Despite the encouraging policy of the United States government from the beginning and donation of school lands, the difficulties incident to the pioneer condition of the country prevented the development of any system of popular education during the territorial period, though Governor Harrison and other friends of education kept in sight the American policy, as voiced in the Ordinance of 1787, that "religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encourages."

An uncertain number of private schools existed from a very early date, though records concerning them are meager and somewhat conflicting. The very first one of any kind, so far a s these vague records indicate, seems to have been an Indian school located at a Delaware village on White River where it crosses the line between Marion and Johnson counties, the solitary testimony to it being a casual allusion found in John Tipton's journal of his trip as a commissioner to locate a site for the State Capital, in 1820. This passage, speaking of the spot above mentioned says: "I am told there was once an Indian village here. Wm. Landers, who lives one lime back from the river, told me that an Indian said the French once lived here and that the Indian went to school to a Frenchman in this place but they left it about the time of Hardin's campaign which [was] about 33 years ago." (Indiana Quarterly Magazine of History, vol. I, p.13). Hardin's campaign was in 1789, a little later than the time indicated by Tipton.

The first white schools are generally thought to have been among the French, and conducted by Catholic priests. The earliest claims made for these was one taught at Vincennes by Father Flaget, in 1792, and another by Father Rivet, in 1796. It is possible, however, that the first American schools dated back quite that far, as the earliest American settlements at Vincennes and at Clark's Grant antedated those years. According to Judge D. D. Banta, who has delved industriously in this subject, there is evidence of a school in Dearborn County prior to 1802, and there is a claim for one in Clark's Grant, three years before that, had 929 residents, twenty or thirty families having come as early as 1784, it is not at all likely that this school of 1803 was the first. Of course, these rude first schools multiplied, as the population increased, though, as implied above, there is now no way of ascertaining their number.

The most notable educational step during the territorial period was the establishment of Vincennes University in 1807. This was an ambitious institution founded as the incorporating law grandiloquently states, "for the instruction of youth in the Latin, Greek, French and English languages, mathematics, natural philosophy, ancient and modern history, moral philosophy, logic, rhetoric, and the law of nature and nations." Its faculty was to be "a President and not exceeding four professors" qualified to teach the proposed academic branches, and the trustees were authorized to establish a "library of books and experimental apparatus," and to elect "when the progressed state of education, demanded," professors of divinity, law and physics. They were further authorized to establish, when funds permitted, "an institution for the education of females." And a grammar school "to be conducted with and dependent upon the said university for the purpose of teaching the rudiments of the languages." Still further, the trusties were enjoined to use their utmost endeavors to induce Indians to send their children, to be maintained, clothed and educated at the expense of the institution. A rather scandalous feature of the incorporating act, from the viewpoint of today, was the provision that, for the library and apparatus, "there shall be raised a sum not exceeding $20,000 by a lottery," to be managed by "five discreet persons." This serves, perhaps, to emphasize a certain departure we have made from the moral standards of those times, yet, curiously enough, in the laws of the same year, we find lotteries legislated against along with other forms of gambling (Statutes of 1807, p. 199).

The source of maintenance for this institution was a township of land, comprising 23,040 acres that had been donated by the general government for a seat of learning. Despite the optimism and the impressive announcement of its founders the "University" began, in 1810, as a grammar school only and continued to exist precariously. In 1823 it virtually ceased to exist, but fifteen years later was reorganized. During the territorial period there were neither resources nor patronage to make it succeed as an institution of higher learning.