Object: Rogers Public School catalog, 1892-3
Catalog #: 2001.67.1
Donor: Elise G. Jourdan, Knoxville, TN

In Arkansas, mandatory public schooling through eighth grade was first enacted in 1872, when the state's constitution was rewritten following the Civil War. Many one-room schools were established in rural communities, with bigger facilities built in towns. Prior to the 1960s schools were segregated. Benton County's only school for African Americans was in Bentonville, where much of the county's black population lived. For many years this poorly funded school held classes in the black community's church and fraternal lodge hall.

The first public school classes in Rogers were held in space rented from the Rogers Academy, a private school. By 1888, just seven years after the town's founding, a two-story brick public school (later called Westside) was erected at Fifth and Walnut Streets. Within a few years the town had outgrown the building.

Much of a student's course of study consisted of the three R's, but practices and values such as hygiene and exercise, diligence, industry, and
moral fortitude were also taught. For many children in Benton County,
schooling ended after eighth grade when family circumstances required them
to work on the farm or take a job in town. As a result, public schools
designed their curriculum primarily to help youngsters become reliable and
industrious laborers and wage earners rather than scholars.

Students seeking careers in medicine, law, education, and other areas of
higher education could continue their studies at the Rogers Public High
School. However, just like today, some families enrolled their children in
private schools. Whether or not it was true, the Rogers Academy,
established in 1883 and initially funded and administered by the
Congregational Church, was thought to offer a better education than the high
school. It was also considered the place to go by the area's "best"
families who in 1892 paid about $94 per year (tuition, board, and books) for
the privilege.

No matter which school the student attended, if he or she was from one of
Rogers' surrounding communities such as War Eagle or Glade, daily travel
back and forth was a burden. Often the student would board in town during
the semester; whole families would sometimes move into town during their
children's high school years.

Because of the rapid advances in science and technology in the late 19th
century, the doctrine of applied science was heavily promoted in all aspects
of study, from medicine to agriculture to home economics. Typical course
work included physical geography, physiology, civil government, botany,
rhetoric, elocution, drawing, ancient history, English literature, business
arithmetic, trigonometry, etymology, psychology, and zoology, as well as
training in Latin and German, the primary languages of science. Many young
men became professionals, in business or the sciences, while those young
women who didn't marry after completing their education often became
teachers or nurses.

The following excerpts are from the Rogers Public School catalog of 1892-3.
The booklet details grade school and high school curriculum, providing a
glimpse into the students' course work and a feeling for
turn-of-the-20th-century teaching concerns and methods. Grammar, spelling,
and punctuation are as printed. Explanatory notes are indicated by [italics].

Corps of Teachers.
    Campbell E. Greenup, Principal of High School and Superintendent.
    Miss Ella Morton.
    Mrs. Anna Kearby.
    Miss Ethel Anderson.
    Miss Mollie F. Willingham.
    Mrs. Ada De Maris.

To The Citizens of Rogers:
      Would you have your City Schools rank among the highest and the best?
Yes, we believe the time has come that you sincerely desire to place them in
the front rank....
      With a well-concerted movement upon the part of the Board, if
stimulated by the popular approval of the public spirited people of the
district, the several grades of your City Schools will become so firmly
established as fairly to adorn and beautify this God-favored portion of the
romantic "Ozarks."
      These Public School matters...when well established, [will] invite and
draw around us and into our midst the highest and best element of oriental
and southern society; they fill our vacant Church pews; they swell our
Sunday Schools and goad us to activity in our charitable fraternities and
societies; they fill our fashionable boarding houses; quicken our mercantile
enterprises; double the forces at our manufacturing establishments and
enhance every dollar's worth of real estate in this and contiguous
localities.
      In short, Public Schools in their perfect organization and judiciously
administered form, are the great pallaedium of the state. No Private
School, College, or Academy, unless under the auspices of the state, can
outline and successfully prosecute a course of study, worthy of the name of
"System," as compared with the great cause of Public School work.
      Rally, then, as a unit, that we may embattle and withstand the adverse
circumstances of the hour, and success will uniformly crown our efforts to
make these Public Schools eminently the Fountain for Knowledge-seekers - the
home of the "Working Bee."
      Aid us in adorning the school room walls with brilliant maps and
charts, in filling the cabinet with scintillating gems, and in building up a
"Reference Library" and a Laboratory in keeping with our public spirited
citizens and the onward march of this progressive age. These things
accomplished, the hitherto drone is transformed into an active Book-Worm;
the laggard, or he that has hitherto sluggishly dragged away behind his
grade, into so prominent rank among Science-Searchers as to make his example
truly worthy of emulation. He finds in these befitting adornments invitation to "Come up higher," and a conviction that "Order is Heaven's First Law," is indelibly stamped upon his heart and mind....
      Let none falter or lag behind to dampen the enthusiasm of the great
throng pushing forward under the buoyant inspiration, that the permanent
establishment of the Public School System is their own Christian-like
achievement, while the auspicious results are to be the imperishable boon of
their precious children.
THE PRINCIPAL.

Primary Department - First Year.
     ORTHOGRAPHY - Spelling by letter, all words learned, drilling on simple
elementary sounds of the English language, punctuation, use of the period
and interrogation mark, capitals and small letters and writing on slate, and
after copy [writing on paper].

     ARITHMETIC - Adding forward and backward by ones, twos, fives and tens
to 100; by threes and fours to 48; by sixes and fours to 24, and by halves,
thirds and fourths to 5. Signs of operations, as minus, plus, equality and
$ marks. The following tables [including some dry measure and time
increments] shall be learned:
    10 cents make one dime.
    10 dimes make one dollar.
    12 inches make one foot.
    3 feet make one yard.

     MUSIC AND CALISTHENICS - Pupils shall be taught Jepson's First Grade in
music and a simple series in Calisthenics.

     MIXED LESSONS - Human Body: Its visible parts, their names, and the
five senses. Personal Habits: Cleanliness of person and dress. Conduct:
Politeness, truthfulness and chaste language.

Primary School - Fifth Year.
     ORTHOGRAPHY - Spelling: Reed's Word Lessons completed. Suffixes and
prefixes, phonetic spelling and analysis of simple, complex and compound
words. Rules: The rules for both capitals and spelling shall be thoroughly
taught in this grade. Essays: Short compositions and letters to be taught
daily.

     PENMANSHIP - Writing: Spencerian copy books Nos. 3, 4 and 5. Analysis:
All the elements or principles of letters must be fully analyzed and
understood.

     GEOGRAPHY - Descriptive Geography: Harper's Complete, to Asia. Map
Drawing: Monteith's Outlines and other systems of map drawing must be
critically prosecuted.

     GRAMMAR - English Grammar: Reed and Kellog's Elementary Work completed.  Essays and Letters: There shall be daily exercises in composition and letter-writing, grammatically constructed and accurately punctuated.

     MUSIC - Reading Music: Treble Staff, Keys of C, G, D, and A, and F.
Songs and Vocal Culture.

     MIXED LESSONS - Hygiene of Exercise, Eating, Drinking, and Sleeping.
Bones of the human skeleton, their names, uses and composition. Oral
lessons on Plants of various kings. Whence come Coffee, Tea, Sago, Arrack,
Fig and in what region, does the Bread fruit tree grow?
[Other courses, with related texts, included READING and ARITHMETIC.]

High School - First Year.
     ENGLISH CLASSICS - Robert Herrick's "Rock of Rubies" and "Prayer for
Absolution." George Herbert's "Sunday" and "The Church Porch." Chaucer's
"Canterbury Tales" Spencer's "Faery Queen," and Cantos I and II. Bacon's
"Advances on Learning." Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" and "Lover's
Complaint."
     COURSE IN MATHEMATICS - Arithmetic: Ray's Higher, from its fundamental
Principles through Evolution, Involution, Annuities and Mensuration.
Algebra: Ray's Elementary, complete.
     LANGUAGE - Goold Brown, First Part. Lockwood, Fourth and Fifth
Chapters.
     HISTORY &c - Bernard's "School History of England." Barne's "Brief
History of Ancient People."
[Latin and German courses were also part of the first year's lessons.]
[Teachers were to adhere closely to the popular method of Normal Training,
as modeled by the New York Training School. A sample follows.]

Science of the Mind - Model.
     ATTENTION - Its definition. Why is a power of the mind not a faculty?
How personal interest, novelty, enthusiasm, curiosity, etc., affect
attention. Use of forms, slate exercises, diagrams, and other devices for
presenting to the eye the facts to be learned. A divided attention.
Effects of too many objects before the mind, or in immediate succession....
Methods of study which aid in forming habits of attention; of inattention.
Reading one thing and thinking about another, etc.
     HABITS - Define the term habit. Habits of the body in regard to its
movements; to its demand for food; rest, stimulants, etc. Habits of the
mind, as to attention, memory, reason, etc. How habit aids physical and
mental labor. Show that the best way to overcome bad habits is by
cultivating good habits and "starving bad habits to death." How may we lead
our pupils to form correct habits of study and investigation?
     SELF-CONTROL - ..."A higher state of self-control is reached when the
child's intelligence seizes the idea of permanent ends as bodily strength,
knowledge and reputation...." Discuss the influence of the teacher's
manners and dress upon the school; of his careful preparation for recitation
and the prudent assignment of lessons; of his interest in each pupil; of
clear moral convictions on questions of right between him and his pupils.
[Other teaching considerations included CULTURE AND MEMORY, FAITH AND
BELIEF, DISCRIMINATION, THE WILL, CONSCIENCE, and mental EXERCISES.]