February 2007                                              The Megaphone                                                        Page 6

A Commitment to Education for All: the Hope of Our Country

by Jane Ann (Seright) Lemen

I have been thinking a lot about the schools I attended in Elwood and decided I might write about those schools. But in doing so, I thought some mention should be made of the origins of Elwood's school system. That led me deep into history, and for those of you who've always thought history was about as exciting as paint drying, I hope you aren't too bored with this. To me, it's an interesting journey that began in 1785.

I have always felt that we owe a great deal to our ancestors, especially those who lived in the 1890's, yet had a vision that stretched far beyond their expected life spans. One person, Herman Willkie, especially stands out. Herman Willkie is best known today as the father of Wendell L. Willkie, Elwood's favorite son who ran for President in 1940 and accepted his nomination in Elwood on one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, days in Elwood's history.

It was Herman Willkie who basically began the Elwood Public School system. But to be completely fair, I must also go back to another group of people without whose vision the public school systems throughout our country might not exist.

Over a hundred years before Herman Willkie and almost 70 years before Elwood even existed, the Congress of the United States, still operating under the Articles of Confederation, passed two ordinances of profound importance to every citizen within the country: the Land Ordinances of 1785 and 1787, the latter better known as the Northwest Ordinance.

The ordinances dealt with how the lands in the western areas of the young country (that is, between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River) would be dealt with. First they decided these lands would not be "colonies" but "territories" with those living there having the same rights as citizens in the "mother country." A pathway to statehood was provided based on population and certain governmental procedures in which the people of the territory would assume their own governance. When this was done, Congress would vote to admit that territory as a new state on an equal footing in every way with the original thirteen. Thirty-seven states have been admitted under the procedures provided by the Northwest Ordinance; the remaining thirteen are the original thirteen states. This concept was as revolutionary as the Declaration of Independence passed eleven years earlier.

But it is the Ordinance of 1785 that is pertinent to the future founding of public schools in Elwood by Herman Willkie. It provided that the land was to be surveyed before sale and settlement. The land was to be divided into townships of six miles square with each township divided into thirty-six sections of one square mile each. And, the sixteenth section of each township was to be set aside for the benefit of public schools, an idea also unheard of in those days, but which was a priceless gift to education. 

Prior to the Ordinance of 1785, schools were for the elite, at least at the higher levels. But those forefathers in 1785 had a vision of an entire citizenry educated. Those first schools throughout the Northwest Territory (which gave birth to the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin) were crude log cabins, but then so were the homes of most of the residents. They were located usually in the sixteenth section of each township. They taught only a few grades in the beginning, most of them never going beyond the eighth grade. A "high school" education would have seemed as inaccessible as a doctorate degree today to most people of those times.

With that legacy in hand, Herman Willkie entered the scene in Elwood in the 1890's. He organized a public school system for all the children of the city. It included "graded schools" for eight grades, and then a high school. Five buildings were built in all, five buildings that served Elwood well, lasting halfway through the 20th century.

When I grew up in Elwood, all five of those buildings built in the 1890's were still in use. It was in the 1890's that Elwood exploded from a village of 600 or so into a city of 15,000, almost twice the population of today. Still it was Herman Willkie's vision that spearheaded the school boom. In 1915, a more "modern" high school was built, the building that would later be named after Herman Willkie's son. Those were the public school buildings that were in use when I started school in the fall of 1947.

The original grade schools were located on the outer edges of the growing city. Washington was on the northwest, Osborn on the southwest, Linwood the southeast, and Edgewood the northeast. The high school was downtown at Main and 17th Streets. When the new building, next door to the old high school, was opened, the old building became Central Grade School. Eventually a junior high of 7th and 8th grades was opened on the second floor of Central with the first floor remaining a grade school. Also, St Joseph Catholic Church established a school, which offered classes from first grade through two years of high school. Of all these buildings, today only Washington still stands.

But the two schools downtown, Willkie and Central, do have monuments to their past glory, thanks to Elwood citizens who have recognized their contribution to the town. The facades of the two buildings have been given prominent display, Willkie High's on the original school grounds on Main Street, and Central's between the new high school and middle school.

The Central facade contains the words "The Hope of Our Country." Although Wendell Willkie used that slogan in his Presidential campaign, it actually referred to our ancestors' belief in public education. It was belief in public schools for all the people of Elwood and Anderson and Indianapolis and New York and San Francisco and all across this great country that was the great hope. It was the belief of the people of Elwood in the 1890's that education would be the ticket to the American Dream, not just for those born here, but also for those who inhabited Little Italy and Little Germany, those who spoke Welsh or French, or who spoke with an Irish brogue or even southern "hillbilly," all those who had flooded into Elwood to labor in the glass factories and the Tin Plate mills.

A commitment to education for all; that is the Hope of Our Country, whether in Elwood or elsewhere, and whether in 1785, in 1895, or in 2007.
      
Jane Ann (Seright) Lemen, '59
northwest Indy