time of my decease. And all rents due at my decease from my Estate devised to the said City. 7. All taxes, claims, etc., to which my Estate devised to the said City may be subject at the time of my decease, shall be paid out of the rents of the said Estate. 8. All surplus of funds at any time hereafter accruing beyond the amount necessary to maintain the said Colleges, and all rents, divi dends, and interest accruing between the period of my decease and that at which the said Institution shall go into operation, or any surplus which may at any time hereafter accrue beyond the expenses and requirements of the Institutions, shall be judiciously invested, for the benefit of the said Institutions, in real estate or mortgage securities in the said City, or in good Railroad or Bank Stocks, or Railroad Bonds. 9. All the residue of my real or personal estate, not hereinbefore devised or given, as well as any legacy, etc., which from the death of any legatee, etc., or failure of any condition on which the same is given, may hereafter lapse. XXXII. 1. None of the said Real Estate, in the said city of Cincinnati, above devised to the said corporation, whether improved or unimproved, or which I may hereafter acquire in the said city, or which the said city may purchase for the benefit of the said colleges, shall at any time be sold; but any building or buildings thereon shall be kept in repair from the revenues of my estate. And I hereby authorize the corporate authorities of the said city, should they find it necessary or expedient, from dilapidation, fire or other cause, or for the purpose of securing the largest income, to take down any house or houses, and to rebuild the same out of the income of my estate. And I further empower the said authorities to build upon any vacant lot, lots, or grounds I may possess, or which they may under the authority of my Will hereafter purchase; and as there will be a considerable space upon the eastern boundary of the grounds devoted to the College for the Boys, it would be a suitable and convenient place for erecting Boarding-houses for the accommodation of students, from which a rental might be derived. 2. The College Building shall be erected out of the rents and income of my real and personal estate, and on the premises on which I now reside, in the city of Cincinnati—by me purchased from the ad- 182 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO ministrator of Luman Watson, deceased—and which shall be plain, but neat and substantial in their character, and so constructed that, in conformity with their architectural design, they, from time to time, may be enlarged, as the rents of the estates devised will allow, and the ends of the Institution may require. The said buildings shall be erected on different 'parts of the said grounds, to-wit: That for the Boys on the north, and that for the Girls on the south of the road lately cut through said grounds. And I direct that the plot of ground on which the College for the Boys shall be built, shall comprise not less than from five to six acres; and that on which the College for the Girls shall be built shall comprise all below the said road, which plot may, I suppose, contain about three acres. Should additional grounds be required for the buildings connected with the College for the Girls, I would refer to lot No. 32, in the subdivision made by Jacob Madeira, adjoining the last described premises on the west, which may be found a suitable place for the erection of dwellings for Boarding-houses for the female students, and from which a revenue might accrue for Homes for Female Orphans, when required. And I would recommend, for the purpose of enlarging the College grounds and for the general benefit of the Institutions, that the said city should, if they deem it advantageous and are enabled to do so upon equitable terms, purchase the property on the west side of my said grounds, by which the said city will have the opportunity, if they see fit, of erecting a portion of the College Buildings for the Boys to the westward of the location I have assigned them. XXXVII. I hereby authorize the said city, if they believe it expedient, to lay out into lots any unimproved property I may possess, and to lease the same for building purposes upon ground-rents renewable at a re-valuation, but no lease shall be made for a longer period than fifteen years as aforesaid; or the said city, instead of leasing, may build upon the same as already empowered; and no lease of improved property shall be made for a longer period than ten years. The revenue therefrom shall be appropriated to the use of the said colleges.' XXXIV. The Holy Bible of the Protestant version, as contained in the Old and New Testaments, shall be used as a Book of Instruction in the said Colleges. XXXV. The preference in all applications for admission to be given to any and all of my relations and their descendants, to any and all of the within-named Legatees and their descendants, and to Wirtz McMicken and his descendants. XXXVI. 1. If, after the full and complete organization and establishment of the said Institutions, and the admission of as many pupils as in the discretion of the said city should, for the purposes of education, be received, there shall remain a sufficient surplus of funds, the same shall be applied in making suitable additional buildings, and to the support of poor white male and female orphans, neither of whose . parents are living, and who are without any means of support, and who may be admitted as pupils, if not younger than five nor older than twelve years, the preference always to be given to the youngest applicant, except in the case of my own relations and collateral descendants, who shall be received, whether such applicant shall have lost either or both parents or whatever may be the age of said minors. 2. The said Orphans shall receive a sound English education, and where the talents of the child shall afford encouragement, he or she shall be transferred to the respective colleges and shall be educated to the extent that I have provided by the thirty-first item of my will. It is my desire also that the moral instruction of all the children admitted into the said Institution shall form a prominent part of their education, and that, as far as human means may allow, they shall be made not useful citizens only, but good citizens deeply impressed with a knowledge of their duties to their God and to their fellow-men, and with a love for their country and its united republican institutions, in the blessed and peaceful enjoyment of which, it is my fervent prayer, they and their descendants may continue to live. 3. No orphan shall be received until their Guardians, or those in whose custody they are, shall have first entirely relinquished their control of them to the said city, in order that they may not be capriciously withdrawn from the benefits of the said Institutions. 4. Those orphans who may have remained until they have reached any age between fourteen and eighteen years, shall be bound out by the said city to sonic proper art, trade, occupation, or employment. The taste and inclinations of the orphans, in the selection of an occupation, to be, as far as practicable and advantageous, always consulted. 5. This direction as to binding-out I do not intend should be applied to those who, having displayed superior talents and received instruction in the higher branches of knowledge as aforesaid, shall, if they see proper, be permitted to pursue the study of the learned professions. 6. Those male orphans who may intermarry with the female orphans shall, if found deserving, in order to their establishment in business, be entitled to receive from any surplus revenues in hand, at an interest of six per cent. per annum, a loan not exceeding five hundred dollars, which shall be made under such regulations and refunded at such time as the said corporate authorities may stipulate and direct. XXXVII. The establishment of the regulations necessary to carry out the objects of my endowment, I leave to the wisdom and discretion of the corporate authorities of the City of Cincinnati, who shall have power to appoint directors of said Institutions: XXXVIII. The conditions on which the above devise and bequest to the said City of Cincinnati, in trust, are made, are as follows: That the accounts of the said Institutions shall be kept entirely distinct from all other accounts whatever. That the rents, issues, and forfeits of the estate devised shall be used for no other purposes than those directed by this my will, the provisions of which shall be faithfully complied with. And that the said City shall annually remit to the Legislature, and also publish a statement containing an account of the amount of funds received and disbursed during the year, the number of pupils receiving instruction and under charge, and a representation of the general condition of the Institutions; and also that no charge whatever shall be made by the said City for the education of the pupils admitted into the said Colleges, or for the support and education of any orphans received. Much of Mr. McMicken's gift to the city, for the purposes of the university, was lost in 186o by a decision of the Louisiana supreme court, which broke that part of his will relating to his lands in that State, at the suit of one or more of the heirs-at-law. The value of the donation was also much impaired for a time by the fact that most of the Cincinnati property devised is situated upon or near Main street, and suffered from the general depreciation of property in that quarter by reason of the movement of, business westward. The buildings upon it, furthermore, were old and considerably dilapidated, requiring almost a general rebuilding. The fluctuation of rents also lessened the receipts for some years; and the trustees were hampered by Mr. McMicken's conditions that none of the property in' the city should be sold, nor should any of the improved property be leased for a term of more than ten years. Sundry legacies and annuities were, too, a permanent charge upon the fund; and from all these it resulted that for a number of years the average revenue to the university from this source was but sixteen thousand dollars per year, and in one year there was no income from it. The directors were furthermore much embarrassed by the requirement of Mr. McMicken's will, that there should be separate colleges for boys and girls, as greatly increasing the expenses of maintaining the university, and as conflicting with the judgment of many experienced and judicious men, that it would be wise to allow the students of both sexes to meet at the lectures and recitations, and partake alike of the opportunities and advantages of all the branches of study open to their choice. It was doubtful, too, whether the boys' college, to be erected on the hill, as required by the bequest, would not be too far from the bulk of the population of the city for its highest usefulness. However, it would not answer to "look a gift horse in the mouth too closely"; and the munificent benefaction was gladly accepted and has been carefully used for its legitimate purposes by the authorities and people of the city in which he thus won immortal renown and ever-recurring blessings. HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 183 During the year after the death of Mr. McMicken, the city council passed an ordinance establishing the "McMicken university," and elected a board of six directors for the same—Messrs. George B. Hollister, Henry F. Handy, Rufus King, Miles Greenwood, Cornelius G. Comegys, and James Wilson—whose periods of service, in the first instance, were determined by lot at the initial meeting, in the order of their mention, to be one year, two, three, four, five, and six years. This meeting was held in the council chamber December 3o, 1859, Mayor Bishop also present, when the board effected an organization by the election of Rufus King president, and the adoption of a code of by-laws, rules, and regulations. The office was opened in one of the Micken buildings, on Main street, below Fourth, and the possession and control of the estate devised was fully assumed, except of the mansion-house and grounds of the testator, which were left by the testator to the occupancy for five years of his nephew and niece, and the Louisiana property, all of which was lost, by the decisions of the courts, before the creation of the board. During the succeeding year no progress could be made toward establishing and maintaining the university on account of a suit to set aside the entire devise to the city for this purpose, and because the decayed and ruinous condition of most of the property made it inadvisable to proceed until a general rebuilding of the estate could be effected. Repairs and rebuilding commenced, however, and the way was further cleared for the founding of the university by the favorable decision of the supreme court of the United States, February 25, 1861, in the suit of Franklin Perrin against the city, to break the will. But during this year, which was the first year of the war of the Rebellion, the total income of the property was actually less than the expenditures for annuities, legacies, taxes, and expenses of the trust; and of course no progress could be reported. Only ten thousand eight hundred and fourteen dollars and eighty-four cents were received this year from rents, against nearly twice that amount for previous years. The next year and the following there was an improvement in this respect; and in 1864 the cash balance in the hands of the directors was four thousand four hundred and nine dollars and eighty-two cents, with ten thousand dollars for investment in city bonds as a means of additional revenue. The property was now in pretty good repair, and a successful effort had been made to secure the release of the real and personal property of the estate from taxation. The same year the ladies of the Cincinnati Academy of Fine Arts presented their entire collection of paintings to the embryo university. It was gratefully accepted by the directors on behalf of the city, as a nucleus of a fine-art gallery to be, and a means of encouraging and developing art-education in the coming university. A temporary place was secured for the gift in a large room of one of the McMicken buildings, on the northeast corner of Main and Fourth streets, where it was made accessible to artists and art-students, and to the public generally. In 1865 the sum of twelve thousand one hundred and fifty-one dollars and twenty cents was invested by the directors in United States bonds, bearing seven and three-tenths per cent. interest. Three new stores were built with the fund the next year, and income was thus materially increased. The directors now reported that it would not be expedient to begin the erection of buildings for the university until the revenues from the estate amounted to thirty thousand dollars a year, free of all incumbrance. By the year 1868 that aggregate of yearly income had been reached, and the prospect of university buildings was brightening. On the first Monday in January, 1869, a beginning was made of instruction in the University by the opening of the McMicken School of Art and Design, in charge of Mr. Thomas S. Noble, an artist and teacher from New York city, who is still in charge, and is now assisted by seven teachers. One hundred and twenty pupils were in attendance the first year; now between three and four hundred are annually registered. The school is kept in the fourth story of the old College Building, on Walnut street, and has an ample equipment of models, plaster casts, and books of reference. The same year the erection of four stores was contracted for, on the McMicken property on Main street, south of Fourth, which mainly completed the plan of putting the trust estate in order, to which the funds had so far been directed. April 16, 1870, an act was passed by the Legislature, which enabled the city to become a trustee for any person or body corporate holding an estate or funds in trust for the promotion of education or any of the arts and sciences. Under this a University Board was appointed in January, 1871, and to it was promptly transferred the estate left in trust for the city by Mr. McMicken. The name of the institution was changed from McMicken University to Cincinnati University. The rebuilding and repair of the property were completed, and the estate began to yield twenty thousand to thirty thousand dollars a year to the treasury of the university. To this time the total sum of two hundred and thirty thousand two hundred and thirty-six dollars and nine cents had been received, of which one hundred and seventy-two thousand one hundred and thirty-four dollars and fifty-six cents had been expended in new buildings, twenty-five thousand and seventy-two dollars and eleven cents in repairs, twenty thousand four hundred and twenty dollars and sixty-nine cents in taxes from 1861 to 1865, when the University property was relieved from taxation, and sixty-five thousand five hundred dollars in annuities and legacies. In 1873 a temporary arrangement was made for opening an Academic Department in the Woodward High School, with Principal George Harper, of that school, in charge, and to supervise or conduct classes in language, mathematics, chemistry, and physics, beyond the courses then pursued in the High School. Fifty-eight students were admitted, forty of them ladies; some to study French and German only. A class in wood-carving, taught by Benn Pitman, was added to the School of Art and Design, which was this year removed to the College Building from that previously occupied on the corner of Third and Main streets. 184 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. The next year the Academic Department was fully organized, with, three courses of study—for the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, and Civil Engineer, respectively. H. J. Eddy was appointed Professor of Mathematics, Astronomy, and Civil Engineering; F. D. Allen of Ancient Languages and Comparative Philology; E. A. Guetin Instructor in French; and F. Van Rossum Instructor in German. The Department was removed to the intermediate school-house on Liberty street, near Sycamore. After considerable discussion as to the site the lower College Building to be erected was located near Clifton avenue, between the upper and lower sites designated by Mr. McMicken, on his home grounds of ten or twelve acres, upon the old Hamilton road, west of Vine street and close to the Clifton Inclined Plane. The students in the Art School this year numbered four hundred and five, of whom sixty-nine were in the wood-carving classes. In 1875 the Cincinnati Observatory was added to the University as an Astronomical Department. Its history will be outlined in our chapter on Science and Art. In 1876 the Art Department received a gift from Joseph Longworth, Esq., of fifty-nine thousand five hundred dollars, upon condition that the University should add ten thousand dollars, which was promptly done, and the Art School thus placed upon a liberal and permanent pecuniary foundation. The school had an exhibit this year at the Centennial Exposition, and this, with the compliment paid it by the Jury on Household Art, won for it a high and wide reputation. Assistant professors were appointed in the Academic Department, and provision made for a professorship in Natural History and Geology; also for a thoroughly equipped laboratory, and apparatus for the classes in Civil Engineering. The Rev. Samuel J Browne left a bequest, which yielded the sum of eighteen thousand seven hundred and eighty-two dollars and seventy-seven cents, for the use of the university. The first degrees were conferred in 1877—one B. A., upon Frank McFarlan; two M. A., upon Herbert A. Howe and Winslow Upton, post-graduate students at the Observatory. The School of Design this year (1876-7) had four hundred and thirty-two pupils; in 1877-8, three hundred and sixty-five, of whom twenty-one were in sculpture (against twenty-three the year before), and one hundred and three in wood carving. Rev. Thomas A. Vickers, librarian of the public library, was appointed rector of the university in December, 1877. The first regular public commencement of the university was held at Pike's opera house June 20, 1878. An oration was delivered by the Hon. George H. Pendleton and academic degrees conferred upon five young men of Cincinnati and one from Brazil, and one.young lady from Newport. The students of the year in this department had numbered eighty-nine. The next year there were six graduates, including three from Brazil. The baccalaureate address was delivered by the Hon. Aaron F. Perry. Attendance in all departments 1878-9, four hundred and sixty-nine. An unsuccessful proposal was made this year to unite the city normal school with the university. The standard of admission to the academic department and the corresponding courses in the high schools had been so raised that only three other institutions in the country could claim standards so high. Many valuable donations were made to the scientific collections of the university, and liberal gifts had also been received from Messrs Julius Dexter, John Kilgour, the heirs of Nicholas. Longworth, and the Cincinnati Astronomical society, the total endowment fund from these sources, with the Browne bequest, amounting to one hundred and thirty-nine thousand two hundred and eighty-two dollars and seventy-seven cents. The third annual commencement was held at Pike's Friday evening, June 18,1880. Address by the chairman of the board of directors, Hon. Samuel F. Hunt, and baccalaureate by Judge J. B. Stallo. Degrees were conferred in the academic department of A. B. upon two young men, C. E. upon another, and B. S. upon one young lady, daughter of Judge Stallo; one M. A. and two M. S., one normal diploma, and one bachelor of letters. One M. A. was also granted in the astronomical department. During the year 1879, the income to the University from rentals was twenty thousand two hundred and twelve dollars and thirty cents, and from all the sources forty-one thousand four hundred and seventy-three dollars and ninety cents, making a total of sixty-One thousand six hundred and eighty-six dollars and twenty cents. The institution is thus on a firm financial footing, in its new building, and giving the happiest promise for the future. The Cincinnati people are naturally very proud of it. Superintendent Peaslee, of the public schools, says in his report for 1878-9: As stated in a previous report, Cincinnati enjoys the most complete system of public school education of any city in the world ; for the pupils of both sexes have not only open to them the advantages of the District, Intermediate, and High Schools, but possess the privilege of attending, free of charge, the University of Cincinnati. The course of instruction given in this long extended curriculum is of a very high character. From school to school the student passes, till he goes out into the in world from the University, with that broad teaching which will enable him to ,Zold his own proudly in the stirring times in which we live. There are but three educational institutions in this country—Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Michigan Universities—whose matriculation examinations are equal to ours, and whose standard for admission to degrees is correspondingly high. During the past year the course of study leading to the degree of Bachelor of Arts has been strengthened by requiring the students to devote three out of the four years of the college curriculum to the study of Latin and Greek ; while, to meet the requirements of those who do not wish to take up a full classical course, a degree of Bachelor of Letters has been established. LANE SEMINARY.* It is no stretch of credulity to say that this institution was a child of Providence. The time had come, in the providence of God, when the foundations were to be laid of that remarkable constellation of institutions which was to shed light, we may hope for all time, through this great central west. The seed from which this institution sprang was really sown earlier than at the date usually given. It is among the records of the family that as early as 1819 Elnathan * This account is abridged from the semi-centenary address of the Rev. G. M. Maxwell, D. D., December 18, 1879. HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 185 Kemper and Peter H. Kemper devoted eight acres of land on Walnut Hills, at the earnest request of their father, for the support of the Walnut Hills academy, that year established by Rev. James Kemper, sr., on the manual labor principle. In this school, in addition to the ordinary branches of education, the Latin and Greek languages were taught, till, at the close of the year 1825, the failing health of Mr. Kemper compelled him to suspend it. Yet this school had a connection with what followed, for, when subsequently Walnut Hills was nominated as the site for the seminary the general assembly was proposing to establish in the west, it could be said in favor of the location: "On one of the sites we would propose there is a well-finished academy, with a good frame dwelling-house by it."—[Letter of Rev. James Kemper, sr., to Dr. Ely.] In the summer of 1828 occurred what led to the first decisive steps towards the foundation of this seminary. Mr. E. Lane and brother, merchants of New Orleans, Baptists, moved with a desire to bring the means of education within the reach of "pious but indigent young men," offered assistance thereto to their Baptist brethren in Cincinnati. The Baptists declined the offer. It was then proposed that it should be a joint affair—the Baptists and Presbyterians uniting. This partnership the Presbyterians declined to go into. The offer was then made to the Presbyterians alone, and by them entertained, and the first meeting was convened in the First Presbyterian church, September 27, 1828, to deliberate on the subject. To this meeting a paper was presented exhibiting a plan of the institution and containing the proposition of the Messrs. Lane. It was resolved to act upon it, and committees were appointed to wait on the Messrs. Lane, draft a constitution, and prepare a circular for appeal to the public. So the first decisive blow was struck September 27, 1828. The first offer of land for a site was made by Mr. Samuel Caldwell, of Carthage, (October 28, 1828). He offered to give twenty-five to thirty acres near that village. Mr. Elnathan Kemper (November 15, 1828) offered to sell to the board one hundred acres on Walnut Hills for seven thousand five hundred dollars. December 15, 1828, Mr. William Cary offered a farm on the pike between College Hill and Mount Pleasant, a part of which he would donate and a part sell, for one thousand six hundred and fifty dollars. But, pending these offers, Mr. Kemper, on January r, 1829, proposed to donate sixty acres from the north end of his farm, and sell forty more at four thousand dollars. Here conies to view in our history one of the names ever to be held in grateful remembrance, ever to be honored. In the graceful custom of the east, we should rise up and pronounce him "blessed" at every mention. Mr. Elnathan Kemper never held any official relation to the board or the seminary. But he will stand perpetually in a relation most honorable and dear—honorable to his generous heart; honorable to his far-sightedness; honorable to the purpose which governed his life, in the glory of his Master. In dividing his estate, and laying one portion at the feet of that Master, he gave, what some might say would now be a princely fortune to his descendants, were it in their possession, but what has written his name among the benefactors of the church. Several of the Kempeis participated in the gift. The offer of Mr. Kemper the board gladly accepted, and thus the site was fixed here, where the value of the land has contributed to place the institution on a solid financial basis. At either of the other locations proposed, the land would still have only a value for farming purposes, in addition to the disadvantage of distance from the city. It was no exaggeration, then, when the corresponding secretary, Dr. Warren, wrote to Mr. Lane, after the selection of this site: "1 he seminary will be delightfully located for health and pleasantness." The act of the legislature incorporating the institution was passed February i s, 1829. Remembering how new and unsupplied was everything here fifty years ago, it is not to be wondered at that our fathers should grasp at the supply of everything at once; so an institution was planned which should be preparatory, collegiate, and theological, all in one. Such a report was presented January 5, 1829; and the board entered upon the adoption of it by beginning at the bottom, and nominating a tutor for the preparatory department. By action of the board, July 6, 1829, the theological course was extended to three years. The preparatory department was opened November 15, 1829; and a faithful effort was made to get the whole extensive machine into operation, but it was too heavy, too expensive. As early as March 22, 1833, an earnest discussion was had on the motion to reduce the institution to a theological seminary, with a limited literary department for pious young men. This discussion continued at intervals for a year, till, at the annual meeting, October 30, 1834, the following was adopted: WHEREAS, It appears to this board, after the experience they have had, and the best counsel they can obtain on the subject, that a preparatory or literary department in the seminary is not favorable to its best interests ; therefore, Resolved, That from the present time the preparatory department be discontinued. Thenceforward, therefore, the theological department, which had gone into operation with the inauguration of Drs. Beecher and Biggs, December 26, 1832, had exclusive possession. The first financial act of the board was to order the treasurer to borrow fifty dollars. Their credit appears to have been able to endure the strain. Agents were appointed east, west, and south, to raise funds to organize the new institution, and commence the erection of buildings. Little success was met with except in this vicinity, where some fifteen thousand dollars appear to have been subscribed. The collection of this appears subsequently to have been attended with considerable difficulty, owing to causes which need not here be described. A part of the local subscription was never realized. Efforts were made in the east, also, to secure endowments of professorships. Mr. Arthur Tappan, of New York, agreed to give twenty thousand dollars to endow the professorship of didactic theology, provided Dr. Beecher could be obtained, The professorship of church history and church 186 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. polity was begun and well advanced in Philadelphia ; while Mr. John Tappan, of Boston, subscribed ten thousand dollars; Daniel Waldo and sisters, of Worcester, Massachusetts, four thousand more toward, the professorship of sacred rhetoric. These generous offers opened a door of hope, and the board felt authorized to go forward in the complete manning of the institution. It must be that what was known as the "Kemper school-house" was used at first for the preparatory department, or "Walnut Hills school," as it was designated; yet this nowhere appears in the minutes. The first building erected was the boarding-house, the contract for which was made April 12, 1830, with W. H. Pierce, for three thousand five hundred dollars. This building was so damaged by fire, April 18, 1868, that it was replaced by the present boarding-hall during the following summer. The next structure undertaken was the dormitory, which was begun in 1832. The money for this building appears to have been raised in Cincinnati—a meeting having been held for that purpose in the vestry-room of the Second Presbyterian church, about New Year's, at which a subscription was started, and subsequently increased to near twelve thousand dollars. The chapel began to receive attention in the fall of 1834. For a good part of a year they labored on the design and the location. The architectural outcome of so much labor seems hardly adequate. Finally this minute appears: "A new plan for a chapel was submitted which would place the end toward the street, and having six brick pillars in front, which was considered; and, on motion, it was resolved the plan he adopted, provided the expense of the chapel shall not exceed eleven thousand dollars; and J. C. Tunis was requested to call on Mr. Walters, the master builder, and obtain an estimate of the cost of the building on the above plan." May 25, 1835. From various records it would appear that the chapel was finished during the year 1836. After inquiries and correspondence, the appointment of professor was tendered to Rev. George C. Beckwith, then of Lowell, Massachusetts, April 13, 1829. He accepted August 26, 1829, and appears to have arrived on the ground about the first of November, for on the second day he is present at a meeting of the board; he is then charged with all the theological instruction, and is directed to make out a course of study for the institution. It is not known that Professor Beckwith ever gave any instruction in the seminary. Temporary teachers were provided for the preparatory school. February 24, 1830, he was appointed agent to solicit funds in the east; and, proceeding thither, he labored there without success, and September 20, 1830, resigned. October 22, 1830, Dr. Beecher was appointed President and Professor of Didactic Theology, and correspondence was opened with him. January 17, 1831, Dr. Biggs, then of Frankford, Pennsylvania, was appointed Professor of Christian History, on condition his professorship be completed in Philadelphia. January 23, 1832, Dr. Beecher's appointment was renewed, and Dr. Biggs' acceptance was received. August 9, 1832, Dr. Beecher's acceptance was received, and at the same date Dr. Stowe was appointed Professor of Biblical Exegesis. December 26, 1832, Drs. Beecher and Biggs were inaugurated, and the work of theological instruction fairly commenced. Some things characteristic of the early times we may profitably bring to mind. What would we think now, for example, of the following proposition to board students: "We will board not less than ten, nor more than twenty-five, orderly, well-behaved boys or young men, from the tenth instant to the first of May next, in the following ways: Their table must be plain, consisting of a change in bread, vegetables, meats and soups. Their principal lodging-room must be in the third story, and is forty feet long by thirteen wide, is well plastered, and is commonly called the garret, lighted by four small windows. We will furnish one large room with a fiwplace, which must be common to all our boarders, and at the same time our dining-room, which room the students must warm at their own expense. This grade of fare we will furnish for one dollar and twelve and a half cents per week (neither candles or bedding here)." November 2, 1829. December 23, 1829: "Resolved, that the students in the Lane Seminary be required to labor three hours daily until further directed." But, then, they were impartial in their requirements, for October r, 1832, it was "resolved, that every teacher in the Lane Seminary be required to labor as regularly as possible, and, when practicable, daily;" and a committee of four, with Rev. James Gallaher as chairman, was appointed to confer with the teachers on this subject. It does not appear what measures were taken for the health of the trustees. March 4, 1833. Some students petition for the comfort of coffee in the boarding-house, but it was resolved "that it is inexpedient at this time to make any change in the fare." November 30, 1832. "Resolved, that the smoking of segars will, in no case, be allowed in any building of the Seminary," and I nowhere find any repeal of this. Nor of this: "June 25, 1834. Resolved, that it is inexpedient for students, during their continuance in this institution, to form connections by marriage, and that forming such connection is a sufficient ground for dismission from the Seminary." It would be hard, I think, to prove that such rules are so antiquated as to have lost all their "sweet reasonableness." If any have found it difficult to understand why the trustees should have laid out a cemetery on their land, it may be a relief to hear the last of many reasons given by a committee appointed to draw up a report on the subject. Among other reasons thisappears: "Inasmuch as those who are studying for the ministry need time and opportunity for meditation and self-examination, a cemetery in proximity to the institution will afford a favorable retirement for that purpose." The Life of Thomas Morris, formerly Senator of the United States from Ohio, contains the following inter- HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 187 eating note of an old-time episode at the Seminary, which was briefly noticed in our annals of the Fifth Decade : The Trustees of Lane Seminary, in 1834, prohibited the formation of an anti-slavery society, and declared that all discussion on the subject was improper. This action, so contrary to the genius of Christianity and of free institutions, compelled the students to leave the institution and go where free discussion was tolerated. The institution itself was threatened with an attack from a mob, if there was not a suppression of the Anti-Slavery Society. The venerable president of the institution, Dr. Lyman Beecher, whose family have, by their genius and writings, given to the anti-slavery sentiment of the nation and the world an extraordinary extension and power, said to the students: "Boys, you are right in your views, but most impracticable in your measures. Mining and quiet strategy are ordinarily better as well as safer methods of taking a city, than to do it by storm. It is not always wise to take a bull by the horns. You are right ; but in your way you can't succeed. If you should succeed, I will be with you, and swing my hat and shout huzza I" Leading literary magazines and newspapers of Cincinnati combined to disband this Anti-Slavery Society of Lane Seminary, declaring it "discreditable to the institution, and calculated to inflict a deep wound on the great interests of education ; and the indignation of the public will put it down." The following extract from the historical note prefixed to the catalogue of 1879-8o, brings the history rapidly but sufficiently down to the present time: Among those who have served the Seminary since its organization, the name of D. Howe Allen, D. D., is especially conspicuous. He was Professor of Sacred Rhetoric from t84o to 1851; and from that date till 1867, when he resigned, the Professor in Systematic Theology. Like Dr. Beecher, he continned to be Professor Emeritus till his death, which occurred in 1870. George E. Day, D. D., now of Yale Theological Seminary, was Professor of Biblical Literature from 1851 to 1866. Henry A. Nelson, D. D., now of Geneva, New York, was Professor of Theology from 1867 to 1874; and Thomas E. Thomas, D. D., Professor of New Testament Literature from 1871 to his death in 1875. Jonathan B. Condit, D. D., and Elisha Ballantine, D. D., have served the Seminary for shorter periods. Henry Smith, D. D., LL. D., who died on the fourteenth of January, 1879, was Professor of Sacred Rhetoric from 1855 to 1861. In 1865 he returned to the same department of instruction, and remained in the discharge of his duties, with the addition of Pastoral 'Theology, till his decease. He also gave instruction for some years in Church History, and, during the illness of Dr. Allen, in the Department of Theology. The whole number of alumni is about seven hundred, of whom five hundred are still living. The large majority of the brethren have been or are still engaged in the missionary work of the-Presbyterian church, in the region between the Alleghanies and the outlying territories of the west. They are distributed in seventeen States and territories. More than thirty have gone into the foreign field. Many of them have signalized themselves as capable and effective preachers, and as earnest and practical laborers in every department of ministerial service. In the two States of Ohio and Indiana more than one-fifth of the actual working force of our church are graduates of Lane. In this year (1879-80) the faculty of the seminary numbered five professors, and the students numbered thirty-four—thirteen juniors, thirteen of the middle class, six seniors, and two resident ministers—representing thirteen States. The Smith Library hall was erected in 1863, and named from its principal benefactor, Mr. Preserved Smith, of Dayton, who also contributed half the expense (ten thousand dollars) of a beautiful Seminary hall for chapel, gymnasium, etc., dedicated December 18,1879. THE CINCINNATI THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY was an organization started by the Old School Presbyterians, to whom the theology of Lane seminary was not acceptable, in May, 1850. The professors were pastors of churches in the city—the Rev. James Hoge, D. D., in the chair of church polity and ecclesiastical history, and Rev. N. L. Rice, D. D., in that of didactic or polemic theology. Teachers of Greek and Hebrew, and of oriental and Biblical literature, were also in the original plan. It was remarked as a novel feature that the school had no building, dormitories or lecture-rooms, except the church lecture-rooms of the pastors, where they met their students. There were but twelve of these during the first session—that of 1850-I—and it soon became evident that the patronage of the school was not such as would justify its permanent maintenance. It was consequently short-lived. MOUNT ST. MARY'S THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY is a Roman Catholic institution, occupying a commanding site on Price's Hill, west of the Mill Creek valley, on the highest ground in the immediate neighborhood of Cincinnati. It was founded about 1852, and has had a very eminent career as a preparatory school for the Catholic priesthood. Its library is a superb collection of more than fifteen thousand volumes, including one hundred editions of the Bible and many rarities in the shape of old Bibles, manuscripts, and other literary and ecclesiastical curiosities. West of this institution and near the city limits, on the Warsaw turnpike, is the Young Ladies' Academy of St. Vincent de Paul, a Catholic school for girls, upon a spacious tract, formerly the residence of Mr. Alderson, a brother-in-law of Mary Howitt, the celebrated English authoress. The dwelling there was formerly called the " Cedars," and from it were written, many years ago, the charming letters embodied by the sister abroad in a little volume entitled "Our Cousins in Ohio," from which we give extracts elsewhere. It was bought by the Sisters of Charity March to, 1851, and made the mother-house of the order. Twenty more acres adjoining the "Cedars" tract were purchased in 1853, and in 1858 a new building was put up for the use of the order and the school. THE HEBREW UNION COLLEGE is under the presidency of the renowned Rabbi Wise, of the congregation of Benai-Jeshurun. It was established in 1875, by \the union of American-Hebrew congregations, and has been maintained prosperously for several years. The departments are preparatory and collegiate, of four years each. The course of study includes Jewish history, literature, and theology, semitic philology, and special preparation for professorships in the last named branch and for the Israelite pulpits. Pupils in the collegiate course, if they enter for the degree of rabbi, must attend the undergraduate course at the university of Cincinnati. The attendance in the year 1878-9 was twenty-three regular students and twelve extra hearers. THE MEDICAL AND LAW SCHOOLS have a history of their own in this city, and shall receive due notice in our chapter on the Bar and on Medicine in Cincinnati. BUSINESS EDUCATION.* To the west belongs the credit of originating the Amer- * This section, for the most part, has been kindly contributed by Mr. Richard Nelson, president of Nelson's Business college, at the southeast corner of Fourth and Vine streets, and author of the well-known Cincinnati book on Suburban Homes. 188 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. ican business college, and the pioneer in the enterprise was the venerable R. M. Bartlett, of Cincinnati. A citizen of the east, Mr. Bartlett first attempted to establish a school in Philadelphia, and afterward at Pittsburgh; but those cities were not ripe for the experiment, and in 1838 he removed to Cincinnati and opened an institution under the name of Bartlett's commercial college. Contrary to his expectations, Mr. Bartlett's school was looked upon with disfavor by the professional merchants of that time and their book-keepers; but there was a class of traders for whom it was specially adapted—the rising traders, who were generally men of limited means and education. These attended the college during the evenings, and soon were joined by clerks and broken tradesmen, the latter attending day and evening, to fit themselves for positions of responsibility in the houses of their more fortunate brethren. The system of teaching adopted by Mr. Bartlett was well fitted to meet the wants of his patrons. They all had more or less experience in business, knew something of clerking, and more of selling goods. They wanted only a knowledge of book-keeping, and that by double entry. At that time text-books on book-keeping were not numerous or well suited for the use of the school room. The principal were Bennett's and Jackson's; the latter an English work. These were written with little regard to a progressive course of study, and contained few exercisLs for teaching the theory and art of journalizing, posting, and closing books. Discarding their use, Mr. Bartlett introduced numerous diminutive sets of books, each complete in itself, so that the student, in every set, had to go through all the operations of opening, journalizing, posting, and balancing books. These exercises gave him plenty of employment, and familiarized him with the various rules. In the course of time the college attracted to its rooms young mechanics and farmers, who pursued their studies during the day, and soon made the day sessions more important than those of the evening. Additional branches were added to the curriculum. Penmanship, taught by a professional teacher, was an important branch, and business arithmetic was another. Lectures were also delivered on mercantile law by prominent members of the bar. Mr. Bartlett's success was attended with the usual result—competition. Mr. John Gundry, a professional penman, opened what he termed a Mercantile college, and associated with him one or two others, until he met a Mr. Bacon, a pupil of Mr. Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett complained that his former pupil, Bacon, was making use of his manuscript sets of book-keeping, and gave the partners some trouble. Messrs. Gundry and Bacon soon separated, each opening a college, called respectively Gundry's Mercantile College and Bacon's Mercantile College, the former on the northwest corner of Fifth and Walnut, and the latter on the corresponding corner of Walnut and Sixth streets. These proving successful, still more colleges of the kind were called into existence, till at one time there were six or seven. The new colleges added little, if anything, to the efficiency of the course of study. On the contrary, the character of the instruction degenerated, till the colleges lost the respect and confidence of the public, and especially of business men. Boys and young men were graduated as book-keepers, when many of them could not make out 'a bill from dictation or draw a receipt for a given purpose. The day for obtaining the patronage of the business community had passed, and no change was made in the curriculum to adapt it to the wants of the young mechanics and farmers who then made up their patrons. In 1856 another teacher, Mr. Richard Ntlson, appeared in the community, whose attention was directed to the defects of the popular system of instruction, and he at once proceeded to remedy them. For this purpose he organized the school as a business community, and thus placed every student under the necessity, not only of making out bills, but of giving and receiving all the vouchers necessary for the safe transaction of business. It was thus that the actual business method of teaching had its origin, and Nelson's Business College, of Cincinnati, has the credit of originating it. The following is a description of the course of study: At certain hours of the day, the students, assembled in the College hall, are an organized business community. The hall has suitable furniture for carrying on banking, insurance and transportation business, besides desks for the business of each student and firm. Students are instructed how to buy, sell, and collect, in accordance with law and usage. A bank of issue supplies them with currency. They keep bank accounts, issue notes of hand, checks, etc., and conduct a correspondence, buy and sell and exchange ;—in short, act as any community of merchants, bankers, etc., which they really are. Their merchandise is represented by printed cards, their business forms are printed neatly and in mercantile style. Immediately on entering, the beginner has advanced to him a sum of money and is commissioned to buy for his principal. He is shown how to enter the check and how to make his deposit ; learns the condition of the market, buys to the best of his knowledge and skill, delivers his goods and invoices, and, when his funds run low, renders a statement and draws upon his principal for more money. When he has made enough in this way, and his books have been kept satisfactorily, he is allowed to do business on his own account. He then buys from first hands ; and, being unrestricted as to persons, sells to whom he pleases and on the best terms he can make. He is thus led to depend upon his own resources, and compelled to consult his best judgment in all his business affairs. If he has maturing obligations, he must hold himself prepared to honor them, as neglect would impair his credit, and that would retard his progress in study, because without capital he could not do business on his own account, Doing business, as each student is, with every other student, there is a continual check on his records. Besides this, at short intervals, the books, papers, etc., are examined by the President, who points out errors, if any, and suggests improvements. Having an efficient secretary and treasurer to manage the concerns of the office, the president is enabled to give his personal attention to every student. Besides this, he is the head of the miniature city and his business relations with every student of every grade. A corps of clerks assist him in this capacity. He is also a legal adviser, and is consulted as such on frequent occasions; and every set of books written by students has to pass a rigid examination, and the writers a further examination, so that principles will not be overlooked in the interest attached to doing business. This personal supervision, it will be conceded, adds materially to the efficiency of the college. In its absence actual business is only a sham. Doing business as merchants, clerks, tellers, etc., students become perfectly familiar with the use of vouchers, and acquire great dexterity in drawing them. Besides this drill exercises are daily given in business calculaticns HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 189 from simple addition up to foreign exchange, in which the students of each section engage in vigorous competition. Nelson's mercantile arithmetic was published to aid the teachers in giving instruction in the most concise methods of footing long columns, extending, computing interest, commission, etc. Owing to the hurried manner in which children are forced through the first rules of arithmetic and the limited knowledge of the majority of teachers regarding the wants of business, we seldom find a student of any literary school or college who is either rapid or accurate in figures. Instead of drilling children in expeditious methods, teachers occupy their time in working out by mental processes problems that will never be called into use in after life and are of comparatively little value for culture. Another defect in teaching arithmetic is that of confining the attention of learners to questions based upon tables of weights and measures that were never used in this country. For instance, children are taught to calculate the cost of goods as bought and sold by the ell English, Flemish, and French, and groceries by the ton, hundred, quarter, pound, ounce, and dram as a single weight ! Still another defect is in practicing crude methods of solution. Instead of teaching children to use the fewest number of figures combined with the least mental effort, teachers pride themselves on the variety of ways by which the required result can be obtained; and the most operose methods are the most likely to be adopted because they happen to be governed by elaborate rules. In most arithmetic the method of computing interest and discount is taught by many different rules, not one of which is used by expert clerks. That there is a great wrong being practiced on the rising generation in regard to the study of arithmetic, every business man must know. How to rectify it, may soon be a popular question. As taught in this institution, arithmetic is one of the most interesting branches of study. Rules are discarded, principles demonstrated and applied, and vigorous drill exercises conducted daily. The curriculum is further made up of mercantile law, correspondence, lectures on business habits, business morals or ethics, success in business, etc.,-and other kindred topics, and, generally, the young people are trained rather than taught. They learn by study and observation and the demonstration of principles, rather than by rule, and are thus prepared to take their places beside experienced clerks and book-keepers. This new departure (if we may still call it new), attracted the attention of many of the leading educators of the country, not a few of whom availed themselves of the advantages the college afforded for learning business. At one time no less than six of Cincinnati's most prominent teachers were attending the institution, and the college register shows the name of a professor of mathematics from Andover. At first the new system was ridiculed, then seriously proscribed, then copied, or, we should say, counterfeited, and to-day "The Actual Business Method" of teaching is advertised as the leading feature of every school that makes any pretensions as a business educator. Mr. Nelson retired front the profession in 1872, having little competition when he left. In 1877 he resumed, to find active rivalry, and numerous colleges competing for the patronage of the city and the surrounding country. But the number of colleges is now again reduced to two. Mr. Bartlett, having resumed, to test the practicability of what he considers an improved method of teaching, has re-opened Bartlett's Commercial College; and Mr. Fabor, a graduate of Nelson's college, has opened the Queen City Commercial College. In claiming for Cincinnati the credit of originating the American business college, we may remark that Mr. Jonathan Jones, the pioneer commercial teacher of St. Louis, is a graduate of Bartlett's college, and Mr. Packard, who owns the most prominent business college in New York city, made his first appearance in the commercial world as teacher of penmanship in Bartlett's college. A similar remark may be made of Mr. W. A. Miller, his chief teacher, who, after teaching for Mr. Bartlett, was in 186o associated with Mr. Nelson. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to enumerate all the various schools that have from time to time made their appearance in Cincinnati. The first, as we have shown, was Bartlett's, which continued under his management till about 1862, when Mr. J. M. Walters took its management and control for about six years. Then there were Head's, Gundry's, Bacon's, Smith's, the Ohio Commercial College, the Catholic Institute, Bryant, Stratton & De Han's, Granger's, Herold's, the Cincinnati Business College, the National Business College, and others of less note. In the early winter of 1880-1 a business college for women was opened under Mr. Nelson's presidency, and in immediate charge of Miss Ella Nelson, his daughter, in the Glenn building. The methods pursued are precisely those practiced in the older college, the students being organized as a business community, and also taught practical arithmetic and phonography. The new school opened under very hopeful auspices. THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.* The public school system of Cincinnati is now in the fifty-third year of its existence; but as the city, on the twelfth day of February, 1829, was then, comparatively speaking, in its cradle, it is difficult to give more than a rapid retrospect of the early history of the public education of the masses of the children. First, in order of time, John Kidd, in 1818, devised one thousand dollars per annum, charged upon the ground-rents of his estate, to be expended for the education of the poor children and youth of Cincinnati. This devise was unfortunately frustrated by the title to his estate, which proved defective; but in 1824 Thomas Hughes, an Englishman, who had long made his home here, left a tract of land yieeding a perpetual ground-rent of two thousand dollars, "to be appropriated and applied to the maintenance and support of a school or schools in the city of Cincinnati, for the education of destitute children whose parents and guardians were unable to pay for their schooling," and Mr. Woodward's bequest followed some years afterward. These were the foundations of our High schools. The law of 1825 simply provided for State education. It was soon evident that the action of the legislature would be, if not inoperative, at least incapable of producing the desired fruits. The plan of the law was in itself defective, and the tax it authorized insufficient for the purpose. The schools were, moreover, opposed not only by the heavy tax-payers and the proprietors of private academies, but also neglected by the people for whose benefit they were set on foot, upon the ground that * Abridged, chiefly, from J. Haughton's sketch in the Annual School Reports. 190 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. they were "charity" or "poor schools. These advantages soon became so obvious that, in February, 1829, the friends of education, taking advantage of amendments to be made in the city charter, secured the passage of a statute giving an independent organization to the schools of Cincinnati and empowering the city council to levy special taxes for building school-houses and supporting schools. The terms of this act required the city council to divide the city into ten districts, in each of which within ten years they were to purchase a lot and erect a substantial building of brick or stone, to be two stories high, and containing two school rooms, all of the same size and dimensions. For the cost they were authorized to levy a tax of one mill on the dollar, and another mill for the expenses of the teachers. The board of education was composed of one member from each ward, elected annually by the people. Their duties were to appoint teachers and superintend their work, to select a board of examiners, examine and report every three months, and file the necessary certificates. Unfortunately their means were stinted, and close economy prevented the expansion and complete usefulness of that system conferred by the act of 1829. Even so late as 1831, some of the schools were in the basements of houses, amid stagnant water, and subject to the inconveniences of a disregard of all the most vital principles of hygiene. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that during the early years of the system, the people, in great measure, refused to avail themselves of the opportunities it offered. Even then, too, in that very civic inauguration of the march of education, another grievous evil arose. The keen compilers of educational manuals perceived their chance, and a war of spelling books and dictionaries and geographies arose. The result was the resignation of the trustees, and the consequent injury of the schools. At length in 1833 a resolution was adopted to bring the real advantages of public education more vividly before the eyes of the public. In pursuance of this, annual examinations of the pupils were set on foot. Teachers from other States, public men, members of the press, and friends and relatives of those whose progress was to be tested, were invited. The city caught and acted upon the spirit of the affair, and the memorable procession of boys and girls in 1833, through the streets of the city at the close of the examinations, marks an epoch in the history of our schools. It was also at about this time that another great impetus was given to the good cause by the first annual meeting held by the Western College of Teachers in Cincinnati; and with the view of permitting the city teachers to reap every possible benefit from the association, the whole general school work was suspended during their sittings. But time was passing, and but little progress had been made in the erection of the ten substantial school-houses provided for by the act of 1829. In 1833, however, a model school-house was finally built upon Race street, near Fourth. It was of brick and stone, in accordance with the law, and within two years afterwards its leading features had been copied in the remaining nine districts. This "model school-house" is still standing, just opposite the west end of the Emery Arcade, though partially concealed by a low row of business structures in front of it. The total cost of the lots and buildings was ninety-six thousand, one hundred and fifty-nine dollars and forty-four cents, most of which was raised by five per cent. city bonds. All were of neat proportions and substantial construction, having two rooms in each story, divided by passages, with a separate entrance for boys and girls. The rooms were thirty-six in number, each thirty-six by thirty-eight feet in dimensions, and every house had separate play-grounds for boys and girls. These were our earliest schools built under the law, the fundamental principles of which still animate our system; and, insufficient as they may now appear to be, they were a boon extraordinarily great to the rising generation. No uniformity of grading or classification had yet been reached, but by 1836 two thousand, four hundred pupils were assembled in daily attendance, under the superintendence of forty-three teachers. The large majority were males, and the salaries varied from five• hundred dollars for principals to three hundred dollars for assistants. The female principals then received only two hundred and fifty dollars, and the assistants two hundred dollars a year. In 1836 the city teachers formed a faculty association, and met twice a month to prepare plans for the improvement of the schools, and a short time afterwards quarterly conferences were regularly held between the- trustees and the teachers. During the same year the trustees of the Woodward high school offered to receive for the same year, for gratuitous instruction, ten boys from the common schools, to be selected by the school board. These vigorous steps resulted in the improvement of the school board in 1837, which thenceforth was to consist of two members instead of one from each ward; and by the united efforts of managers and teachers, and the decided improvement manifest in the pupils, the schools rapidly grew in numbers and popularity. In 1839 the board adopted the plan of providing schools for orphan asylums; and in 184o an important step was taken in providing for instruction in the German language. The necessary powers were given by an act of the legislature on the nineteenth of March, 184o, establishing in certain district schools a German department, where children were taught the German language, simultaneously pursuing the ordinary studies in English. The department was divided into two grades, the junior comprising all who- were in the primary grades in English, and placed under the joint care of an English and German- teacher, while in the senior grade were classed all pupils who had attained to the higher grades in English. These attended once or twice a day in the German teacher's room, for the rest of the school hours remaining under the supervision of the English masters. In 1842 night schools, authorized by the same law which had provided for the German schools, were opened and sustained during the winter months until 1857, when, in consequence of the paucity and irregularity of the scholars, they were suspended, and their success has not HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 191 been strongly pronounced until, comparatively speaking, a very recent date. It was also about 184o that special professors of penmanship were first added to the general staff, and their influence for good in bringing about prac-tical success in subsequent commercial and professional life has been so clearly demonstrated that, with a few in-termissions, owing to enforced economy, they have since been maintained upon the roll of teachers. In 1842 a delicate question which, in one respect or another, has since that period been debated with the greatest and most unnecessary acrimony, first threatened the harmony of our public schools. It was stated by the president of the board that the Catholic bishop of the diocese objected to the text-books in use in the schools, and also to the books in circulation in the public libraries, upon the ground that they contained matter repugnant to the faith Of Catholics, and also that the children were positively required to read the Protestant Bible. The board promptly directed that, in the event of any objec-tion by parent or guardian, the children should not be required to read the King James version of the Bible or permitted to borrow books from the libraries, and teachers were prohibited, in general terms, from dwelling in a hortatory form upon any notes or comments, or in any way insisting upon anything approaching even to a sectarian explanation of the text. In October, 1845, another stride in advance was made. Mr. Symmes, of the school board, proposed the establishment of a central school for the instruction of the more advanced pupils of both sexes. On the eleventh of February, 1846, the school board was authorized by the legislature to provide for such other grades of schools, in addition to those already on foot, as might seem necessary and expedient, and also to contract with any persons or institutions "in relation to any funds for school purposes that might be at their disposal." This directly referred to a contract with the trustees of the Hughes fund, which as yet was without any connection with the public schools. A contract, to which brief reference only can be made, was subsequently concluded for the establishment of a Female academy, free for the admission of girls upon terms and with instruction similar to those already afforded to boys of the Woodward High school; but it was defeated by an injunction issued from the court of com-mon pleas, sued out by members of the council. The interposition, at first sight so ill judged, turned out most fortunate. In 1847 the school board established the central school, and on the eighth of November of the same year it was opened with one hundred and three pupils, selected by examination from all the schools. It continued in successful operation until 1851, when it was merged into the present constitution of the High schools. This arrangement, by a fortunate union of the funds given by Woodward and Hughes with the system of com-mon schools, resulted in our present High schools, accomplishing all the benefactors could have hoped, and preserving inviolate the trusts created under their wills. These High schools were thenceforward to be controlled by a union board of thirteen members—five Woodward trustees, two Hughes trustees, and six delegates from the school board. In 1849 an act of the legislature authorized the establishment of separate schools for colored people; but, owing to legal obstacles, they soon passed under the control of the school board. The success of the school system as a whole had been already fully proved, and in 185o there was a total attendance of five thousand three hundred and sixty-two scholars, with one hundred and thirty-eight teachers, meeting and working in fourteen school-houses. By an act dated the twenty-third of March, 1850, the election of a general superintendent by popular vote was authorized, but in 1853 it was wisely modified by providing for a choice by the school board. In November, 1854, a very important change was introduced into the organization of the schools, by the creation of the intermediate schools. The motive was primarily one of economy. The schools had been uniformly classified into six grades, each pursuing strictly one course of study and text-books; and, it being a rule that each teacher should have an average attendance of forty-five pupils, it had been observed that in the two highest grades necessarily requiring teachers of the most experience and the highest qualifications, the daily attendance did not exceed thirty-five and in many schools thirty pupils to the teacher. It was therefore de-cided to concentrate the two upper grades of all the district schools into four schools, to be called intermediate; and in this way it was expected that the same pupils might be instructed by a much smaller number of teach-ers, and thus a great improvement be gained in the man-agement of the over-crowded grades of the primary schools. The plan was gradually carried into effect, but not without opposition, and the result rapidly proved the wisdom of the scheme. In 1857, a difficulty began to be felt in supplying the demand for experienced teachers, then numbering a corps of three hundred, and to remedy this defect a normal school was founded for the training of teachers, upon a scientific plan, in accordance with the advanced require-ments of the age. A separate sketch of this will be given. From 1857 till the present time, the great work of prog-ress and improvement has gone on. There were lapses and delays, caused by the war and other causes; but, overcoming all and rising superior to all obstacles, the genius of the American desire for progress and enlightenment has won its way with a step sometimes temporarily checked, but ever resolute in its aim and march. In 1869 the same question which, under a partially different aspect, seemed so dangerous in 1842, again cropped out. An active movement was set on foot to exclude the Bible from the schools. The contest was strenuous and vigorous. The case, after many public' meetings, held for and against the object at stake, came up before the courts, and eventually, in appeal, the doc-trine was laid down that the board had cognizance of the admission of all books and subjects of study, the Bible included, and the exclusion was consequently maintained. 192 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. It is useless to recapitulate the arguments or to analyze the decision. They have been printed in a separate volume as a report of what is known as one of the causes celebres of the West. On the first of May, 1873, an act was passed by the State legislature, entitled, "An Act for the reorganization and maintenance of common schools," in which, with a few trifling amendments upon points of detail and read in connection with the city charter, will be found all the present provisions regulating our schools. Section so, which may now be called the magna charta of Ohio free public education, enacts that "each board of education shall establish a sufficient number of schools to provide for the free education of youth of school age within the district, at such places as will be most convenient for the attendance of the largest number of such youth, and also may establish one or more schools of higher grade than the primary schools, whenever they deem the establishment of such school or schools proper or necessary for the convenience or progress in studies of the pupils attending the same, or for the conduct and welfare of the educational interest of such districts; and the board shall continue each and every school established by them, for not less than twenty-four nor more than forty four weeks, in each school year; provided that each township board of education shall establish at least one primary school in each sub-district of their township." The section contains many other provisos, but these essential elements, recognizing the right of the public tax-payers to demand adequate provisions for the due training of their children, are the elements underlying the whole frame of our modern system. The colored schools, under the same act, were placed under the control of the board of education, and in 1875 were reorganized by the superintendent. When it was decided to represent the Cincinnati schools at the Centennial exhibition, the school board appropriated one thousand six hundred and twenty dollars, and the union board of high schools one hundred dollars for the purpose—one hundred and twenty dollars of the joint fund to pay for histories of the schools, and the remainder for the preparation of an exhibit. Ninety volumns of examination manuscripts, from the various grades, were prepared, beautifully bound in full Russia, and exhibited to thousands of admiring citizens before they were shipped to Philadelphia. All the schools and grades, including the normal, were represented; and some parts of the display, as the volume of specimens of teachers' penmanship and that containing work from the colored schools, were unlike anything else in that department of the exhibition. The result was a triumphant success. The universal expression, on the part of visitors inspecting it, was one of enthusiastic admiration. Many complimentary notices were given in the school and other journals; and the drawing was mentioned with special commendation. Among the foreign visitors whose attention was attracted by the Cincinnati exhibit was M. Rauber, director of public education for the French Republic, who wrote for fuller information. When the exposition of 1878 in Paris was preparing, Superintendent Philbrick of Boston, who had charge of the educational displays from this country, requested that the entire Centennial collection from the Cincinnati schools might be included. The board instead decided to prepare new work, and voted a grant of two thousand dollars for it. Eighty-four volumes were prepared as before, under the regulations of General Eaton, Federal superintendent of education. Only about three weeks were given the schools for their part of the preparation ; but a superb and most attractive exhibit was made. Mr. Philbrick afterwards stated at a meeting of the National Educational association ; "No other exhibition of scholars' work equal to that of Cincinnati was ever made in the known world." Gold-medal, and silver-medal diplomas—the two highest of the five grades of honor allotted to this section—were awarded by the International jury to the schools of this 'city, and Superintendent Peaslee, among other honors, received in consequence a diploma of membership from the Royal industrial museum at Turin. The last annual report of the Superintendent, bearing date August 31, 188o, represents the total number of district schools for white children in the city as twenty-eight; for colored, six; intermediate, white, four; colored, two; high-schools for whites, two, and one colored high school. There were also intermediate departments in sixteen district schools. Number of school buildings in use, fifty-four; school-rooms in use, five hundred and sixty-two; not in use, seventeen. The different female teachers employed numbered five hundred and thirty-three; males, one hundred and twenty-eight; total, six hundred and sixty-one; averages on duty, respectively, five hundred and five, one hundred and twenty-three, six hundred and twenty-eight. Pupils enrolled: In the district schools—white, twenty-eight thousand three hundred and eighty; colored, one thousand one hundred and two; total, twenty-nine thousand four hundred and twenty-eight. Intermediate—white, two thousand six hundred and ninety; colored, one hundred and twenty-nine; total, two thousand eight hundred and nineteen. High—white, one thousand one hundred and sixteen; colored, sixty-foyr; total, one thousand two hundred and twenty-five. Normal school, eighty. School for deaf-mutes, forty-eight. Night schools, two thousand and ninety. Grand total, thirty-five thousand seven hundred and fifty. Different pupils enrolled, exclusive of night schools, thirty-two thousand one hundred and ten. The average age of white pupils in the district schools was nine years; of colored, ten and five-tenths years. In the intermediate schools, thirteen and two-tenths, and fifteen and three-tenths. High schools, fifteen and eight-tenths years and seventeen and three-tenths. The average number of pupils belonging to the schools was twenty-five thousand eight hundred and forty-two white and nine hundred and ninety-five colored; total, twenty-six thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven. Average daily attendance, twenty-five thousand and ninety-five white, nine hundred and fifty-four colored; twenty-six thousand and forty-nine in all. Percentages of attendance on enrollment—district schools, seventy-six and seven-tenths; HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 193 intermediate, eighty and two-tenths; high, eighty-five and four-tenths ; normal, ninety-five; deaf-mute, eighty-three and three-tenths : total, seventy-seven and four-tenths. Average enrollment to each teacher: District schools, sixty-three and seven-tenths; intermediate, fifty-four and two-tenths; high, fifty-nine and two-tenths. Average belonging to each, fifty and four-tenths, forty-four and eight-tenths, fifty-one and seven-tenths. Average in daily attendance, forty-eight and nine-tenths, forty-three and five-tenths, and fifty and five-tenths. In the district and intermediate schools, fifty is the maximum of daily attendance allowed by the board of education. The increase during the year, in enrollment of pupils, was one thousand and eighty-six; in the number belonging, nine hundred and forty-four; in daily attendance, nine hundred and sixty-five, against corresponding numbers for the previous year of two hundred and ninety-two, thirty-seven, and fifty-one. The amount paid for tuition during the year 1879-8o was five hundred and two thousand three hundred and sixty-seven dollars and twenty-four cents, exclusive of music, nine thousand nine hundred and seventy-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents; penmanship, five thousand nine hundred and eighty-four dollars and fifty-one cents; and drawing, three thousand six hundred and seventy-eight dollars and eighty-seven cents;—making a grand total of five hundred and twenty-two thousand and thirty dollars and sixty-one cents. The average cost of the special teachers, per pupil, of those actually belonging to the schools, was thirty-seven cents for music, twenty-two cents for drawing, and thirteen and eight-tenths penmanship. Average tuitionary cost, on the average number belonging, excluding special teachers—district schools, sixteen dollars and sixty-two cents per pupil; intermediate, twenty-nine dollars and eighty cents; high, thirty-seven dollars and eighty-one cents; all the schools, eighteen dollars and twenty-nine cents. This is ninety-four cents less than the average tuitionary cost of the previous year, which reduced that of the year 1877-8 by forty-five cents. It may here be remarked that the board generously fixes the rate of tuition for non-resident pupils in the district schools at only sixteen dollars per year, and in the intermediate but twenty dollars, which is less in each case than the actual cost, and in the latter case nine dollars and eighty cents less. Seven night-schools—five for white and two for colored pupils—were maintained during five months of the year. Twenty-eight male and twenty female teachers were employed, with an average number of pupils enrolled to each teacher of fifty-one; average attendance, twenty-two. Average ages—white pupils, fifteen and one-half years; colored, twenty-four years. Thirty-six pupils graduated from the high school in this department. The grand total of persons of school age in the city, as ascertained September, 1879, was eighty-seven thousand six hundred and eighteen. In the public schools there were different- pupils, thirty-two thousand one hundred and ten; in church schools, fourteen thousand one hundred and ninety-five; private schools, one thousand six hundred and forty; night schools, two thousand four hundred and sixty-seven; in charitable and reformatory institutions (estimated), six hundred;—making a total of fifty-one thousand and twelve, or nearly sixty per cent. of the entire number of persons of school age, of whom many are apprentices or otherwise engaged in business, or are married, and some are under private tutors. Others are in business colleges or higher institutions of learning. Superintendent Peaslee's figures leave but fifteen thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, out of sixty-two thousand one hundred and fifty-one children between the ages of six and fourteen, who do not attend any school. An annual institute is held for the benefit of the teachers, during the week next preceding the opening of the public schools; and the First German Assistants', and other pedagogic associations hold monthly meetings during the year, in the interests of their respective lines of work. In his report for 1879-80, the Superintendent mentions with approbation the instruction of the year in object-lessons and in gems of literature. His system in the latter branch had had time to be tested, and to take firm hold upon the regards of both teachers and pupils. We make the following extract, in partial illustration of the method: One hour per week is the time now devoted to this subject in the district and intermediate schools. A part of this time is usually taken from that assigned to morning exercises and a part from Friday afternoon. However, that is left—judiciously, I think—to the discretion of the teacher. I have recommended eight lines as a fair amount for each week's work. At this rate the pupils, in passing through the district and intermediate schools, would commit two thousand five hundred and sixty lines, and in passing through the district, intermediate, and high schools, three thousand eight hundred and forty lines ; which is equivalent in amount to one hundred and twenty-eight pages of McGuffey's Third Reader. It is not enough that the selections be simply memorized ; each one of them should be made the subject of a lesson, to be given by the teacher. The teacher should not only see that the pupils thoroughly understand the meaning of each word and sentence, that they give the substance of each passage in their own language, and make the proper application of the same before requiring them to commit it to memory ; but she should also endeavor, by appropriate talks, to impress upon the minds of her pupils the ideas intended to be conveyed, and to enthuse them, if possible, with the spirit of the extract. . . . After the selection have been memorized thoroughly, the attention of the teacher should be given to the elocution—to the beautiful delivery of the same. This can be done well by concert drill. The concert should be supplemented by individual recitation. Good results were also reported upon the celebrations of authorial birthdays (Whittier's, Longfellow's, and in the Woodward High School Emerson's) in the schools during the year. The progressive methods adopted in certain of the ordinary branches, as history, and instruction in general information, also show to excellent advantage in the lucid pages of Superintendent Peaslee. This summary of his last report, albeit too brief, and necessarily making important omissions, is a fitting close to the history of elementary public education in the Queen City. THE HIGH SCHOOLS. The "Central High School," opened July 27,1847, in the basement of the German Lutheran church on Walnut street, was the first public high school in the city. The names of the committee of the Board of Education, on whose report the school was founded, have 25 194 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. been preserved, and should ever be held in honor. They were Bellamy-Storer, Dr. John A. Warder, Charles S. Bryant, William Goodwin, and D. R. Cady. H. H. Barney, afterwards State Commissioner of Common Schools, was its first principal. Its course of study included reading, etymology, penmanship, ancient and modern history and languages, belles-lettres, botany, -chemistry, natural philosophy, anatomy and physiology, moral and political science, book-keeping, vocal music, composition, and declamation—a very excellent curriculum for that day. Fifty-eight girls and thirty-nine boys, ninety-seven pupils in all, attended at the opening; but the school rapidly grew in numbers, and four years after" its organization it was broken into two others, the famous Woodward. and Hughes High Schools. The following sketch of the history of these institutions, prepared by Colonel D. F. DeWolf, at present State School Commissioner, for the Centennial volume on Education in Ohio, is quite sufficient for the purposes of this book: William Woodward was an upright farmer, of frugal habits and simple tastes, a good, true, and humane Christian man. Long before his death he found himself possessed of wealth by the approach of the corporate limits of Cincinnati to a farm which he owned, and to which he had moved from Connecticut when Cincinnati was a hamlet. He and his friend Samuel Lewis had consulted together regarding the education of youth and its relation to human happiness, and especially to the welfare of his country. He had no hesitation in determining that it was his duty to render actual assistance, then much needed, in furnishing educational facilities for youth who could not procure them for themselves. He transferred to trustees that part of his farm lying nearest to the city as an endowment for the establishment and maintenance of schools— providing in his deed of trust that orphans and the children of widows should have the preference of admission to the school. Mr. Lewis being the chief manager of the trust, the revenues were well husbanded, and a successful, school was kept up for some time. The State common-school system was afterwards inaugurated, and rendered this, as a lower-grade school, superfluous. On the advice of Mr. Lewis, the , conditions of the trust were so modified by Mr. Woodward as to allow of the establishment of the "Woodward College or High School." On ' the union of the high schools and the common schools, the original Woodward High School building was taken down, and the present beautiful building were erected, which is a monument to his memory and creditable to the taste and judgment of the board of education. Mr. Woodward lived to witness the full success of his scheme and to enjoy the heartfelt gratitude and ever increasing esteem of his fellow, citizens and countrymen. The farm of Thomas Hughes, an Englishman by birth and a practical shoemaker until his death, joined that of Mr.' Woodward. The latter had little difficulty in directing the mind of Mr. Hughes into his own channel of thought. As a result he bequeathed his land to William Woodward, William Greene, Nathan Guilford, Elisha Hotchkiss, and Jacob Williams, in trust. The land was leased on a perpetual ground-rent, and the accumulation of a fund awaited, sufficient to erect a building for a school to be supported by the future revenues. Losses and delays were occasioned by failures and consequent lawsuits on the part of parties to whom the interest in these leases had been sold. Matters-were finally adjusted, and the city was put in possession of the annual revenues. In 1852 these two funds were united and merged in the city school fund—the Hughes fund amounting to twelve thousand or thirteen thou' sand dollars. The Hughes High School building was erected at a cost of twenty-three thousand dollars. The reports now [1876] show- the annual receipts from the two funds to be from eleven thousand to twelve thousand dollars. These funds greatly facilitated the supply of early educational ad; vantages to the youth of Cincinnati, and now afford the means for securing special conveniences or special instruction without burdening the taxpayers. Hon. H. H. Barney became principal of the Hughes High School, and Dr. Joseph 'Ray principal of the Woodward High School, in 1852. Under these eminent teachers the schools at once assumed a position of great dignity among the educational institutions of the country. They did much to attract the attention of educated and influential citizens of the State to the subject of high-school education. It was now no longer doubtful that the public high schools, supported by appropriations of the public funds sufficient to secure the services of the most accomplished educators of the land, must possess facilities for imparting thorough culture unknown. to any other schools, and under such relations to the family and other social privileges as are congenial to every intelligent parent. The warm and hearty support of these schools, with the active co-operation of such men of culture as William Goodman, Dr. James La Roy, Rev. James H. Perkins, Hon. Samuel Lewis, Nathan Guilford, William Greene, the Hon. Bellamy Storer, E. D. Mansfield, E. S. Brooks, and others of the highest social position, did much to overcome the prejudices of more common minds, and to place the public schools of the State on the highest plane, of respectability. The best families patronized the schools. They were visited from all parts of the State. The cities that had not secured public high schools felt an additional impulse to act in this direction, and "the people's schools" were regarded as in all respects the most desirable institutions to foster. All that had been claimed for them in the earlier discussions of their merits was realized. The principals of the Hughes High School have been H. H. Barney, Cyrus Knowlton, J. L. Thornton, and E. W. Coy. The principals of the Woodward High School have been Dr. Joseph Ray, D. Shepardson, M. Woolson and George W. Harper. THE CITY NORMAL SCHOOL. The following sketch of the history of this institution was also written for the Centennial volume, in an admirable chapter on the Normal Schools of the State, by Miss Delia A. Lathrop, now wife of Professor Williams, of the Ohio Wesleyan university, but then and for a number of years the accomplished and successful principal of the school: The City Normal school of Cincinnati was organized September, 1868. It originated in a felt need of better teachers in the lower grades of the city schools. As vacancies in teachers' positions occurred in the higher grades, promotions were made from the lower, the time of the children being considered more valuable with advancing years. The vacancies constantly made in the lower grades by these promotions were filled with inexperienced girls, and so these grades came to serve the purpose of training-schools for teachers for the upper grades. For several years the superintendent of schools, and some of the most progressive members of the board of education, had felt that some measures must be adopted to prevent the great waste of time and labor in primary schools, through inexperience and lack of professional knowledge. Accordingly, in the summer of 1868, the board voted to open a school for the training of candidates' for teachers' positions in the primary grades of the Cincinnati schools, Notable among the men whose influence gave impulse and character to the movement, were John. Hancock, superintendent of schools, H. L. Wehmer, and J. B. Powell, esq., members of the board of education. The action of the board was unanimous in favor of its establishment. The school was located in the Eighth district school-house, where it is still in operation. At its opening, two ordinary school-rooms were set apart for its use—one for normal school instruction, and one for practice with children. The second year three rooms were occupied, and now seven-school-rooms are devoted to the Normal school work—two for normal instruction and five for practice in teaching. The expenses of the school are paid from the common-school fund of the city. Tuition is free to all candidates who state it is their intention to enter the Cincinnati public schools as teachers ; to others it is sixty dollars per annum. Pupils, to be admitted to the school, must be graduates of the Cincinnati high schools, or of some school of similar standing, or hold a teacher's certificate from the Cincinnati board of examiners of teachers, or have passed an equivalent examination before the normal school committee. The subjects upon which an examination is instituted for a teacher's certificate are mental and practical arithmetic, English grammar, geography, United States history and general history, reading, spelling, natural philosophy, anatomy and physiology, music, drawing, and penmanship. No certificate is issued to an applicant whose average of correct answers in grammar, geography, or written arithmetic is less than seventy per cent., or whose average on the whole number of marks is less than seventy per cent. This is the lowest standard of admission to the Normal school. HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 195 There is but one course of study pursued at option in German or English, for German or English positions respectively. The peculiarities of this course are : First, it is planned with reference to a definite purpose—the management and instruction of the lower grades of the Cincinnati public schools ; second, it is broad in that it aims to discuss principles of education and deduce methods from them, instead of teaching them empirically ; third, it is entirely professional. It consists of methods of teaching all the subjects pursued in the lower grades of the Cincinnati public schools, together with the history of education, school-management, mental philosophy, and the philosophy of education. Special attention is given to penmanship, music, and drawing. This study is supplemented by practice, each pupil spending about ten weeks—the time varying somewhat with the size of the classes—in the management and instruction of one of the ordinary lower-grade city schools. This time is spent consecutively, and is designed to familiarize the pupil-teacher with the everyday routine of school work in all its phases, as far as this can be done in the time allowed. Critic teachers have constant oversight of the work of the pupil-teachers, and make daily criticisms and corrections. The pupil-teachers are marked weekly in a register, open to all, upon the following items: Punctuality, promptness, personal bearing, neatness (in person and work), correct use of language, improvement of time, ability to control, ability to instruct, ability to criticize,; and ability to profit by criticism. A diploma from the school secures to its holder the preference over an inexperienced teacher in appointment to a position, there being a rule of the board of education that no such person shall be employed while a graduate of the Normal school awaits appointment. It also secures one hundred dollars per annum additional salary until the maximum salary is reached. If the graduate teach seven years—the time required to arrive at the maximum salary—she will have received five hundred and fifty dollars more for services than if she had received the position without a normal school diploma. The first principal of the school was Miss Sara Dugane, called to this position from the city training school of Boston. She resigned at the expiration of the first year, and was succeeded by the present incumbent, (r876), Miss Delia A. Lathrop, then principal of the city normal school of Worcester, Massachusetts. The number of pupils in the school for the year 1874.-5 was seventy-eight—sixty English and eighteen German. The number enrolled in the practice school was three hundred and fifty-five. There were forty-one graduates of the normal school—thirty-five English and six German. Since the organization of the school there have been two hundred and forty graduates. Professor John Mickleborough is now the principal of the Normal school. CITY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS. Although the Queen City had graded schools more than fifty years ago (1829), she had no local superintendent until 185o, three years after the public schools of Columbus, and two years after those of Sandusky and Massillon, had superintendents. Under a special law passed by the Assembly, March. 23d of that year, the Hon. Nathan Guilford, formerly a Senator in that body from Cincinnati, was elected City School Superintendent by popular vote—a plan then or since permitted nowhere else in the State. He was re-elected and served in all two years, upon the munificent salary of five hundred dollars a year. In his last annual report he made a vigorous appeal for the education and Americanization of foreign immigrants to this country, and a protest against the memoriter plan of recitations, then lately adopted in the Central High School. Upon the expiration of Mr. Guilford's term the popular suffrage chose to the office Dr. Merrell, who' held it but a short time, however, resigning before the close of his year. The general act of 1853, providing for City and Town Superintendents of Schools, abolished the feature of election by the people, and vested the power of appointment in the City Board of Education. The first to be chosen under the new arrangement, and the first real superintendent of public schools for Cincinnati, as the office is now almost universally accounted, was Professor Andrew J. Rickoff, who was already well and favorably known in southern Ohio as an able and energetic. educator. He had removed with his family from Portsmouth, at the mouth of the Scioto, to become a teacher in the public schools of Cincinnati. He served one year as assistant in the sixth district school, and on the retirement of the principal, Mr. Rufus Hubbard, who had been appointed to take charge of the new house of refuge, he was appointed as his successor. Here he remained about two years and a half, when he resigned his position to go into other business, a' s he supposed, permanently. In April, 1854, he received the appointment of city superintendent from the board of education. The first attention of the new superintendent was directed to the existing organization and classification of the schools, which had been the result of accident rather than design. In a report made to the board of education in June, he recommended the establishment of the present intermediate school system. Naturally the proposition met with determined opposition, both in and out of the board of education. . It was adopted, however, in October, just before the completion of the new school house on Baymiller street, and when that school was opened the next month, the Baymiller school became the first intermediate school of the city and still retains the title. The whole theory of the new organization may be explained by saying that this school, instead of gathering up all grades of pupils from the immediate neighborhood, received only the two higher classes of the three large schools there, and we believe . is still known as the eighth, eleventh and twelfth district schools. This new school became a competitor to the feeble higher grades of the ten or twelve remaining district schools. Its classification was more thorough, better methods of instruction were made possible, teachers were inspired with greater zest for the work, and the old organization had to go down before it. It was not long before arrangements had been completed for extending the system to all parts of the city. In the year following the first detailed course of study, prescribing exact conditions of promotion from grade to grade, was recommended to the board of education and adopted with great unanimity. In the same year the principal of each large school was made in fact, as he had formerly been in name, a local superintendent, and thus an assistant to the general superintendent. This plan has since become almost universal in the schools of all the larger cities. In the discussion of a proposition to make a like change in the office 'and duty of the masters of the Boston schools, the plan was called the Cincinnati plan. It is probable that the plan originated there. The methods pursued in every grade and department of instruction received the closest attention, as they certainly needed to. Young women, fresh from the high school, were generally employed as teachers, without having given so much as an hour's attention, to the work that lay before them. They had to be not only instructed 196 - HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO. in the method of doing, but they had to be shown what was to be done. Meetings of teachers, of one grade or another, at first voluntary, but, when the movement had gathered force, authoritatively called, were held almost every Saturday. Here object lessons, methods of teaching, reading, writing, arithmetic, modes of government, etc., etc., were fully discussed. The result was a revival which was felt for many years after. Before the time of the municipal elections in the spring of 1859, Superintendent Rickoff publicly announced his intention to decline a reappointment to the superintendency, and in the following September he opened a school of his own, which was maintained with gratifying success for nine years and until he left the city to take up his residence in Cleveland. Mr. Rickoff was elected to the office of school examiner in 1855. This he continued to hold some years after he ceased to be superintendent. In 1864 he was elected from the first ward for the board of education, and the year following that he was elected as president of the board on the retirement of the Hon. Rufus King, who had held the presidency for nearly fifteen years. Before the end of his term he removed to Mt. Harrison, and became ineligible for a second term. For one year Mr. Rickoff's relation to the public schools of Cincinnati was entirely severed, but in the summer of 1867, during his absence from the city, he was again elected to the superintendency of the school. This appointment he felt obliged to decline, but at a better salary accepted a similar position in Cleveland a few weeks afterward. His present term of office and fifteenth year of service in Cleveland will expire in September, 1882. Superintendent Hancock, one of Mr. Rickoff's successors, says of the administration of the pioneer superintendent: He, by his display of organizing and general executive power, at once placed himself in the front rank of educators. Under his administration was introduced that thorough grading of schools which has been productive of such excellent results, and has been followed more or less closely by all the cities and towns of the State. He was also the first to make a general use of written examinations for ascertaining the comparative value of the work done in the several schools of an educational system. . . At an early period of Mr. Rickoff's administration in Cincinnati, the principals of schools were relieved of the charge of a room of pupils, and were put at supervisory work, under such a rule that they were required, in all except some of the smaller schools, to give their whole time to it. Mr. Rickoff was succeeded for a single year by Mr. Isaac J. Allen, and he by Professor Lyman Harding, who had been long and favorably known in the work of academic education in the city. He was superintendent from 1861 to 1867. His successor was John Hancock, Ph. D., one of the very foremost men in educational work in the country. 'Dr. Hancock was superintendent of the Cincinnati schools for seven years. He is a reformer in education, with conservative tendencies,- no novel schemes and methods of education shaking his regard for solid attainments as the essential thing in any system of education. Here he promoted the establishment of the City normal school, and placed the special teaching of penmanship and drawing on an enduring and systematic basis, The course in object lessons, as now incor porated in the course of study, was adopted during his term; and, in the higher ranges of study, a constant pressure was kept up in the direction of "the humanities." It was a notable era for the city schools. Dr. Hancock has since been superintendent of the schools of Dayton, Ohio, a member of the State board of examiners, and president of the National educational association for one year. No voice from Ohio is heard with more respect and honor throughout the country, in the discussion of educational topics, than his. John B. Peaslee, the present incumbent of the superintendency, is a native of Plaistow, New Hampshire, born September 3, 1842. His father was a graduate of Dartmouth college, a member of some distinction in the State legislature, and also prominent in the convention which formed the State constitution. His mother, whose maiden name was Harriet A. Willits, was of a famous Quaker family, and a graduate of the New York City public schools. On both sides he is thus of cultured ancestry, and to his home training, mainly, he owes a very thorough preparation for the higher education. This he took in the academy at Gilmanton and the college at Dartmouth, graduating from the latter in 1863. Upon the recommendation of President Lord, of that institution, he was appointed, the same year, to the principalship of the grammar school at Columbus, in this State, in which he served so ably as to secure promotion the next year as first assistant of the third district school in Cincinnati, from which, three years afterwards, he was advanced to the post of principal of the fifth district school. Serving two years in this capacity, he was then passed to the principalship of the second intermediate school; and finally, in 1874, being then but in his thirty-second year, he succeeded Mr. Hancock as city superintendent of public schools, to which post he has since been regularly re-elected. Already, while only a first assistant, Mr. Peaslee had begun the introduction of the neat and accurate slate work, which, as fully developed under his superintendency, has done much to make the Cincinnati schools famous, and as carried over to the preparation of books of examination papers, attracted very marked attention at the expositions of the world's industry where they were shown. Some other features of his reformatory work have been already exhibited in these pages—as the memorizing and recitation of gems of literature, a new method in elementary arithmetic, and the commemoration of the birthdays of celebrated authors, of which he is unmistakably the originator. The first and last, particularly the last, have been widely copied, and Superintendent Peaslee is often called upon to explain his methods to bodies of educators, near and remote. He is now in the prime of his powers, and doing daily a surprising amount of work. With all his busy activities he found time to study law, and was admitted to the Hamilton county bar in 1865. For some years he was president of the State board of examiners. In the summer of 188o he received the honorary degree of doctor of philosophy from one of the Ohio universities. HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO - 197 THE PRESIDENTS of the board of education since its regular organization have been: Peyton S. Symmes, 1833-8; Elam P. Lang-don, 1839-41; Edward D. Mansfield (acting), 1842; James H. Perkins, 1843 ; Joseph Ray, 1843-6; William Hooper, 1847-8; Bellamy Storer, 1848-52; Rufus King; 1853-65; Andrew J. Rickoff, 1865-6; Samuel S. Fisher, 1866-8; Francis Ferry, 1868-9 and 1870-I; Henry L. Wehmer, 1869-70; Jabez M. Waters, 1871-2 ; L. W. Goss, 1872-5;W J. O'Neil, 1875-7; Alexander C. Sands, 1877-8; William H. Mussey, 1878-80; J. W. Underhill, 1880. STATISTICS. The following comparative statement exhibits, in part, the remarkable growth of the public school interests in the city, and the increase of expense from year to year during the middle period of the history of Cincinnati : In 1826, there were collected for school, purposes, $1,578.69; in 1827, $1,846.15; 1828, $1,869.35; 1830, $11,263.11 (almost exactly as much as for all other purposes in the city that year); 1831, $12,661.29; 1832, $16,127.46; 1833, $16,466.93; 1834, $16,401.80; 1835, $19,166.38; 1836, $21,137.73; 1837, $21,137.73; 1838, $26,917,73; 1839, $19,686.77; 1840, $18,497.20; 1841, $15,107.13; 1842, $20,965.15; 1843, $20,965.15; 1844, $20,835.84, 1845, $20,602.62. The following table shows the number of teachers employed, and the amount annually paid for their services, from the opening of the common schools in Cincinnati in 1820, to the close of the year ending June, 1878: