MISS SILL'S EARLY LIFE.

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and inherited the intellectual and moral qualities of a long line of Puritan ancestry. Her father, Abel Sill, was a farmer, who died in 1824, in his fiftieth year, when Anna was seven years of age. Her mother was the eldest daughter of Judge Jedediah Peck, who, it is said, was the first in New York to urge legislative action for the establishment of common schools, and the abolition of imprisonment for debt. In 1831 Miss Anna made a public profession of religion. In the autumn of 1836 she taught a district school in the neighborhood of Albion. About six weeks of this time, during the vacation season, she attended a school at Albion, and in November, 1837, she entered Miss Phipps' Union seminary, one of the first female institutions of the state, as a regular student. One year later she became a teacher, and probably continued her studies at the same time. Here she remained five years, until July, 1843. During her last year at Albion she wrestled with the problem of her life-work. She had a holy enthusiasm for humanity; but a thick veil, which faith and prayer alone could rend, obscured her path of duty. She was inclined toward the foreign missionary field, if she could be accounted worthy of such honor. To her pastor she writes: "I have hardly dared to ask my Heavenly Father so great a privilege, but have prayed that at least I might be permitted after death to go as a ministering spirit and whisper sweet words of peace to some poor heathen soul." When an opportunity came for her to go to India, however, she had become convinced that her mission was, in part, to prepare others for the field.

After some time Miss Sill's thoughts were turned from Albion toward the west as a field of missionary and educational labor. She corresponded with Rev. Hiram Foote, who was then at Racine, Wisconsin, with whom she had some acquaintance. The reply was not favorable, and Miss Sill opened a seminary for young ladies at Warsaw, October 2, 1843. This was the first seminary entirely under her control. She remained there until March, 1846. In the following August she was invited by the trustees of the Cary collegiate institute, in Oakfield, Genesee county, to take charge of the ladies' department. This invitation was accepted, and she taught there until the spring of 1849. At this time the location of a seminary at Rockford was again under consideration. Friends of the enterprise had heard of her success as a teacher. Among these was Rev. L. H. Loss, then pastor of the First Congregational church. He invited her

to come to Rockford and open a school for young ladies as preparatory to the prospective seminary. Miss Sill accepted the invitation, and arrived in Rockford May 24, 1849.

Miss Sill and the seminary are thenceforth so vitally related that the life-story of one is the history of the other. In the summer of 1884, after thirty-five years of successful leadership, Miss Sill resigned, and retired to the more quiet but not less honored position of principal emerita. She accepted the situation as for the best interest of the seminary, with Christian fortitude. She who had been the directing force for so many years, must thenceforth live outside the circle, a passive spectator of the young and progressive life. This was perhaps the severest trial of her life.

Miss Sill lived five years after her retirement from active life. She died at her room in the seminary, June 18, 1889. The funeral was held in the chapel on the 20th. The introductory services were conducted by the Rev. Walter M. Barrows, pastor of the Second Congregational church. The funeral discourse was preached by her former pastor, Rev. Henry M. Goodwin, D. D. Prayer was offered by the Rev. W. W. Leete.

Anna P. Sill lived a life of entire consecration. Self was laid on the altar of sacrifice, that it might be wholly consumed in the holy flame. When the path of duty became clear, she threw the enthusiasm of her strong and generous nature into the founding of a school for the Christian education of young women. Its honorable history shows that her faith was not delusion nor mere enthusiasm; but that there was a providential guidance of her way, and a divinely-ordered connection between the work and the instrument. At the alumnæ reunion immediately after her death, Mrs. Marie T. Perry paid her this noble tribute: "With her wondrous endowment of head and heart, and an indomitable will, she set up her standard in the wilderness, and with a courage that knew no faltering, a vigilance that was ceaseless, patiently, hopefully prayerfully, wrought out the dream of her life-the school of her love. Her power over her pupils was rare and marvelous. Day after day, by word, look and act, she forged the unseen chain that at last she riveted around them. The impatience of youth might seek to shake it off and break it; the pleasures of life and the dictum of the world might strive to undo its fastenings, but sooner or later, disloyal legions would wheel into line and do valiant service in the cause of truth and right." Emerson

ARATUS KENT'S GREAT WORK.

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observes that there is nothing so great as a great soul; and it may be said that upon the thousands who came under her benign influence, "light from her celestial garments streams."

Rev. Aratus Kent was born January 15, 1794. He was a son of John Kent, a merchant of Suffield, Connecticut, and a brother of Germanicus Kent, the first settler of Rockford. They belonged to the family from which came the famous Chancellor Kent, of New York. Mr. Kent was fitted for college at Westfield academy. At nineteen years of age he entered the sophomore class at Yale. He united with the church under President Dwight, August 15, 1815. Mr. Kent graduated from Yale in 1816, and then spent four years in theological studies in New York. He was licensed to preach by the presbytery of New York April 20, 1820. From November 21, 1822, until April 11, 1823, he was a student at Princeton theological seminary. He was ordained January 26, 1825, at Lockport, New York.

Mr. Kent subsequently applied to the American Home Missionary Board "for a place so hard that no one else would take it." He was sent to Galena, Illinois, then a mining city, where he immediately began his labors. His first years in the west were spent in home missionary work. October 23, 1831, he organized the First Presbyterian church at Galena. His three children died in infancy; one in 1837, another in 1838, and a third in 1840. Mrs. E. P. Thomas, of Rockford, is an adopted daughter. Mr. Kent was a leader in the founding of Beloit college and Rockford seminary, and out of a meagre salary he contributed to Christian education. Mr. Kent died November 8, 1869, at the age of seventy-five years. He was honored in life, and his memory is held in reverence.

Around Mr. Kent was a senate of men like unto him. Eight of the sixteen incorporators were clergymen. Rev. Stephen Peet, father of the churches in Wisconsin, died in 1855; yet that brief remnant of his life enabled him to add the founding of Chicago theological seminary, as the completion of what he had done in aiding the building of the churches, and of Beloit college and the seminary. Rev. Dexter Clary, another incorporator of the two institutions, died June 18, 1874. Charles M. Goodsell, of Geneva, Wisconsin, became one of the founders of Carlton college, at Northfield, Minnesota.

CHAPTER LVII.

STATE AND LOCAL SCHOOL FUNDS.—EARLY ROCKFORD SCHOOLS.

THE public school system of Rockford had its beginning in

national and state legislation. The foundations of the system were laid more that a century ago, about four years before the United States entered upon national life under the constitution. May 20, 1785, an ordinance was passed by congress, then assembled in New York, for a system of rectangular surveys of the lands in the "western territory," and it was therein provided "that there shall be reserved the lot number sixteen of every township for the maintenance of public schools within the township." The territory thus designated was the Northwest Territory, from which Illinois was created.

The Ordinance of 1787, for the government of the Northwest Territory, provided that "religion, morality and knowledge

shall forever be encouraged." Thus early was recognized the value of popular education. The next step was in 1818, when Illinois sought admission into the union. In April of that year congress passed an act enabling the people of the territory of Illinois to organize a state. Certain propositions were therein made to the convention of the territory, which, if accepted, would be binding upon the state and the federal government. Three of these referred to education. First, that section number sixteen or its equivalent in every congressional township shall be granted to the state, for the use of schools in such township. Second, that three per cent. of the net proceeds from the sales of all the public lands in the state shall be given to the state for the encouragement of learning, of which one-sixth part shall be exclusively bestowed on a college or university. Third, that two entire townships in the state, to be designated by the president of the United States, shall be reserved for the use of a seminary.

These propositions were accepted by an ordinance adopted at Kaskaskia, August 26, 1818. December 3d following, congress approved the constitution. Thus Illinois came into the

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union with these valuable grants of land for the maintenance of education.

By the term "early schools" is meant those schools which were maintained under various laws of the state prior to 1855. The first public school law was passed in 1825, seven years after Illinois became a state. Common schools were established free to white citizens between the ages of five and twenty-one. Districts containing not less than fifteen families could be formed by the county courts, upon petition of a majority of the voters thereof. Voters were authorized at the annual meeting to levy a tax in money or merchantable produce, at its cash value, not exceeding one-half of one per cent., subject to a maximum limitation of ten dollars to any one person. The state also appropriated two dollars out of every one hundred dollars received into the treasury, and disbursed the interest on the school fund proper among the several counties; and these sums were distributed by the counties among the respective districts.

This law was bitterly opposed, and in 1827 it was amended so as to be virtually nullified, by providing that no person should be taxed for the maintenance of schools, unless his consent was first obtained in writing. The state appropriation of two dollars out of every one hundred dollars received into the treasury, was also withdrawn.

The school laws were revised at nearly every session of the legislature. These were all radically defective in that the state did not impose a tax, but made it discretionary with the districts whether such tax should be levied. The law of 1845 made it optional with districts whether they would levy a tax. The maximum was fifteen cents on the one hundred dollars. Many important changes were made. By this act it was provided that on the first Monday in August, and biennially thereafter, there should be elected a school commissioner in each county. The law of 1849 limited the local tax to twenty-five cents per one hundred dollars. The statute of 1851 provided that a majority of legal voters could levy a tax not exceeding one dollar on every hundred dollars, for building and repairing schoolhouses.

The school fund proper of the state consists of three per cent. of the net proceeds of the sales of the public lands in the state, one-sixth part excepted. This is known as the three per cent. fund, or school fund proper. Under an act of February 6, 1835, this fund was loaned to the state at six per cent. interest.