USA > Tennessee > Williamson County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc. Vol. 1 > Part 47
USA > Tennessee > Maury County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc. Vol. 1 > Part 47
USA > Tennessee > Rutherford County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc. Vol. 1 > Part 47
USA > Tennessee > Wilson County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc. Vol. 1 > Part 47
USA > Tennessee > Bedford County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc. Vol. 1 > Part 47
USA > Tennessee > Marshall County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc. Vol. 1 > Part 47
USA > Tennessee > History of Tennessee from the earliest time to the present , together with an historical and a biographical sketch of from twenty-five to thirty counties of east Tennessee, besides a valuable fund of notes, original observations, reminiscences, etc., etc. V. 1 > Part 47
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John Baxter, a judge of the Federal Circuit Court, was a native of North Carolina, where he was reared upon the farm, and enjoyed only the educational advantages of the country schools of that sparsely settled State. At the age of twenty he began the study of law, and in due time was admitted to practice. He located in western North Carolina, where he immediately rose to prominence, and was several times elected to the General Assembly. In 1856 he removed to Knoxville, where he ever after made his home. He was appointed judge of the United States Cir-
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cuit Court in 1877, and continued upon the bench until his death in 1886. "Gifted by nature with an intellect of extraordinary vigor and compre- hension, of untiring energy and diligence, he rose from the humblest and most adverse condition to commanding power and influence as an advo- cate. When he came upon the Federal bench the massive proportions of his mind, the force and sweep of his faculties developed and strengthened like the trunk of a giant oak, though the struggle of many years and the buffeting of many a storm enabled him to grapple with just confidence with the many new and difficult questions which confronted him. Law- yers soon found throughout the circuit that they had before them one who was the equal, if not the superior in many respects, of the greatest of them, and one who was determined to dispose of the cases in court with as much dispatch as possible. He elevated the tone of the bar; he put new life and energy in those who practiced before him; he infused into them something of his own spirit, and the courts in his circuit became moving and active in the performance of the functions belonging to them as organs of the Government. Business was disposed of, the rights of litigants settled promptly and with able discrimination."*
Howell E. Jackson, the successor of Judge Baxter, is a native of Paris, Tenn., born in 1832. He received his early education in the country, . after which he attended the West Tennessee College and the University of Virginia. He then read law for two years with Judges Totten and Brown, of Jackson, and finally graduated from the Lebanon Law School in 1855. From that time until 1859 he practiced the profession at Jack- son, after which removed to Memphis, where he remained until 1876. He then returned to Jackson. He took his seat in the United States Senate in 1881, where he remained until receiving his present appoint- ment. He is a man of unquestioned character and ability as a lawyer, ranking with the best in the State. He has a thoroughly judicial mind, and although he has been upon the Federal bench but a short time, he has heard two or three important cases, in all of which he has displayed conspicuous ability. .
David McKendree Key, judge of the Federal Court for the Districts of East and Middle Tennessee, was born in Greene County in 1824. He obtained his early education while laboring upon the farm, and afterward made his way through college. He came to the bar in 1853 at Chatta- nooga, where he has since resided. In 1870 he was elected chancellor of his district, which position he continued to hold until appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Andrew Johnson. Upon the formation of a cabinet by President Hayes, in 1876, he was made Postmaster-General,
*Memorial resolution adopted by the Nashville bar.
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which position he resigned in 1880, and succeeded Connolly F. Trigg as judge of the Federal District Court. As a lawyer he was distinguished for clear insight and remarkable comprehension of the facts of the case. Upon the bench he is characterized by an unerring instinct in grasp- ing the equities of the cause before him, and in presenting a sound de- cision. Although not especially active and energetic, he disposes of cases rapidly, and the docket is never allowed to become crowded.
CHAPTER XIII.
EDUCATIONAL HISTORY-THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA-THE ESTAB- LISHMENT OF ACADEMIES-PIONEER TEACHERS-EARLY COLLEGES AND UNI- VERSITIES-EDUCATIONAL ENDOWMENTS-THE FOUNDATION OF THE COUNTY SYSTEM OF ACADEMIES-PRIVATE OR TUITION SCHOOLS-COMPARISON OF IN- STRUCTIVE SYSTEMS -- CONGRESSIONAL SCHOOL LANDS-THE PAUPER SCHOOLS -RENAISSANCE OF LEARNING-THE FOUNDING OF THE COMMON SCHOOLS- CREATION OF THE PUBLIC EDUCATIONAL FUNDS-THEIR PERMANENT INVEST- MENT-DEFALCATION -- THE INFANCY OF THE COMMON SCHOOLS-THEIR IM- PROVEMENT-SPECIFIC TAXATION FOR EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT-THE PUBLIC GRADED SCHOOLS-THE CONFLICT OF THE PUBLIC AND THE PRIVATE SYS- TEMS-THE LAW OF 1867 AND ITS PRACTICAL WORKING-THE PEABODY DONA- TION-EDUCATION OF THE COLORED RACE-THE LAW OF 1870-THE STATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION-THE PRESENT COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM AND FUNDS -SCHOLASTIC TAXATION-THE SUPERINTENDENTS OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION -- STATE ACADEMIES, COLLEGES, UNIVERSITIES AND NORMAL SCHOOLS -- STA- TISTICS, ETC.
T TENNESSEE was the pioneer in the dissemination and promotion of learning in the Southwest. Considering that up to 1790 she formed a part of North Carolina, in educational matters the most backward of the States, this is a remarkable fact. From the earliest settlement of that colony down to the Revolutionary war we find many acts for the es- tablishment of an orthodox ministry and vestries; provisions for court houses, jails, stocks, prisons and pillories, and very few for the encour- agement of institutions of learning, not above ten in all. About the be- ginning of the eighteenth century when there was not a church nor more than one, if there was one, schoolhouse in the province, the efforts of Blair, aided by Bishop Compton, of London, with an offer of £20 to teachers and preachers of the province induced a few to enter the field where the harvest was ripe and the laborers few." But at the end of the colonial government literature was hardly known. There were within the whole province but two schools-those of Newbern and Edenton. t
*Address of IT. M. Doak. ¡Martin.
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Outside of the Scotch Presbyterian the great mass of the community did not possess even the rudiments of an education. The wealthier members of society, however, especially among the Scotch, must have made con- siderable advances, since even before the Revolution they were sending their sons to complete their education at Princeton.
2
The constitution adopted at Halifax December 1S, 1876, declared that. . a school or schools should be established, and "all useful learning shall be duly encouraged and promoted in one or more universities." The unsettled condition of the country, however, during the Revolutionary war, and for several years subsequent, prevented compliance, and it was not until 1789 that the act establishing the University of North Carolina was passed. It was still six years later before the university was opened to receive pupils. This college, with the possible exception of Princeton, has exerted a greater influence upon the culture and education of Tennes- see than any other foreign institution of learning. It has educated many of her most illustrious sons, among whom were James K. Polk, Aaron V. Brown, A. O. P. Nicholson and many others of scarcely less. distinction.
That the ignorance and lack of educational facilities which existed during the colonial days was not in accord with the wish of the people is manifest in the vigorous interest in educational matters which immedi- ately sprang up after the overthrow of those proprietary and royal gov- ernments which for more than a century had rested like an incubus upon all the colonies. From the formation of the Federal Union to the close of the century numerous acts establishing academies and other schools were passed by the Legislature of North Carolina, and more was done for the encouragement of learning than had been accomplished in the Jast hundred years.
In the matter of colleges and academies Virginia was somewhat more. fortunate, but with her the popular diffusion of knowledge by schools previous to the Revolution was almost unknown, although domestic in- struction among those capable of affording it was almost universal. "Every man," said Sir William Berkely, in 1671, "instructs his children according to his ability," a method which left the children of the ignor- ant in helpless ignorance .* The only Virginian school which seems to have exerted much influence upon Tennessee was Augusta Academy, which after undergoing many changes in organization and name is now known as the Washington and Lee College. At that school two of the educa- tional pioneers, Carrick and Doak, laid the foundation of their careers. The most potent of all the influences on the early education in both
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* Bancroft.
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North Carolina and Tennessee was the college of New Jersey at Prince- ton, from which graduated Doak, Balch, Craighead and many other eminent educators and divines.
The first school established in Tennessee, and, it is believed, the first west of the Alleghany Mountains, was Martin Academy, founded under an act "for the promotion of learning in the county of Washington," passed by the General Assembly of North Carolina in 1785. Rev. Sam- uel Doak, mentioned above as the graduate of Princeton College, or as it was then known Nassau Hall, was the founder and first president. He was a member of the Franklin Assembly, and, it is said, was the author of the clause concerning education in the rejected constitution. * He was a man of great ability and force of character and of great learning, especially in the classics. His schoolhouse, a plain log building erected on his farm, stood a little west of the site afterward selected for Wash- ington Academy. For many years it was the only, and for still more the principal, seat of classical education for the western country.+
During the same year but at the next session of the General Assem- bly, through the influence of Gen. Robertson, "an act for the promotion of learning in Davidson County " was passed. Rev. Thomas Craighead, Hugh Williamson, Daniel Smith, William Polk, Anthony Bledsoe, Lard- ner Clarke, Ephraim McLean, Robert Hays and James Robertson were appointed trustees and constituted a body politic under the name of the " President and Trustees of Davidson Academy." Two hundred and forty acres of land adjoining the town of Nashville, on the Cumberland River, were granted by this act, which also encouraged private "bequests, gifts and purchases." It was further provided that all the "lands, tene- ments or hereditaments " vested in the trustees of the academy should be - exempt from taxation for a period of ninety-nine years.
At the first meeting of the trustees, which was held in August, 1786, Rev. Thomas Craighead was elected president, and at the next meeting it was decided that the school should be taught at " Spring Hill Meeting House," in the town of Haysborough, six miles east of Nashville. It was also ordered " that five pounds hard money, or the value thereof in other money, be paid for each scholar per annum." The lands belonging to the institution for a number of years were rented out, and the proceeds
*The clause referred to is as follows :
SEC. 22. All kinds of useful learning shall be encouraged by the commonwealth, that is to say, the future Legislature shall erect before the year seventeen hundred and eighty-seven, one university, which shall be near the center of the State, and not in any city or town. Aud for endowing the same, there shall be appropriated such lands as may be judged necessary, ove-fourth of all the moneys arising from the surveys of land hereafter to be made, one half-penny upon every pound of inspected tobacco, forever ; and if the fund thence arising shall be found insufficient, the Legislature shall provide for such additions as may be necessary. and if experience shall make it appear to be useful to the interest of learning in this State, a grammar school shall be erected in each county, and such suis paid by the public as shall enable the trustees to employ a master or masters of approved morals and abilities.
¿Ramsey.
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· used in their improvement and in support of the academy. A ferry was established, which in time yielded an income of from $100 to $650 per annum.
One of the acts passed by the Legislature of the new State in April, 1796, added ten new trustees to the old board, and also appointed three persons to audit the accounts of the old trustees, with directions to insti- tute suit against the latter if they failed to comply with the law. The act provided further that the buildings of the academy should be erected "on the most convenient situation on the hill immediately above Nash- ville, and near the road leading to Buchanan's Mill." This act was not altogether satisfactory to the old board, and they refused to receive the new trustees and auditors; but the difficulty was settled after some delay, and they were finally admitted. Although some steps were taken toward the erection of a building as provided in the act, it was nearly ten years before it was completed. On October 25, 1803, an act was passed reor- ganizing the institution, and constituting it a college. Eighteen trus- tees, of whom Thomas Craighead was the first mentioned, were constitut- ed " a body politic and corporate by the name of the Trustees of David- son College." This act was repealed, however, on the 4th of the fol- lowing March, and thus ended the existence of Davidson College.
At the session of the Territorial Assembly of 1794 two new colleges, Blount and Greeneville, were chartered. The bill incorporating the former institution was introduced on the 4th of September, by William Cocke, of Hawkins County, and on the 10th of the same month it be- came a law. The act begins as follows:
WHEREAS, The Legislature of this Territory are disposed to promote the happiness of the people at large, and especially of the rising generation, by instituting seminaries of education, where youth may be habituated to an amiable, moral and virtuous conduct, and accurately instructed in the various branches of useful science, and in the principles of ancient and modern languages; therefore
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Governor. Legislative Council and House of Repre- sentatives of the Territory of the United States of America, south of the River Ohio, That the Rev. Samuel Carrick, president, and his Excellency, William Blount, the Hon. Dan- iel Smith, secretary of the Territory, the Hon. David Campbell, the Hon. Joseph Ander- son, Gen. John Sevier, Col. James White, Col. Alexander Kelley, Col. William Cocke, Willie Blount, Joseph Hamilton, Archibald Roane, Francis A. Ramsey, Charles McClung, George Roulstone, George McNutt, John Adair and Robert Houston, Esquires, shall be, and they are hereby declared to be a body politic and corporate by the name of the presi- dent and trustees of Blount College, in the vicinity of Knoxville.
The college was declared opened to all denominations in the following words:
And the trustees shall take effectual care that students of all denominations may and shall be admitted to the equal advantages of a liberal education, and to the emoluments and honors of the college, and that they shall receive a like fair, generous and equal treatment during their residence.
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This was the first non-sectarian college chartered in the United States. Col. James White donated the town square to the trustees for the use of the college, and a two-story frame building was erected by 'subscription near the northwest corner of the square .*
Rev. Samuel Carrick, the president, was a native of Pennsylvania. He removed in early life to Virginia, where he received his education and labored for many years. In 1787 he came to Tennessee and preached from the artificial mound, near the confluence of the Holston and French Broad Rivers. The next year he returned, and henceforth. encountered all the hardships and dangers of pioneer life.
No authentic records of the first five years of the college exercises are in existence, but, according to tradition, great and general interest was taken in the institution, especially on examination occasions. The written records of the college begin with the year 1804. Among the students at that time were C. C. Clay, William Carter, Thomas Cocke, Lemuel P. Montgomery and William E. Parker. The last named grad- uated on the 18th of October, 1806, the first student to graduate from the college. Females were admitted to the college at this time. The first named are those of Polly McClung, Barbara, Blount, Jenny Arm- strong, Matty and Kitty Kain. As originally organized the college was dependent for its support solely upon the patronage of the public.
Greeneville College was founded by Hezekiah Balch, a native of Maryland, but reared from early childhood in Mechlenburg County, N. C. He graduated at Princeton College and soon after located in Greene County, where he served as a co-laborer in the church with Dr. Doak, of the adjoining county of Washington. But during nearly his entire life in the State he was harrassed by trials before presbyteries, synods and the general conference for some alleged heresies in the doctrines which he preached. So much of his time and money were spent in attendance upon these trials that his school was seriously injured, yet he patiently labored on until his death.
The first female academy in the State was founded by Moses Fisk, at / Hilham, in Overton County, and was known as Fisk's Female Academy. It was chartered in 1806, and, according to the terms of the charter, Moses Fisk and Sampson Williams were to contribute 1,000 acres of land each toward the endowment of the institution. Fisk was a native of Massachusetts, a graduate of Harvard College and a man of great learning and of singular genius.
In 1806 Congress passed an act of great importance to the educa- tional interests of Tennessee. It was entitled "an act to authorize the
*For the sketch of Blount College and the University of Tennessee this chapter is indebted to the address of Col. Mose White, delivered in 1879.
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State of Tennessee to issue grants and perfect titles to certain lands therein described; and to settle the claims to the vacant and unappropri- ated lands within the same." This act provided "that the State of Ten- nessee shall appropriate one hundred thousand acres, which shall be lo- cated in one entire tract, within the limits of the lands reserved to the Cherokee Indians by an act of the State of North Carolina entitled 'An act for opening the land office for the. redemption of specie and other certificates, and discharging the arrears due to the army,' passed in the year one thousand, seven hundred and eighty-three, and shall be for the use of two colleges, one in East and one in West Tennesee, to be estab- lished by the Legislature thereof. And one hundred thousand acres in one tract within the limits last aforesaid for the use of academies, one in each county in said State to be established by the Legislature thereof; which said several tracts shall be located on lands to which the Indian title has been extinguished, and subject to the disposition of the Legisla- ture of the State; but shall not be granted nor sold for less than two dollars per acre, and the proceeds of the sales of the lands aforesaid shall be vested in funds for the respective uses aforesaid forever, and the State of Tennessee shall, moreover, in issuing grants and perfecting titles, Jocate six hundred and forty acres to every six miles square in the territory hereby ceded, where existing claims will allow the same, which shall be appropriated for the use of schools for the instruction of children forever."
The General Assembly, at the next session after the passage of this act, was flooded with memorials and petitions from the people of several counties, and from the president and trustees of cach of the colleges in East Tennessee, praying for the grant and setting forth the advantages of their particular localities for the establishment of the college. Greene- ville College urged the numerous advantages peculiar to that institution, "its local situation, extensive library, philosophical apparatus, ample funds and other circumstances." A resolution was received from the trustees of Blount College, expressing a willingness to unite their funds with those of the college to be established, provided it should be situated within two miles of Knoxville. The people of Blount County wished the college located at Marysville, while Hawkins County recommended Rog- erville. The question of locating the college, however, was not settled until the next session of the Legislature, when thirty persons were appointed trustees of East Tennessee College, "to be located on ten acres of land within two miles of Knoxville, conveyed in trust for the use of said college by Moses White at a place called the Rocky or Poplar Spring." The trustees, with the exception of seven, were apportioned
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among the several counties of East Tenessee according to their popula- tion. The seven trustees were selected from among men living in the vicinity of the college that they might have a more direct oversight of the institution. The following were the trustees appointed: For Hawkins County, Richard Mitchell and Andrew Galbreathy; Sullivan, John Rhea and James King; Greene, Augustus P. Fore and John Gass; Washing- ton, Mathew Stephenson and John Kennedy; Carter, George Duffield; Jefferson, James Rice and Joseph Hamilton; Grainger, John Cocke and Maj. Lea; Cocke, Alexander Smith; Sevier, Hopkins Lacy; Blount, Jo- seph B. Lapsly and Dr. Robert Gant; Claiborne, William Graham; Anderson, Arthur Crozier; Roane, Thomas I. Vandyke; Knox, George W. Campbell, John Sevier and Thomas Emmerson. John Crozier, John Williams, Archibald Roane, Francis A. Ramsey, David Deaderick, George Doherty and John Lowry were appointed as the special trustees. Until buildings could be erected the trustees were authorized to use the buildings of Blount College, and the funds of that institution were declared incorporated with those of East Tennessee College.
In 1806, after the passage by Congress of the act already referred to, the trustees of Davidson Academy petitioned the General Assembly for the endowment provided for in that act, and the academy being the only institution of the kind in West Tennessee* the petition was granted, and a body of nineteen trustees was incorporated under the name of the "Trustees of Cumberland College." All the property, both personal and real, belonging to Davidson Academy was transferred to the college. At a meeting of the board of trustees held in July, 1807, it was decided to open the college for the reception of students on the 1st of the next Sep- 'tember, and books and apparatus to the amount of $1,000 were pur- chased. Rev. Thomas Craighead was continued as president of the institution until October 24, 1809, when Dr. James Priestly was elected. The former continued one of the trustees till the autumn of 1813, when his connection with the college finally ceased.
The management of the endowment fund proved to be a source of con- siderable difficulty. Various acts were passed providing for its invest- ment, none of which proved satisfactory in its results. In 1807 John Russell, James Park, Josiah Nichol, Edward Douglass, John Overton and William Tate were appointed commissioners to manage the fund, and were authorized "to purchase stock in some reputable bank in the United States, and to pay over the dividends arising from the same to the col- leges." Two years later Thomas McCorry, John Crozier and Thomas Emmerson were appointed to loan out the money in the treasury belong-
*What is now Middle Tennessee was then called West Tennessee.
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ing to the college. In 1813 an act was passed requiring all moneys col- lected for the use of Cumberland College to be turned over to the trus- tees of that institution, and by them to be invested either in Nashville bank stock or stock of the Bank of the State of Tennessee. The treasurer of East Tennessee was required to invest the money belonging to East Tennessee College in the same way. All the moneys loaned out to in- dividuals were called in.
In 1806 the General Assembly, in compliance with the act of Con- gress, made provisions for county academies, and appointed five trustees for each county. These trustees were empowered "to fix upon and pur- chase a site, and to take and receive subscriptions for the same." As the amount of funds available for each county was quite small, it was neces- sary that the people provide the buildings, and, also, in a great measure support the schools by subscriptions and donations. It was, conse- quently, several years before academies were established in all of the counties.
Thus it is seen that after more than thirty years of dependent, and twenty years of independent, State government, no legislative action had been taken for the support and encouragement of common schools in Ten- nessee. Acts and grants for the benefit of academies and higher institu- tions of learning are numerous, but the idea of a system of popular edu- cation maintained at public expense does not seem to have entered the minds of legislators. In this may be found one of the most striking con- trasts between Virginia, North Carolina and other Southern colonies and those of New England-a contrast which is yet apparent. So early as 1637. in all of the Puritan colonies it was ordered: "To the end that learning may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers, that every township after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty house- holders, shall appoint one to teach all children to write and read, and when any town shall be increased to the number of one hundred families, they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to in- struct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university." The estab- lishment of Harvard College followed soon after.
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