Vol. III No.1 -
Vol. III No.2 -
Vol. III No.3 -
Vol. III No. 4
THE FREE SCHOOL CLARION
The Free School
Clarion (1846-1849) is one of the most important educational
journals out of a long list of titles in this genre. Its
publishers, editors and authors, Dr. Wm. Bowen, Lorin Andrews and
Mortimer Leggett were giants in the common school reform movement.
The journal helped bring about the first public school in the
United States and the first public school teachers union. In 1849
the Clarion ceased and its publishers turned over
their subscriptions to Dr. Asa Lord, of Columbus, publisher of the
Ohio School Journal.
The Free School Clarion is
also an extremely rare journal. There does not exist a complete
collection of its total number of issues published. Those issues
located come from a variety of college archives, colleges that
were in operation during the Clarion’s publication. This
series, Vol. III., comes from the archives at Oberlin College,
where Mrs. Asa Lord, the Dr. widow, taught for many years.
It is the intent to place all of the
known issues of the Clarion on-line and to continue
searching for the rest.
TEACHERS’ INSTITUTES
In the first and
following issue (Vol. III, no. 1) are two notices of Teachers’
Institutes organized by the Ohio State Teachers’ Association.
Today we’d call these teachers’ conventions or educational
seminars. These were held regularly in Akron beginning in 1840,
though in the early days they were mostly for local or native
teachers.
In 1846 Dr. Lord, Lorin Andrews,
Mortimer Leggett and M.F. Cowdery began holding a series of
Teachers’ Institutes in Akron designed to attract teachers from
all over Ohio, IN, NY, PA, VA and KY. That year many hundreds of
teachers visited Akron twice, once in May and another in November.
These meetings were held in Mechanic’s Hall, owned by Ansel
Miller, the largest building in Akron used for public events.
By design these Teachers’ Institutes
were intended not only to educate educators on the finer
principles of teaching, but to also warm the local citizenry to
the benefits of free schools. During the mornings and afternoons
classes were offered in Orthography, Arithmetic, etc. to the
visiting teachers. In the evenings lectures were given and the
public was invited attend. While it wasn’t as exciting as a circus
performance, it was free and these evening sessions packed the
hall beyond capacity. Here members of the community learn the
benefits of free schools and discussed their local application.
By far the most important object of
these Teachers’ Institutes was not obvious to the town folk, but
it was likely the most effective. In the mid 1840s there were few
places a traveler to Akron could stay the night. The Empire
Hotel, one of the grandest in Ohio, couldn’t hold many more
than a quarter of these visiting teachers. Typically, many
householders of the village boarded travelers for a fee and
Teachers Institutes brought a most polite sort of visitor. As was
the tradition, a boarder received breakfast as well as place to
sleep and it was over the breakfast table with the family that the
wondrous benefits of free schools were intimately shared with
parents. And, this is how the campaign to pass the Akron School
Law was won by such a large majority.
In our local history record these
Teachers’ Institutes were known as School Meetings where
community leaders made presentations to the public with their
ideas on how to organize the common schools of Akron. The mention
of there being hundreds of visiting teachers in the audience,
along with local citizens, goes unmentioned in the local record.