Part 41 (1/2)
P. Coulter, and J. M. Chambers appear. In 1860, S. C.
Koontz, Henry Church, William Stewart, J. H. Camburn, and William Richmond served. In 1861, W. W. Smith, George M.
Howlett, Henry Church, William H. Merritt, A. C. Churchill, and S. L. Pollock directed affairs. In 1862 E. G. Brown, A.
C. Churchill, J. F. Ely, George M. Howlett elected Mr.
Humphrey superintendent of schools. His reputation seems to have been that of a man of great strength and the bad big boys stood in awe of him accordingly. C. W. Burton, the superintendent of 1865, was noted for his cleverness in mathematics, and his deep interest in horticulture.
”All of these early directors, superintendents, and teachers were hard workers and great optimists. History has confirmed that optimism, and from the services of these men developed a race of ambitious, energetic, moral citizens to whom the present Cedar Rapids owes a great debt of grat.i.tude.”
Through the courtesy of County Superintendent Alderman we are enabled to give below some interesting data regarding our schools:
In 1873 the number of school corporations in the county was 42, increased to 87 in 1909. The number of ungraded schools in the former year was 178, and 166 in the latter year. The average number of months the schools were in session has increased from 6.6 in 1873 to 8.9 in 1909, and the average compensation from $39.78 to $73.50 for males, and from $26.33 to $50.85 for females. The number of female teachers employed in 1873 was 244, and in 1909, 503. The number of male teachers was 90 and 40 respectively.
In the matter of attendance there has been a vast betterment. In 1873 there were 460 boys and 544 girls between the ages of seven and fourteen not in school. In 1909 these numbers were 29 and 17.
The value of school property in 1873 was $240,105; in 1909, $814,300.
The value of school apparatus was $2,309.50 in 1873, and in 1909, $20,035.25. There were in 1873 in the school libraries 482 volumes, which was increased to 17,079 in 1909.
There are now between twenty-five and thirty fine school buildings in the country districts. They are modern in all respects, being supplied with slate blackboards, hardwood floors, ventilators, cloak rooms, bookcases and cupboards. Several have furnaces and cloak rooms in the bas.e.m.e.nts. Some of the buildings are supplied with telephones, making it possible for the county superintendent and patrons to communicate direct with the school.
The plans and specifications for these buildings are owned by the county, and are furnished gratis to the school districts wis.h.i.+ng to build. All of these school-houses except two or three are not only provided with libraries, cloak rooms, etc., but are also provided with a good organ.
This year there is being installed a hot air ventilating system which keeps the warm air pure, the cold air being taken directly from the outside and pa.s.sed through the hot air radiators before being allowed to enter the school room.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CORNELL COLLEGE IN 1865]
CHAPTER XXIII
_Historical Sketch of Cornell College_
BY WILLIAM HARMON NORTON, ALUMNI PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY, CORNELL COLLEGE
Linn county may well take pride in the history of her oldest school of higher education, founded in 1853, when the county held but 6,000 people. But the beginnings of Cornell College are of more than local interest; they are thoroughly typical of America and of the West.
Cornell was founded in much the same way as were hundreds of American colleges along the ever advancing frontier of civilization from Ma.s.sachusetts to California--a way which the world had never seen before and will never see again.
THE FOUNDATION AND THE FOUNDER
Cornell owes its inception to a Methodist circuit rider, the Rev.
George B. Bowman, a North Carolinian by birth, who came to Iowa from Missouri in 1841, three years after the territorial organization of the commonwealth. This heroic pioneer, resourceful, far seeing, and sanguine of the future, eminent in initiative and in the power of compelling others to his plans, was one of those rare men to whom the task of building states is intrusted. He was not himself a college man, but with him education was a pa.s.sion. To found inst.i.tutions of higher education he considered his special mission. Hardly had he been appointed as pastor of the church at Iowa City in 1841 when he undertook the building of a church school, called Iowa City College. In 1845 Rev. James Harlan, a local preacher of Indiana, was chosen president, and with one a.s.sistant opened the school in 1846. The next year Mr. Harlan was elected state superintendent of public instruction, and the college was closed never to be re-opened. It had at least served to bring to the state one of its most distinguished citizens, afterward to be honored with the United States senators.h.i.+p and the secretarys.h.i.+p of the interior. Meanwhile Mr. Bowman had been appointed presiding elder of the Dubuque district, which then included much of east-central Iowa. The failure of the premature attempt at Iowa City had not discouraged him; he awaited the favorable opportunity he still looked for--suitable local conditions for a Christian college in the state. It is a long-told legend, even if it be nothing more than legend, that when Elder Bowman came riding on horseback to the Linn Grove circuit, he stopped on the crest of the lonely hill on which Mount Vernon now stands. From its commanding summit vistas of virgin prairie and primeval forest stretched for ten and twenty miles away.
Here there fell upon him, the circuit preacher, the trance and vision of the prophet. He saw the far-off future; he heard the tramp of the mult.i.tudes to come. Dismounting, he kneeled down in the rank prairie gra.s.s and in prayer to Almighty G.o.d consecrated this hill for all time to the cause of Christian education. And it is a matter of authentic history that in the spring of 1851 Elder Bowman and Rev. Dr. A. J.
Kynett, in the parsonage at Mount Vernon, planned together for the early founding and upbuilding of a Christian college on this site.
With the characteristic initiative of the Iowa pioneer, Bowman did not wait for authority to be given him by anybody, for articles of incorporation to be drawn up, or even for a t.i.tle deed to the land on which the college was to stand. Early in 1852 he laid his plans for the launching of the school. On the Fourth of July of this year an educational celebration was held at Mount Vernon, which drew the farmers for miles about the town, and other friends of the new enterprise from Marion and Cedar Rapids, Anamosa, Dubuque, and Burlington. The oration of the day was delivered by State Superintendent Harlan on the theme of Education, and at its close ground was broken formally for the first building of the college. A month later a deed was obtained for the land and the following September the guardians.h.i.+p of the infant school was accepted under the name of the Iowa Conference Seminary, by the Methodist Episcopal church.
In this highly democratic manner Cornell College was founded by the people as an inst.i.tution of higher learning, which should ever be of the people and for the people. It was born on the anniversary of the nation's natal day, and was to remain one of the highest expressions of patriotism and civic life. Christened by the head of the educational interests of the young commonwealth, supported by its citizens, protected by a charter from the state, and exempt as a beneficent inst.i.tution of the state from contributing by taxation to the support of other inst.i.tutions, the college was thus begun as a state school in a very real sense.