Withrow High School - Withrow Annual Yearbook (Cincinnati, OH)

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RIVER FRONT ABOUT 1840 From an Old Prinl

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, -EDUCAT!ON'

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Education in Cincinnati HE fundamental necessity to obtain protection to property and commerce is the education of the Citizens of the community. All educational activities of Cincin- nati were in private hands until 1829. Those children whose parents did not pay did not receive instruction; At that time there were forty-seven schools with a total enrollment of sixteen hundred. Cincinnati was then, and until the Civil War continued to be, the center of learning for the West and Southwest. The Cincinnati College was the outgrowth of the Cincinnati Lancaster Seminary, which was established in 1815 through the efforts of Dr. Daniel Drake and Reverend Ioshua L. Wilson. In this sehoo1 the older pupils, under the direction of teachers, were used as monitors and teachers for the younger children. Wiiiiam H. McGuffy, the author of the celebrated school readers, and Ormsby M. Mitchell, the founder of the Cincinnati Observatory, were members of the faculty at the Seminary. William Henry Harrison was a director. The school occupied a building erected on the present site of the Mercantile Library Building. Professional education began in Cincinnati with the establishment of the Ohio hiedical CoUege in 1820. Lane Theological Seminary and the Cincinnati Law School were established a few years later. The leading spirit in establishing public schools in Cincinnati was Nathaniel Guilford. The result of his work was a law passed in 1828 providing for puhhc schools in Ohio. The city acting under the provision of this law, constructed two buiidings of brick and stone of two rooms each. One stood on the river bank near the Front Street pumping station, and the other on Sycamore Street, near Fifth Street. A little later four other buildings were occupied, but 8.11 were Crude structures and utter1y inadequate. It was in this same period that the Cincinnati high schools had their beginning. William Woodward fe1t the need of education in the West, and, through the influence of his friend, Samuel Lewis, provided for the establishment of Woodward Free Grammar School. Later he changed the conditions of his gift to make it possible for the trustees to establish a high school. The school was opened on October 24, 1831, and during its existence it has been called successively Woodward Free Grammar School, Woodward C011ege, and Woodward High Schoo1. Thomas Hughes. Woodwardis neighbor, was an English shoemaker. Following Woodwardts ex- ample, he bequeathed twenty-seven acres of land to the city for the establishment of a schooI. The fund thus created was the beginning of Hughes High School. George Graham employed an architect to plan a model schoolhouse. In 1833 he had this school built on his own 10t on Race Street, When it was completed, he offered the whole property to the Council for the cost of the building. The Counci1 at first refused to pay the amount, but finaiiy accepted the building. It was brick, two stories high. and had two rooms on each floor. Nine other schools patterned after this model were afterwards built at a total cost of $96,000. Those ten schools were controlled by a Board of Trustees which was composed of one member from each ward. Nathn anie1 Guilford was the chairman of the first Board. Men teachers then received from three hundred to five hundred dollars per year, and women from two hundred to two hundred and fifty do11ars. Ow: or THE EARLY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS Evening schools were established for boys in A I'V'anzanOldPrinf 1840, and for girls in 1855. These schools were founded for the boys and girls who must work, for the adults who 1acked the advantage of an earlier education, and for foreigners who wished to learn thetAmerican language. 19