two factories employ about nine hundred people. Forty traveling salesmen cover practically all the United States, except New England, and the annual product of the two establishments amounts to $1,500,000.

The Mills-Ellsworth Company, makers of buggy shafts and bent wood products, was formerly located on ground that became overflowed when the power dam was built across the Mississippi. Arrangements were under way to remove the works to some other city when the Keokuk Industrial Association came to the rescue, secured a new location for the company on Commercial Alley, and contributed to the erection of a new factory building, thus preserving the industry to the city.

Through the influence of the Industrial Association, the American Cement Machine Company was brought to Keokuk from Madison, Wisconsin, and permanently established at 1020 Johnson Street. This company makes machines for mixing concrete and contractors' equipment, and although in Keokuk but a short time arrangements were being made in September, 1914, for the erection of a large addition to the factory.

Another recent addition to the factories of the city is the John DeWitt Washing Machine Company. Mr. DeWitt was formerly the manager of the Keokuk Industrial Association. While working with that organization to secure new factories he became interested in the manufacture of washing machines, and to show his faith in the representations the Industrial Association had made to other manufacturers, he located in Keokuk.

In addition to the establishments above mentioned, there are a number of smaller factories in the city. Among these are the Thomas Brothers Company, which makes gasoline engines and does a general machine shop business; the Hawkeye Pearl Button Company, which employs about two hundred people during the busy seasons in the manufacture of button blanks; the Keokuk Canning Company occupies a large plant on Johnson Street and employs quite a number of people in the production of pickles and canned goods; the Ayer Manufacturing Company, which makes certain classes of agricultural implements; August C. Wustrow's wagon shops; and the Keokuk Brick & Tile Company, which turns out large quantities of the finest building brick and thousands of feet of tiling every year.

Keokuk also manufactures kitchen cabinets, cream separators, brooms, proprietary medicines, paper boxes and mailing tubes, cigars, cooperage and numerous other articles. Many of these prod

ucts are shipped to other states, while a few are made only in small quantities for local consumption.

Keokuk and Fort Madison are the manufacturing centers of the county. The Keokuk Industrial Association and the Fort Madison First Association, are composed of active, energetic citizens, who are always on the alert for an opportunity to secure the location of a new factory. Their labors have already begun to bear fruit and the probabilities are that the next decade will see the manufacturing interests of both cities make substantial gains.

CHAPTER XVII

EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

CHARACTER OF THE EARLY SCHOOLS-THE COURSE OF STUDY-SPELLING SCHOOLS THE THREE R'S FIRST SCHOOLS IN LEE COUNTY CAPTAIN CAMPBELL'S REMINISCENCES-WEST POINT AND DENMARK ACADEMIES-PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM-THE PERMANENT SCHOOL FUND STATISTICS- -KEOKUK SCHOOLS--FORT MADISON SCHOOLS-PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS-THE PRESS-PUBLIC LIBRARIES.

The young people who enjoy the excellent opportunities offered by the public schools of Lee County in the year 1914 can hardly realize the difficulties that attended the acquisition of an education during the territorial era and the early days of statehood. There were then no public funds with which to build schoolhouses and pay teachers. When a sufficient number of settlers had located in a neighborhood they would cooperate in the erection of a schoolhouse at some central point, where it would be most convenient for the children. These early schoolhouses were invariably of logs, with clapboard roof and puncheon floor (sometimes they had no floor except "mother earth") and a huge fireplace at one end. If money enough could be raised in the settlement to purchase sash and glass, a real window would be placed in each side of the building. If not, a section of one of the logs would be left out and the aperture covered with oiled paper, mounted on a framework of slender strips of wood, to admit the light.

The furniture was of the most primitive character. Seats were made by splitting a tree of some eight or ten inches in diameter in halves, smoothing the split sides with a draw-knife, and driving pins into holes bored in the half-round sides for legs. These pins stood at an angle that would insure stability to the "bench." Under the window was the writing desk, which was made by boring holes in the logs of the wall at a slight angle and into these holes were driven stout pins to support a wide board, the top of which would be dressed smooth to serve as a table where the pupils could take their turns at writing.

The text books were usually Webster's spelling book, the English or McGuffey's readers, Pike's, Daboll's, Talbott's or Ray's arithmetics, and in some instances Olney's geography and Kirkham's or Butler's grammar. The teacher of that day was rarely a graduate of a higher institution of learning and knew nothing of normal school training. If he could spell and read well, write well enough to "set copies" for the children to follow, and "do all the sums" in the arithmetic, up to and including the "Rule of Three," he was qualified to teach. There was, however, one other qualification that could not be overlooked. The teacher must be a man of sufficient physical strength to hold the unruly and boisterous boys in subjection and preserve order. At the opening of the term he generally brought into the schoolroom a supply of tough switches, which were displayed to the best advantage as a sort of prophylactic, and the pioneer pedagogue then proceeded on the theory that "to spare the rod was to spoil the child." Not many children were spoiled.

On the theory that no one could become a good reader without being a good speller, more attention was given to orthography during the child's early school years than to any other subject. Spelling schools of evenings were of frequent occurrence, and in these matches the parents always took part. Two "captains" would be selected to "choose up," and one that won the first choice would choose the one he regarded as the best speller present, and so on until the audience was divided into two equal sides. Then the teacher "gave out" the words alternately from side to side. When one "missed" a word he took his seat. The one who stood longest won the victory, and to "spell down" a whole school district was considered quite an achieve

ment.

After the child could spell fairly well he was given the reader. Then came the writing exercises. The copy-books of that period were of the "home-made" variety, consisting of a few sheets of foolscap paper covered with a sheet of heavy wrapping paper. At the top of the page the teacher would write the "copy," which was usually a motto or proverb intended to convey a moral lesson as well as to afford an example of penmanship; such as "Time and tide wait for no man," "Learn to unlearn that which you have learned amiss," etc. As the term of school was rarely over three months, and the same teacher hardly ever taught two terms in the same place, the style of penmanship would change with every change of teachers, and it is a wonder that the young people of that day learned to write as well as many of them did.