Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/78

62 College, in Benton County, in preference to continuing the high school. On his return to Eugene in 1868, he again advertised his school and actually opened it, but with so little encouragement that it was discontinued at the close of the first term.

Thus ended the most pretentious, and in many ways the most successful effort, since the fall of Columbia College, to concentrate the educational effort of the town largely at a point outside of the public school. But we cannot leave this period without making one more quotation, taken from the Journal of January 9, 1869.

"The schools of Eugene are now in a very prosperous condition. Mr. and Mrs. Odell, at the schoolhouse formerly occupied by Professor Henderson, have a large attendance, and the parents and pupils are well pleased. Miss Kate Andrew, at the district schoolhouse, has quite a number of pupils under her charge, who appear to be making good progress. Mrs. Ritchie, who lately came to this place, has opened a school at her residence, on Eleventh Street, and has about twenty scholars. She is spoken of as being a good teacher. Mr. Chapman's school, at the seminary on the butte, has closed for the present. Whether he will resume or some one else take his place, we are not informed. We understand that another school will be opened next Monday with an attendance of about twenty-five scholars. The total number of scholars at all the public schools cannot be far from two hundred."

At the opening of the year 1869, therefore, the old condition of many schools competing with one another for pupils, still exists. But the town by this time has become so large that mere physical necessity must soon