SCHOOL HISTORY: 1877 Common School Report, Snyder County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Banja Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/snyder/ _________________________________________ COMMON SCHOOLS OF PENNSYLVANIA REPORT OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA FOR THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 1, 1877 Harrisburg: Lane S. Hart, State Printer, 1878 Ex. Doc. SNYDER COUNTY. 497 SNYDER COUNTY. - William Noetling. Until 1855, this county formed part of Union; but in March of that year the latter was divided into two parts, the northern retaining the former name, and the southern receiving that of Snyder, in honor of Simon Snyder, one of its earliest citizens, and afterwards Governor of the State. Houses. The first schools were taught in old, unoccupied buildings, spring- houses, dwelling-houses, and all kinds of shops being used. The earliest houses erected for school purposes, like the dwellings of that time, owing to the abundance of timber, were constructed of logs, and roofed with clap-boards. They were generally very small, some not more than eighteen feet by fourteen; had only a few small windows, and were neither plastered nor coiled. With a few exceptions, such as roofing with shingles, and here and there ceiling with boards, no Improvements seem to have been made in the building of school-houses, before the free school system had been accepted. Furniture. The furniture of the school-houses built prior to the year 1834, consisted of a desk or a table, and a chair or a bench, for the "master;" long desks, or tables, and high, slab benches, for the pupils; and a ten-plate wood stove. The desks were made either single or double, and were placed 498 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. [No. 8, along the walls, or sides of the room. Single desks had occupants on one side only, sitting with their faces towards the walls; double desks had occupants on both sides - frequently boys on the one, and girls on the other, facing each other. The stove stood in the middle of the room, and around it, and between it and the desks, sat the small pupils. - The benches for all sizes of scholars, were made of the same height, and without backs. Gradual changes, however, suggested themselves to the successive school authorities. One of them, relative to the arrangement of the furniture, was that of placing the teacher's desk at the middle of one of the walls; on a small platform, and those of the pupils, so that the latter all faced the teacher. Next, the desks of the pupils were arranged in two tiers, extending from the walls to the right and left of the teacher, to an aisle running from his desk to the door; and, lastly, the desks and seats were made short, each for two pupils, only, as they now are, and arranged with aisles between them, as at present, in most school-houses. The seats, also, improved from time to time. They were made with backs, and attached to the desks. The backs were at first vertical, and afterwards inclined backwards, as they now are. Apparatus. The only apparatus used by the "school masters" of the county, until within a quarter of a century ago, consisted of whips, leathern spectacles, and sharp-edged wooden horses, with which they punished their pupils for the violation of rules and for misconduct. Teachers. Nearly all the earliest teachers were Germans, either native born or foreign. Those of European birth were generally well educated; the others, with a few exceptions, were not. Occasionally a teacher who could speak only English, or who could speak both German and English, came into the county and taught, but most of the English teaching was done by persons who could not speak the language. Previous to the county superintendency, almost any one who could read, write, and cipher a little, could teach school. It was not, however, from choice that persons of so limited attainments were employed, but from necessity. Well qualified teachers being scarce, only a few in the county, to prevent the children's growing up in entire ignorance, it was necessary not only to allow, but to urge, persons who could barely read and write, to teach school. And not a few of those who undertook it, understood no arithmetic, and some of them could not read writing. Whiskey-drinking having been much more common in the early days of this county than it now is, as might be expected, some of the teachers of that time, and even much later, were habitual drunkards. They daily carried their filled flasks with them to their schools, and not infrequently became so dead drunk that their pupils could run back and forth through Ex. Doc.] SNYDER COUNTY. 499 the school-houses, over benches and desks, without rousing them from their stupor. They had a variety of modes of inflicting punishment, most of which they threatened with profane oaths. They made their pupils stand upon "dunce blocks," wear leathern spectacles, ride sharp-edged wooden horses; struck them across the palm of the hand or over the knuckles, with a ruler; upon the head, back, or wherever it chanced to hit, with a whip or stick; and of one teacher, it is said, that he struck with his fist, his cane, the dusting brush, or anything he could lay his hands upon, never failing to leave his mark. Both boys and girls were whipped so cruelly that they sometimes rolled themselves upon the floor and cried most piteously of the pain they suffered. Branches Taught. Reading and spelling were, at first, the only branches taught. No others were thought necessary, Penmanship was afterwards added, for the boys, but not for the girls. If the latter "learned to read the catechism and the Testament, they had all the education women needed." Next came arithmetic, but also only for the boys, and they did not begin it until they were fourteen or fifteen years of age. Occasionally a girl learned to write and cipher, but those who did so were the exceptions. Gradually, how-'ever, both penmanship and arithmetic gained favor among all, until, with reading and spelling, they formed the common branches taught in all the schools. Geography was first taught in the county, in 1828, at Freeburg; and grammar, at the same place, in 1831. The teacher who taught the geography, was George Weirick, and his class was composed of Philip Hilbish, George Moyer, and E. R. Menges. Jesse Teats taught the first grammar, and his pupils were George Moyer and Henry J. Boyer, both of whom took only private lessons. Both geography and grammar were taught only to a limited extent prior to the year 1870, the people in the rural districts, and, to some extent, in the towns, opposing the study of both, on the ground that "they had acquired property without a knowledge of them, and that it was not necessary for their children to know anything about either." They however acknowledged that geography would benefit their children, "if the latter intended to travel, but as they did not want them to do that, it would be folly for them to waste their time upon it in school." Grammar they also acknowledged to be of benefit "to lawyers, doctors, and preachers, but as they did not want their children to learn any of those professions, they did not want them to squander their time upon what would be useless to them in after life. They desired them to learn to spell, read, write, and cipher, a knowledge of which branches, and especially of arithmetic, would enable them to get along anywhere in the world." Much of the opposition to the study of geography and grammar came from the older class of teachers, who generally opposed what they did not understand and could not teach. 500 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. [No. 8, Before the free school system had been inaugurated, and even long afterwards, many children pursued only what branches they pleased. One study, such as spelling, reading, writing, or arithmetic, was all that some had during a whole term, and when urged to take more, they replied that "if they understood well the branch which they were pursuing, they would have education enough." Some refused to study the multiplication table and the tables of weights and measures, assigning as a reason that "their parents had never studied them, and had gotten along well in the world, and that they did not need know them either." When boys and girls reached the age of sixteen or seventeen years, they discontinued reading as a school exercise, believing that they could read "well enough for the business they intended to carry on," though they had to stop two or three times in every line they attempted to read, to spell words, before they could pronounce them. Modes of Teaching. The first task assigned a child, on entering school, was that of learning the arbitrary names of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. To do this, as each child was called up alone to "say its lesson," generally required a whole school term of four months, and before the free school system had been adopted, when the term was very short, it took three or four winter terms to do it. Some children learned them in a shorter time than this, but others required much longer. After having learned the alphabet, they were prepared for spelling, determining from a combination of the unmeaning names of the letters, the pronunciation of the words, upon which they spent from three to four terms or winters, beginning with words of two syllables, and ending with those of eight, spelling thousands of words of which they did not know the meaning, and which they never afterwards had occasion to use. Reading was reached through spelling, and as the children first had to spell each word silently before they knew what to call it, the exercise was at first not only a very slow one, but it was nothing more than merely naming the words. As the preparation for reading was so long and tedious, and the school terms very short, some pupils never went beyond the alphabet, others not out of spelling; and those who had the courage and the patience to remain in school until they were permitted to do what was called reading, learned no more than mere word calling. Most of the early teachers who undertook to teach English reading, being unable themselves to speak the language, could give their pupils very little assistance, except in pronunciation, and even in that their own was frequently not much better than that which they attempted to correct. At a later period pupils were instructed to "mind the stops" while reading - to pause long enough at a comma to count one; at a semicolon, to count two; at a colon, to count four; and so on. These rules were literally carried out by some teachers. They required their pupils to count audibly the stated number of times whenever they came to a punctuation mark. Ex. Doc.] SNYDER COUNTY. 501 During a still later period, the rules of elocution, given in some of the reading books, were memorized by the pupils, and applied in reading as they understood them. They were to let their voices fall only at a period, and to read direct questions with the rising inflection, and indirect ones with the falling, though they could not distinguish a direct question from an indirect one. It is said by some of the oldest citizens now living, that during their early years very few, if any, persons could be found in the county who could read a whole line of printed matter without stopping and first spelling some of the words. Writing many could not read at all. Spelling, now taught by writing, was then taught orally, the teacher pronouncing the words, and the pupils naming, in their proper order, the letters in them. Copy-books were made of foolscap paper. The teachers wrote the copies, and the pupils imitated them as well as they could. Writing was done with pointed goose quills, which the teachers had to cut and mend. Writing the copies and mending the pens, generally took the whole of teachers' morning and noon hours, and sometimes another hour in the evening. Previous to the acceptance of the free schools, arithmetic was seldom taught further than through addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Occasionally a pupil reached the " Single Rule of Three," as single proportion was then called. All the operations of arithmetic were performed mechanically, both teachers and pupils working only for the answers given in the books. If a problem had no answer given, they could not solve it. The rules laid down by the authors were followed in the solutions of problems, if the teachers and their pupils understood sufficient English to comprehend them; if not, they experimented with the numbers until they had them so arranged as to produce the answer. Until the introduction of solutions by analysis, called "Mental Arithmetic," in 1845, by A. C. Fisher, the study of numbers had no value as a mental discipline. From that time, however, arithmetic became the principal study of the schools, being the only one which the pupils could understand, and which they therefore took an interest in. Committing to memory the definitions and the rules, parsing words, correcting incorrect expressions, called "false syntax," and, more recently, analyzing sentences, constituted the study of grammar. Geography was learned in the same manner as grammar, all memorized, even down to unimportant towns, lakes and rivers. School Term. Before the Free Schools had been accepted, the school terms were only from two to three months in length. In 1854, the minimum term was, by legislative enactment, fixed at four months, and in 1872, at five. Every change, however, to a longer term met with the most violent opposition in the rural districts, the people declaring that "they could not spare their 502 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. [No. 8, children so many months of the year," that "they needed them at home to teach them to work," that they themselves had not received "so much schooling, and that their children did not need it either," and, lastly, that "it would make the taxes too high." There was no easier way to defeat a candidate for office than to circulate the report that he favored a longer school term. Monthly Pay of Teachers. During the time of the subscription schools, a teacher's pay for each pupil was fifty cents per month of twenty-six days, counting only days actually attended. If a teacher, after several weeks' trial, found that the number of pupils was too small to pay him for his labor, he abandoned the school, and the children had to remain at home that term, unless some one else came along and tried the same experiment with more success. Many children never went to school. Of some of them the parents were unable to pay the tuition, and of the others they were unwilling to do so, saying that "it cost too much." During the early days of the Free School system the monthly pay of teachers ranged from twelve to twenty dollars and board--the teachers "boarding around" with their patrons. Twenty-five dollars is the highest salary that has been paid by a majority of districts. "Boarding around" has become obsolete. Free Schools. Nothing else, it is said, has ever met with so determined an opposition from a large part of the people of the county as the Free School system did. They declared that if it should be adopted "it would make the taxes so high as to ruin many people," and that if the people permitted " so oppressive a law" to be imposed upon them the "next thing they could look. for was a king to rule over them." " So much education," they said, "would make nothing but rascals." Day-laborers they threatened with starvation if they voted for the system - they were not to have " another day's work, nor another bushel of wheat." At public gatherings, such as sales and the like, frequent fights took place between the friends and the enemies of the system. Especially was this the case where whiskey was freely used. At an "anti-school meeting," held at New Berlin, on the Tuesday following the 18th of September, 1834, it was resolved (1) "that five persons be appointed a committee to draw up a petition, to be signed by the citizens of the county, praying the Legislature to repeal the law for this county (Union and Snyder); (2) that the chair appoint two persons in each township, who shall have authority to appoint as many more as may be necessary in each township, to solicit subscribers to said petition; and (3) that the chair appoint a committee of five persons, to correspond with committees in other counties, to procure the repeal of the school law in this Commonwealth." Ex. Doc.] SNYDER COUNTY. 503 The petitions referred to in the resolutions were prepared, taken to the townships, and largely signed. Many of the opponents of the system, unable to write their own names, made "their marks " instead--a mode of writing names still practiced by some in the county. More than half the number of names on some of the petitions, it is said, were signed in this way. But notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the opponents of the system to have it repealed, it remained a law of the State. Its acceptance, however, was left to the option of the voters of the separate townships. At first it was nowhere in the county accepted. Being left to vote, from year to year, it gradually carried in some districts, was tried a year or two, rejected, and afterwards again accepted. To what district belongs the credit of first permanently accepting it, I have not, for a certainty, been able to learn, but believe it is to Washington. The last one to accept was Beaver, in 1849. Examination of Teachers. Before the county superintendency had been established, if directors desired a teacher examined, they sent him, for that purpose, to a lawyer, a physician, or a minister, who gave him a few paragraphs to read, one or two easy problems to solve; and if he claimed to have studied the branches, a few terms in grammar and geography mechanically to define. County Superintendency. This office was established in 1854, and also met with violent opposition, in some parts of the county, most of it created by the teachers, very few of whom had any fitness for imparting instruction. They declared that they had taught "so long satisfactorily to their patrons without any such espionage, and that they did not need it now; that the office was an unnecessary expense, of no benefit to the county, and evidently only another step towards despotism." Some said they would as soon see the Sheriff come into the school-house as the Superintendent. It is said that a meeting had been appointed at one of the school- houses of the county, by Daniel S. Boyer, then County Superintendent, for the purpose of explaining to the people the object of the office, but that no organization could be effected, owing to the continual noise kept up by those present opposed to the office, and determined not to hear anything about it. Some had come with fifes, and some with drums, to drown the speaking, if it should be attempted, and to drum away those who had come to hold the meeting. No meeting could be held, and when Mr. Boyer and the friends of the office, who had come with him, left, the opposition followed them, blowing their fifes, beating their drums, and yelling like so many savages. Opposition to the office has not, even yet, altogether ceased. Here and there persons are still to be found, who are incapable of appreciating its benefits, and who claim that it would be better for the schools if it were abolished, and its salary taken to increase that of the teachers, though 504 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. [No. 8, they think the latter well paid when they receive from twenty to twenty-five dollars per month. The office has been successively held by the following persons: J. S. Whitman, of Freeburg, from July 5, 1854, to August 4, 1855; David Heckendorn, of Adamsburg, from August 10, 1855, to June 3, 1857; Daniel S. Boyer, of Freeburg, from June 3, 1857, to June, 1860; Samuel Alleman, of Middleburg, from June, 1860, to June, 1863; William Moyer, of Freeburg, from June, 1863, to June, 1872; and the present incumbent, of Selinsgrove, from June, 1872, to the present time. At Mr. Whitman's election the salary was fixed at $300, at which it remained until September, 1857, during Mr. Boyer's term, when it was raised to $500. In June, 1860, at Mr. Alleman's election, it was made $400, which it remained until Mr. Moyer's second election, June, 1866, when it was again raised to $500, which it has remained to the present time. Higher Education. In 1832, George A. Snyder, son of Governor Snyder, taught a select school at Selinsgrove. He was employed by the year, but how long he taught, I have failed to learn. From 1836 to 1839, John Saintclair taught a select school at Selinsgrove. He was addicted to drunkenness, and when under the influence of liquor, during school hours, whipped his pupils unmercifully. The next select school, also taught at Selinsgrove, was opened in 1845, by A. C. Fisher, a Vermonter. Ile was employed by the year, and taught three annual terms. Among the citizens who took an interest in higher education, and who had employed Mr. Fisher, were Henry C. Eyer, Jacob Smith, William Gaugler, John Hall, James K. Davis, senior, Jacob Wagonseller, John App, Gideon Leisenring, and John Bassler. In 1853, Freeburg Academy was erected. October 13, 1855, it was burned down, and the following year re-erected, some larger than before. Reverend C. G. Erlenmeyer, Daniel P. Hilbish, George Moyer, Peter P. Mertz, George Hilbish, and Francis A. Royer, took a leading interest in establishing the school. J. S. Whitman was the first principal, he was followed successively by G. F. McFarland, in 1855; Reverend C. Z. Weiser, in 1858; John K. Millet, in 1860; Daniel S. Boyer, in 1862; N. D. Van Dyke, in 1865; Daniel S. Boyer again in 1867; and Major W. H. Dill, the present principal, in 1873. Since 1863, it has admitted pupils of the public schools, for each of whom the directors at first paid room rent and tuition, but since 1868 they have paid the principal a monthly salary, and thus made the institution, while they are open, partly one of the public schools of the district. Having been the earliest permanent school of the kind in the county, it has had a liberal patronage, and has done much towards creating a public sentiment in favor of higer [sic] education. The Reverend Benjamin Kurtz, late of Baltimore, Maryland, believing that, Ex. Doc. SNYDER COUNTY. 505 in addition to its regular colleges and theological seminaries, the Evangelical Lutheran Church needed an institution to educate for the Gospel ministry, without going through the curriculum of an eight or ten years' course of training, pious, common-sense, practical, earnest men, in 1855 brought the subject before the Maryland Synod, and secured the appointment of a committee, to report on establishing such an institution, and to propose a plan of operation. The committee having, in October, 1856, reported to the synod in favor of the project, the latter body appointed a board of trustees, or managers, to carry into execution the contemplated purpose. An executive committee, appointed by the trustees, reported to the synod in 1857, the appointment of a superintendent, the reception of various proposals for the location of the institute, and the appointment of Reverend II. Zeigler, as agent to solicit subscriptions. In view of the probability that the institute would not be located within the bounds of the Maryland synod, that body, at its same session, dissolved its special connection with the contemplated institution. At a meeting, held in Baltimore, May 3, 1858, the board of trustees finally decided to locate the institute at Selinsgrove, the subscription of that place, for its location, being $15,012. The first session of the school opened on the 7th of October, 1858, in two rooms belonging to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Selinsgrove. The faculty consisted of Benjamin Kurtz, D. D., superintendent; Reverend H. Zeigler, A. M., assistant professor of theology; and Theophilus Weaver, A. B., principal of the classical department. The theological department embraces a three years' course in the branches usually taught in theological seminaries, and the classical prepares students for the theological, and for the sophomore and junior classes in college. The present principal instructors are Reverend II. Zeigler, D. D., professor of theology; Reverend P. Born, A. M., principal of the classical department. For the time this school has been in operation, it has prepared many young men for business and for college, besides eighty-two whom it has prepared for the ministry. A year after the erection of the Missionary Institute, the same denomination built Susquehanna Female College, at Selinsgrove. The object of the institution was to afford young ladies the same educational advantages that young men have at their colleges. The first session of the school opened in 1860, under the principalship of Reverend C. C. Baughman, A. M., who continued in charge of it about four years, graduating in that time two or three classes. The income of the school not being sufficient to liquidate the debt resting upon it, it was sold; Henry C. Eyer, becoming the purchaser. Mr. Eyer rented it to Reverend Samuel Domer, A. M., who conducted it four or five years, graduating in that time also two or three classes. Believing that Mr. Eyer had purchased the institution for that denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church continued to patronize it and support it; but when afterwards Mr. Domer purchased it from Mr. Eyer, and it became in name, what it had before been in fact, a private 506 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. [No. 8, institution, its former friends and supporters became its enemies, withdrew their patronage, and opposed it. Mr. Domer, seeing that he had insuperable obstacles in his way, sold the institution to the writer of this, who conducted it not only against the same obstacles, but against willful and malicious misrepresentation, until 1873, when he closed it as a female school. In 1871, F. C. Moyer, Esquire, of Freeburg, erected at that place, the "Musical College" and Pennsylvania Normal School of Music. The object of this institution is to give a thorough course in the science and art of music, both vocal and instrumental. Its school year is divided into three terms; the first of eight weeks, beginning in April; the second, of six, in July; and the third, in October. This school, in operation only a few years, has already awakened considerable interest in the study of music. Thus far, the last school established in the county, is the Snyder County Normal Institute, opened by the writer of this, at Selinsgrove, in April, 1873. Its aim is to instruct its students in what are, among leading educators, considered the best and most rational methods of strengthening and developing mind. It has used no advertisements but the success of those who have gone forth from it to teach; and, during the present year, it had not sufficient room to accommodate all who applied for instruction.