Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/255

 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 195 Lashmutt and William Surrell. The same restriction was placed on them with regard to religious privileges and discrimination as in the case of the Ste. Genevieve academy. In spite of these things, there was a feeling among the leading men in the territory that provision must be made for a system of public education. Congress was early asked to set aside lands for the support of schools. We have seen that one of the early assem- blies chartered an academy at Potosi and also organized a public school board for St. Louis. Ste. Genevieve and Little Prairie, along with one or two other towns, received grants of the land which was held in common, the in- come from the property to be used for school purposes. Out of these feeble beginnings and most unpromising circumstances there grew up a great system of public schools. We may suppose that under the conditions we have described there were few libraries in the southeast part of the state. In fact, there was not a public library of any kind in all this section until 1820. There were only a few private libraries deserving of the name. In many homes there were no books of any kind whatever, in others there were copies of the Bible and very few other books. A few men who lived in the district, however, had good libraries; these were usually the minis- ters. The dress of the people did not differ much from the dress as described in a former chap- ter ; everybody wore home-spun. Every house was a factory, the women spun the thread and wove the cloth and made the garments for the entire family. By the close of the terri- torial period thei"e had grown up in the larger towns something of the society that gave at- tention to dress. Some people began to bring clothing from the eastern states and to devote time and money to these matters. The great majority of people, however, were dressed as we have seen. To them dress was not an adornment nor a luxury, but a necessity. John Clark, the famous pioneer minister, who spent many years in traveling throughout Southeast Missouri, preaching, was always dressed in home-spun. He was a bachelor and his clothing was made for him by members of his congregations.