CHAPTER XVIII.

EDUCATIONAL IDEALS AND TENDENCIES IN THE SOUTH.

Early Ideals and Tendencies.

HE early settlers and founders of the Southern states understood something of the value of education and its relation to industrial, social, political and religious welfare. In all the colonies schools and colleges were early established. Many of these were endowed with lands and money. The first constitutions of some of these states contain clauses recognizing the importance of religion and learning, and declaring that institutions of learning should forever be encouraged. The words liberty, learning, religion and morality ran easily together and were constantly on the lips of political and religious leaders. In the early legislatures of these states many bills were introduced looking to the establishment of general systems of education for all the people. In most or all of the states west of the mountains large areas of public lands were set apart for education, for the support of elementary schools or the endowment of academies and colleges. William and Mary College in Virginia is one of the oldest in America. The universities of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee have all celebrated their centennial anniversaries. In 1806 the General Assembly of Tennessee passed the first of a long succession of Acts, which resulted in the establishment and maintenance of one endowed or subsidized academy in each of sixty

two counties of this state before the beginning of the War Between the States.

Far-sighted statesmen dreamed of comprehensive plans for universal education and worked for them with an energy and persistence which, under favorable conditions, would not have failed of greater success. Among the best known of these plans are those of Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, and Archibald DeBow Murphy, of North Carolina. Their ideals are still the inspiration of those who are working for universal education in these and other Southern states, and their plans, with such modifications as are made necessary by the changes of a century, are at last about to be realized by the children of their children's children.

When the Americans from these Southern states who had settled in Texas declared their independence of Mexico, one of the charges made against the parent state was that it did not foster education. When, during Jackson's administration, the surplus in the treasury of the United States was withdrawn from the National Bank and distributed among the states, several of the Southern states placed at least some portion of the same to the credit of their literary funds. In the last two or three decades before the war good beginnings were made in a few of these states in real public school systems of the modern type. The first State Superintendent of Public Schools in North Carolina entered upon his office in 1851 and was reappointed from time to time until after the close of the war. He drove in his buggy and rode horseback from one end of the state to the other, preached a crusade of public education, induced the counties to levy taxes, established public schools, and organized them into a system. His work soon became known abroad and he was re

quested to address the legislatures of other Southern states on the subject of public education.

Many philanthropic and public-spirited men of this section gave liberally to the cause of education, especially for the poor. John McDonough, a native of Baltimore and an adopted citizen of New Orleans, who died in 1850, by his will, left his large fortune, which included, it is said, the largest landed estate belonging to any private individual in the world, to the mayors and aldermen of New Orleans and Baltimore and their successors in office forever "for the establishment and support of free schools in said cities and their respective suburbs, where the poor (and the poor only) of both sexes, of all classes and castes of color, shall have admittance, free of expense, for the purpose of being instructed in the knowledge of the Lord, and in reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, etc., etc.," provided the Bible should be used as the principal reading book and that singing should be taught in all the schools. I believe this is the largest fund ever yet given by a single individual for elementary education. Had it been managed according to the terms of McDonogh's will, it would by this time have amounted to scores of millions.

But in most of these states public funds were used to pay the tuition of the children of the poor, of those who were willing to take the pauper's oath that they were unable to pay for the education of their own children, and the "free" school was regarded as a "charity." The rural life, the large plantation, the labor system and the predominant traditions of the South all tended to aristocracy and away from the democracy of the public school as we know it and as it was coming to be known in other sections of the country in these decades.

The sons of rich planters and of professional men were taught by governesses, tutors, private teachers and in private academies and church schools. From these they went to some one of the Southern colleges, to Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Columbia, or to one of the English or Scotch universities. The daughters of these planters and professional men attended private "boarding" schools, "finishing” schools, or one of the denominational "female colleges."

The ideal of elementary and academic education was discipline. The higher education looked to the professions of law, medicine and the ministry, to participation in the affairs of state, or to a life of refined culture and elegant leisure. It was chiefly humanistic and literary. Pure mathematics, logic and metaphysics ranked next in importance. Little attention was given to the applications of mathematics except in the most primitive kinds of engineering. Laboratories for aid in teaching the physical sciences were few and meagerly equipped. There was little or no study of history and economics after the modern fashion. Prospective physicians or lawyers read in the offices of prominent practitioners. Most of those who wished more systematic instruction than could be obtained thus went North. The South had few colleges of medicine or law. The higher education of women consisted largely of "accomplishments," the chief of which were music, art and a little French. The ideal of education was to prepare for leadership in political and social life, and right well was this purpose accomplished. To this fact the history of these states and of the Nation bears witness.

The zeal of various religious denominations multiplied colleges and academies, both before and after

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the war, and in the years of reconstruction the Masons, Odd Fellows, and other fraternal orders lent their aid in the establishment and maintenance of elementary and high schools, mostly of local patronage.

Educational ideals and practices are always determined by the larger social, political, religious and industrial ideals, and those in the South have been no exception to the rule. Aristocratic democracy, agriculture, feudalistic society, religious zeal and orthodoxy, resulted in private instruction for those who were able, charity schools of one kind or another for the children of the poor who desired it, private academies, church schools and state colleges and universities with small endowments and little help from public treasuries for the cultural education of the sons of the aristocracy of the large plantation and of professional life. These produced their legitimate results-on the one hand, a comparatively large number of men and women with the training of the academy and the college; on the other hand, total or approximate illiteracy of the masses. It should be remembered, however, that many ambitious boys of the middle classes and even many sons of the poor found their way to the academies, colleges and universities, and gained from them all they were capable of giving. There have never been any fixed social barriers in the South. All lines of division have been flexible, uncertain and vanishing. Protestant Christianity, the zeal of the churches, and the well-nigh universal presence of the Bible have been important forces against total illiteracy, and the pulpit and the stump have infused some degree of moral and civic knowledge among the most ignorant. The active, self-reliant life and labors of the pioneer developed a shrewd, native intelligence