Caleb Mills (July 29, 1806 – October 17, 1879) was an American educator who served as the Superintendent of Public Instruction in Indiana and was the first faculty member at
Wabash College
Wabash College is a private liberal arts men's college in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Founded in 1832 by several Dartmouth College graduates and Midwestern leaders, it enrolls nearly 900 students. The college offers an undergraduate liberal arts cu ...
. He played a central role in designing the public education system of
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
.
Caleb Mills arrived in Crawfordsville, Indiana, in November 1833 with his bride Sarah, after graduating from
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
in 1828 and
Andover Theological Seminary
Andover Theological Seminary (1807–1965) was a Congregationalist seminary founded in 1807 and originally located in Andover, Massachusetts on the campus of Phillips Academy. From 1908 to 1931, it was located at Harvard University in Cambridge. ...
in 1833, to become the first professor and the principal of the Crawfordsville Classical High School, which opened in December 1833 with 12 students. As soon as a charter could be obtained from the state legislature it became the Wabash Teachers Seminary and Manual Labor College, finally acquiring the name Wabash College in 1851 (
Osborne 1932, p. 31). Mills, fresh out of divinity school, was recruited to the job by his old college roommate
Edmund Otis Hovey, one of the nine founders of the school, who later joined him on the faculty as one of the professors. In the early days it was Mills' task as the sole teacher to teach all the classes in every subject, and additionally to serve as the pastor of a church six miles outside of town on weekends.
Starting in 1846, for six years, Mills wrote an annual address to the Indiana legislature on the subject of public education. In these letters, arguing for a statewide system of taxpayer funded free public schools, he made the case that the benefits of a "good and efficient system of free schools" would pay for themselves, and described the parts that would be needed for such a system, including township school committees, district superintendents, school libraries, and
normal schools
A normal school or normal college is an institution created to Teacher education, train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high s ...
to train teachers. These addresses were printed in the ''Indiana State Journal'' under the byline "One of the People", and were the main influence on the new school law, embracing most of Mills' proposals, which was drafted and adopted by the state constitutional convention in 1852.
In 1854 Caleb Mills was elected
Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th st ...
, defeating the incumbent Democrat,
William C. Larrabee, 99,857 to 85,835.
[Stoll, John B. ''History of the Indiana Democracy 1816-1916'' (Indianapolis, 1917), p. 165.] Mills, a Whig, ran on a fusion ticket called the People's Party which brought together Whigs, Free Soilers, Know-Nothings and temperance advocates to support a common slate. Mills, after serving one term, did not stand for re-election in 1856 and Larrabee regained the office.
Mills remained on the faculty of
Wabash College
Wabash College is a private liberal arts men's college in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Founded in 1832 by several Dartmouth College graduates and Midwestern leaders, it enrolls nearly 900 students. The college offers an undergraduate liberal arts cu ...
, teaching Greek and serving as curator of the college library, until his death in 1879 (
Osborne 1932, p. 144).
Indiana State University
Indiana State University (ISU) is a public university in Terre Haute, Indiana. It was founded in 1865 and offers over 100 undergraduate majors and more than 75 graduate and professional programs. Indiana State is classified among "D/PU: Doctor ...
has recognized Mills' immeasurable contributions to education in Indiana by naming one of their residence halls for Mills. In addition, the highest university honor an Indiana State faculty member can receive is the Caleb Mills Teaching Award.
References
*
Osborne, James Insley, and Theodore Gregory Gronert (1932). ''Wabash College: The First Hundred Years, 1832-1932''. R. E. Banta, Crawfordsville, Indiana
Crawfordsville is a city in Montgomery County in west central Indiana, United States, west by northwest of Indianapolis. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,306. The city is the county seat of Montgomery County, the only char ...
Notes
External links
infoplease.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mills, Caleb
1806 births
1879 deaths
Wabash College faculty
Dartmouth College alumni
Indiana State University people
Andover Theological Seminary alumni
Superintendents of Public Instruction of Indiana