Preble County, Ohio - Chapter 15: Educational History, 1915

Chapter 15: Educational History

The original method of forming school districts by the early settlers has been described, but under the school laws passed about 1840, and their amendments under the 1851 constitution, the educational interest of the country districts had advanced, until there was a school house all over the county every two miles. They were good houses, many of them brick, with many modem improvements, and supplied with good wide-awake, progressive teachers ; so much so that many of the teachers, perhaps the majority, in the graded and municipal schools, served as country school teachers until their reputation was established, when the higher salaries brought them to town. Where formerly the public money lasted for three or four months in the winter, for many years past our country schools have been continued eight to nine months per year.

The only criticism that can justly be made against our country schools is that the directors generally have been too short-sighted to purchase enough land for a proper playground, the children having to play in the neighboring fields or the road, or forego many of the sports so dear to boys and girls.

Linking Up The Schools And Scholars

There is now a movement on foot to centralize the schools of each township, erect one large building in the most accessible location near the center of the township, having teachers for the various grades, the same as the town schools, and having teamsters to gather up in the different localities of the township all the scholars and take them to the school each morning and home in the evening, provided they live more than two miles from the schoolhouse. In our county, Jackson township has been the first to try the matter out, and so well have they succeeded for the last three years that the agitation is spreading. In 1914 Dixon township voted overwhelmingly in favor of the change, and they are now engaged in getting ready for it before October, I9I5-

As the educational matter will be dealt with in describing the villages and townships, it is not deemed proper to deal extensively with the matter in the general history, except to note that 1914, perhaps, started a great change in our educational matters, because the old local school boards are gone and the Legislature has instituted a county board of education and a county school superintendent - whether it be an improvement time alone will tell. There is also a township board of five members.