As for the hard-working,
honest-minded frontier preachers who braved every sort of danger
in the performance of their great task, the West owes them an
eternal debt of gratitude. In the words of Roosevelt, "their
prejudices and narrow dislikes, their raw vanity and sullen
distrust of all who were better schooled than they, count for
little when weighed against their intense earnestness and heroic
self-sacrifice."
Nor was education neglected. Many of the settlers, especially
those who came from the South, were illiterate. But all who made
any pretense of respectability were desirous of giving their
children an opportunity to learn to read and write. Accordingly,
wherever half a dozen families lived reasonably close together, a
log schoolhouse was sure to be found. In the days before public
funds existed for the support of education the teachers were paid
directly, and usually in produce, by the patrons. Sometimes a
wandering pedagogue would find his way into a community and,
being engaged to give instruction for two or three months during
the winter, would "board around" among the residents and take
such additional pay as he could get.
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