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LEWIS INSTITUTE |
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By Agness Joslyn Kaufman |
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| Just a word as to the choice for the
site for the new school. Our trustees of that time - John A. Roche,
Christian C. Kohlsaat, and John McLaren - purchased lots at the southeast
corner of Madison and Robey streets (now Damen Avenue). Articles of
incorporations were granted to them, and the will of Allen C. Lewis,
visioned far ahead of the times in educational thought, became the charter
of the new Institute. All of the pieces of property mentioned before were on car-line streets in accordance with a statement that "as much of the building as consistent should be devoted to general business purposes, so as to get as great an income therefrom as possible". So the first floor of the building consisted of stores, four of which in later years, were rented to the Chicago Public Library to carry out an expressed provision that a "free reading room was to be provided for the public", our own school library having proved inadequate in size. Aside from the space to be devoted to general business purposes, the will provided for the setting up of lecture halls, study rooms, and the free reading room mentioned before, which was to be supplied with newspapers and magazines of the day, and while the standard works on art and literature were to be furnished, "novels and sensational literature were to be avoided". The will provided for the maintenance of an evening school "with courses of a kind and character not generally taught in the public schools of the city, and with special branches or studies that would be directly useful to students in obtaining a position and occupation for life." There were evening schools, in the eastern cities at least, before this will was probated, but educators point out that the above quoted paragraph is probably the first actual provision made for adult education in the sense we know it today. In addition a "school for respectable females" was to be maintained in the different branches of art, science, design, etc., instruction in which might enable them to gain a livelihood there from. Even in the 1870’s it was evident to a far-seeing planner that men were not always going to be able to support their families and that women would have to work. |
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| Page last updated on May 17, 2000. |
