Joshua JonesKolloffCMS 10024 March 2014A Life Without EducationImagine a point in time, in which it would have been difficult to get a good primary education, let alone receive a good secondary education. That is a pretty bizarre Idea to consider, seeing as how today American children are forced into primary education, or else their parents receive legal punishment, unless the children are eighteen and then receive the punishment themselves. In todays society academics are very important. The occasional, not properly educated, self-made million/billionaire is seen, but not very often. The point is that one does not make it into what might be a high-paying job based on a high school diploma or GED very often. In the late 19th century and the turn of the 20th century, a proper education was a hard thing to achieve because even a lot of the teachers were not properly educated. This is where the topic of my speech, the History of education in Kentucky comes into play. Today I will be telling you about the history of education in Kentucky and why it matters to us as Eastern Kentucky University. I will begin by giving you a little bit of background information, including the founding of Central University, important points up to the Kentucky General Assembly of 1906, the assembly itself and its outcomes, and the educational History of Eastern Kentucky University.Now, to give a speech on the complete educational history of Kentucky would be lengthy and probably boring for you, so I will first begin by giving you the background history of education in Kentucky that is relevant to EKU students. The most important beginning factor in in my opinion, was the passage of The Land ordinance of 1785. This ordinance basically stated that Townships should be six square miles. Each township would then be divided into thirty six lots of one square mile. These lots were number accordingly to the picture shown on the screen. The sixteenth numbered lot was dedicated to education, and as you can see it was placed in the center, due to its importance (Land Ordinance of 1785.) In his book, A History of Education in Kentucky, William Ellis says The 1787 Northwest Ordinance decreed that seventy-two sections in each state were to be used for developing an institution of higher education. Ellis also says that in the early to mid-1800s if a child knew enough of the three Rs (reading, writing, and arithmetic) to read the Bible, write a simple letter, and cipher through the rule of three, his or her education was complete. Most children basically quit attending school in about the third grade. I am now going to leave off here and skip about a forty year period to the founding of Central University. I first just want to bring up three important universities of the time period, all located in Lexington. These were Transylvania University, which is the oldest college in Kentucky, and is one of the oldest in the United States, Kentucky University, which eventually merged with Transylvania, and The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, which we now know as the University of Kentucky.Now back to the point of Central University. This university was founded not long after the end of the Civil War. There was a schism between northern and southern Presbyterians because the southern group still supported the Confederacy. They fought in the courtroom over Centre College in Danville. The northern faction ended up with the college, so the southern faction, many alumni of which were Centre College decided to found their own school for higher education, Central University. The Kentucky General Assembly of 1873 approved its legislation, and the school opened in 1874. This campus was a single building: one that we know as the university building that the Crabbe Library is now wrapped around. In case you dont know of the building I have one on the screen to show you. This school met its demise in 1901, but a push for an improvement in teachers educations was well under way.I am now going to skip forward a few more years to 1906. This is an important date as you may know because it is the date two major normal, or teachers, schools were founded. You know one as what is today Eastern Kentucky University, but you may not know that the other was Western Kentucky University, located in Bowling Green. A bill was introduced on January 9, 1906 to open three normal schools. Later that year, two normal school, instead of three were opened. You will notice on the signs for EKU around campus there are two dates: 1874 and 1906. You now know that the previous date was the founding date of Central University. I will now move into the educational history of Eastern Kentucky University. We all know this is the part that really matters, because without this, we know that none of us would even be in this class giving these speeches today. It was opened as the Eastern Kentucky State Normal School, and had the sole purpose of being able to prepare anyone, including non-high school graduates, to be teachers. Model Laboratory, a primary school created to train the teachers, began classes in September of 1906, and the normal school in January of 1907. By 1920 to number of high schools in three state had almost quadrupled. In 1922, the normal school became a teachers college and began issuing four year degrees. Eastern began offering graduate courses in 1935, and in 1948, beginning to offer non-professional degrees, became the Eastern Kentucky State Normal School and College. In 1966 it was officially deemed Eastern Kentucky University. It has now gone have to have five colleges, including Education, Business, Health Sciences, Arts and Sciences, and Justice and Safety. The university now offers many degrees at the associates, bachelors, masters, and doctorates levels. Just for an interesting fact, I have included a map of Kentucky that displays all of its counties, and the higher education institutions that serve them. I hope you all have seen the importance of this topic and find it as interesting as I did because it hits very close to home seeing as how we are all attending this university. To sum up all the information I have just given you, I gave you a background of early education in Kentucky, told you about the founding of Central University, told you about the Kentucky General Assembly of 1906, and finally discussed the educational history of Eastern Kentucky University. There is so much interesting information about the history of our school that I would not have had time to include in here. With that being said I encourage you to go check out and read two books by William E. Ellis. The First is A History of Education in Kentucky, and the second is A History of Eastern Kentucky University. They can both be found at the Madison County Public Library and also in the main collection of our schools library.