Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/321

 to the children of every citizen of the State. In 1858 a law was passed providing for county high schools and permitting, by vote of two-thirds of the members of a school board, the introduction of studies other than English. In 1862 the school board of any district was authorized to establish graded or union schools and to employ a suitable person to superintend them. The Constitution authorized the courses in collegiate and scientific departments to begin where the high schools terminated.

In 1866 we find 5,900 schoolhouses in the State with 9,343 teachers of which but twenty-eight per cent. were men. This small number of men engaged in teaching was doubtless due in large part to the Civil War which had just closed; but it is a noteworthy fact that women henceforth formed a large majority of the teachers. During the ten years then passed, salaries had increased from fourteen dollars and a half a month for men and eight for women, to thirty-four for men and twenty-four dollars for women. There were 5,000 schoolhouses valued at $2,900,000 with an enrollment of 242,000 pupils.

In the decade following, the schools increased to 9,859, or nearly seventy-five per cent., and 399,000 pupils were enrolled. The schoolhouses were valued at $9,376,000, and the school year averaged six and one-half months.

Ten years later, in 1886, there were 24,828 schools, 24,700 teachers, not quite one-fourth of whom were men; pupils numbered 481,000 and the school year had been lengthened to more than seven months. The State now expended $6,000,000 on schools and the 12,444 school buildings were valued at $11,560,000.

The Twenty-sixth General Assembly made a most important addition to the laws governing education when it passed an act making it possible for the schools to procure free text books. The laws provide that the books be purchased by the school districts “on petition of one-third or more of the legal voters in said district.” Each district was authorized to buy books and make new or renew