Ohio History Journal

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Popular Education on the Western Reserve

Popular Education on the Western Reserve.   35

 

 

 

 

THE HISTORY OF POPULAR EDUCATION ON THE

WESTERN RESERVE.

 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN THE SERIES OF EDUCATIONAL

CONFERENCES HELD IN ASSOCIATION HALL, CLEVE-

LAND, SEPTEMBER 7 AND 8, 1896.

 

B. A. HINSDALE, PH. D., LL. D., PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE

AND THE ART OF TEACHING IN THE UNI-

VERSITY OF MICHIGAN.

 

It is peculiarly appropriate that the programme of the Cen-

tennial Commemoration of the founding of the City of Cleveland

and of the beginnings of the Western Reserve should embrace a

generous recognition of the subject of education. It is fitting also

that the conferences that mark this recognition should come at or

near the close of the commemoration season rather than at the

beginning, suggesting, as the fact does, the relation that educa-

tion bears to all that has gone before. Nothing is more honor-

able to the Reserve than the prominence of education in its his-

tory. Nothing has given more character to its people than their

educational intelligence, zeal, and activity. In nothing can they

more confidently challenge comparison with other communities

than in their devotion to schools and learning. In fact, the Re-

serve was twice dedicated to education, - once by the General

Assembly of Connecticut, and once by the people that have made

its history. While the history of the first dedication belongs to

Connecticut rather than to Ohio, it will not be unfitting briefly to

recite it as a prologue to the main discourse.

The reservation by the State of Connecticut, in 1786, of the

block of territory to which the names Connecticut Reserve, New

Connecticut, and Western Reserve were soon applied, raised at

once the question, What shall be done with it? Several answers

were returned to this question before the right one was finally

found.

In October of the year just named, a month after the Con-

necticut cession, the General Assembly passed an act that author-