We wanted a firm economy, reasonable real estate costs, and a good school system.
The public school system is excellent, and the city has a Carnegie library (1903), with more than 22,000 volumes in 1907.
Indianapolis suffered severely from the business panic of 1837, and ten years later, when it received its first city charter, it had only about 6000 inhabitants; in the same year a free public school system was inaugurated.
The administration of the school system is in the hands of a superintendent of public instruction.
The public school system was established in 1839, being based on the programme for state education prepared in 1816-1817 by Archibald Debow Murphey (1777-1832), whose educational ideas were far in advance of his day.
