reputation. This is supposed to be the first school established on the Reserve. The first teachers were Elizabeth Harper and Abraham Tappen. About the time the Harpersfield school was established, a school was taught by Anna Spafford in the cabin of one of the early settlers of Cleveland.

Thus we see that the pioneers who settled in southeastern, south-western, and north-eastern Ohio, established and sustained schools in their settlements amid all the perils and misfortunes that environed them. Regarding the settlements in the interior of Ohio less definite information can be obtained. With few exceptions, schools were opened as soon as the settlements were established. As before remarked, the presence or absence of a school in any settlement was largely due to the previous condition and training of the settlers. There were no means of removing the lethargy of the indifferent and of stimulating the faint-hearted. Opportunities for learning the lessons of prudence and wisdom from the experiences of sister settlements were rarely afforded and less often improved in those early times. Each settlement solved the educational problem for itself. The wiser men of that period looked into the future and discerned the foreshadowings of something better than was likely to be enjoyed in their generation.

In the Territorial Legislature education was made the frequent topic of discussion, and although nothing was done for the support of schools, the utterances of that body were such as to leave no doubt of the high estimation in which educational advantages were held by the members. The convention which met in Chillicothe, in 1802, to frame a constitution for the State of Ohio, was composed of men who recognized the expediency and necessity of legislative action in regard to schools as a means of insuring the well-being of the new state. It was made the imperative duty of the legislature by the terms of the first state constitution, to

encourage schools and the means of instruction by such legislative provision as would not be antagonistic to the rights of conscience. Another section of this instrument placed a prohibition on any legislative enactments that would tend to prevent the poor from participating equally in all the benefits arising from donations made by Congress for the support of schools and colleges. The ordinance of 1787 declared that "schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged," but the first constitution of Ohio pointed out the manner in which this encouragement should be extended; namely, "by legislative provision."

From 1802 to 1821, legislative action regarding education, under the power conferred by the constitution, was confined to the passage of acts authorizing the incorporation of seminaries, religious and educational societies, and providing for the leasing of school lands. Nothing was done looking tɔ the establishment of schools by means of general or local taxation. The tardiness of the legislature in carrying out the constitutional requirement by a system of state or local taxation, might have been owing to the confident expectation, which was general in the early days of the State's history, that the revenue arising from the lands donated by Congress would be adequate to sustain free schools throughout the State. How this hope was realized may be seen by study of our school legislation prior to 1828.

Yet it must not be understood that there were none to lift a voice in advocacy of an efficient system of common schools. The different men who held the gubernatorial office during the first twenty years of Ohio's existence as a state, were earnest in their endeavors to secure wise school legislation on the part of the General Assembly, and no inconsiderable portion of their messages was devoted to the consideration of educational interests. Private citizens were not lacking who endeavored to arouse the legislature to the importance of the trust confided to its keeping, and who were swift to

denounce the abuse of that power over the school lands by which the children of a new generation were defrauded of their just inheritance.

While these agencies of a public character were at work for good or evil, private enterprise and private means were employed in giving to the pioneer youth of the State the simplest rudiments of a common school education. This was an undertaking of no small magnitude. The conditions of pioneer life are such as to render anything approximating to an adequate provision for schools and other means of instruction well-nigh impossible. The pioneer must provide for the physical wants of himself and his household before he is in a condition to give his attention to the demands of his higher nature. In a new settlement, a certain amount of material prosperity must be enjoyed by the people before they are prepared to introduce any of the more enlightened features of civilized life which are so beneficent in ministering to the mental and moral culture of the people of the older localities. The early settlers of Ohio, as a rule, were too busy in erecting rude habitations, felling trees, burning off the heavy timber, fencing the clearings, guiding the plow through rooty ground, and making passable highways to mill and market, to allow them to devote any attention to any other interest less pressing, and that could be deferred to a more convenient season. Hence it is not strange that school interests were often neglected. Muscular power could be used, and was indispensable, in improving a new country, in making money to pay for the homestead, and in meeting the demands of the tax-gatherer. So it happened that muscular power was respected and commanded a high premium, while mere intellectual force without bodily vigor was at a discount.

The pioneer schools of the northern and eastern sections of Ohio differed, in many respects, from those of the south

western portion of the State; the latter being settled by people from Virginia, Kentucky, and the Carolinas, who, probably, did not appreciate educational privileges so highly as did the settlers of the former, who were from the New England States where common schools, at that time, were far in advance of those in any other section of the Union.* The teachers of the pioneer schools in south-western Ohio were selected more on account of their unfitness to perform manual labor than by reason of their intellectual worth. The few schools established in this section were taught by cripples, worn-out old men, and women physically unable or constitutionally too lazy to scotch hemp or spin flax. Educational sentiment was at a low ebb, and demanded from the instructors of children no higher qualifications than could be furnished by the merest tyro, Before school legislation and other instrumentalities effected salutary changes in the methods of school administration common to this locality, schools of worth were only to be found in the more populous centers. The estimation in which the teacher was held by the community at large was not such as to induce any young man or woman of spirit and worth to enter upon teaching as a vocation.

The teacher was regarded as a kind of pensioner on the bounty of the people, whose presence was tolerated only because county infirmaries were not then in existence. The capacity of teachers to teach was never a reason for employing him, but the fact that he could do nothing else was a satisfactory one. Under such circumstances, it would be vain to look for exalted qualifications on the part of the teachers. The people's demand for education was fully met when their children could write a tolerably legible hand, when they could read the Bible or an almanac, and when

*The writer of this chapter is indebted to Hon. D. P. Nelson, of Butler county, and Judge S. G. Barnard, of Medina county, for interesting facts relating to the pioneer schools of Ohio.

they were so far inducted into the mysterious computation of numbers as to be able to determine the value of a load of farm produce. This crude instruction was deemed amply sufficient; more than this was regarded as dangerous, since the idea had gained currency that education made boys lazy and tricky. It was also a popular belief that young ladies who were apt with pen or pencil, were in imminent danger of falling an easy prey to some designing knave who might entrap them by an epistolary correspondence which could never be detected by an illiterate mother. Girls seldom learned to write.

A brighter picture presents itself when we consider the state of educational sentiment in that section of Ohio peopled with settlers from New England. At an early day schools on the Western Reserve were in a thriving condition. Among the pioneers were found men who had received a liberal culture in schools and colleges second to none in the Union. Narrow and restricted views in regard to education found lodgment in the minds of comparatively few of the people. They were not oblivious to the value of education in a utilitarian sense, but their notions of utility were broader and more comprehensive than those entertained by their southern neighbors. They would not confine school instruction to those subjects, a knowledge of which would enable the child to provide for the wants of his physical nature alone, but would make it an important agency in arousing and strengthening the child's moral and mental attributes as well. The instruction which the child received at school bore early fruit, as seen in his improved conduct, manners, and morals.

The social status of the teacher was on an equal footing with that of the physician and the minister. Society welcomed him to its presence as an honored member. His periodic visits to the homes of his pupils were regarded as quite an event by each household, and great were the prepa