Ohio History Journal

SAMUEL LEWIS, PROGRESSIVE EDUCATOR IN THE

EARLY HISTORY OF OHIO.

 

 

BY ALSTON ELLIS.

It has been said that great men have the shortest biographies.

By this rule, Methusaleh while the oldest was also one of the

greatest men that ever lived; for in Genesis it is said that "all

the day of Methusaleh were nine hundred and sixty-nine years";

and then came the inevitable-"he died." This is the whole story,

save that he was the father of numerous sons and daughters and

through the agency of one of the former he bore the relationship

of grandfather to the first great navigator of whom we have

any record.

Some of the pioneer educators of Ohio were men of strong

character and much in advance of their day in advocating educa-

tional progress in sane directions; yet sketches of their life work

are of the briefest. No account of Ohio's educational progress

would be complete that did not make more or less extended men-

tion of the activities of such men as Ephraim Cutler, Nathan

Guilford, Joseph Ray, William H. McGuffey, E. D. Mansfield,

Samuel Lewis, and a number of others not less worthy of

remembrance.

In Ohio, within the time covered by the writer's connection

with school and college work, men of enlarged views, sterling

integrity, and wide grasp of educational problems and conditions

have wrought with marked effect in the upbuilding of what is

best in public education and the pushing aside of the educational

fads and fancies of mere theorists and visionaries. The naming

of Thomas W. Harvey, Alfred Holbrook, W. D. Henkle, Andrew

J. Rickoff, Israel Ward Andrews, Emerson E. White, John Han-

cock, Eli T. Tappan, and others of equal standing in educational

affairs, is to illustrate the meaning and force of the statement

just made.

It seems that we are living in a time of unrest and doubt re-

garding public education at it now exists. The unselfish and

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devoted efforts of such strong characters as have been named

gave impulse to educational forces pushing on to better things

in school and college or brought them into being where they did

not exist. Such was the character of their labors and influence,

as the schools and colleges of the state were touched by each,

that they might well look upon their work and pronounce it good

and pray in the language of the Psalmist: "And let the beauty

of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish thou the work of

our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou

it." In the language of Dr. Beecher, when eulogizing the Puritan

fathers of New England, it may be said of these departed friends

of youth and education that they are worthy of being cherished

with high veneration and grateful recollections by those upon

whom their mantle of responsibility and service has fallen.

These earnest souls did not labor in vain. By their fruits be

they known. Some who now look back upon a lifetime devoted

to school and college work are to be pardoned for reading, with

something akin to disgust, the screeds against present-day school

ideals and tendencies. It is not pleasant or encouraging to the

lifelong teacher to be told that the public-school system with

which he is connected is "the most momentous failure in our

American life to-day", that it "is an absolute and total failure",

and that it "is stupid in method, impractical in plan, and abso-

lutely ineffective in results."

It is not germane, to what is herein attempted, to enter upon

a refutation of this wholesale denunciation of present-day school

work and its products. There are few agencies, however good

their origin of however well-directed by conscientious and skilled

people, that can claim exemption from some form of just

criticism.  The public-school system  is no exception to this

rule. It has sprung from the best thought and effort of the past,

receiving modification as enlightened experience directed the way,

and, to-day, in its democratic, cultural, and practical training

of the young is vindicating its right to existence and the cost of

its maintenance to all but those who can tell better how to pull

down than to build up. It would be strange indeed if wisdom

has exhausted itself in bringing the public-school system of the

country to its present condition, however efficient and praise-

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Samuel Lewis, Progressive Educator.         73

 

worthy. Failure in certain instances, and to a reasonable extent,

will be admitted by the warmest friends of the system, but it is

to war against sense to assert that the failure is total and abso-

lute. Two prominent publications, professedly issued in the

interest of women and the home and that are reported as finding

their way into thousands of American homes, are doing much

harm by presenting in their columns sensational diatribes against

a system of public education to which the country at large owes

so much of its intelligence, patriotism, and prosperity.

The attacks referred to are named because if they are war-

ranted by conditions now existing in the schools of the land they

go to show that the efforts of those who have been previously

mentioned were evidences of misdirected energy, such as to harm

rather than to help. A man such as Samuel Lewis would never

have sacrificed time, strength, and health in the persistent ad-

vocacy of free schools, and of the best, for rich and poor alike

had he felt that he was engaged in a work that would prove a

momentous failure, one bringing a curse, instead of a blessing.

However painstaking a writer may be in attempt to do jus-

tice to the personality and educational service of Samuel Lewis,

in a sketch like this, he will soon find his limitations; first of all

in the lack of any wide range of printed matter descriptive of

what he most desires to present.

A Cyclopaedia of Education, published in 1877 and edited

bw Henry Kidle and Alexander J. Schem, both connected at that

time with the public schools of New York City, makes no men-

tion of Samuel Lewis while giving more than three columns of

space to a sketch of Horace Mann. Appleton's Cyclopaedia of

American Biography gives Samuel Lewis a "write-up" of twenty-

eight lines. Lippincott's Biographical Dictionary gives one inch

of space to Samuel Lewis. His name has mention in Phillips'

Dictionary of Biographical Reference, but is not found in the

National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ohio histories, in

possession of the writer and on the shelves of the Ohio University

Library, have nothing about Mr. Lewis and but little of interest

relating to the subject of education.

A most readable sketch is that found in a booklet written

by State Librarian Charles B. Galbreath in 1894 and copied, in

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great part, in Hon. James J. Burns' Educational History of Ohio.

A chapter devoted to Biographical Sketches in Education in

Ohio, a volume filled with interesting educational matter of a

historical nature and published by authority of the General As-

sembly of Ohio in 1876, contains a three-page readable apprecia-

tion of Samuel Lewis from the pen of Hon. W. D. Henkle, then

editor of the Ohio Educational Monthly. In the same volume,

under the head of School Supervision, Hon. John Hancock, then

Superintendent of Public Schools, Dayton, O., refers at some

length to Mr. Lewis' characteristics as a man and to his eminent

service to the cause of popular education.

Doubtless the source of most of the information relating to

Samuel Lewis as the head of a home, as an educator, as a lawyer,

as a preacher, as a worker in the cause of temperance, and as

an anti-slavery agitator, is to be found in the Biography of Samuel

Lewis, prepared by William G. W. Lewis, and published by the

Methodist Book Concern, Cincinnati, 0., in 1857. These various

sources of biographical information are herein referred to because

it is the writer's intention to use much of what they give in the

completion of this sketch.

Samuel Lewis was a New England product, of English

ancestry, born at Falmouth, Mass., March 17, 1799. Horace

Mann, born at Franklin, Mass., was his elder by nearly three

years. Massachusetts and Ohio unite in claiming the educational

fame and service of Horace Mann; but Samuel Lewis is Ohio's

own in all that went to distinguish his life as it was devoted to

the cause of popular education and humanity. Both Mann and

Lewis came from the great "middle class" and were largely self-

made men, attaining their scholarship and fitness for their life's

work through their own energy and perseverance. Says Emer-

son: "All great men come out of the middle classes. 'Tis better

for the head; 'tis better for the heart."

The schools of Massachusetts, when Mann and Lewis were

school children, afforded but limited opportunities for the attain-

ment of the rudiments of an education. Mann, up to the age

of fifteen, had never received more than eight or ten weeks'

schooling in a single year. We are told that Lewis acquired all

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Samuel Lewis, Progressive Educator.        75

 

the education he obtained from schools during the first ten years

of his life. The early lives of these great educators were spent

amid humble surroundings where "plain living" was a necessity

and where "high thinking" came as the result of individual effort.

This condition is that common to the early lives of very many

eminent men. Aunt Bethiah Tolman was to Lewis what Aunt

Mary Moody Emerson was to Emerson. Both men, when boys,

were much indebted to their aunts for wholesome lessons of

honor, truth, industry, and kindred virtues. In early youth,

Christian influences were brought to bear upon Samuel Lewis.

His son and biographer, describing the home life of his father

at Falmouth, says: "Those were days of genuine piety and around

almost every fireside was a school of religious instruction where

youth was taught reverence and obedience to God. Here young

Samuel was blessed by the example of a pious mother, that dear-

est and most invaluable gift that Heaven can vouchsafe to a child,

whose prayers and lessons, and example were not without their

accustomed effect."

The religious instruction of the home and the church took

strong hold upon the mind of the boy and impelled by its influ-

ence he became a member of the M. E. Church when about ten

years old. From that time until his death, forty-five years later,

the prayer-meeting, the class meeting, and the pious associations

of the church of his choice were to him seasons of spiritual re-

freshment whereby he was sustained when adverse forces pressed

upon him and ill health gnawed at his vitals.

It must be admitted that Lewis' religion was of the straight-

laced kind that brooked no question and was permeated not a

little with the spirit of intolerance. As a preacher and as a lay-

man he was unsparing in his denunciation of the liquor traffic

and became one of Ohio's most eloquent and effective workers

in the cause of temperance. "Let me tell you", he says, "that a

drinking place in your neighborhood is an open pesthouse of

moral and physical leprosy, more alarming than the worst plague

that ever visited the heaven-cursed land of Egypt."

His views on that vital topic are in.accord with those now

held by a large majority of people engaged in educational work,

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but his pronounced utterances condemnatory of the theater will

not find so ready an acceptance by the minds of many whose

moral and spiritual ideals are of a high order.

In, a letter to his brother, written in 1831, he says: "Visit

no theaters or other similar amusements. It is vain to say there

is no danger. The danger is too great to be hazarded, and you

can have no idea what the risk may be. Remain ignorant. I

have seen young men, who, in such places, have taken the first

step to a direful ruin: and from a character as fair, and prospects

as good, as your own, have in one short week become outcasts

from society and a burden to themselves. I repeat it, visit no

theater or other similar places of amusement as you value your

life."

Lewis had some of the personal characteristics of "Ossawa-

tomie Brown", but his mental horizon had wider reach, and his

personal activity was more wisely directed, than that of the

popular-song hero.

Both in his mental and spiritual make-up, existed an element

of fanaticism, but it was not the fanaticism of the Puritan hypo-

crites of England whom Macaulay describes as hating bear-bait-

ing not because it gave the bear pain but because it gave pleasure

to the spectators.

Lewis was sincere in what he thought and did and he was

courageous, too, in advocating the right and rebuking the wrong.

An instance in his brief career as a preacher will serve to illus-

trate. Persons who heard Mr. Lewis speak were seldom over-

come by somnolency, but on the occasion of one of his sermons

he noticed some persons, fatigued with the work they had done,

sleeping during the sermon. "Having succeeded in arousing them

from their slumbers, he challenged their attention to one fact,

that they were nodding in God's house, on the Sabbath day,

while their steamboats were in the act of being loaded at the

wharf; that they were scarcely paying respect to the ordinances

of their own church, in their own place of worship, while, out of

doors, those under their employ were desecrating the holy day

and, under their sanction, disobeying one of the prominent com-

mands of their Master." The charge made was true, the shaft

hit the mark, and those whose "withers were wrung" went from

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Samuel Lewis, Progessive Educator.         77

the church carrying bitter resentment in their hearts against the

preacher for his rebuke. When some of the "galled jades" called

upon Mr. Lewis for an explanation, they were met with an

undaunted front and told that defence by them against the charge

of dereliction in religious duty could not be made in view of the

evidence afforded by the use of his own eyes.

Reference to the attitude of Mr. Lewis in regard to church

proprieties and places of amusement is but incidental to the main

purpose of the writer, and return must be made to the years of

struggle that came before he entered upon the work by which he

is most known and honored-that of a "militant educator and

reformer." The lives of Horace Mann and Samuel Lewis while

never intimately connected yet run in parallel lines, for each is

best remembered for his efforts in behalf of popular education.

The two men had much in common. Both were thoroughly in

earnest in what they did; both were strong effective public speak-

ers; both attained a broad scholarship with but few of the educa-

tional advantages that are almost thrust upon the youth of to-

day; both had comprehensive grasp of what public education

should be and the results that would follow the conversion of

their ideas into realities; both were unswerving in effort to fol-

low where strong conviction lighted the way; and both worn

down in body and mind by the arduous labors of the positions

they filled, yet lived long enough to see the establishment of the

work of their hands in the popularizing of their idea of free

schools for all, with no fixed limits to the degree of efficiency to

which they might reach.

Nothing of printed matter within the reach of the writer

is more worthy of a place in this sketch than the words of Dr.

John Hancock, whose memory is revered by the older teachers

of Ohio, making a part of his readable article on School Super-

vision found in "Education in Ohio", a volume to which reference

has already been made. He is speaking of the two great educa-

tors, reference to whom has made up the greater part of what

has thus far been presented in these pages:

"Both men, although of diverse characteristics, had extraordinary

qualifications for the work upon Which they were about to enter. Both

possessed an untiring energy, and both were prompted by an intense

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enthusiasm in the cause of education of the whole people. Though the

qualities of their minds were so different, they were both powerful and

persuasive speakers. Mr. Mann had every advantage in the way of

education and general culture, and these advantages he improved with

the happiest results. His spirit was fiery, and he was filled with an

unquailing, aggressive courage. His eloquence possessed the highest

attributes of oratorical style, and he put into it all the best qualities of

his heart and mind. He did not so much seek to convince by his logic.

as to stimulate to noble deeds by constantly bearing aloft a standard of

true manhood. No wrong could so securely intrench itself as to withstand

the vehement tide of his indignant denunciation, and his scorn for mean

thinking and doing was withering. He showed Massachusetts, the earliest

home of the American common school, how miserably inadequate were

the notions of her people as to the true scope of an education that should

equal the exigencies of American citizenship. He showed that education,

to be of great worth, must include more than reading, writing, arithmetic,

and geography; that it must transcend all mere text-book lore, and have

a moral side to it, incomparably more important than the intellectual.

"Samuel Lewis enjoyed none of the educational advantages of his

eminent co-laborer, his school training having ended before he was ten

years old. Otherwise, he was possessed of an excellent capital with which

to begin life-a healthy mind of great original power and a thoroughly

sound moral nature. He was essentially a man of the people, self-made

and well-made. He was a born orator, naturally possessing those traits

of mind which enable a speaker to convince and move the people. If

the true standard of eloquence is what it accomplishes, then he might

well have taken his place among orators of the highest rank. Less

impassioned than Mann, he was not less earnest; less vehement, he was not

less courageous; possessing less beauty and elevation of literary style, he

was not less convincing and persuasive-nay, his very simplicity was

inwrought with a wondrous power, and was far more effective with the

people among whom he labored, than would have been the most finished

rhetoric. In addition to these great qualities, his keenness of practical

insight has seldom been surpassed."

 

From the humble labor of cabin boy on a coasting vessel,

sailing on the waters of the Atlantic between Maine and the West

Indies, to service at the bar, in the pulpit, and as an educational

reformer is indeed a far cry but one not uncommon in this demo-

cratic America of ours.     Centuries ago the carpenter's trade

was dignified and exalted in the person of the Christ. Samuel

Lewis for a time wrought at the carpenter's bench and did his

work well as becometh a man whose rule was, "Whatsoever thy

hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." It is not to his success

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Samuel Lewis, Progessive Educator.       79

 

as a lawyer or a preacher that Mr. Lewis owes his place in the

history of his adopted state, but rather to his timely and per-

sistently continued advocacy of free schools for all the people.

As a citizen of Cincinnati, he was tireless in his efforts to pro-

mote school interests in that city. It was largely through his

influence that, in 1826, Mr. William Woodward, a friend and

client, was led to deed a parcel of land in Cincinnati for the

endowment of a school in which some of the higher branches of

education should be taught. Later, additions were made to the

original bequest, a suitable school building was erected, a scale

of prices of tuition was arranged in order to increase the income

of the school, and the institution became known as the Wood-

ward High School.

One convert to a cause is usually an effective agency for

securing another.  Mr. Woodward's farm    touched that of

Thomas Hughes. The latter was induced by Mr. Woodward to

follow his example in bequeathing a portion of his land to be

leased by trustees until such time as the accumulation of rents

would create a fund sufficient to put up a building for a school

to be supported by the future revenues. This building was

erected on a lot on Fifth street, at a cost of $23,000.00, and was

designed to accommodate the pupils of the central district of the

city. In 1852, when a union of the two educational interests

was effected, Hon. H. H. Barney became Principal of the Hughes

High School and Dr. Joseph Ray, Principal of the Woodward

High School.

Mr. Lewis did not live to see the full fruition of his hopes

regarding these institutions, the real beginning of whose wide-

spread usefulness dates from the union referred to. The union

of these schools secured means for the education of all the city's

youth and brought about a condition under which it could be

safely said that "no child in Cincinnati need go without a high-

school education."

Of the first buildings, Mr. Lewis' biographer says: "They

are choice specimens of architecture and admirably adapted to

all the necessities of a school, lacking no convenience, while no

effort is spared to give the work done in them the highest degree

of excellence." What would the writer of the last sentence say

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in describing the present buildings, erected at a cost of about

$1,500,000.00 and equipped with the best furnishings that ex-

perience could select and money purchase?

The years 1831 and 1845 mark the life limits of the "West-

ern Literary Institute and College of Professional Teachers", an

association of teachers and friends of education that held annual

meetings in the city of Cincinnati within the dates named. "The

project was the work of teachers, as may be easily imagined;

but the sympathies of noble-minded and patriotic citizens, more

ambitious of usefulness than fame, were the animating cause of

its permanence and success." The "Transactions" of this much-

named organization, in the printed form in which they are pre-

served to us, make a valuable and an interesting contribution to

the educational literature of the country. One volume of the

proceedings came from the press with the ardent hope on the

part of the editors that, as far as the edition would allow, a copy

might "find its way to the house of every friend of Education,

Civil Liberty, and Piety."

It has been the privilege of the writer to read with great

profit the recorded proceedings of six of the annual meetings.

The reader, if he is conversant with educational matters as they

exist to-day, will see in present-day conditions a realization of

the hopes and ideals that found expression in the numerous ad-

dresses upon educational topics, and in the discussions that fol-

lowed them, that gave life and character to these meetings.

Well-known and honored names are found on the member-

ship roll, as witness that of Samuel Lewis and others that have

already been named herein and the following-Milo G. Williams,

Albert Picket, Freeman G. Carey, Alexander Kinmont, Calvin

E. Stowe, Lyman Beecher, Alexander Campbell, John B. Purcell,

Henry Ward Beecher, A. H. McGuffey, and others in living

touch with the business, literary, and professional activities of

that day.

Referring to the general character of the proceedings of the

annual meeting held in 1834, the "Publishing Committee" says:

"Let not the utility of the 'College of Teachers' be judged of

merely by these apparent fruits - its best effects are to be looked

for in the improved understanding of rising generations."

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Samuel Lewis, Progessive Educator.                81

 

At the October meeting of 1835, Mr. Lewis read a "Report

on the Best Method of Forming Common Schools in the West".

from which quotation is made:

"We must bear in mind that our country in its habits, laws, institu-

tions, and future prospects, differs from every other country; that in our

country alone, of all the past and present relations of the earth, popular

opinion gives law and controls government; we must look at the past

rather as a beacon than a guide, and our system of popular education

must be adapted to all the circumstances incident to the rising generation

* * * Every plan must be adapted to the convenience of those to be

taught, keeping in view the main object of furnishing instruction."

In the same "Report" he names three indispensable requisites

to be connected with movements to better school conditions:

1. Adequate funds for the support of common schools.

2. Teachers with better qualifications for their work.

3. More attention to, and interest in, their duties on the

part of school visitors and examiners.

The three paragraphs quoted in this connection are expres-

sion of the views held by Mr. Lewis on these requisites and are

given, in this connection, because they are characteristic of his

terse utterances on educational problems and conditions as they

were looked upon and discussed in his day:

1. "This is a subject of vital importance to society, and one in

which every man ought to feel a deep interest. In a republican govern-

ment like ours, the majority must always govern. Is it not then highly

important that the youth should be enlightened and qualified for this

responsible trust? Who are to be the sovereigns of our country a few years

hence? Those ragged boys roving our streets, who can scarcely read a

word or utter a correct sentence. Is it not then important that we should

see to the education of our future governors; that we should use every

means within our power to elevate the standard of our schools and render

them worthy of public patronage?"

2. "If the honors of the teacher were actually what they ought to be,

the place might be sought by the ambitious, disregarding the pecuniary

consideration; but as honor almost always depends upon profit, so the

error of seeking cheap teachers and making a low price the criterion of

your patronage, has in reducing the income of your teacher taken from

him much of the honors that his service demands, and until times change

you can not expect to secure a man of the best talents for a teacher without

you pay him as much for his services as he can procure in other

situations."

Vol. XXV -6.

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3. School visitors and examiners "should be men alive to the sub-

ject in all its bearings, with feelings of the deepest interest in its behalf,

willing to devote as much time as may be required to do ample justice:

they will learn, from observation, the state of the schools and the conduct

and qualifications of the teachers, and their influence will be felt in every

department of the institution. This point can not be too much pressed: for,

make what provision you please, still, if you have not an industrious and

efficient board of school directors, the work will be but half done."

 

Two events of educational interest mark the year 1837.

Early in the year, the Ohio Legislature passed a bill creating the

office of Superintendent of Common Schools and followed that

action by electing Samuel Lewis to that office. Before half the

year had gone by, Horace Mann was elected Secretary of the

Massachusetts Board of Education. Mr. Lewis entered upon the

duties of his new position with his characteristic energy, visiting

different parts of the state for the purpose of seeing personally

the condition of the schools and appealing to the people for an

awakened interest in public education that would lead to the

giving of more money for school purposes to the end that better

teachers and better schoolhouses might be provided for the

children.

In his first year of office service Mr. Lewis again appeared

before the College of Teachers, at its annual meeting, with a

paper on "The Excellency of Adapting Common School Education

to the Entire Wants of the Community."   By "entire wants" he

meant connecting the activities of the school with the interests

and activities of the district in which it was located, and he

meant that ordering of school matters that would bring to the

poorest and humblest child of any community the opportunity

for school instruction. Mr. Lewis was ever one of the people

and his sympathies were quickly touched when he saw illustra-

tions of "the short and simple annals of the poor." In the paper

referred to, he took strong ground in favor of township high

schools. Here is his description of the cry of the pupils for bet-

ter school conditions and his words, in the nature of a prophecy,

as to what the near future would call into being:

"Now the cry comes to us from every part of the state, and from all

the states, demanding more efficient organization, saying, 'remove the great

amount of machinery in the laws, simplify them, make but few school

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Samuel Lewis, Progessive Educator.                83

 

officers, make them responsible, pay them a small compensation, and let

them move onward.' To this call we heartily respond; and looking down

the perspective of a few years we behold this great valley of sister states

all dotted over with schoolhouses, and here and there, through every

plain, the handsome academy rear its head and invite the youth from the

surrounding country to drink the pure waters of learning-and still more

seldom, but sufficient for the purpose, the stately college dome rise, fur-

nishing a still higher treat to those whose love of learning, rather than of

ease, will take shelter within its walls. That this will take place in a

score of years, let no friend doubt."

 

He saw that pay schools were ineffective in providing for

the education of the masses and expressed his view of the matter

in the following forcible language:

"We now state it as a fact proved by all history and experience, that

private schools will never hereafter, as they have never heretofore supplied

the wants of the public in regard to education and if any man doubts this

question, let him examine the state of education in every country, and we

venture to predict that he will find no place where the whole people are

educated unless it is by public provision. It is therefore useless to argue

against all the experience of past and present times; theories will not

controvert facts."

 

The following resolutions, presented by Mr. Lewis, were

adopted by the College of Teachers at the meeting held in 1838:

"That the course of instruction in all institutions of learning should

be as practical as possible, and we disallow the opinion that sound learning

disqualifies for activity in the business and professional departments of

society.

"That that is the most valuable education which develops the most

fully all the powers of the body and mind and teaches how these powers

can be so used as to produce the greatest influence in the promotion of

individual and general happiness."

No general system of public schools existed in Ohio prior

to 1821. It is true there was much school legislation, brought

about in large measure by the recommendations of the early Gov-

ernors of Ohio, of whom      Edward Tiffin was the first, but it

related chiefly to the management and disposal of the school

lands. Undoubtedly, it was the thought of those who were active

in securing grants of land from Congress for education in Ohio.

and other states forming or to be formed, that their proper hand-

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84        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

ling would create the means for the support of education without

resort to a general property tax. The failure to realize this just

expectation is the subject of a long story that can not be told

in these pages. A great educational benefaction and sacred trust

was, in the opening years of the State's history, so made the

football of legislative action that there was lost to the State of

Ohio a large part of the good that wiser and more unselfish ac-

tion would have secured.

In 1824, the friends of education were wise in coupling the

question of common-school support with that of internal im-

provements and making those two matters a question for settle-

ment by public opinion at the general election held that year.

It was ably argued that the revenues derived from the various

land grants were inadequate to support the schools and that a

general property tax for that purpose was necessary.   The

friends of internal improvements and of common schools stood

together and, on February 5th, 1825, a bill was passed imposing

a tax of one-half of a mill* upon the taxable property of the

state to create a fund "for the instruction of youth of every class

in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and other necessary branches

of a common education." This law was an advanced step in

school legislation, but many of its provisions were dead letters

for the ten years following its enactment. The people were not

fully prepared for it and needed just such "a campaign of educa-

tion" as Samuel Lewis inaugurated immediately after entering

upon the duties of State Superintendent of Common Schools.

His first official report to the Legislature was made in

January, 1838. He read it, accompanied with explanatory state-

ments, at a public meeting attended by members of the Legisla-

ture and the citizens of Columbus. Says Dr. Hancock, in the

sketch before referred to: "In this report he gives an account

of his labors and sets forth his views on the whole subject of

common-school education. His work was severe enough. Al-

most all his journeying was done horseback, most of it over bad

* It is interesting to note, in this connection, that the present (1912)

mill-tax for the support of the public schools of Ohio is thirty-five hun-

dredths of a mill and that some occupying places of honor and influence

are advocating the repeal of the law under which it is levied.

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Samuel Lewis, Progessive Educator.         85

 

roads and through a sparsely settled country. After averaging

twenty-six miles per day of travel, he spent, as he tells us in one

of his letters, three or four hours a day in conversation on school

matters, and frequenly spoke, in addition to all this, at night.

Much of his work, too, was done with the drawback of impaired

health. Everywhere, as he says, men agreed with him, applauded

his speeches, but did nothing. The first year of his superin-

tendency he traveled more than 1,500 miles and visited three

hundred schools and forty county seats. Much time and zeal

were also devoted to the organization of associations of teachers.

"In reading over his reports, one is surprised at the breadth

and comprehensiveness of the views entertained by this pioneer

in western education. Nothing seemed to escape his attention;

and almost all plans for the improvement of common schools,

since advocated, were distinctly enunciated by him."

After serving three years in the office of State Superintend-

ent of Common Schools, Mr. Lewis resigned the position which

he had so ably filled and retired to private life with shattered

health and, as reports indicate, a feeling that he had not accom-

plished fully that whereunto he was called. It can be imagined

that an independent and yet sensitive spirit like his could ill

support the unjust criticism of him and his work heard in legis-

lative halls and which was instrumental in bringing about legis-

lation abolishing the office he held and transferring its circum-

scribed duties to the office of Secretary of State. Mr. Lewis

went out of office a disappointed man, with a feeling of right-

eous indignation at the treatment he had received.

Space will not permit the enumeration of the educational

problems stated and discussed by Mr. Lewis in the three reports

made by him during his all-too-brief official life. These reports

make good reading to-day. Like Page's "Theory and Practice

of Teaching" they contain matter in the way of suggestion and

discussion as vital and helpful to the present-day teachers and

school officials as they were to these persons seventy years ago.

He asserted that "a school not good enough for the rich

will never excite much interest with the poor;" he maintained

that all education of real value included instruction in the prin-

ciples of Christian morality; he was among the first in Ohio.

• 15
 

86        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

if not the first, to favor township high-schools, county super-

vision, public normal schools, and a state university; he had

special concern for the education of women and recommended

such education for them "as would be adapted to their sphere

in life, and be likely to elevate their views, refine their tastes,

and cultivate that delicacy of sentiment and propriety of con-

duct, which the good of the country, no less than their own hap-

piness, requires;" he would place a free library - a real univer-

sity as Carlyle calls it or a dukedom large enough in the opinion

of Prospero - in every township of the state; he favored graded

schools and school consolidation wherever practicable; he was

severe in his strictures upon the methods of teaching in vogue

since they placed undue emphasis upon cultivating the memory

to the neglect of the reasoning powers; and last, but not least,

he had sense enough to know that something could not grow out

of nothing, and that no adequate system of public schools could

be secured without a considerable money cost to somebody.

In what precedes, no mention has been made of Mr. Lewis'

family relations. In 1823, he was united in marriage to Miss

Charlotte R. Goforth, younger daughter of Dr. William Goforth,

a well-known and highly-respected physician of Cincinnati.

There were no jarring elements in this union, and the wife, who

survived her husband, was to him ever a source of inspiration and

helpfulness. They were plain people, taking life seriously and

yet finding a source of happiness in the performance of its

manifold duties. Two of the six children that blessed this union

died in infancy; two others, a daughter and a son passed into

the beyond before the death of their father; the remaining chil-

dren, also a daughter and a son, survived the father as did the

mother, that father's faithful and loved companion for more than

thirty years.

The compiler of the matter presented in the pages going be-

fore --for what has been written is largely a copy of what has

been given publicity by others - will be pardoned, he hopes,

for concluding this paper with a brief reference to Joseph T.

Lewis, the eldest son of Samuel Lewis, who was the sole graduate

of Ohio University in the year 1841. Direct quotation is made

• 16
 

Samuel Lewis, Progessive Educator.         87

 

from the "Biography of Samuel Lewis" written by his other son,

William G. W. Lewis:

"The eldest son was a man of rare abilities and excellent

promise, who graduated with honor, at the Ohio University, at

the age of seventeen.  He soon commenced teaching at the

Woodward College, Cincinnati, where, after remaining one year,

he received an appointment to the Professorship of Natural

Science. He repaired to Yale, to perfect an already intimate

acquaintance with the details of that department of study. He

had been there but a few months, when he felt an increasing

sense of responsibility upon the subject of the ministry of the

Gospel. In the early part of the winter of 1842-3, he left New

Haven, and returned home to devote himself to the work which

he had chosen. Resigning his post in the College, and thereby

giving up a position for which he was well-fitted, and in which

he might have acquired a brilliant reputation with ease, he entered

the Methodist ministry, and was personally associated with Rev.

M. Dustin, then in charge of Oxford station.

"Here he remained till the succeeding autumn, when, at the

age of nineteen, he left this State to join the Rock River Con-

ference. His first appointment was to missionary work, but,

within a few months, he was called to fill a vacancy at Iowa

City, where he remained for that year. In 1844, he was ap-

pointed to Davenport station. During this year, the health of

his wife, for he was now married, began to fail, and in the fall

of 1845, he was transferred to the Ohio Conference, and was

stationed at Marietta, where he won the highest regards of the

whole community. In 1846, he was appointed to the Ebenezer

charge, in Cincinnati, where the rapidly increasing membership

made it necessary to enlarge their means of worship, and Christie

Chapel was built, mostly by his taste and under his direction.

He was re-appointed in 1847, but was soon found to be laboring

under the disease which had proved fatal to his wife, consump-

tion. He lingered till November, 1850, when he died at Phila-

delphia, in the twenty-seventh year of his age, in the possession

of a high reputation in his conference and Church for talent.

eloquence, and success."

• 17