Colusa County
History
EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
A government like ours to merit respect and perpetuity is essentially based on the intelligence of its people, who by their own votes make and unmake national, state and municipal administrations, and outline and dictate by their ballots the policy to be pursued in any of these divisions of governmental power. Without intelligence a conscientious ballot cannot be cast, or rather, an ignorant citizen with an honest conscience for a monitor will decline to vote at all, so that civic duty well discharged and intelligence sufficient to understand that duty are correlative terms. To train up the youth of the land so that they may become useful, self-sustaining, patriotic men and women is the first duty of the State. It is obeying the law of national self-preservation, as well as creating agencies by which the growing masses may enjoy the fruits of intelligently-directed labor, whether manual or mental. The safety of the State, the sanctity of the home, the progress of the age, the exalted standard of social and political example for which a self-governing people is looked to by less-favored and differently-governed peoples, all rest for support, in a very large measure, upon popular education, of which the public-school system is the cornerstone.
The first constitution of California made it imperative or the Legislature to provide for the free education of youth, not only in the ordinary public schools, but provided for a State University in anticipation of a grant from the general government for such a purpose. The new constitution on the subject of education places itself in close touch with the masses of the people by placing the school money where it would most benefit the working classes; that is, for the use only of the primary and grammar schools, leaving the Legislature to provide for schools of a higher grade, or the municipalities to raise a revenue for this purpose from other than the fund arising from the sale of school lands granted to the State by Congress.
It is needless to add, for every county in the State is monumental with its care and liberality, that the Legislature at every session has so improved, enlarged and fostered with paternal wisdom the school system of the State that it ranks second to none in efficiency.
At the period of the early settlement of Colusa County, considering the circumstances of its settlement and the character of the pioneers, together with the nature of their pursuits, it could not be expected that popular education would make much of a showing. The early settlers were men of natural intelligence, of clear heads, and nearly every one of them had received such an education as the times and the locality in which they resided in the East could impart to them. Some of them had even had the advantages of a collegiate training, not in the brick or frame boarding-houses with official-looking exteriors and a pretentious curriculum, taught in the inside by bombastic professors (save the mark!) who had never mastered what they pretended to teach, and which to dignify as colleges is an indignity to the language, but in some of the eminent seats of learning in the older States. They had come for the most part to get rich suddenly, and, never dreaming that the soil they trod was in a few years afterwards to surpass in wealth production the output of the mines, they to a great extent regarded themselves more as sojourners than as permanent residents. Those who brought their families with them and came to stay lived on a narrow strip of land along the Sacramento River, where farming, trading with the mining camps above, keeping store or boating, were the chief occupations. Civilization centered here at that time and it was but natural that the initiative in education should be taken here.
The first public school in the county was opened at Colusa in 1855, with a session of three months. Only twenty-nine census children could be found in the neighborhood and the amount of money received from the State school fund and by rate bills and subscriptions was $329. School was taught in the old court-house, which served the purposes of a school-house as well as for the administration of justice, until 1861. It was now found necessary, owing to the increase of school-children, to build a school-house. In the spring of this year, a number of the citizens of Colusa subscribed $800 for the construction of a brick building twenty by twenty-eight feet. This modest structure stood on the corner of Fourth and Jay Streets and did service for school purposes till 1871.
Immigration was coming in rapidly and the natural increase of native sons and daughters had now added largely to the number of school-children, and for the second time the people of Colusa found the school-room accommodations too limited. To remedy this a tax of $3,000 was voted in 1869 for building a school-house, but this the trustees did not deem sufficient, and so in the following spring they called another election, to vote a larger appropriation. This measure was defeated, whereupon the trustees resigned and Jackson Hart, W. S.. Green and J. W. Goad were appointed to fill the vacancies. The tax first voted had been collected and was in the treasury, and now the trustees went forward to erect a school-house, which was estimated to cost $10,000. They expended the money on hand in building a foundation and the purchase of material, and the work stopped when their funds were exhausted. The people then voted a tax sufficient to complete the building, and in 1871 the new school-house was ready for occupancy. In 1875, in order to provide for the growing needs of the district, a wing was added to the main building, leaving the Webster Public School edifice as it now stands.
As the domain of settlement expanded, reaching. up and down the river, out on the plains and up to the foot-hills, the school-house went with it. Wherever a sufficient number of school-children could be collected together, provision was promptly made for the erection of a school-house and the employment of a teacher. The "school-master was abroad" in these days, but it appears that he was at times not sufficiently numerous, for among others who felt the want of teachers, we find Superintendent of Schools Howard, in 1871, advertising for six or seven teachers badly needed in the county. In 1860 the number of school-census children had increased to four hundred and twenty-four, with a total expenditure for school purposes during that year of $3,516, while the total amount of school moneys expended between the years 1855 and 1860, both inclusive, was $26,312. The total valuation of school property in the county at this date was $2,820. Between 1860 and 1865 there were eleven schools in existence, and in the latter year five hundred and fifty-nine census children were numbered. The receipts and disbursements of school moneys for that year were as follows:―
Amount of money received from the State $ 836 14
Amount of money received from county taxes 1,172 14
Total expenditure for school purposes 3,436 59
Total valuation
of school property
2,820 00
Total amount of money expended for
school purposes from 1855 to 1865 $26,312 00
Keeping pace with its growth in population, the school-houses of the county multiplied on every hand. Better salaries were now being paid to teachers, and the teachers employed were more competent and advanced than most of those who taught at an early period and who regarded their occupation as a temporary and respectable make-shift, by which to accumulate sufficient means to enter business, study one of the professions, or, with heart bent on seeing again the old home at the East, return there with the money acquired by teaching. The scholastic term was extended, improved series of text-books were introduced and a most flattering state of public instruction was the result.
The following statistics exhibit the condition of the schools at the close of the school year of 1879, and show the growth of education in the preceding fifteen years:―
Number of school districts in the county 57
Schools in the county 62
Census children in the county 2,787
Children under five years 1,367
Amount of money received from State fund $19,303 92
Amount of money received from county
and district taxes
21,289 07
Total receipts from all sources,
including
amount on hand at beginning of the year 4,793 91
Total expenditures for school purposes 42,300 00
Total valuation of school property 69,515 00
Average monthly wages of male teachers 81 00
Average monthly wages of female teachers 74 00
Amount paid for teachers' salaries 31,947 57
Amount paid for rent, repairs, fuel, etc 2,671 25
School libraries 1,284 52
School apparatus 405 27
School sites, buildings and school furniture 5,990 82
Total expenditures $42,299 46
Balance on hand June 30, 1879 $5494 45
Number of male teachers, thirty-seven; of female teachers, twenty-five; first-grade schools, twenty-eight; second-grade schools, twenty-five; third-grade schools, nine; number of teachers who have taught in the county five years or more, twenty-two.
Under the educational system of the State, each county is divided into school districts. In Colusa County there are now seventy-one districts, employing eighty-nine teachers for this year of 1890-91. The following list gives their names and the district in which they are employed:―
Antelope, George Myrick.
Arbuckle, W. L. Gay, Miss S. E. Adams.
Ashton, Mrs. J. E. Williams.
Bear Valley, Mabel Bradshaw.
Black Butte, Mrs. W. P. Gay.
Bridgeport, Lillie Laugenour.
Butte City, J. R. Grinstead.
Butte Creek, Maud Drake.
Central, Frank Ford.
Chase, C. J. Lathrop.
Cherokee, E. H. Miller.
Clark Valley, Minnie M. Shaver.
Cleveland, Lizzie Hannum.
Colusa, J. E. Hayman principal, J. R. Shelton, W. B. Cutler, Adella Gay, Howard Ford; Myrtie Riddle, Mrs. E. W. Miller, Mrs. S. L. Drake, Mrs.
Emma Heitman.
Cortina, Olga Gochringer.
Dry Slough, Anna Cameron.
Edison, Inez Chase.
Emerald, Olive Farnham.
Emigrant, Lucy Smith.
Excelsior, Thomas Birch.
Fairview, Mattie Phelps.
Fertile, Sara Waller.
Floyd, Miss K. Knetzer.
Franklin, A. W. Hunter.
Freshwater, Laura Donnelly.
German, Karl Heinrich.
Glenn Valley, J. T. Washer.
Grand Island, G. W. Moore.
Grapevine, J. W. Birch.
Grindstone, T. B. Ward.
Harmony, Miss Romie Brasfield.
Hulett, Carrie Hankins.
Indian Valley, W. J. King.
Irving, C. H. Tubbs.
Jacinto, Emma Golden.
Jackson, B. T. Cross.
Johns, W. H. Reardon.
Jefferson, W. B. Smith.
Kanawha, Emma L. Clark.
Lake, Jessie Heaton.
Leesville, Frank Anderson.
Liberty, Mrs. A. L. Ford.
Lincoln, Miss Nina Duncan.
Longmire, Lillie Gay.
Marion, Mrs. Fannie Thomas.
Maxwell, A. O. Taylor, Misses Annie Baker and Mildred McCormick.
Monroe, Frankie Morris.
Mountain, E. H. Parnell.
Mount Hope, Sadie Benson.
Newland, H. H. Childress.
Newville, Alice Templeton.
Oakdale, Kate High.
Pierce, G. B. Sanford, Bertha Laugenour.
Pine Grove, Miss Itasca Oaks.
Plaza, D. B. Lacy.
Pleasantview, Mrs. Nellie Duncan.
Prairie, Emma Jameson.
Princeton, Ed Houchins.
Quicksilver, E. S. Holloway.
Rock River, Susie Brown.
Stony Creek, O. B. Parkinson, Ida Griffith.
Union, Belle Putman.
Venado, Mrs. Alice Grinstead.
Walsh, Etta Merrill.
Washington, Gertrude Houchins.
Webster, J. S. Torrence.
Westside, Ruth Mason.
White Bank, W. M. Finch.
Wildwood, Lucy M. Mason.
Williams, A. N. Thompson.
Willows, L. E. Vickers principal, Kate E. Johnson, Misses M. Bowling, Lizzie Mitchell, Anna Alderson and Grace Bickford.
Each district is under the control of a Board of Trustees, who employ teachers and manage and control school property. They have all excellent school-houses, costing, with their equipments, from $1,000 to $22,000. The trustees are obliged by law to visit the schools and frame rules for their government, and are specifically directed to furnish wash-basins, soap, towels. and combs.
To secure a library fund, ten per cent of the State school fund is set apart, which can only be used to purchase books and apparatus. This fund now averages about thirty-six dollars for each district. The money is expended by the trustees. These libraries are growing from year to year and have proved a source of delight as well as a factor in broadening the scope of the pupils' studies and in cultivating a refined taste for literature. They contain works of biography, history, lectures, travels, essays, romance, poetry, science, works on education, and all selected with judgment. Besides, on their shelves are found the standard periodicals, such as the Century, Scribner's, Cosmopolitin, Harper's Young People, Youth's Companion and others of the same class. The total value of these libraries is estimated at $18,000. Besides these libraries, there are found in almost every school-room in the county encyclopedias, the unabridged dictionary, globes, charts, maps and other educational appliances.
The course of study laid out for the schools of the county is very thorough and complete. It provides for nine years' work and includes reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, drawing, vocal music, geography, physiology with special reference to the effects of alcohol and narcotics upon the human system, bookkeeping, word analysis, the history of the United States, the study of fruit pests, algebra, botany, natural history and civil government. Classes that are sufficiently advanced must pass examinations on questions sent out by the Board of Education. Pupils with good standing in their classes, and who pass unusually well in their examinations, have a golden seal stamped upon their badges. Those who do not do so well receive a silver seal and those who do poorly a red seal Willows and Colusa have adopted a course outlined by the board, which adds two years to the above course and prepares students for the State University, so as to include instruction in rhetoric, geometry, general history, English literature and a two years' course in Latin, the latter being optional.
The teachers of the county are matured men and women. With most of them it is a chosen profession, one to which they purpose dedicating the best years of their lives, and as a consequence their esprit de corps is such as to manifest and develop an earnestness in their work, which never actuates those instructors of the young who perform the routine duties of the schoolroom in a perfunctory manner, moved only by the mercantile, mercenary motive of selling their time at so much per month or term.
That Colusa County is justly proud of the ability and qualifications of its teachers may well be inferred from the salaries paid them. It is the boast of its people that they pay the highest average of salaries of any county in the State, while the State itself rewards its teachers with a better average of salaries than any other State in the Union. In Colusa County the average monthly pay of the teacher is $70. Taking the enrollment in schools from the reports of 1886 as the basis, the average amount expended for education in the United States per child was $9.72. In California, it was $17.03. In Colusa County, it was $20.91. Yet with all its expenditures for roads, levees, bridges, public buildings and handsome public school-houses, the county is not only out of debt but carries a large surplus in its strong boxes, while to build schools and pay the highest compensation to its teachers, its county school tax is only fifteen cents on the hundred dollars, a tribute which rests as lightly on their prosperity and devotion. to public instruction as a descending blessing.
Much of the excellence attained by the public schools of the county is due to the executive management and fostering care of its school superintendents. Samuel Houchins, who served as such from 1875 to 1883, had ample time during his long term of office to make the school system a study. So he gave it his watchful care, and his experience did much to elevate the tone of the schools, the standard of requirements on the part of the teacher and advance the progress of the scholars. His work was productive of lasting good. He was succeeded by John L. Wilson, a man of rare ability and accomplishments, of honest manhood and unselfish attachment to the cause of popular instruction. Of him it may be said that he possessed a genius for this work. He was at home in the school-room. It was his work-shop as well as the temple of his inspiration in all the brave, sincere and endurable labor he performed for the schools of the county. He was linked to the confidence of his teachers. Hence his counsels were solicited and there was quietly evolved a perfect system of school work, operating with equal efficiency all over the county. There was so much harmony in his methods that they did not only work like the oft-quoted "clock work," but they seemed like music set to motion. His impress of efficiency has been stamped, as it were, on the history of the schools of the county, which neither time's effacing finger nor the future county school superintendent, seeking for a worthy exemplar in his profession, will permit to grow obscure.
The last census of the county shows three thousand four hundred and twelve children, between the ages of five and seventeen years, with the valuation of school property in the county rated at $153,106.
The amount of moneys received for the support of the schools of the county for the year ending July 1, 1890, was $82,537.90. Of this amount $69,262.95 were expended, leaving a balance of $13,275.01.
The Board of Education consists of the following members: J. E. Hayman, Colusa, President; Mrs. H. L. Wilson, Colusa, Secretary and County Superintendent of Public Schools; G. NV. Sellman, Arbuckle; O. B. Parkinson, Orland (one vacancy).
Besides the public schools there have been and are others maintained at individual expense. In 1868, Mrs. Letitia W. Clarke organized a private school at Colusa, which attained a speedy popularity. For nearly two years her school-room was the supervisor's room in the old court-house. In the spring of 1870, Mrs. Clarke made her school a stock concern for the purpose of building a large structure for educational purposes on the corner of Seventh and Jay Streets. At the close of the school year, 1871, it became necessary for Mrs. Clarke to return East and rest. She desired the stockholders to supply her place, as her return to Colusa was uncertain, but no effort was made and the school remained closed. It was opened later as a school for girls. Mrs. Lowery organized an excellent school in September, 1879, in the old Methodist Church at Colusa. It was conducted successfully for several years and then abandoned.
In the summer of 1887 Professor A. M. Armstrong founded at Colusa a normal and commercial institute. He enrolled fifty-three pupils the first year, and then, desirous of entering the practice of law, he turned the school over to his brother, H. G. Armstrong, who shortly afterwards closed its doors.
St. Aloysius School, a Catholic institution, at Colusa, is a large brick edifice and will be opened early in 1891. It will be conducted by Sisters of a religious order. It will accommodate fifty boarders and likewise extend its advantages to clay pupils.
Pierce Christian College was founded at College City, and endowed out of funds left to the church by the will of Andrew Pierce. It is under the management of ten trustees. The faculty consists of Rev. J. C. Keith, president and professor of history and elocution; David E. Hughes, professor of mathematics, astronomy and engineering; F. S. Israel, professor of German and French and assistant professor of Latin; Miss Rose V. Stewart, professor of harmony, organ, piano and vocal culture; Miss Carrie Hopper, teacher of primary department. W. C. Ives, C. L. Garwin and J. C. Williams, tutors and assistants. The college was organized in 1874. Professor Keith, its actual president, has occupied that position for thirteen years. Its departments of instruction are scientific, biblical, commercial, musical and art. Over one hundred students have been in attendance during the past year. The college is increasing yearly in prosperity and exerts an influence for letters and morality that redounds to the benefit of the county and State.
The Orland Normal was erected at Orland through the efforts of Professor A. B. Patch, at a cost of $10,000. The professor was an erratic, impulsive and obstinate individual and failed to make the Normal a success. It was closed for several years, when, in 1886, Professor William Henslee leased the premises. He soon gained the confidence of the people and by strenuous endeavor and good tact succeeded in drawing a large attendance of pupils, both boarders and day scholars. In September, 1890, Professor A. P. Stone took charge of the school and gives evidence of increasing its patronage and extending its usefulness.
SOURCE: "Colusa County", Justus H. Rogers, Orland, CA, 1891