USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Standard history of New Orleans, Louisiana, giving a description of the natural advantages, natural history settlement, Indians, Creoles, municipal and military history, mercantile and commercial interests, banking, transportation, etc. > Part 23
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Dr. Charles Jasper Bickham resided in New Orleans for thirty-eight years, and enjoyed the respect and affection of his fellow citizens, while his urbanity to the younger members of the profession led to an extensive consulting praetice. He was born in Covington, Louisiana; after receiving the degree of M. A. from the Southwestern University of Texas, he studied medicine in New Orleans, and grad- uated in 1856. He assisted Dr. Stone in surgery, both in the doctor's own hospital and in the Charity Hospital. Dr. Bickham practiced medicine in Shreveport for a time, served as surgeon in the Confederate army during the war, and afterwards settled permanently in New Orleans. He held the position of demonstrator of Anatomy in the University from 1867 to 1872; he was also at different times an administrator of the Charity Hospital, a member of the Louisiana State Board of Health, and of the Orleans Parish Medical Society. Dr. Bickham died February 14, 1898.
Dr. Joseph Jones occupies a notable position as an authority on yellow fever, the malady which has engaged the attention of so many learned minds. Dr. Jones devoted years to the most eareful and minute researches, and his work entitled "Medical and Surgical Memoirs" contains a wealth of information, statistics and seientific data. Dr. Jones was president of the State Board of Health, assuming the office in April, 1880. He was also connected with the University for many years as professor of Chemistry. His range of culture was very wide; he was the leading arehæologist of the South, and made a eollection of rare and antique arms, pottery, etc., which is justly an object of pride to the whole city.
The limited seope of this chapter will not permit more than a mere inention of many well- known and honored names. Dr. John Leonard Riddell, the inventor of the binoeular microscope, Dr. Isadore Labatut, Dr. Thos. Hunt, Dr. James Jones, Dr. Brickell, the friend and partner of Dr. Bruns, Dr. Austen, Dr. Holliday,
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Dr. Sam'l Logan, devoted their lives to scientific research, or to practical labors among the suffering members of the community. At present the city can boast of many able physicians ; Dr. Ernest Lewis stands pre-eminent in Gynæcology, as docs Dr. Rudolph Matas in Surgery. Dr. John B. Elliott in the theory and practice of medicine. Dr. Castellaños, a writer and scholar, as well as a talented doctor ; Dr. Loeber, full of years and honors-all these and many more will leave an enduring mark upon the history of the medical profession in New Orleans. Dr. Stanford E. Chaillé fills with dignity and ability the office of dean of the medical department of the Tulane University. Dr. Chaillé is of fine French lineage. His ancestors settled in Maryland, but his father removed to Mississippi, and Dr. Chaillé has made New Orleans his home for many years.
The School of Hahnemann has been represented in New Orleans since 1841, when Dr. Taxile, of Toulon, France, settled here as the pioneer of homeopathy. He had been an illustrious allopath, and chief physician of the civil hospital in Toulon. He practiced until his death in 1857, and left three disciples to continue his labors, Dr. D'Hemecourt, Dr. Dupaquier, Dr. Cabosche and Dr. S. W. Angell. The ranks of homeopathy were recruited by Drs. Adolf and Jules Cartier, and then by Dr. Julius Matthieu, the first American member of the new school of medicine in New Orleans. Dr. Matthieu was born in this city, and graduated at the Louisiana State University, having since pursued a professional career of marked success for many years. Dr. J. G. Belden, a graduate of the Boston College of Physicians, moved to New Or- leans in 1846, and attended to a large clientele with success, until his death in 1897. His son, Dr. Webster Belden, has inherited his father's practice. Dr. Charles J. Lopez, a native of Cuba, located in New Orleans in 1869, graduated at Tulanc University in 1873, and is still in active practice. Dr. Gayle Aiken, born in Charles- ton, S. C., and a graduate of both Tulane University and of Hahnemann Homeopathic College in Chicago, has been a resident of New Orleans since 1882. Dr. S. R. Angell, Dr. Charles R. Mayer, a graduate of Hahnemann Homeopathic College, Chicago, Dr. D. Arthur Lines, a graduate of Pulte College, Cincinnati, David M. Lines, and Dr. Robert D. Voorhies, who took his diploma at Herring Col- lege, are among the best known homeopathic physicians of the city.
Dr. William H. Holcombe deserves an extended notice for the services rendered by him to the cause of homeopathy, not only in this city, but throughout the South. He was not only the wise physician, with the genius of diagnosis, but the cultured man of letters, whose versatile pen was constantly employed in the composition of medical essays and pamphlets, poems, novels, and works of a religious character. Dr. Holcombe was born in Lynchburg, Va., May 29, 1825. He was of good old
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Virginia family, his grandfather having served in the Continental army. His father was a distinguished physician of the old school, and young Holcombe, who early manifested his taste for his chosen profession, was sent to the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, where he graduated in 1847. He removed to Cin- cinnati, and it was there, during an epidemie of Asiatic cholera, that he became interested in the study of homeopathy. The marked success he met with in his experimental use of it induced him to devote himself to the new school of medicine, and he became one of its most talented disciples. Dr. Holcombe removed to Natchez in 1852, where he and Dr. Davis, his partner, were appointed physicians and sur- geons to the Mississippi State Hospital. In 1864 he located in New Orleans, where he made his home until his death, November 28, 1893. He was chairman of a yellow fever commission in 1878, and published an excellent report of the work done during the epidemic of that year. Dr. Holcombe was for many years co-editor of the North American Journal of Homeopathy, and was president of the American Institute of Homeopathy in 1876. In 1852 he published "The Scientific Basis of Homeopathy," and in 1856, "Yellow Fever and Its Homeopathic Treatment." He was the author of a number of medical treatises, of two volumes of poetry, and of eight religious works, embodying the doctrines of Swedenborg. His last literary composition, "The Truth About Homeopathy," was completed only a few days before his death. Dr. Holeombe was a man of lofty and noble nature, and of ten- derest charity, a true philanthropist, winning the respeet and devotion of all who knew him. In the midst of his labors he suceumbed, quite suddenly, to heart disease.
A monthly paper, L'Homoion, was published by the "Société Hah- némanienne de la Nouvelle Orléans," a society organized in 1859, but soon dissolved. During the yellow fever of 1878, the New Orleans Homeopathie Relief Association was organized, for the purpose of furnishing doetors, nurses and medicines to the sick, and also food and clothing, when necessary. Its headquarters were at No. 132 Canal street, and it published and distributed, free of cost, a pamphlet entitled, "Guide for Diagnosing, Nursing and Medieating Yellow Fever."
The Hahnemann Medical Association of Louisiana was organized in New Or- leans in 1880, but it was not incorporated, and after mecting in different cities for six years, it disbanded. The Homeopathic Medical Association of Louisiana was organized in New Orleans in November, 1890, with Charles Madnell, president ; D. R. Graham, viee-president ; Frank Millington, secretary; and Col. George Soulé, treasurer. This association has also been allowed to lapse. There is a Homeopathic State Board of Medieal Examiners, appointed by the Governor, and a similar board of the other sehool.
CHAPTER IX.
HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN NEW ORLEANS.
BY JOHN R. FICKLEN, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN TULANE UNIVERSITY.
N EW ORLEANS was founded in the year 1718 by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne Sieur de Bienville, but it did not become the permanent capital of the colony until 1722. At this period the province was under the control of the famous Company of the West, which, though it ended in disaster under the title of the "Mississippi Bubble," was certainly instrumental in making large additions to the population of Louisiana. As the colonists began to pour in, the question of educa- tion became a pressing one, and it was only natural that the religious orders, to whom primary instruction during the eighteenth century was chiefly intrusted, should be the first in the field to satisfy the new demand.
The Capuchin monks, to whom had fallen the ecclesiastical control of the lower part of the province, are said to have given to Louisiana her first teacher. This was a certain Father Cecil, who in 1724 opened a school for boys in the neighbor- hood of the present St. Louis Cathedral; but what was the fate of this first school in the new city by the Mississippi, is not recorded.
As schools for the two sexes were generally separate at this time, Governor Bienville soon became interested in providing instruction for the female youth, and in 1726 the Company, at his suggestion, signed a contract with some Ursuline nuns to come over from France, and to assume the care of a charity hospital, and at the same time to undertake the education of young girls. This contract has come down to us, and in it we find the Company agreeing to support six nuns, with a salary of six hundred livres (francs) a year to each, until they could draw a sufficient income from a plantation to be donated by the Company. The Mother Superior was to appoint one of the nuns as housekeeper, two others to be continuous nurses in the hospital, one other to be a teacher in a girls' school, and the sixth to take the place of any sister that might fall ill. The actual number of Religieuses that came over in 1727 was eleven, one being a novice, two candidates, and cight pro- fessed members.
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Never was heartier welcome accorded to any colonists than to these holy sisters "when, after a tempestuous voyage of several months across the Atlantic, they finally arrived in New Orleans. Bienville had been supplanted as governor by Perier, and. his late residence near the levee was given to the nuns as a temporary home. It was the finest house in the little city, but it was still surrounded by the primeval forest. Here the Sisters remained until 1734, when their convent, the Archbishop's palace "of to-day, was, after many delays, completed, and it became their permanent home, until ninety years later they removed to their present spacious buildings in the lower part of the city. Their early experiences in the new city on the banks of the great river are recorded in the charming letters of the novice, Sister Marie Made- line Hachard, who was one of the original band, and who for thirty-five years aided with rare devotion her associates in caring for the sick and in educating the female youth of that day. She has recorded the humble beginnings of the long history . of the Ursulines, and has left us a vivid picture of the pensionnaires or boarders and of the day scholars that soon began to crowd their schoolroom. Their devotion "to their work knew no bounds, for Sister Hachard tells us that during two hours . of the afternoon they also gave instruction, spiritual and mental, to negresses and Indian girls, who were eager to learn from these gentle sisters. The negresses, she adds, were easy to teach, but not so the Indian girls, who, "on account of their sinful passions are baptized with fear and trembling on our part." It seems that the inhabitants expected to have to pay for the instruction of the day scholars, and when they discovered that this class of pupils was to be taught gratuitously, they showed their gratitude by overwhelming the nuns with presents of everything that was necessary for their comfort. In 1728 there were, besides the day scholars, sev- "eral slave girls to be prepared for baptism and the first communion, and twenty pensionnaires. It does not appear that these last were required to pay more than was necessary to meet the expenses of their food and lodging. Thus the educational plan of the Company was broad enough to include gratuitous instruction for the female youth of the three races found in the colony. Nay, a few years later we find that the Ursulines have taken charge of the female orphans whose parents perished in the Natchez massacre, and that they receive from the Company a regular stipend "for their support. Finally, to cap the climax of what was expected of the nuns, Bien- ville, in 1735, wrote to his government : "Two women in the colony raise silk worms for amusement and succeed very well. Eggs should be sent by the government to the Ursulines, so that they could teach this industry to the orphans intrusted to their charge."
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However, those of the nuns who devoted themselves to teaching were so zealous in their labors that the colonists felt that they had an additional reason for remain- ing in the province, and the Company perceived that it had taken not only a charitable, but a wise step. The admiration of the seholars for their teachers reached such a point that they all wanted to take the vows and become nuns, but Father Beaubois frowned on this, and deelared that he wanted them to become. Christian mothers, and spread the cause of Christianity in the colony. The girls at this period generally married at the age of thirteen or fourteen and were very ignorant; "but henceforth," says Sister Hachard, "no girl was allowed to marry until she had been instrueted by the Ursulines." How this wise social regulation was enforced we are not told. It may have been left to the discretion of Father Beaubois, who was the constant friend of the Sisters, and who was doubtless able- to control the marriages of the colony in the interests of mental and spiritual edu- cation. Such, then, was the beginning of educational training for girls in New Orleans, as recorded in the faseinating pages of Madeleine Hachard.
If Father Ceeil's school was still in existence in 1742, it must have been found inadequate to the training of boys, for in this year we find Bienville, onee more governor, and his intendant, Salmon, addressing the following communication to. their government: "For a long time the inhabitants of Louisiana have been em- phasizing the necessity of establishing here a college for the education of their children. Impressed with the importance of such an establishment, they proposed to the Jesuits to undertake it, but the Fathers refused on the ground that they had neither the lodgings nor the materials to support a college. Yet it is essential that there should be such an institution for instruction in the humanities, in geometry, in geography, in pilotage, ete. Besides, the children would learn lessons in religion, which is the basis of morals. It is only too apparent how useless young men become when they are reared in self-indulgence and idleness ; and how much those of the colonists who are able to send their children to France to be cdueated have to spend for this purpose. It is also to be feared that the greater part of this class of young men, disgusted with their country, will return to it only to gather up the property which their parents have left them."*
Louisiana had now passed once more under the control of the king, and its importance was not considered sufficient to justify the establishment of such an institution ; but this last and noblest effort of Bienville for the welfare of the eol- ony on the eve of his final departure from the city he had founded, is worthy of
*Translated from a copy of the letter in the archives of the La. Hist. Soc.
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record. More than sixty years were to elapse before such a college as Bienville had planned was to be established in New Orleans.
SPANISH DOMINATION.
Thus far the schools for the training of the young had been confined to New Orleans, and even in the city we have no evidence of further progress until the period of the Spanish domination (1768-1803.) In 1785 the population of the city had grown to 4,980, including blacks and Indians. Three years later Governor Miro writes to his government as follows: "In 1772, under Governor Unzaga, there came from Spain Don Andreas Lopez de Armesto, as director of the school which was ordered to be established at New Orleans. With him came Don Pedro Aragon as teacher of grammar, Don Manuel Diaz de Lara, as professor of Latin, and Don Francisco de la Calena as teacher of reading and writing. In spite of the weight that such names must have carried with them, the governor expressed himself as greatly embarrassed, as he knew that the parents would not send their children to a Spanish school unless under fear of some penalty. Not wishing to resort to violence, he confined himself to making the public acquainted with the benefits they would derive from the education which the magnanimous heart of his majesty thus put within their reach. Nevertheless, no pupil ever presented himself for the Latin class; a few came to be taught reading and writing; these never exceeded thirty, and frequently dwindled down to six." Miro adds that the late conflagra- tion having destroyed the schoolhouse, Don Andres Almonester, who subsequently built the cathedral, "had offered free of charge a small edifice containing a room thirteen feet by twelve, which would suffice for the present, as many families had retired to the country, and the number of pupils had been thus reduced from
twenty-three to twelve. * Those who have no fortune to leave their sons, aspire to give them no other career than a mercantile one, for which they think reading and writing to be sufficient. They prefer that their children be taught in French, and thus there were, before the fire, eight schools of that description, which were frequented by four hundred children of both sexes."*
In commenting on these words of Miro, Mother Austin Carroll (see her "Es- says on Early Education in Louisiana") remarks that the existence of the French schools and of the Ursuline school explains the decline of the Spanish institution, and she adds that, comparatively speaking, the children of New Orleans one hun- dred years ago were as well educated as they are now-perhaps better. Although
*Gayarre's Spanish Domination, p. 204-5.
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the phrase "comparatively speaking" qualifies the statement, the opinion of the good Mother seems too laudatory of the past. It is true that the wealthy youths were earefully cducated, most of them, like Etienne de Boré, the first sueeessful sugar planter in Louisiana, being sent to Canada and to France for both secondary and higher training. But for the mass of the children there were no such advantages for thorough instruction and discipline as are offered by the institutions of the present day. Our public schools, supported by the self-taxation of the people, find no real eounterpart in the governmental and denominational sehools of the eight- eenth eentury. We have at the present time as many denominational sehools in proportion to our population, and we have in addition, the well patronized public and private schools, capped by the higher education offered in the various depart- ments of Tulane University.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, some of the Ursulines, fearing persecution under the French republic, to which Spain had ceded Louisiana, retired to Havana, but the rest of the Sisters, finding themselves treated with kindness by both the French and American authorities, continued their educational work, as they do to-day, after a lapse of one hundred years. A visitor to New Orleans in 1801, says: "There is here a convent of Ursulines, who receive young boarding pupils. With a grant of $600 a year made to them by the Spanish treasury, they maintain and teach twelve orphans."* Martin says that in 1802 the nuns received tuition fees from the wealthy, and edueated some poor girls gratuitously. During this period of transition, however, a new educational impulse was introduced by the emigrants from San Domingo. After the revolution in that unhappy isle, sev- eral thousand French exiles settled in Louisiana, and in New Orleans many of them utilized their talents in the education of the young. "About six months ago," says the author quoted above, "a college was formed for the education of young (Creole) men. A boarding and day school for girls has also been established. The instruction they receive there seems more carefully condueted than that which the nuns for- merly gave, and is, therefore, preferable. These two institutions, which are of prime importance, are due to the French refugees."*
UNDER THE AMERICAN FLAG.
As we pass over into the period of American domination, we find no diminution of interest on the part of the new government in the subject of education. The im- pulse given by the Domingoans was not allowed to languish, although many years were to elapse before New Orleans was to obtain a sound and efficient system of
*Quoted by Prof. Fay in his "Education in Louisiana."
Photo by MOORE, N.O.
Le Pratiche -
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public education. The city, as well as the rest of Louisiana, followed what Dr. William T. Harris has called the general trend of educational development in the United States. "First, from private, endowed and parochial schools," he says, "there is a change to the assumption of education by the State. When the State takes control, it first establishes colleges and universities, then elementary free schools. Then it adds supplementary institutions for the afflicted ; then institutions for teachers, together with libraries and other educational aids. In the meantime increasing attention is paid to supervision and methods. Schools are better graded and so the educational idea advances towards a divine charity." This, amid many vicissitudes and difficulties, we shall attempt to show, has been the line of educational progress in New Orleans.
Under the American rule it will conduce to clearness if we describe separately the public and the private institutions of learning that sprang into being in New Orleans. The history of the public institutions, moreover, falls naturally into three periods. The first, or tentative period, extends from the purchase of Louisiana down to the year 1841; the second, or period of permanent establishment, down to the civil war; and the third, or period of changing conditions and general progress, from the civil war to the end of the nineteenth century.
FIRST PERIOD.
When Louisiana passed under the American flag, it was but natural that the new government should not be satisfied with the old denominational school of the Ursulines or the newly established French institutions of the San Domingoans. Americans were already seeking their fortunes in New Orleans, and more were expected to come. Hence we are not surprised to find that, when the new American governor, W. C. C. Claiborne, was placed in office, his enlightened policy spoke out in no uncertain accents on the subject of public education. His address to the Legislative Council of 1804 contains these words: "In adverting to your primary duties, I have yet to suggest one than which none can be more important and in- teresting. I mean some general provision for the education of youth.
Permit me to hope that, under your patronage, seminaries of learning will prosper, and means of acquiring information be placed within the reach of each growing family. Let exertions be made to rear up our children in the paths of science and virtue, and impress upon their tender hearts a love of civil and religious liberty. My advice, therefore, is that your system of education be extensive and liberally supported."
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This wise suggestion of the governor resulted in a legislative act, establishing the University of Orleans. The regents thereof were to create as parts of the university, the College of New Orleans (afterwards known as the College of Or- leans), one or more academies in each parish, and a number of separate academies for the instruction of the female youth. The girls' academy never existed except on paper, and in fact the only portion of this university scheme that took on ma- terial form was the College of Orleans. While enjoying the title of college, this institution, as we shall see, soon degenerated to the grade of a secondary school, except, perhaps, in the teaching of the classics. It is not clear exactly when it opened its doors to the public, but in 1812 the honored historian of Louisiana, Charles Gayarre, was matriculated as a boarder at the age of seven. The most interesting account of the "college" is to be found in Gayarre's semi-historical novel, entitled, "Fernando de Lemos."
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