upon the county and the district.[1] The state school fund appears to have contributed very little till 1874. We have no means of knowing how much the district received from the county fund before 1860, but in that year the sum was $440.39.[2] With the salary usually about $75 per month, and the school year six months, this amount would nearly pay the teacher. Probably the rate bill was insignificant at this time.
Some evidence is available as to the character of these early schools. Rogers was a college man and is said to have taught Latin in addition to the common branches. Pupils came to him from the country about, making his school something of a rival to Columbia College. Mr. Gilbert is likewise remembered as a popular, capable schoolmaster, although lacking the scholarly training of his predecessor.[3]
From the year 1862 we are assisted in our researches by files of the various city newspapers.[4] The first teacher whose name we meet with in their columns is Miss Elizabeth Boise. She closed a term of the district school January 28, 1862, and immediately opened a select school for the summer at the same place.[5] This illustrates a general
- ↑ Report Superintendent Public Instruction, 1874, p. 5: "Our State School Fund, commonly called, by a kind of pleasant fiction, the 'Irreducible School Fund,' has, until quite recently, contributed very little to the support of the public schools of this state."
- ↑ Superintendent's orders on treasurer for 1860, county clerk's vault.
- ↑ Letters of R. G. Callison; interviews with J. H. McClung and others.
- ↑ The earliest of these files is a volume of The State Republican, complete, January 1, 1862,-April 11, 1868, owned by H. R. Kincaid. Next comes the Oregon State Journal, March, 1864, to date, complete files owned by Mr. Kincaid, the editor. Third, The Eugene Guard, November, 1868, to date. There are two divisions of these files; the earlier portion, from the initial number to the last number of 1875, is now in possession of the University of Oregon, being recently received as a gift from Mrs. George J. Buys, of Walla Walla, Washington. This portion is complete in five volumes. The latter files, January, 1876, to date, are in possession of the present publishers of the Guard, the Messrs. John and Ira Campbell. All of the above have been at the disposition of the writer, the two first-mentioned by the courtesy of Mr. Kincaid, the last by courtesy of the Messrs. Campbell.
Mr. Rogers, the schoolmaster, was the editor, I am told, of a paper called The Pacific Herald, published in Eugene in 1860, and perhaps for a year or two prior. A few numbers of this paper are believed to be in existence, but they have not yet been secured.
The "Anti-Vindex" articles, referred to in note above as having appeared in The People's Press, are preserved in the form of clippings by Mr. Kincaid. - ↑ State Republican, June 28, 1862.
