CALEB MILLS AND THE INDIANA

SCHOOL SYSTEM.

It is common tradition that until after the adoption of our modern school system in 1852 the name Hoosier was the synonym for ignorance. In 1790, Gen. Arthur St. Clair, then governor of the Northwest Territory, said of our pioneers, "They are the most ignorant people in the world. There is not a fiftieth man that can either read or write." In 1840, one-seventh of the entire grown population was illiterate, and Indiana stood lowest in intelligence of all the free states. In 1850, the proportion of illiterates had grown to one in every five, and Indiana had fallen below many slave states. Meanwhile, the proportion in Ohio was one in eighteen, and in Michigan, one in forty-four. In Indianapolis the first free public school was not opened until 1853.

Then came "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." A Yankee schoolmaster, Caleb Mills, began to publish in the Indiana State Journal a series of "Addresses to the Legislature," one of the most remarkable series of documents ever issued. These came out on the opening day of the several legislative sessions of 1846, 1847, 1848, and 1850, and of the constitutional convention of 1852. They bore the superscription, "Read, Circulate, and Discuss" and the signature of "One of the People." In them Professor Mills made plain the depths of ignorance to which the state had sunk and outlined his programme of educational reform. These addresses created a profound sensation. Governors adopted them in their official messages, legislators and citizens took them up and discussed and accepted them. They

were known as "The Read, Circulate, and Discuss Pamphlets."

It is to the immigrants from New England that Indiana owes the plan out of which grew its great system of free schools, and it is to New England that Indiana owes many of its educational ideals. In 1833, Caleb Mills, twenty-seven years old, and fresh from Dartmouth College and Andover Seminary, came to Crawfordsville to open a college* where teachers might be trained for the common schools, and to cast his lot with the pioneers of learning in this wilderness of illiteracy. With him came other collegiates who, for the period of a generation, were to co-operate in awakening public sentiment to the necessity of educating every child in the state. This impulse brought him here. With the tireless energy of the Yankee this apostle of enlightenment continued for twenty years to lift up his voice against the criminal indifference of law-makers and of voters.

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Governors in their messages and legislators in their statutes thus far had ignored the crying need of the people. prophet was needed, who should rebuke without giving offense and arouse without exciting hostility. The first of the six great messages was addressed to the members of the Senate and House of Representatives of 1846. The appeal for free schools was made with wonderful tact and courtesy. There was neither reproach nor bitterness. Its tone was conciliating and kindly; and yet its logic was inexorable as the logic of Euclid. The style of the address was crystal clear. It sparkled with wit and irony and glowed with the eloquence of an advocate who pleads for those he loves. He began adroitly, as if to make it impossible for those to take offense at whom he aimed his shafts. After paying a tribute to the legislative wisdom that no statesman thus *Wabash College.

addressed could resist, he continued, more in sorrow than in anger:

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"I have examined the proceedings of the legislature of the last twelve years in earnest expectation of seeing the subject of education discussed and disposed of in some good degree as it deserves at the hands of the appointed guardians of the commonwealth. In this I have been disappointed. *** The true glory of a people consists in the intelligence and virtue of its individual members, and no more important duty can devolve upon its representatives in their legislative capacity than the devising and perfecting a wise, liberal, and efficient system of popular education. It is indeed a happy circumstance that proper and efficient action on this subject will awaken no sectional jealousies, alarm no religious prejudices, and subserve the interests of no political party. It is emphatically a topic which, ably discussed and wisely disposed of, will benefit every part of the State, improve every class of community, give permanency to our civil and religious institutions, increase the social, literary, and intellectual capital of our citizens, and add materially to the real and substantial happiness of every one."

Comparing education to a great business enterprise, he goes on:

"We need no foreign capitalist to take such stock, whose dividends will be paid not in some distant city, but at the fireside of every freeman in the commonwealth; paid not to some lordly banker in gold and silver, but to the children of those who made the investment, in a currency that will never depreciate as long as knowledge is valued and virtue is appreciated. Let us look at our educational necessities and take the gauge of popular ignorance. Let us ascertain how many of our youth are deprived of what should be

the birthright of all, without distinction of rank or color, the means of an education. Let us examine the causes that have rendered our common schools so deficient in number and inefficient in character."

With this preface to a wonderfully illuminating argument for universal education, Professor Mills sets forth a statement of the existing conditions and quotes the well-known rule of Patrick Henry, "Let us know the whole truth, know the worst, and provide for it." With this for a basis he finds the personal argument an effective weapon. "There are gentlemen on this floor," he says, "representing rich and populous counties, who perhaps never dreamed that a sixth, fourth, or third, of their constituents could not read the record of their legislative wisdom, nor peruse the eloquent speeches delivered in these halls and spread over the state at the expense of the commonwealth. Gentlemen from Jackson, Martin, Clay, and Dubois must feel themselves very much relieved from the burden of sending newspapers and legislative documents to those whom they represent, when informed that only a fraction over one-half of their constituents can read or write."

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From the experience of other states he shows that those have the best schools whose citizens are willing to pay for their support from year to year, and that an endowment which does away with taxation altogether is as much of a curse as it is a blessing. "What costs nothing is worth nothing." Then follows a contrast of the school appropriations in the more enlightened states with those of Indiana, concluding with this bit of sarcasm : "What a contrast to the amount Indiana raised upon the same principle! Shall it be stated? Will not the very announcement of it overwhelm the community and call forth a general outburst upon the legislator that had the hardihood to impose such

enormous burdens for such an important object? I will state it in round numbers, $0,000. We have borrowed millions for the physical improvement of our State, but we have not raised a dollar by ad valorem taxation to cultivate the minds of our children. No wonder we have had logrolling legislation and practical repudiation! No marvel that Indiana faith has been synonymous with Punic faith and her credit for years a byword in the commercial world. Let it be remembered that the surest safeguards of the peace and prosperity of a community must be sought in its intelligence and virtue. The means of securing these and cultivating crystal honesty in the minds of the rising generation should indeed be ample, free, and universal as the air we breathe"

The causes of inefficiency, he goes on to say, are the want of competent teachers, suitable school books, popular interest, adequate funds, and a way to secure such funds.

It is hard to see how Prof. Mills could have encountered any sentiment hostile to principles that are now so selfevident. To those of us who have grown up under the Mills system of education, his arguments seem axiomatic. And yet the very people on whose behalf his appeal was made, those who bore the awful burden of illiteracy, were the hardest of all to arouse.

His programme outlined in the first address and repeated. in varying forms through the rest of the series contemplated (1) the raising of adequate revenues (a) by means of a poll tax to enlist individual interest and (b) an ad valorem tax to enlist property interests; (2) the securing of competent teachers by means of suitable normal training, supervision, and better salaries; (3) proper text books; (4) an aroused public interest that would demand and maintain good schools; (5) a state superintendent to direct the school