The effort to eradicate illiteracy, the extent of which is subject to various estimates in the absence of accurate figures, was begun in Rowan County, September 1911, in what were called °moonlight° schools, intended for adult illiterates. Volunteer workers taught older men and women to read and write. Their work created a better attitude toward the day schools, and has been extended to the army cantonments where illiterate soldiers are taught by workers from various associations. The legislature voted $5,000 for this commission in 1916, Other States have followed Kentucky in this reform.
High schools are of comparatively rodent origin. They were preceded by private schools and colleges for the wealthy class, so that pub lic education languished.. After the reorgan ization of 1908, the General Education Board provided an inspector and examiner for several years. Under these influences the private schools have given place to high schools, often selling their buildings and equipment to the board of education. County high schools have grown rapidly in the rural counties, about 20 each year since 1909, and the total, city and county, in 1917 was 376, with 20,800 pupils, 1,288 teachers and 2,208 graduates. Two-thirds of the teachers were college or normal gradu ates, and libraries were found in 272.
Kentucky provides for colored pupils in separate schools, and the United States Su •preme Court upheld the principle by requiring Berea College to remove colored students to a separate place — Lincoln Institute, near Shel byville. The Kentucky Normal and Industrial Institute is at Frankfort.
In 1916 there were 4 private normals, 17 commercial and 83 private schools of secondary or collegiate rank. Both white and colored schools are supported by taxes which pass through the State treasury, thus making the richer counties assist the poorer. The reports, however, may create a misleading impression because many communities keep local taxes low under cover of State aid. Recent legislation per mits counties to levy local taxes up to 30 cents per $100 for their schools. This act, aided by better inspection, will probably complete the reform and give Kentucky schools equal to the best in rural States.
Kentucky's school fund for 1917 consisted of the fallowing: Interest on bonds (perpet ual), $138,939; license taxes, $156,000; sheriff's collections, $2,285,000; fines, $30,000; tax on distilled spirits and liquor dealers, $320,000; banks and bank deposits, $200,000; oil (1 per cent of market value), $100,000; railroads, $332,000; dog tax, $35,0007 race track licenses, $25,000; corporations, $110,000; inheritances, $70,000. Total, about $3,800,000. These sums represent parts or in a few cases the whole of various items named by law for support of the schools. Other portions are devoted to other °funds,* as they are called.
The head of the public school system is the University of Kentucky at Lexington, formerly the A. & M. College, founded under the Morrill Act of 1862. In 1878 it was detached from Kentucky (Transylvania) University, and by subsequent acts of the legislature its func tions were enlarged. It has colleges of arts and science, agriculture, engineering and mining, and law. In conjunction with the Experiment Station and the State health laboratories it has the facilities of 300 acres of land, property worth $1,200,000, and a combined income of $900,000 annually. Transylvania University,
founded in 1798. once known as Kentucky Uni versity, is now under control of the Christian denomination. Both Transylvania and Center College, at Danville, long under Presbyterian control which was broken by the terms of the Carnegie Foundation, maintained profes sional colleges in Louisville. The Baptists established Georgetown College at Georgetown ; the Methodists, South, the Kentucky Wesleyan College at Winchester; and an anti-slavery element founded at Berea an institution admit ting both white and colored students until required to separate them, as explained above. Louisville is the seat of a Baptist and a south ern Presbyterian seminary, as well as the Uni versity of Louisville, which has medical, scien tific and liberal arts departments and enjoys a small appropriation from the city.
In the educational changes beginning in 1906, the legislature authorized two State normal schools, later located at Richmond and Bowling Green.
History.— The earliest inhabitants built mounds in the northern and western parts of the State. They left burials in rocky cliffs, caves, or mounds. A fortified hill remains in Madison County (Indian Fort). Relics of Indian occupation, however, are plentiful. A large Indian town existed at Indian Fields, Clark County, but no other town has been identified. Despite an abundance of game no nation held Kentucky in force, but Iroquois and southern tribes knew it well. Their war par ties and hunters and even traders came from remote regions as we learn from stone and metal relics. Copper from Lake Superior, hard substances from the Rocky Mountains, shells from the Gulf of Mexico, and other mute evi dences of trade and travel attest the popularity of this region before 1750. In that year the Loyal Land Company sent Thomas Walker by way of Cumberland GaP, which he named, into the new country as far as the Kentucky River.• He returned without finding good lands and made an unfavorable report. In 1750 also, Christopher Gist (q.v.), a Yadkin man, em ployed by the Ohio Land Company, traveled from Pittsburgh to a point near the falls of the Ohio (Louisville). Thence in a wide sweep he crossed the Blue Grass and returned to the Yadkin. In 1752 a trader, John Finley, on a trip down the Ohio was captured by Shawnees, taken to Indian Fields and held captive several months. The French and Indian War delayed further exploration until 1765. In May 1769 Finley took several Yadkin farmers, among them Daniel Boone, later a hero of both frontiersmen and Indians, on what proved to be a protracted visit to Kentucky. A company from the Holstein and New River district fol lowed in 1770. Stories circulated by these pioneers created an intense desire on the part of many to move there, and surveyors were active in 1773 locating bounty lands for Vir ginia soldiers. Harrodsburg was founded in 1774; Boonesborough, where the first conven tion was held, was laid off in 1775. In the meantime Richard Henderson purchased from the Cherokees their claim to the vast area be tween the Kentucky and the Cumberland for the Transylvania Company (February 1775), which began to sell land to actual settlers. Both Virginia and North Carolina disapproved of this policy and in 1776 the former incor porated the region as Kentucky County, suc ceediug Fincastle County. Henderson received tardy justice in later years with another grant.