Howard County IN Archives History - Books .....Pioneer Life In Howard County Indiana, Part 2 1909 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/in/infiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com April 3, 2006, 4:07 am Book Title: History Of Howard County Indiana THE FIRST STATE ROAD. The state board of education was first organized in 1852 and consisted of superintendent of public instruction, the governor, the secretary, treasurer and auditor of state. In 1855 the attorney general was added. In 1861 the board was changed to cosist [sic] of the state superintendent of public instruction, the Governor, the president of the state university, the president of the state normal, and the school superintendents of the three largest cities in the state. In 1875 the president of Purdue University was added. In 1899 three men to be appointed by the governor were added. These men must be prominent citizens, actively engaged in educational work, and one at least must be a county superintendent, and no one to be appointed from a county already represented on the board. E. E. Robey is at present (1908) a member of the board as a county superintendent. The board is responsible for all examinations of teachers and makes all questions used in their examinations which are for the following grades of license: One, primary license, one year, two years and three years; two, common school license, one year, two years and three years; three, high school license, one year, two years, three years and five years; four, professional, eight years; five, life state license. In addition to making the questions, the board conducts the examination and grades the manuscripts of applicants for professional and life state licenses. The board is also the state board of school book commissioners. As such it adopts text books for the common schools for periods of five years. When a contract has been made with a publisher the books are secured for the public by a requisition of the county superintendent for the number of books needed in his county, upon the state superintendent, who in turn, makes requisition upon the contractor for the number of books needed in the state. The county superintendent thus becomes the agent for the sale of the books and makes his reports to the various contractors. The state board of education, in order to keep some uniform standard of efficiency in high schools has established certain requirements in the work which entitles high schools to commissions. These commissions carry with them exemption from examination for entrance to the freshman class in the higher institutions of learning. Upon the recommendation of the state superintendent, members of the board inspect the work of the high schools and determine whether the requirements for commissions have been met. The work of the board has resulted in a perceptible increase in the efficiency of the high schools: since all schools want the commission and when once obtained even effort is made by the school officers, teachers and patrons to retain it. COUNTY BOARDS. The county boards of education are composed of the county superintendent, the several township trustees and the heads of the boards of trustees of town and city schools. They are not officially charged with duties; the purpose appears to be that by meeting and discussing the various school interests they may be able to introduce better and more uniform methods in their several schools. The teachers are required, by law, to attend a township institute in their township once each school month. The purpose being, by the addresses and discussions, to awaken greater interest among the teachers in their work, to impart new and improved methods in teaching. The minimum length of the school term in any school corporation in a year shall be six months and the trustee is directed to levy sufficient tax to raise the money necessary to do so, provided he does not exceed the legal tax limit. The law fixes the legal minimum wages that shall be paid teachers and any violation of this law subjects the violator to a heavy penalty. The amount of money collected and distributed for tuition in Howard county for the year 1908 was: Common school revenue, thirty thousand eight hundred and thirteen dollars and fifty-three cents; congressional township revenue, one thousand three hundred and twenty-three dollars and forty cents; tuition from local taxation, forty-one thousand four hundred and eighty dollars and fifteen cents; received from liquor license, two thousand nine hundred dollars; received from dog fund, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine dollars and sixty-five cents; total, seventy-eight thousand three hundred and ninety-six dollars and seventy-three cents. The amount collected for the city of Kokomo, thirty-seven thousand five hundred and forty-three dollars and sixty-two cents; the amount for the county outside of the city of Kokomo, forty thousand eight hundred and fifty-three dollars and eleven cents. The amount of special school tax levied and collected in 1908 was forty-nine thousand three hundred and ten dollars and twenty-one cents; the amount collected for the city of Kokomo was twenty-two thousand six hundred and thirty-six dollars and thirty cents; the amount collected for the county outside of Kokomo was twenty-six thousand six hundred and seventy-three dollars and ninety-one cents. The whole amount of school money, tuition and special for Howard county for the year 1908 was one hundred and twenty-seven thousand, seven hundred and six dollars and ninety-four cents. PRESENT DAY CONDITIONS. In this county there are seventy-two brick school buildings and six frame buildings. There are one hundred and seventy-two teachers of the various grades employed in Howard county, and the total number of children of school age in the county is eight thousand five hundred and twenty-five. The past sixty years has witnessed such a wonderful material development and advance in Howard county that its magnitude is almost beyond belief; and the educational advance is equally great if not greater. From the rude and scanty furnishings and almost chaotic want of system of the early schools, the change has been to large and commodious houses almost all built of brick, well headed and well lighted and equipped with the best of school furnishings. The organization from the state superintendent and state board of education down to the township and even the school district is so perfect that it constitutes a machine, the parts of which fit so well and work so harmoniously that they would delight a mechanical engineer. An educator of today whenever he refers to our school system at once becomes enthusiastic. He declares that we have the finest school system in the world, that we have a school fund so large and so well managed that tuition in the common schools is practically free; that our schools are so well graded that by easy stages one passes on up through the high schools to the higher institutions of learning. The people, too, are proud of their schools. The people our our neighboring state, Michigan, point with justifiable pride to their great state university at Ann Arbor with its learned professors and its thousands of students attracted from all lands and they give it generous support. The people of Indiana are no less justified in their pride for their excellent school system. They get closer to the masses of the people. The people of Michigan have good common schools, but their specialty is their great university, which only the few can reach, while ours comes to the masses and prepares the many for the ordinary affairs of life. In this symphony of praise there comes a discordant note. TOO WELL ORGANIZED. It is suggested that the system is too well organized: that it has become a machine, where all are treated to the same process; that material for this educational process is intelligent beings with very different mental equipments and that the purpose of an education is to lead out, develop and train the natural gifts and powers of the student; to stimulate him to independent thinking and research, and to avoid the mechanical mental processes. Whether these suggestions are opportune it is not the province of the historian to say. In reviewing- the school history of the past sixty years of our county, certain facts stand out prominently. Many students in the early schools with their two months' training became excellent spellers, good readers and penmen and acquired a practical knowledge of arithmetic that was surprising, and later the "old normal'' in the late sixties and early seventies sent out from its school rooms men and women who stand out now living or in memory for their learning, and sound original thinking, men like John W. Kern, J. Fred Vaile, J. O. Henderson, Bronson Keeler, O. A. Somers, L. J. Kirkpatrick, A. B. Kirkpatrick, Professor W. A. Greeson, Professor John B. Johnson and scores of others of that date. To one looking over the personnel of those who have had their education in the schools of Howard county the period referred to seems to have been the golden age of school work in this county. The fact also is prominent that at that time there was less of the close organization than at the present time. The teacher of that time had much freedom and many of them had strong personalities which was impressed upon the pupils. Whatever differences of opinion men may entertain of the merits or demerits of this close organization and the tendency to machine work in our schools all are heartily glad that so abundant means are provided for the education of the youth of our county. The men of middle age watch the passing along of the school wagon with its load of happy noisy children going to or from school protected from the storm and mud or deep snow, and remember again that he walked long distances to school often through rain storms and deep mud or else through the blizzard and biting cold and is glad that the children of today are not subjected to the like hardships. Additional Comments: From: HISTORY OF HOWARD COUNTY INDIANA BY JACKSON MORROW, B. A. ILLUSTRATED VOL. I B. F. BOWEN & COMPANY INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA (circa 1909) File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/in/howard/history/1909/historyo/pioneerl12nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/infiles/ File size: 10.6 Kb