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HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY
hired a teacher. Some families enrolled their children in the free school and were hesitant to transfer t h e m later. Other parents claimed that they couldn't afford tuition. Bishop Jacob M. Secrist and the LDS home teachers immediately offered financial support for the poor and encouraged loyalty to "our schools." In 1885 the competing schools engaged in some kind of legal battle. The Congregational school retained sufficient enrollment to continue operating until at least 1897.86 The Presbyterian church established a mission school in Kaysville in the late 1870s. It was taught by a mission teacher from Ohio, who was later joined by a second instructor. It was one of twenty-nine schools opened in Utah Territory by the Presbyterian church during the last quarter of the nineteenth century Classes met in an adobe building at 80 East Center Street until completion in 1888 of a brick church just to the east. The Kaysville Presbyterian school attracted as many as forty students. During the politically charged 1880s, local Latter-day Saint leaders saw the mission school as a threat to the faith of their congregation. Ella McDonald, one of the school's teachers, reported in 1883, "Those who send their children to school and voted the Liberal ticket are under trial by the church with a view to retraction and discipline."87 An Episcopal school in nearby Layton received financial support through regional Bishop Daniel S. Tuttle and his successor, Bishop Abiel Leonard. Under Tuttle's general supervision, Henry Ellis purchased land in 1888, built a brick building at 319 West Gentile Street, and hired Miss Hatty Prout as teacher. As one of only two schools supported by the Protestant Episcopal church in Utah, it met a specific local need. Enrollment reached forty in 1891, with the core support drawn from families "outside of the M o r m o n Church." A year later, Ellis branched into auxiliary education with the Boys' Circle, a club for young men devoted to lectures, debate, and politics. He and his wife also started a sewing club, the Girls' Pansy League, for young women. 88 Most of the mission schools in Utah closed with the phasing out of plural marriage and overt political activity of the Mormon church. The creation in 1890 of a tuition-free, tax-supported public educational system with stricter standards for teachers hastened the end of
