Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/457

 CHAPTER XXXI EARLY SCHOOLS Work of the Subscription Schools • — Academies at Ste. Genevieve, Jackson, Potosi New Madrid, Perryville, Point Pleasant, Cape Girardeau, Bloomfield, Poplar Bluff AND Charleston. Up to 1804 when Louisiana became a part of the territory of the United States there had been but few attempts made to provide schools. We have seen that occasional schools were con- ducted in Ste. Genevieve and in the Ramsay settlement in Cape Girardeau district and perhaps in a few other places. These schools, however, were very inefficient. They were conducted for only a very short period of time, usually only two or three months, and were taught by whatever persons seemed able to spare the time. The course of study in- cluded only the merest rudiments of educa- tion and each school was conducted entirely separate and distinct from all the others. There seems to have been no effort made to preserve a record of the work done by students and when school was begun in any year no attention was given to what had been accom- plished before. With the transfer to the United States and consequent inflow of settlers from the states east of the river more attention came to be paid to the matter of education. It was nat- ural that this should be the case. These set- tlers had lived where schools were held in high esteem and where efforts were being made to provide systems of education. They accordingly made every effort to establish schools as far as that was possible. The history of the development of educa- tion from this time is concerned with two movements: The first of these was a con- tinuation of the method formerly in use, that is, to provide schools independent of the state. Alongside of this there was a movement to form a system of public education which seems to have come into the state from Vir- ginia and perhaps owes its existence more to Thomas Jefferson than to any other one man. Tlie movement for state education found ex- pression in the act of purchase itself and all through the history of the state we fuid that people are giving their attention to the mat- ter of building up the public schools. In spite of many attempts, however, and much work accomplished, it is hardly possible to speak of an organized system of public schools before the period of the Civil war. In fact, it was not until 1874 that really adequate provision came to be made for public education. Be- fore that time the public schools existed side by side with private schools and were in most places of far less importance in the educa- tional history of the country than the latter. 397