Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/91

Rh $30. The number of different pupils enrolled during the year was two hundred and ten, and the average attendance one hundred and nine. There were three hundred and ninety-four persons of school age in the district.

The support of the school was as follows:

The schoolhouse was valued at $2,000, and there was no library, maps, charts or apparatus. Two private schools were noted, one of academic grade, with two teachers (Arnold's school), and one of primary grade.

The schoolhouse "needs repairing, not sufficient room to accommodate more than one-third of the pupils of district."

"The most urgent needs are good houses, competent teachers and qualified officers."

At the annual school meeting in April, 1874, a "proposition to levy a tax to support a free school for at least six months in the year and to repair the schoolhouse, was defeated, ninety-eight voting against and only thirty-six for it." This is the first mention of a free school that we meet with. The time for it had not arrived. As to the other feature of the proposed measure it is probable that many opposed it because they were in favor of a wholly new schoolhouse.

From this time forward the question of a new building was the issue in the educational politics of the town. That it was becoming a serious question is indicated in