Charles W. Clabaugh Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Q: I'll be darned.
A: Yes. We had 1,600 - 1,607 or 1,609 - non-high school - no, no, that wasn't non-high
school, that was school' districts that didn't operate a school.
Q: Oh, that didn't operate a school.
A: No.
Q: I'll be doggoned, (laughs)
A: At that time, you couldn't get state aid unless you had 15 pupils enrolled. All right,
you live in a district over here and you only have 10. Well, you'd come over to the directors
in our school district and say, "Why don't you have your kids come over to ours and we'll
take them for 5 dollars a year," or 10 dollars a year or something like that. Because, if
they got their 15, they got 1,048 dollars from the state.
Q: Oh, I see. (laughter) Well,
A: There was 1,600 and some of those school districts in the state and we had just as big
of a job abolishing them.
Q: Well. My goodness, Because people wanted to hang onto what they had.
A: Sure, it was a good thing. My gosh, they'd just - they'd levy one mil every three or
four years.
Q: And pay the rest off with state aid.
A: Yes.
Q: Yes, sir. What did you think of your grade school education?
A: Oh , . . I think that it was good, naturally I would. (pause) Some of the best teachers,
I think, that I had in high school, was - but in all my public school - I had in Lerna.
Q: Oh, is that right?
A: In the little high school.
Q: Do you remember any others beside Miss Faris?
A: Well, of course, she was down in the elementary because we only went to eighth grade
- yes, Marion Girhart, from Newton, was my teacher for I don't know how many
years. And he stumbled through Latin but, brother, he was a math teacher.
Q: Oh, is that right?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you pick up a considerable amount of mathematics, then?
A: Yes. (pause) Yep, I took trigonometry at Urbana, when I got here. Mathematics were
very simple to me. But when I come to the university, I picked out my courses that I wanted
and went in to register and they says, "Oh, you can't have three reading courses, so we're
going to give you college algebra." I said, "I don't want college algebra." "Well, your grade's
Charles W. Clabaugh Memoir, vol. 1 - Archives/Special Collections - Norris L Brookens Library - University of Illinois at Springfield - UIS