Bingham County covered 165 miles north to west and 88 east to west in 1889, when it included Soda Springs, which the Governor's Report described as a town "of hotels" with the "rarest group of mineral springs known to geographical lore." Pocatello, which just had two hundred people two years prior, now was populated with two thousand. The Governor, George Shoup, noted that due to the fast increase of commerce and population the County would have to be split soon after Idaho achieved statehood.
The Governor's office compiled school statistics by county in the 1889 report. Bingham had 45 districts at that time, 57 schools but just 22 schoolhouses, educating 2189 students. There were five libraries. Teacher's earned 35-100 dollars a month. The total cost to educate the pupils was $9300. "The teachers of Idaho are generally able and wide awake," was the Governor's compliment (?) to educators.
Bingham County employed 35 teachers with teaching certificates. The Governor had been approached with the question of Mormons being allowed to teach, given the Test Oath stipulations that those believing in or belong to an organization that believed in polygamy couldn't vote or hold office. He decided that the Test Oath covered teaching, so disallowed Mormons from the profession.
The teaching certificates were of two grades achieved by testing in orthography (spelling), penmanship, reading, arithmetic, grammar, modern geography, U.S. History, physiology and hygiene, and bookkeeping. An applicant achieved first grade status by not scoring less than 75% in any category and not less than 90% as a general average. Second grade was given to those scoring no less than 50% in any single branch and at least 75% as a general average. First grade status provided a two year certificate, the second grade status was good for just one year.
The Governor had also just issued Territorial teaching certificates good for five years. To qualify for one an applicant had to add elocution, geology, natural philosophy, algebra, plane geometry, general history, political economy, civil government and the theory and art of education, in addition to being proficient in the subjects listed for first and second grade teachers. He had granted just three such certificates in the prior year, making a total of 27 in the Territory.
In his report, the Governor noted the opposition of Mormons in the southern counties to the educational system. Many Mormons, he wrote, refuse to send their children to school if the teacher is not of the same faith. "Every Mormon from childhood up," he wrote, "is a teacher compelled to teach their peculiar doctrines to anyone who will listen." Given that, he wondered, was it any reason Gentiles refused to put their children under Mormon influences? Thus, he wrote, the public schools were between two fires, but the "cause of free education will shed its light in the dark paths of intolerance and priestcraft."
Compulsory education meant something different back then. Parents had to send school-age children to be educated for 12 weeks a year, at least eight of those weeks consecutive. "The law," he complained, is so full of loopholes that "even the children can crawl through them" and was consequently inoperable. He lobbied for a better law, one more concerned with educating Idaho's young.
Ralph Thurston is the author of the recent local history The Great Pasture: Bingham County's Shifting Dreams. Grab your copy inside the door at Kesler's Market or online at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CZXYD7JS/ref=sr_1_8?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.EBJ9VSZBMvmn2VF2qkLCSeFUmMrreos6vRQ9rOfiqNTPq9ZRRjxRwlxrpN7xcAjZuRRtPD7SWgVyYz9mwtmppKVcyueJ9T94_f62eCO6tw5FEhfFFupXjSMFQlPDUE5dPswTGnCSZoQnLAZAynjgcviG7OP72Cyz8Nhs4U-40tPYAbgx0evkNl8SXmpEhGTJcGjvEZo5h5f_-nS1dbGUizvEQvUfr2D3-OpbjZO2cSs.B30xVoq9xZLx_-nIMZvA_LUSQv8yU6AHtPf_z1YdHhg&dib_tag=se&qid=1712352724&refinements=p_27%3ARalph+Thurston&s=books&sr=1-8
You can still get a copy of The Shanghi Plain at Kesler's, too, and soon to come is We, The People: Two Canals' Battle for Territory, the story of the Peoples Canal and its multi-year court battle with the opposing interest, The American Falls Canal.
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