Clearfield Republican. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1851-1937, 1874-10-21

arrives, Ifthc Governor comes, you
will have a speech.
You will pardon me, for referring to
myself in connection with the School
Board Of this borough. They have
undertaken an enterprise Of great i'm
portancc, and they have not failed and
they do not propose TO fail. What is
more cheering than all to the Board is,
they have the grateful acknowledge
ments Of this people, Abont four years
ago, one OF the members Of the School
Board resigned for the purpose of re-
moving tc Virginia. You all rocollect
him with pleasure, Mr. Etzwiler--a
very cstimablc gentleman. lie was
secretary Of the Board. When he re-
signed, ! was elected BY the Board to
fiji the vacancy. have filed that re-
sponsible position ever since. | haye
endeavored 10 do my duty; and ! say
here tonight, with all frankness, that
| esteem il one of the highest honors
the people of this borough could confer
upon me. j would rather be mem
ber Of the School Board, as associated
with the history of the "Leonard
Graded School," than to be member
Of the Legislature. [Applause.J Be-
cause in the one, will be recognized
with distinguished favor, as among
those who labor for the preservation Of
the Republic; in the other, could at
least hope for no honors. / simply re-
fer to myself, in order to give the his
tory Of this enterprise and my connec.
ton with it.
In 1871, Mr.. Wallace, in tho Senate
of Pennsylvania, passed the law, which
he read to you, at least in part, tonight,
consolidating the Clearfeld Academy
and the common schools ofthis borough.
Immediately after the passage of that
act, or as soon as possible, the School
Board was organized under that law.
Six directors were elected by the peo-
pie, of whom / was one, and two di-
rectors-Mf Wallace and Gov. Bigler
were elected by the trustees of the
Academy For long time the ques-
tion of location gave us much trouble,
and for about year the matter was al
lowed to rest At last, however, we
concluded to 60 ahead but we had no
more idea, ut that time, what the school
house would be like than the 'man in
the moon" had, not a bit.
About this time another member of
the School Board-a very respectable
and responsible gentleman of this town,
Mr., Robert Mitchell-.resigned, and
Judge Leonard was elected to fill the
vacancy. II was happy day for the
borough Of Clearfeld, when Judge
Leonard was elected member of the
Board of School Directors. We at
once set about the work. unemployed
an architect, who was also resident
of this town, Mr.. Ale. He made plan,
and we put up the building, which we
now occupy. That building cost orig
inally, without any furniture, without
the ground, without anything else,
twenty-five thousand and some hun.
dred dollars think s22,475. We
started out upon this enterprise with
ont one single dollar more than would
bear the current expenses of the school
district. We have assessed in this bor-
ough about s2,40O of school tax each
year, Taking out the cost of collec-
tion and generations, we have about
$1,000, or a little over, of school money.
At that time it took all this amount to
pay school expenses. Judge Leonard
then proposed todeed the lots the build
ing now stands ON TO the district, val
ued at $4,000, and to advance 0,000,
at six per cent, for eight years. This
proposition was accepted. We went
forward. After the building had been
erected, about $1,000 worth of furni-
ture was put iptoit. The furnaces cost
about $500, which with the work done
on the grounds, amount in the sggre-
gate to probably $50, ,000--between s2S,-
900 and 100000, at least We are not
quite done yet.
What has il cost the people of Clear.
field borough so far2 Not one single
mill of taxes has been added to your
assessment; not one dime has been
paid out Of the school fund Of this bor-
ough. Last year, we exhausted the
treasury by paying our teachers--three
in number we had employed-yet this
building has been erected, your chill
dren and mine attend the school, and
there has not one dollar of the cost
come out of the treasury of Clearfeld
borough. Where has the money come
from? If were to ask Judge Leon
ard, he could tell you. He has paid it
all-bome the whole expense. As far
as you and / are concerned, we are
none the poorer. | endorse the idea
advanced by Mr.. Wickersham, that
the people do not get poorer by build
ing school houses and churches. There
are plenty of children to be educated,
and thousands of people who need to
go to church.
There is another remarkable fact
connected with this school When we
started out, we had about two hundred
and forty children in the public schools
in this borough. Now, we have over
four hundred. What il the resson
Our new school buildingl You may
all rccollect our public schools. lido
in the old Town Hall. Laughter.
These boys see the point, they have
been down there. ] used to go down
there too, when was n boy, about as
large as these little fellows, probably
little larger. My honest conviction is,
that the citizens of this town should
give some kind of an entertainment, or
possibly they ought TO erect q monu.
ment in honor of Jas b. Graham, Ess.,
tor buying that old Town Hall, and
tearing il down. [ [Laughter.1
Then we had another school house
IA double school house. Laughter. |
Mr. McKenrick, who is not on the
stand tonight, | am sorry to say, could
tell you something aboutit. Miss Wal.
ters, and others, could tell you more
about il, than can. 1t used to be q
Methodist Church When il got to be
entirely unfit for that purpose, the
School Board probably thought it was
good enough for the children to go TO
school in. They bought II, and paid
81, 800 for it. This was all right they
could not build new one, and they
were compelled to get some place to
pack the children in. The first thing
they had to do, was to put insides into
it. [ Laughter1 Then they had to
weatherboad il on the outside. Next,
they had TO fix the windows, the glass
was all broken, Then they run q par.
tition rightstraight throughit. Laugh
teri Then they had TO lay board.
walk in front There was no board
walk there used to be one, but Il rot