The men of to-day who were familiar with the olden time which they made and of which they were a part, and who grew up with the everenlarging civilization, are living in a changed atmosphere. So suddenly and so strangely has the genius of change and alteration waved his charmed wand over the land, that the early settler has changed and kept pace with the changing years, and the unwritten history of the early days is recalled, as one remembers a fading dream. The sharp and hard conflicts of life make heroes, and the fierce struggles of war and bloodshed develop them into self-reliant, stubborn and aggressive men, as fierce and sanguinary as their bitter foes. We are living in the age of invention and machinery. These have destroyed the romance of frontier life, and much of the strange, eventful realities of the past are rapidly becoming mythical, and the narratives of the generation that settled the Scioto Valley, abounding in rich treasures of incidents and character, are being swallowed up and forgotten in the surging, eventful present.
The most casual observer cannot but have noticed, notwithstanding the privation and discomforts attending the lives of the early settlers, the zeal they manifested in education, and that, as soon as a sufficient number of pupils could be collected and a teacher secured, a house was erected for the purpose. The period just preceding the Revolution was characterized by its number of literary men and the interest they gave to polite learning; and the patriots who were conspicuous in that struggle for human liberty, were men not only of ability but of no ordinary culture. We can readily understand that the influence of their example had its weight in molding public sentiment in other respects, besides that of zeal for the patriot cause. To this may be added that, for the most part, the early pioneers were men of character, who endured the dangers and trials of a new country, not solely for their own sakes, but for their children, and, with a faith in what the future would bring forth, clearly saw the power and value of education. Then we find, from the beginning, their object kept steadily in view, and provision made for its successful prosecution, and the express declaration of the fundamental law of the State, enjoins that "the principal of all funds arising from the sale or other distribution of lands or other property, granted or intrusted to the State for educational purposes, shall forever be preserved inviolate and undiminished, and the income arising therefrom shall be faithfully applied to the specific objects of the original grants or appropriations, and the General Assembly shall make such provisions by taxation or otherwise, as, from the income arising from the school trust fund, shall secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the State."