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For the Common Schools

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For the Common Schools CHAPTER I For the Common Schools JESSE FELL looked up from the cubic yard of earth he had turned, toward the setting sun. Before another day dawned, it could be announced that work on the new State Normal University had actually begun. That morning, Saturday, August 22, 1857, the con­ tractors, Soper and Mortimer of Chicago, their wives, along with some Bloomington businessmen, some members of the State Board of Education, and the architect, G. P. Randall, of Chicago, had ridden out north of town and selected the site. It was near the middle of the tract donated by Meshack Pike.1 In the afternoon Daniel Wilkins and other members of the Board had staked out the lines for excavation and later Jesse Fell had returned alone and set shovel to the ground. In a few weeks the contractors would have workmen with picks and shovels swarming all over the place, but the project was dear to Jesse Fell's heart and he was quietly in­ dulging himself in the satisfaction of having turned the first spade­ ful of earth. As long as he lived he would take pride in the role he had played in founding the schoo1.2 Sometimes as he had gone from door to door with subscription lists, he wondered if he were not the only person seriously interested in the normal school. In the end local business men had subscribed handsomely, the McLean County Commissioners had voted a generous donation of swamp lands, and Bloomington had secured the location.s It was a splendid site. The architect's plan called for a great three-story building with a tower and dome a hundred and fifty feet above the ground. From the crest of the beautiful swell of land where Fell stood, the ground sloped gently in all directions. The 1 Daily Pantagraph (Bloomington), August 24, 1857. 2 Frances Milton 1. Morehouse, Life of Jesse Fell ("University of Illinois Studies," Vol. V, No. 42; Urbana: University of Illinois, 1916), pp. 4-45. • On September 28, 1850, the United States government gave to the state all swamp and overflowed lands. John H. Burnham, History of McLean County, Illinois (Chicago: William LeBaron, 1879), p. II6; Weekly Pantagraph (Bloomington), May 13, 1857; Illinois State Journal (Springfield), February 2, 1857. 3 4 Grandest of Enterprises building would be in direct line with that of Illinois Wesleyan University, a mile to the south, and would command a fine view of the surrounding country, including several miles of both railroads.4 To the south and east beyond the cornfield, the hazel brush along the slough, and the railroad tracks, on another rise of ground could be seen Fell's own new home, just completed that summer. It was a large square wooden structure with a cupola atop and verandas on three sides.5 It stood on a knoll in the center of a triangular park­ like tract. A few spindly trees had been planted to mark the streets so ambitiously laid out two years before. On the whole North Bloomington presented a new and barren look. The only other house in the area was that of William McCambridge, station agent at the Junction.6 Jesse Fell had a keen interest in education. For a brief time be­ fore he became successively a lawyer, editor, farmer, nurseryman, real estate promoter, and land speculator, he had been a teacher. One of the things about the new country that had concerned him was its lack of schools and its need of good teachers.7 It was esti­ mated in 1840 that there were at least 100,000 children in Illinois s who were not in school and over 28,000 adults who were illiterate. When Fell laid out lots for sales in his first addition to the town of North Bloomington, he set aside the block opposite his home and designated it as Seminary Block. He considered establishing a school and had corresponded with Horace Mann of Massachusetts, whose work he had so heartily approved, to inquire his ideas as to the "constitution" of such a school, its scope and curriculum.9 Fell • Weekly Pantagraph, August 26, 1857. • Morehouse, ap. cit., p. 34. • About thirty lots in North Bloomington were sold by W. F. Arny and Company, June 15, 1854. Prices ranged from thirty to fifty dollars. In 1855 a company composed of Jesse Fell, R. R. Landon, L. R. Case, C. W. Holder, and L. C. Blakesly began another development. Later Fell bougbt out his partners. An ardent temperance man, and intent on bringing to his neighborhood a desirable class of residents, he provided in all deeds to lots in North Bloomington tbat intoxicating liquors should never be sold on the premises. Burnham, History of McLean County, pp. 426-427. 7 Thomas Campbell, Secretary of State and ex-officio Superintendent of Schools re­ ported January 21, 1847, that in fifty-seven counties there were 1,592 schools and 1,535 teachers. Of 155,715 persons under twenty years of age, only 46,814 were enrolled in school. John Williston Cook, Educational History 0/ minois (Chicago: Henry O. Shepard, I9I2), p. 108. 8 Theodore Calvin Pease, The Frontier State, 1814-1848, Vol. II of The Centennial History ot Illinois, ed. C. W. Alvord (5 vols.; Springfield: Centennial Commission, 1919), p. 431. • Morehouse, ap. cit., p. 46. For the Common Schools 5 regarded Mann as having a sound philosophy, high ideals, and vision, and had hoped that the State Board of Education would select him to direct the new normal school. Although the building was not yet begun and not a single class had met, the school had already had a dramatic and exciting his­ tory. Several factors contributed to the realization of the need for more adequate preparation of teachers in the state. The rapid growth in the population from 1840 to 1850 had been inevitably accompanied by a dearth of teachers, and prior to 1850 anyone who could read and write and had an elementary knowledge of the so-called common branches might secure a position as a teacher. Although the School Law of 1841 had required that all teachers be examined and certified to draw public funds/o the scarcity of qualified persons and the lack of educational experiences on the part of the examining officers mitigated against the thoroughness of the examination. In response to the demand for improvement in the schools, the 1855 General Assembly created the elective office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction and provided for a school commissioner to visit schools and examine prospective teachers. The low salaries paid to teachers tended to discourage the liberal arts graduate from staying long in the profession, if indeed he entered it at all. For ministers and lawyers, teaching was often a side-line, not a real vocation. The meager returns from teaching sustained many a young lawyer while struggling to build up a clientele or before turning, as Jesse Fell had done, to the more lucra­ tive and exciting business of land speculation and practical politics. The brief teaching experience of these college trained men-physi­ cians, farmers, lawyers, and editors-did make them sympathetic and alert to the needs of schools and teachers, however, and in the press and legislative halls they valiantly championed the cause of ed uca tion.ll 10 The Public School Law of 1841 had 109 sections. Cook, Educational History of Illinois, p. 109; Arthur Charles Cole, The Era of the Civil War, 1848-187°, Vol. III of The Centennial History of Illinois, ed. C. W. Alvord (5 vols.; Springfield: Centennial Commission, 1919), p. 230. llWilliam H. Powell, State Superintendent, reported December 15, r858, that salaries in Illinois were as low as five dollars for women and nine dollars for men, and as high as $150 for men and sixty dollars for women. In 1859 the highest paid to men was $200 and sixty dollars to women. Cook, Educational History of Illinois, p. 82. 6 Grandest of Enterprises The Common School Law of 1825 had provided that as soon as there were fifteen families settled in a Congressional township a common school free to persons between ages of five and twenty­ one could be started. Such schools were to be maintained at least three months of each year, and a popular teacher might arrange a teaching schedule so he could teach three or four short terms in as many districts. Frequently literate farmers obtained teaching employment in the slack seasons between fall harvesting and spring planting. The law provided taxation not in excess of five mills, and no one, however affluent, could be assessed more than ten dollars per year for the support of schools. In addition two dollars out of every hundred received by the state was set aside as a school fund, and five-sixths of the interest was to be divided among the counties of the state in proportion to the number of white children under twenty-one. The law of 1825 was rendered futile two years later when the power to enforce the collection of taxes was taken away.12 The situation was typical of the new West. The scarcity of trained, devoted teachers was invariably noted by visitors. Oc­ casionally public spirited persons such as Catherine Beecher 13 and former-Governor. William Slade of Vermont set about with true evangelistic zeal to recruit well-trained young women who would go west and teach in common schools or found seminaries. As agent of the National Educational Society, Slade secured the co­ operation of the Illinois Educational Society, a volunteer organiza­ tion of editors, ministers, and civic-minded persons, and through it arranged for the placement of his proteges.
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