HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
661
STATISTICS OF KANE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
TOWNSHIPS.
YEARS.
188719021887 190;: 1887 1902 1887; 1902 1887 1902 1887 1902 1887 1902 1887 1902
1887
1902
2.322 764
92
92 152
90 480 2.K02 189 105 126 151 463
83 105
Aurora
Batavia and Geneva
Big Book.,
Blackberry
Burlington .,_ _
Campton _
Dundee .,
Elgin __
Hampshire
Kaneville
Plato
Rutland .'.
St. Charles
Sugar-Grove _
Virgil
Total .,.
70 93 30 41 18 9
6 12
8 8 24
23
59 113
18
10
10
10! 10
15! 21
7 10
9| 11
150 161 303: 394 51
1,681 578 93 103
113
224
1,1!)!)
246
96 134 130 270
75 191
877 94 170 153 105 488
2.am
183, 108 142 1G2 417 104 112
813
91
130
110
108
198
1,154
26'
90
113
99
256!
67;
160!
34 287 398! 338 432; 5.270 7.(iff)' 5.151
4,810 o$ 200,665
3,414 1,Ill1 184 195 247 221 422
$ 32,500
77.350 7,100 7,300 7,660 5,700
27,000 132,850 9,800 3,000 7,000 5,300
33.825 7,750 8,400
1,841 186 300 805 195 968
4,508 372,
267 318 880 187 217
100,535
6,200
17,400 8,750 4,650
65,600 391,700
513 186 247 229 526 142 351
18,200
10,475 9,500 7,000
70,850 .6,900 9,800
,51510,421 1.3 4IJ540.600 $1,0!,2,C60
These statistics present two especially noteworthy items: first, the large preponderance of boys enrolled in 1860, as compared with the closely even balance of the sexes at the two later periods; and, second, the doubling of the school building values during the last fifteen years.
The wisdom and foresight of the people who, in 1.839, planned and laid the foundations of Elgin Academy commands our admiration and surprise. Their names should be imperishable in the records of the county. They were Solomon Hamilton, Cotton Knox, George McClure, Luther Herrick, Reuben Jenne and Burgess Truesdell. It should be remembered that each one of these men was poor in worldly goods, and with all his neighbors, was struggling with the pressing necessities of frontier life, and that the ideals of school men were at that time very crude. Yet they took from their busy days the time to project an educational institution, and to associate for organized effort in its behalf; and from their very scant means, the money necessary to secure its incorporation by the legislature, and with rare foresight they wrote in the act of incorporation assurance of freedom for both teachers and scholars from ail religious denominational tests and provision for the practical industrial training of both boys and girls. They also secured authority to confer academical and honorary degrees upon its scholarly graduates. This was four years before the public lands came into market, and while the shadow of the red man still lingered across the pathway of the pioneer. In 1848 the heavy stone walls of the first story of the main building had been erected, but the financial means of its promoters were exhausted. Thus it stood until 1854-5, when the charter was amended, a new Board of Trustees selected and the main building was completed. It was opened for students December 1, 1856, and its doors have never been closed except for the usual vacations. Its Board of Trustees has ever been composed of our best and most public-spirited citizens, and its faculty has always been of an unusually high order. Laying deep and firm the foundation of high mental and moral aspiration and attainment has ever been the keynote of its endeavor, and its excellent success is demonstrated in the upright character of its alumni, many of whom have obtained and adorned positions of great responsibility, and not one of whom can be recalled who has brought disgrace upon his Alma Mater. It gave seven commissioned officers, six non-commissioned staff-officers, twenty-one non-commissioned officers and twenty-three privates to the military service of the Government in the great struggle for national existence, and of these, nine died that their country might live. You will vainly search for a nobler record of patriotic education and devotion to high ideals of duty. One member of its present Board of Trustees, who has served over thirty years, notes, with lonely sadness, that every one of the excellent men associated with him during the first half of his long term, walks and works no more on earth. Yet this best of their mortal work does follow after them. The
