The
next subject in its proper order, would be to
say a word in reference to school houses and
schools. My first recollection is, that a
school was taught by old Nathaniel PINCKARD
in the old log Court House already described.
I remember too, that afterwards a school was
taught in the old log church, by William
NICHOLSON and perhaps others. A school
was taught in the old tavern stand, which is
heretofore referred to as the old George
FITHIAN and John ENOCH stand
on lot No. 63, somewhere about 1816, by Hiram
M. CURRY, afterward State Treasurer.
About the year 1811
however, a small school house was erected on lot
No. 102, near the present residence of E. B.
PATRICK, and a school was made up by
subscriptions which was then the only mode of
supply, and a teacher employed. I do not
distinctly remember the first teacher, but am
inclined to think it was William STEPHENS,
Esq.; afterward John C. PEARSON, Henry
DRAKE, George BELL and others were teachers,
but forget the order of their services. In
this venerable house the writer of this received
his last touches of scholastic instruction, and
his only surviving schoolmates that he can now
name, are Col. Douglas LUCE, Joseph A.
REYNOLDS, and Mrs. Horace MUZZY.
At the early day the opportunities for instruction were
very different from now. If parents had
the ability and inclination to pay for school
instruction, it was given: if not, it was
with-held. In looking back into the past,
and contrasting it with the present organized
system of public instruction for all conditions
of society, the mind at once is puzzled in the
solution of the question, "How did those early
Pioneers of Ohio, hedged in with poverty,
surrounded with difficulties, and exposed to all
manner of hardships an privations, manage to so
educate, instruct and manipulate the youthful
minds of their immediate successors, as to
develop such talent as has, in the last
generation, graced the pulpit, the bench, the
bar, and both branches of the State and National
Legislatures?Page 43 -
Will such a galaxy of stars set, at the
close of the present generation? If so,
where are they now shedding their
lustrous brilliancy?
But to return to the subject matter of the early
schools of Urbana, say prior to 1820.
Having referred to the school-houses used, and
the teachers, and the mode of supplying them, up
to that time, it might not be amiss to say
something of their capacity to teach and govern.
They were, as a general rule, men of high moral
standing, and qualified to teach all the first
rudiments of a common school education, such as
reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic and
English grammar, and some of them the higher
branches of mathematics and algebra; but not
many claimed the latter qualifications.
But they were thorough in such branches as they
professed to teach, and if they found that any
pupils were close upon their heels in any
branch, they became studious themselves, to be
prepared to impart instruction to such.
This fact has come under my own observation in
more than one instance; in short, they were
perseveringly industrious, energetic, and it may
be said, ambitious, and the pupils were like
them; they applied themselves assiduously to
their lessons, and the key to it was, both boys
and girls at home had to work, the boys at
mechanical trades or upon farms, the girls at
house-keeping, hackling and spinning flax,
carding and spinning wool; so that when they
went into the schoolroom, it seemed a recreation
to take hold of their books, slates, &c.
The teachers had an aptitude to teach, and the
pupils to receive instruction; the spirit of
emulation was infused by the former, and seized
and secured by the latter. As already
intimated, the teachers were determined to
impart, an l the pupils to receive instruction .
Indeed the invincible determination to learn
among the youth of that day, was a common trait.
I will have to give an instance as an
illustration for many other cases . The writer
of this knew an Urbana boy in his teens, whose
father in the winter of 1814–15 , was drafted,
and to save the family who were very poor from
the sacrifice of its support in the head,
voluntarily left his school, offered himself and
was received as a substitute; being engaged in
committing the rules of English Grammar, he put
up in his knapsack a copy of a small edition
containing these rules, and when at his
destination at Fort Meigs, at all leisure times
pursued the committing of them to memory,
preparatory to finishing at the end of his time
in school, his studies upon that branch.
He was kindly assisted and invited by his
Captain, John R. LEMEN,
Page 44 -
to use his quarters out of the din of the boys
in the service. He really came home
prepared to apply the rules and did so, under
the instruction of the same teacher he left.
That boy had no higher aim than a common school
education; he did not aspire to any
profession, but the same indomitable energy that
actuated him, stimulated hundreds of others in
the State that did aim at higher aspirations,
and this perhaps is the solution to the question
asked in a preceding paragraph.
Before dismissing this branch of the subject, I will
note the fact of the erection about 1820, of
what was called the Academy, and in which higher
branches were professed to be taught, and which
attracted to our place afterward, a good class
of competent instructors. And the greater
part of our present business men, who are the
descendants of old settles of the town, received
most of their education in it. The
building was on the present site of our second
ward district school houses on lots No. 179 and
810. Also there was erected a little
later, a female Academy, but it did not prove a
success; it was on lot No. 35, West Church
Street, being part of the present residence of
William WILEY.
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