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Chapter 44: Public Education in Butler County, Part Five |
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The names of the early day teachers seem to have eluded the records entirely. Not until 1869 can we identify a teacher by name, H. McKinnon, Principal, Black River Seminary. The county Court minutes for 1876 contain a few orders in payment of services for teaching as follows: District One, T24, R6 (Poplar Bluff), Wat McNeely and J. A. Ford; District One, T23, R5, G. H. Sassaman and Sallie Shrout; District Two, T24, 26, L. H. Simpson; District Four, T24, R6, T. Hasler and in District Two, T25, R6, James Agee.
Perhaps the clearest picture of school conditions in early Butler County in the letter from the county school commissioners to the State. In 1971 *I. M. Davidson reports, "We need good teachers in our schools; good teachers must be paid fair salaries, and they must be given steady employment. No other department of industry is so poorly paid, and in no other department is employment so uncertain. Is it any wonder, then, that our schools furnish so unsatisfactory results? – The comparatively isolated condition of Butler County renders it difficult to make our schools what they should be, or what we would wish them. We have, however, cause for encouragement in the fact that general education around us is moving forward, and we cannot long remain, if we would, insensible to the potent influences gathering around these great interests in our great State."
*Isaac B. Tubb reported in 1874, "There are more than 2000 children and youth in this county between the ages of 5 and 21 years, and though I have waited until this late period, hoping that other districts would be organized, yet up to this time there has not been 1300 persons of school age reported, leaving perhaps 1000 children and youth unreported; by this neglect the children and youth of the county will lose$500 or $600, which otherwise might have been received and applied to their education. – I cannot see that there has been any advancement in this county this year on the subject of education; a large portion is still unorganized, and consequently without schools. – I see no good reason why the control of schools and school funds of the county should not be taken from the county court and its clerk and placed in the hands of an officer elected or appointed for that special purpose -. Under such supervision I believe our schools would prosper. – There are quite a number of children in this county who have not been in school any part of the year, but I do hope a better day awaits us in the not far distant future."
In the 1873 report we again quote Isaac B. Tubb, "Number of examinations, 15; male teachers examined, 7; males rejected, 1; females rejected, 0; number of certificates issued, 14. Several presented themselves, who, on being informed of what was required, declined examination. Only a few of those to whom certificates were granted can be said to be well qualified. Number of schools now in session, 8; expired, 3; population of county between five and twenty-one years of age, more than 2000; attending school, about 500-for a short period only. Many never attend school, and are growing up to be men and women without any literacy education whatever. A few are sending their children to other counties to educate them. So far as I am informed, none propose attending the State University, or any Normal school the ensuing year.
"I have visited three schools, talked to the children; intend visiting all the school of the county before they close; have endeavored to convene and hold a few educational meetings, but so far have failed in securing an attendance; spent ten days in official duties; wrote a few articles relating to our public schools for our local paper, which the editor, Dr. Poplin, kindly published.
"A teachers' institute has never been held in the county; one has been recently organized, and will convene the twentieth of November.
"School-houses are generally uncomfortable, and destitute of any furniture or apparatus, except a few plain benches, a writing-board – there is some evidence of improvement in this respect. A few neat and comfortable houses have been built during the present year, with better seats, but not the best. Our children and youth attend school for a short period only; some few acquire knowledge of geography and English grammar; seldom if ever is anything beyond this taught in our public schools. Many leave school to settle in life without anything approximating to a correct knowledge of arithmetic. We have no uniformity in textbooks; frequent changes and a variety used in the same school at the same time. Our schools are usually taught in the later part of the summer and fall, and continue from three to four months generally. Sometimes a teacher is employed two or more years successively in the same school, but frequently for one term only. Very few of our teachers have had the benefit of Normal instruction."
This closes the discussion on education in early Butler County. The coming of the railroads in the 1870's opened the way for large and well-financed companies to begin harvesting the magnificent stand of virgin timber in our area. By the end of the 1870's the pioneer era in Butler County was over. The school statistics quoted are dull reading but necessary to illustrate the slow and difficult growth of educational interests in the county. During the first few years in the life of the county less than one-fifth of the school age children enrolled in school. By 1861 about one-third were in school but only for a few weeks. This slow but steady progress was so disrupted by the Civil War that in 1869 less than one-fourth of the children enumerated were in school. Since many children were not enumerated, it is probably that less than one-fifth of the children in the county attended school. By 1871 about forty-four percent of the children were enrolled in school, and by 1875 this had risen to almost fifty percent. After 1875 the progress of education was steady to the present countywide program of kindergarten through college.
*I. M. Davidson and Isaac B. Tubb were lawyers.
For source material on early schools in Butler County we wish to thank Mr. George Collins, County Clerk, for permission to examine the minutes of the Butler County Court, to The State Historical Society of Missouri for excerpts from its files of the school reports of the State of Missouri and to Mr. Linc Hinrichs for permission to quote from the diary of his father, Mr. Charles F. Hinrichs.
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