- Title:
- Caleb Mills and the Indiana school system
- Author:
- Mills, Caleb, 1806-1879.
Switch to EncyclopediaClose XMoores, Charles W. (Charles Washington), 1862-1923.
MILLS, CALEB: 1806-1879.
Caleb Mills, "father of the public school system of Indiana," first, and longtime (1833-1879) member of the Wabash College faculty, was born in Dunbarton, New Hampshire, in 1806. He and his twin sister, Tamar, were the last of the eight children of Caleb Mills, described as a "wealthy farmer."
Reared on the family farm, he entered Dartmouth College in 1824 and graduated in 1828. After a year in Andover Theological Seminary he became a traveling agent for one of the Sunday School Union organizations and traveled through the Middle West and South, visiting, and apparently becoming interested in, the Indiana scene.
He returned to Andover, and was graduated in 1833. Shortly after his graduation he saw an advertisement in the HOME MISSIONARY JOURNAL for a qualified young man who could preach on Sundays in Crawfordsville, Ind., and could teach in the new college and teachers training school being organized there. Having already decided upon the new West as a home, he answered the advertisement, found immediate support from his Dartmouth classmate, Edmund O. Hovey, who was one of the founders of the new institution, and was accepted.
With a profession, a paying position and a home in view, he married Miss Sarah Marshall, a Dunbarton young lady educated far beyond the custom of her day, and the young couple (accompanied by three young women whose avowed aim was to "go west to teach") arrived in Crawfordsville in Nov., 1833.
In December Professor Caleb Mills welcomed the first preparatory class of twelve hopeful young Hoosiers to what would, as soon as they were prepared for admission, become Wabash College. Mills was the entire faculty during the first year.
Two years later, when enough students had been prepared for study at the college level, the Wabash College faculty was organized with Mills as professor of languages; eventually he confined himself to the teaching of Greek, serving until 1876.
There was plenty of work for all connected with the struggling institution, but Caleb Mills had been first impressed with the need of common school education for all in the Middle West and, according to C. W. Moores' Caleb Mills and the Public School System of Indiana, "he agitated and argued, in season and out … in the public press and from the pulpit, upon the street corner and in the classroom until his system was adopted and established."
Most effective weapon in his campaign against the reactionary Indiana legislators (and their even more reactionary constituents) was his series of six pamphlets, caption-titled Read, Circulate and Discuss and signed "One of the People." Every General Assembly for six years, beginning in 1846, found a fresh blast on its hands at the opening of each annual session, and the pamphlets were widely circulated throughout the state. Finally, as legislators are wont to do under the lash of persistent lobbying, the necessary acts were passed, and the first State Superintendent of Public Instruction was appointed in 1852.
Caleb Mills was the second to hold this office, and under his administration his system became effective. He helped to found the Indiana State Teachers' Association in 1854, and his campaigning eventually resulted in the establishment of many county "seminaries" and, eventually, in the state-operated teacher training colleges. He was interested in higher education for women and campaigned for an Indiana women's college throughout his public life.
In 1876Caleb Mills (whose orchard and whose sound investments in Crawfordsville real estate had made him financially independent), resigned his professorship and devoted his remaining years to building up the Wabash College library collections.
He died in 1879.
Information supplied by Moores–Caleb Mills and the Public School System of Indiana and by Hopkins, Mrs. Louis B.–Caleb Mills (Ms. in the Wabash College Archives).
- Read, Circulate, Discuss. An Address to the Legislature of
Indiana at the Commencement of Its Session, Dec. 7, 1846. By "One
of the People." Indianapolis, 1846.
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Close X - (Read, Circulate and Discuss.) An Address to the Legislature
of Indiana, at the Commencement of Its Session, December 6th, 1847. Upon
Popular Education. By One of the People.
Indianapolis, 1847.
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Close X - Read, Discuss and Circulate. An Address to the Legislature of
Indiana, on Common Schools, Showing the Advantages of a System of General
Education. By One of the People. Terre Haute,
1849.
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Close X - Read, Circulate and Discuss. An Address to the Legislature of
Indiana at the Commencement of the Session … By "One of
the People." Indianapolis, 1850.
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Close X - Fifth Annual Message. By One of the People. Four Letters to
the Members of the Constitutional Convention, in 1852 ….
Indianapolis, 1852.
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Close X - Sixth Annual Address on Popular Education, to the Legislature
of Indiana. By One of the People. Indianapolis,
1852.
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Close X - Suggestions on the Formation of Character. An Address to
Youth, Delivered During Tours of County Visitation in 1856, by Caleb Mills,
Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Indiana.
Indianapolis, 1857.
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Close X - Suggestions on the Revision of the Common School Law of
Indiana. Indianapolis, 1859.
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Close X - A Plea for a Female College for Indiana.
Crawfordsville, Ind., 1871.
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Close X - A Plea for Wabash College Library, and a Description of the
New Building. Crawfordsville, Ind., 1871.
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Close X - Read, Discuss, and Circulate! Educational Suggestions,
Prepared for the Consideration of the House Committee on Education, in the
Indiana Legislature, During the Session of 1873.
Indianapolis, 1873.
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Close X - New Departures in Collegiate Control and Culture.
New York, 1880.
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Switch to EncyclopediaClose XMOORES, CHARLES WASHINGTON, JR: 1862-1923.
Charles Washington Moores, Jr., was born in IndianapolisFeb. 15, 1862. He was the son of Charles Washington and Julia Dumont Merrill Moores and the grandson of Samuel Merrill. After graduation from Wabash College in 1882 he studied law at Central Law School, Indianapolis, and began the practice of law in 1883. He was a lecturer at the Indiana Law School and at the Indiana University School of Law, a U. S. commissioner, and a member of the law firm of Pickens, Moores, Davidson and Pickens. In 1896 he married Elizabeth Nichols of Philadelphia. In addition to his books he was also the author of articles which were published in various law journals and magazines. He died in 1923.
Information from Dunn–Indiana and Indianans, Who Was Who in America; and the Indianapolis Public Library.
- Caleb Mills and the Indiana School System.
Indianapolis, 1905.
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Close X - The Life of Abraham Lincoln for Boys and Girls.
Boston, 1909.
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Close X - The History of Indiana for Boys and Girls.
Boston, 1909.
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Close X - The Life of Christopher Columbus for Boys and Girls.
Boston, 1912. (Also
published under the title, The Story of Christopher Columbus.)
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Close X - Lincoln Selections. 1913.
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Close X - President Lincoln At Home.
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Close X - Abraham Lincoln, Lawyer. Greenfield,
Ind., 1922.
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Close X
- Read, Circulate, Discuss. An Address to the Legislature of
Indiana at the Commencement of Its Session, Dec. 7, 1846. By "One
of the People." Indianapolis, 1846.
- Publication Year:
- 1905
- Source:
- Indianapolis: The Wood-Weaver printing company, 1905. [359]-695 p. 25 cm.
- Bookmark:
- https://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/inauthors/VAC1128
[View Figure]Switch to Image ModeCLOSE FigureCaleb Mills
INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS
VOLUME III
No. VI
CALEB MILLS
AND THE
INDIANA SCHOOL SYSTEM
byCHARLES W. MOORES
INDIANAPOLIS
THE WOOD-WEAVER PRINTING COMPANY
1905
PREFACE.
-------
This volume contains the six letters addressed by Caleb Mills to the Indiana Legislature from 1846 to 1852, and to the Constitutional Convention of 1852, and known as "the six messages," also a memorial address upon Professor Mills by Rev. Joseph Farrand Tuttle, late president of Wabash College. In this reproduction of the Mills papers, the original italics, so far as practicable, have been followed. These papers have been out of print for many years. The reprint of the fourth message may be inaccurate, as the only copy available was an unauthenticated manuscript copy found in the library of Wabash College, and one evidently not compared by the copyist. Of the others, the first message is reprinted from The Indiana State Journal, the fifth message is reprinted from the columns of the Indiana Statesman, of November 25, 1850, the second and third are from the original pamphlets as printed by private enterprise, and the sixth, as published by the State.
For access to these documents and for valuable help in securing information as to the work of Caleb Mills, recognition is due to Mr. Harry Stringham Wedding, librarian of Wabash College, Professor Henry Zwingli McLain, of Wabash College, and Miss Eliza Gordon Browning, city librarian, and her assistants, in the Indianapolis Public Library.
Indianapolis, February 15, 1905.
