Jefferson County Online
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Educational - Statistical

The following is a chapter from "The History of Jefferson County, Iowa", Pages 416-417, published by the Western Historical Company of Chicago in 1879.

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EDUCATIONAL.

In no one interest of the county have forty-two years marked such wonderful and gratifying changes as in the educational.

Fifty years ago, a knowledge of the higher branches of education could only be obtained at the colleges of the older States -- Yale, Harvard, Amherst, Dartmouth, and their cotemporaries. Now, there is not a graded school in Jefferson County that does not furnish advantages almost equal to a majority of the colleges of that period. On all the prairies, neat and comfortable schoolhouses are to be seen, while the teachers are proficient, and competent to impart instruction in any of the branches necessary to the ordinary pursuits of life. In reality, they are the people's colleges, and no system is dearer to the people than the system that supports and maintains them. To make war upon this system would be making war upon the nation's life.

It is unnecessary to enter into a detailed mention of those who engaged in the laudable work of teaching in the pioneer days of Jefferson County, for their name is legion. But it is due alike to them and their patrons to say that they all made good records as educators. As the population increased in town and country, schools increased in like proportion. As the years increased and the people increased in wealth, the old log schoolhouses, with their mud-and-stick chimneys, puncheon floors and puncheon seats, greased-paper windows, and other primitive accommodations, went down before those more in keeping with the progressive march of time. But the old log schoolhouses and the old teachers are kindly remembered by the leading men of the country.

STATISTICAL.

The following statistics are taken from the latest report of the County Superintendent of Public Schools:

Number of district townships............................................. 9
Number of subdistricts....................................................... 67
Number of independent districts...................................... 27
Number of ungraded schools............................................... 91
Number of graded schools................................................... 3
Average number of months taught during 1877.............. 7
Number of male teachers.................................................... 72
Number of female teachers................................................ 105
Average compensation of males per month...................... $ 33 33
Average compensation of females per month.................. 25 00
Highest wages paid to male teachers................................ 111 10
Highest wages paid to female teachers............................ 50 00
Lowest wages paid to male teachers................................. 20 00
Lowest wages paid to female teachers............................. 18 00
Number of children of school age.................................... 6,643
Number of children enrolled in public schools.............. 4,763
Total average attendance................................................... 3,361
Total cost of tuition per pupil.......................................... $       10 25
Total amount paid teachers............................................... 25,295 87
Total amount of school funds received............................ 56,006 00
Total amount of school funds expended.......................... 42,799 87
Balance on hand.................................................................... 13,206 13
Number of first-grade certificates issued.................... 56
Number of second-grade certificates issued................. 71
Number of third-grade certificates issued.................... 49
Number of applicants rejected......................................... 80
Number of schools visited.................................................. 120

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