ville by this time had become able to sustain a church, and was a station where a minister was located and devoted his whole time to the one congregation. West and southwest was the Three Rivers mission, which extended through Madison, Warren and part of Polk counties.

It was not long after the Methodists began to preach and form church organizations till the other denominations were represented by active iinisters, who laid the foundation of the many prosperous churches which are now to be found in the county. First came the Methodists, then the Baptists and Christians, and then the Presbyterians. A full and accurate account of the various church organizations in the county will be given in connection with the history of the several townships in which they are located.

SCHOOLS.

Not only have the public schools of the county been characterized by rapid growth and continued prosperity, but the same may be said of the higher institution of learning, Central University, located within the bounds of the county. But thirty years ago the whole region of country in and around the present seat of that institution was a howling wilderness. From its humble beginnings twenty years ago in the then small village of Pella, that institution has grown to the full stature of a college, which is the peer of any throughout the country. The career of the Central University has been truly a most remarkable one; its success has been such as to far exceed the most sanguine expectations of its founders and most hopeful friends of early days. It is not our purpose at this place to write a history of this institution; that will appear in connection with the chapter devoted to the city with which its fortunes have been linked from the first. At this place we purpose to speak of the public schools of the county in general.

The schools of the county are sharing with the contents of the newsboy's bundle the title of the universities of the poor. The close observation of working of the public schools shows that if the induction of facts be com plete, it could be demonstrated that the public schools turn out more better fitted for business, and for usefulness, than most of our colleges. The freedom and liberty of our public schools afford less room for the growth of effiminacy and pedantry; it educates the youth among the people, and not among a caste or class, and since the man or woman is called upon to do with a nation in which people are the only factor, the education which the public schools afford, especially where they are of the superior standard reached in this county, do fit their recipients for a sphere of usefulness: nearer the public heart than can be attained by private schools and academies.

The crowning glory of American institutions is the public school system; nothing else among American institutions is so intensely American. They are the colleges of democracy, and if this government is to remain a republic, governed by statesinen, it must be from the public schools that they must be graduated. The amount of practical knowledge that the masses here receive is important beyond measure and forms the chief factor in the problem of material prosperity; but it is not so much the practical knowledge, which it is the ostensible mission of the public schools to impart, that makes this system the sheet-anchor of our hope; it is rather the silent social influence which the common schools incidentally exert.

It is claimed for our country that it is a land of social equality, where all have an equal chance in the race of life; and yet there are many things which give the lie to this boasted claim of an aristocracy of manhood. Our churches are open to all, but it is clear that the best pews are occupied by the men of wealth and influence. The sightless goddess extends the scales of justice to all, but it will usually appear that there is money in the descending scale. It requires money to run for office, or, at least, it takes money to get office.

The first experiences of the American citizen, however, are in the public school. If he is a rich man's son his class-mate is the son of poverty. The seat which the one occupies is no better than that occupied by the other, and when the two are called to the blackboard the fine clothes of the rich man's son do not keep him from going down, provided he be a drone, neither do the patches on the clothes of the poor man's son keep him down, provided he has the genius and application to make him rise. The pampered child of fortune may purchase a diploma at many of the select schools of our land, but at the public schools it is genius and application which win. That State or nation which reaches out this helping hand to the children of want will not lack for defenders in time of danger, and the hundreds of thousands of dollars annually expended for the common education of children is but money loaned to the children which they will pay back with compound interest when grown to manhood.

Then, too, in a modest, unassuming way, our schools inculcate lessons of common honesty. The boy hears his father make promises and sees him break them. Mr. Brown is promised ten dollars on Tuesday, but Mr. Brown calls on Tuesday, and again on Wednesday, and finally gets the ten dollars on Saturday; the boy goes with his father to church, and frequently gets their after the first prayer. In vain does that father teach that boy lessons of common honesty when the boys known that the father three times disappointed Brown, and never gets to church on time. The boy soon learns at the public school that punctuality and promptness are cardinal virtues; that to be tardy is to get a little black mark, and to be absent a day is to get a big black mark. A public school in which punctuality and promptness are impartially and fearlessly enforced is a most potent conservator of public morals.

The public schools of America are a grand success; this as a rule has very few exceptions. Should we take but a superficial view of the public school system, and by taking as example some schools which are properly termed poor ones, and estimate their worth simply from the useful results obtained in a given time, we might be inclined to say that the public school is a failure; but viewed in a more thorough manner, and taking into account all its bearings, and then estimating its worth from results through a series of years, and then making a general average, we must say any unprejudiced and unbiased mind must say that even then the poorest of our schools are good, and no other investment of public funds is so carefully managed and so profitably applied.

The public schools of Iowa are properly termed the best in the Union and if Marion county should undertake to enter the lists in any contest with the other counties of the State we should suggest that her public schools will not suffer by comparison or contest. Marion county educational affairs are in a good condition.

There has been as great a change in the character and qualifications of

the teacher as there has been in the architecture and arrangements of the school-houses. Formerly schools were held at the residences of the settlers or else in cabins whose external appearance and internal arrangement very closely resembled the pioneer cabin; the teacher also very closely resembled the early settler, for, as a rule, he was a settler, that is he devoted a great portion of his time and energy in making rails, grubbing hazel-brush and attending to his stock and crops, while teaching was simply accidental or incidental. Teaching has now become a profession, and, as a rule, the teacher devotes his entire time to that business. We would not be understood as saying that both the old-fashioned teacher and school-house were anything but respectable, useful and of good reputation; on the contrary they were all this; but we would say, that with an increase of wealth and population we have increased facilities for increased needs.

The first schools of the county were held in houses to suit the times. Some idea of these school-houses can be gathered from the following description of a typical one.

It was built of round logs, the space between them chinked and then daubed with mud. About five feet from the west wall on the inside, and about five feet high, another log was placed and running clear across the building. Puncheons were fixed on this log and in the west wall on which the chimney was built. Fuel could then be used of any length not greater than the width of the building, and when it was burned through in the middle the ends were crowded together; in this manner was avoided the necessity of so much wood-chopping. There was no danger of burning the floor, as there was none. The seats were made of stools or benches, constructed by splitting a log, hewing off the splinters from the flat side, and then putting four pegs into it from the round side for legs. The door was made of clap-boards. On either side a piece of one log was cut out, and over the aperture was pasted greased paper which answered for a window. Wooden pins were driven into the log running lengthwise immediately beneath the windows, upon which was laid a board and this constituted the writing-desks. The school district in which this wonderful structure stood extended from the east part of the county to the adjoining township line, and from Skunk River on the north as far south as one could see. Since the day of school tax levies the people are a little more definite in defining their subdistricts.

The teacher who taught in this typical school-house was located in a neighboring county to the eastward. He located there before the Indian title to the lands in the county was extinguished and was a typical teacher. He still resides near the scene of his early trials and triumphs and delights to talk of his schools where there were achieved results of which he may well be proud.

The first schools of the county were not model schools even for that day and were they to be brought into comparison with the schools of the present day their imperfections would becoine all the more apparent.

The chief difficulty with the first schools was that there was no county superintendent.

There was no county superintendent of schools till the year 1858, and although teachers were responsible to certain authorities, there was no effective system of supervision; examinations were very unsatisfactory; there was no inducement for any one to prepare himself for the work of teaching, and if there were some who excelled in their work it was because

of the love they had for the occupation and not because of a spirit of emulation and a desire to excel.

The new school law, which went into effect in 1858, threw protection around the school fund and shut out of the business of teaching much incompetence and ignorance. While it is a fact that the present high standing of the schools has been reached gradually, and not by sudden movement, yet it is likewise true that the most perceptible change for the better was between the years of 1858 and 1860.

The application of the law of rotation in office, making the tenure of office brief and necessitating frequent changes of superintendents, has done much to impair the efficiency of the office; neither have the persons filling this office always been professional teachers and not always persons of culture and education. This office, as is too frequently the case with other county offices, has at times been bestowed as a reward for party service to men not all in sympathy with the public school system, and whose training had fitted them for managing a caucus or packing a convention rather than prepared them for organizing schools and stimulating teachers to energetic and thorough work in the school-room. The public schools of Marion county, however, have not suffered more in this particular than the schools of other counties. There have been many superintendents to watch over the educational interest of the county who were men of fine culture and whose whole active lives have been in sympathy with the cause of popular education. If there have been poor superintendents, there have also been some very good ones, and, as a result, the schools of the county are fully up with the times and will compare favorably with those of other counties. The following statistics relating to the schools of the county will be valuable to all who are interested in the subject of popular education:

Number female teachers employed..

Average monthly compensation, males.

Average monthly compensation, females..

Number male persons between the ages of 5 and 21 years.
Number females between the ages of 5 and 21 years..
Number pupils enrolled in the public schools.

Total average attendance...

Number frame school-houses.

.....

4

112

24

136

36

7.12

1.25

148

$ 28.37

$ 22.00

5,103

4,866

7.974

4,739

134

9

Number brick school-houses.
Value of school-houses..

Value of apparatus...

Number volumes in library.

$123,940 $ 1,178

76

The foregoing statistics are for the year 1879 and the reader will observe that in giving the number of teachers we include all who were employed during the year.

During the year 1879 there were two hundred and forty-six applicants

examined, of whom thirty-four were rejected. There are eighty-nine first grade certificates issued, one hundred and ten second grade and seventeen third grade, making a total of two hundred and twelve certificates issued, or in other words that number of teachers commissioned.

The present superintendent of the schools is Z. T. Honnold. Among his other duties is that of holding a Normal Institute each year. The one for 1879 was conducted by S. J. Buck; J. H. Applegate and J. W. Johnson were assistant teachers. Lectures were delivered by S. J. Buck, Mr. Schermerhorn and A. Yetter.

The normal institute for the year was held at the public school building in Knoxville during the month of July.