USA > Tennessee > History of Tennessee the making of a state > Part 18
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to him. His God was a personal God, a being of infinite wisdom but also of infinite vengeance against him who had been ealled and who had not hearkened. The catholicity of his tolerance embraced all churches but the Roman Catholic. To him the eross was the emblem of Popish blasphemy, of the iniquity which masked as religion, as that religion that forbade the reading of the book of life, and encouraged the idolatrons worship of graven images. He regarded Wesley as the greatest instrument the Lord had raised up for the work of salvation. The Methodist Church offered him the safest and the fairest road to eternal grace. This could indeed be attained through other Protestant denominations, but with less assurance to the sinner and with less of the divine dispen- sation of spiritual light and life. He was a striet ob- server of the austerities of life. He preferred coarse fare, he would wear nothing but the plainest habiliments. This came from the ideas of what both he and his spiritual charges thought required by the censure of the ordinary frailties and vanities of human existence. He trusted in Providence for both food and raiment. and this was made manifest by the gifts from members of his congregation. His yearly stipend was rarely more than eighty or one hundred dollars. If no other method was found, the in- fluential members of the church gave a festival, the pro- ceeds of which were devoted to buying him the necessaries of life. His manners were not polished, but they were far from rude. They were simple and sineere, and were filled with a deep sympathy that warmed the hearts of his associates. He was plain of speech, however, though if he wounded the vanity of his hearers he never wounded their sensibilities. These were his chief limitations. He was narrow, seetional, and bigoted, unpolished, beyond the grasp of any but Christian fellowship, taking a hard, austere, and almost terrible view of the world as it is, having real sympathy alone with the world as it should
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be or as he would make it. Religion to him was the goal of existence ; all other interests were greater or less temp- tations that drew away from the path to that goal.
But his virtues were great. Even his imperfections were such as appeal to the purest impulses of every heart. The religious, or more accurately the emotional zeal which has shed the blood and destroyed the empires of so many generations of the human race, in him was purified, tem- pered, and in a manner brought into harmony with the spirit of a more liberal civilization. His determination was the determination of the fanatic, but it was directed towards construction, not destruction. His was the work of saving souls, not the work of preventing others from having them damned. He had a clear conception of what he was called on to perform, and the frantic zeal which brought Latimer to the stake, and the undying faith which sustained him when there, were not deeper or more unwavering than the zeal and the faith which sustained the circuit rider in his labors in the wilder- ness. It is not a figure of speech to say that his path was beset with death, and that for months at a time the penances of a Trappist monastery were but as Inxuries compared to the daily trials of hunger and thirst and sleeplessness which fell to his lot. He would ride for days at a time, through any inclemency of weather, through any degree of heat or eold, to keep an appoint- ment to preach the Word to those who hungered for the Lord. The last rain perhaps had swept a bridge away. A tribe of hostile Indians were prowling through the forests which he would have to penetrate. A heavy fall of snow had obscured the trail that led through the intri- cacies of a swamp. It was doubtful if he could procure food for man or beast for days, and it was vain to try to carry a sufficient supply. It was impossible to procure a guide across " the Forks" of some range of hills, thickly covered with ravines and with dangerous defiles. Starva-
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tion and all the forms of death lay thiek around and before him. The stoutest heart might have quailed, the most unflinching sense of duty might have wavered. The rational mind might have justly demanded a greater degree of equality between the magnitude of the thing to be accomplished and the difficulties and dangers attend- ing its accomplishment. All of these things gave him not a moment's pause. Herein was manifest the grandeur of the circuit rider's character. His mind was not the mind of a rational man, as we estimate rationality. Ilis pro- fession of faith and his wish for salvation were sincere to the full extent of their importance, as he estimated it. Religion was a real and a tangible thing to him. The simple, unhesitating sincerity of his faith was grand, it was wonderful, it was sublime. The manifestations of a spiritual world around him were as the fluttering of doves about a cote. Traveling through the forest, his eye would fall upon a tree stricken, scarred, and blasted by lightning. The Spirit of the Lord would speak to him. reminding him of his unworthiness and pointing to the tree as a token and a sign. Straightway he would alight, and, kneeling with uncovered head, he would pour out his heart in the most abject terms of humility and the most exquisite expressions of humble and child-like dependence and love. He himself was an instrument of the Lord, not figuratively, but in absolute literalism. As a rule, the Lord had called him, and he had at first refused to heed. Finally, after many spiritual conflicts in many particulars, not unlike those of Mahomet when yet a driver of camels, he had obeyed. At once the light had come to him, the shadows had been lifted, peace and a flood of rapturous emotion had filled his heart, and he was prepared to wrestle with the Lord for the salvation of souls. His was a sacred function, and the least duty of his mission was of importance in his eyes. And all the dangers of physical pain and even death were but of small moment to one who
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could see with rapture-lit eyes a world of eternal happi- ness open before him, a world full of strange and beanti- ful sights and the ealm peace of eternity, a world in which there would be only perfect happiness found chiefly in the singing of endless psalms of praise to the great and infi- nite Jehovah, and with crown of gold and harp in hand mingling in the glittering ranks of seraphim that sur- round his central throne, the earnest of the divine pleas- ure in his accomplished work ringing in his ears and echoing in the words that had greeted his entrance through the uplifted gates of gold, " Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
And it must not be supposed that he recognized in this the Christian mythology with which Milton, as with sun- lit and gorgeous elouds, has obscured the tranquil heavens of the religion which the God of Israel gives the faithful who believe in Him. On the contrary, he believed these things as an integral part of his religion, and though he knew the Bible from lid to lid, he would not have hesi- tated, if questioned for the proof of this faith, to refer to that. This was the character of the circuit rider. Is it wonderful that he should have accomplished great results? The Jesuit type, waiving a discussion of the moral aims of the two orders, may have been finer, more coherently organized, broader in scope, having a more self-conscious end to attain ; it may have been a more delicately adjusted instrument for the achievement of a more complex object. The early Methodist Conference itself was of coarser grain than the Order of Jesus. But this was the utmost and all. The circuit rider in all things else was adapted to the object and end of his mission in a degree of equal excel- lence. He merged the individual completely in the work, he lost all sense of personal interest in the craving to advance the interests of others. He was willing to meet death for the attainment of the smallest of the tasks set before him. He was willing to forego all personal com-
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fort as a part of the daily life of which hunger and thirst were incidents. Luxury he had never known or seen. When his work was with the wild, the desperate, the hardy, and the dangerous, he went among them without a moment of hesitation, without a quiver of fear. He led a life of solitary self-communion, of mental solitude. He volun- tarily resigned all the things which make the sum and the substance of the world's happiness, - the peace and com- forts of home, the house filled with love and laughter and the prattle of childish lips, the settled mode of life, the am- bition of self-advancement. And he did this without an effort of self-abnegation, without oaths, adjurations, and vows of celibacy, without any of the up-bolstering that comes from a feeling of human fellowship even in a color- less and a cheerless cause. To the circuit rider, this was a matter of course. Without probation, without any aid beyond that of his own spiritual exaltation, he stepped at once into a mental atmosphere of cold and solitary eleva- tion and created a new life in the new world, apart from the new world activity around him, not for his own worldly good or the gratification of his ambition, but that good might come to others.
As the church increased in numbers and influence, the pioneer of religion, the one who had hewn for it a way through the primeval forests, either pushed forward with the advance line of civilization or yielded to the mellow- ing influence of a more genial state of society. As vil- lages developed into towns with souls enough to repay an exclusive charge, the saddle-bags and the saddle were ex- changed for a settled habitation. Sometimes he married, and from the first marriage had practically destroyed his usefulness as an itinerant. He is now familiar to us only in tradition. The discipline of conference assignments of duty, which carry with them change of habitation, still suggests his noble activity in the early days of Tennessee history.
CHAPTER XXIV.
SCHOOLS.
THE history of the common schools is, in the main. the history of public lands in Tennessee, and the history of public lands in this State is the history of confusion. This confusion, which is much too intricate to unravel in a short space, originated in the Act of Cession, and more than three hundred acts have been passed upon subjects growing out of the relation between the public schools and the school lands of the State.
The first school in Tennessee. in fact " the first literary institution established in the great Mississippi Valley."1 was founded by Samuel Doak. In 1788 the legislature of North Carolina incorporated this under the name of the Martin Academy, Doak being president. In 1795 Martin Academy became " Washington College at Salem, Washington County," Doak still remaining as president. a position which he held until 1818. when he resigned in favor of his son. Doak has been described by one who knew him as a " a rigid opposer of innovation in religious tenets, very old school in all his notions and actions ; un- compromising in his love of the truth and his hostility to error or heresy ; a John Knox in his character, fearless, firm, nearly dogmatical and intolerant, but no one has been more useful to church or state." Doak was thor- oughly identified with the earlier history of Tennessee, having been a member of the "State of Franklin " Con-
1 Monette.
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vention. He was also a soldier of the Revolution. He was peculiarly adapted to his environments, and his influ- ence was felt throughout the State. He turned the minds of the hardy mountaineers towards intellectual improve- ment, and the thoroughness of his methods gave a bent to the school system in the eastern part of the State which it retains to this day.
In 1785 Davidson Academy was established in David- son County by the legislature of North Carolina. How- ever, but little is known of its first development beyond the fact that the State made a valuable donation of lands near Nashville to encourage its founders. In 1803 the General Assembly appointed Thomas B. Craighead, James Robertson, Daniel Smith, Andrew Jackson, and others trustees of a college "proposed" to be built on this tract of land, to be called Davidson College. Craighead was elected president. In 1794 Blount College was founded near Knoxville, of which the " liberal, tolerant, and refined " Samuel Carrick was president, and in the same year Greene College at Greeneville was established by Hezekiah Baleh, who was the first president.
It is worthy of remark that the first four prominent educators of Tennessee, Doak, Craighead, Carrick, and Balch, were all of Scotch-Irish deseent, and members of the same presbytery. The Bible and the school-book were borne together across the Alleghanies by men in whose veins flowed the blood which had withistood the oppression of three centuries.
An act of Congress of 1806 may be said to have set the common-school system on its feet. The four colleges then in existence and a few private schools here and there 1 had till then supplied the absolute requirements of the people for rudimentary instruction. But the State was unable to give assistance. In 1801 the State Senate, in
1 James Menees had opened a private school at French Lick during the eighties.
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answer to a petition of the University of North Carolina, adopted a resolution in which it says : " Tennessee, in her present condition and infant state has not arrived at the period when her revenues will even authorize a loan to patronize the seminaries of learning already established within the limits of her own State." - By the act of 1806 Congress set aside one hundred thousand acres of public land in one tract for the use of academies in Tennessee, one in each county. Six hundred and forty acres were required to be located for every six miles square in the territory ceded to the State of Tennessee, to be appropri- ated to the use of schools for the instruction of children forever. The same act appropriated another tract of one hundred thousand acres, the proceeds of which were to be applied to the support of two colleges, one in East and one in West Tennessee. In East Tennessee, Blount College was united with the new college. In West Tennessee, Davidson College was consolidated with the one about to be established there, and Cumberland College was the result. Academies were established in twenty-seven coun- ties.1 This congressional grant of lands was entered by occupants, and act after act was passed granting relief to them and laying off other lands for the use of the schools. Each new accession of territory from the Indians was at once drawn into the maelstrom of confusion.2
The advantages to the State which would flow from a thorough system of publie instruction were fully appre- ciated from the first, and the messages of all the govern- ors are filled with suggestions looking to their upbuilding and improvement. The first definite plan attempted was
County courts at the first or second by the act of 1829.
1 Only one female academy appears to have been founded - Fisk's Female Academy at Hilham, in Overton County.
" Those who wish to investigate this complex episode in state his- tory are referred to the Journals of the House and Senate from 1817 to 1833. It is curious and interesting. See especially the report signed by James K. Polk, November 27, 1824, House Journal.
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term after January 1, 1830, were to appoint commission- ers to meet at regimental musters on the third Saturday in April, 1830, to divide regiments into school districts and make registers of names of heads of families. The justice of the peace was then to give notice and hold an election of five trustees, who were to organize themselves into a board. the chairmen of which were to meet at the court-house on the first Saturday in June to choose com- missioners for the county. This bill gave existence to the common-school system of Tennessee, and this is the germ from which the present organization has grown.
In 1837 a report to the General Assembly throws a striking light upon the condition of the public schools at that time. "The subject of education has never yet re- ceived in Tennessee that attention which it so vitally merits. Appropriations, it is true, have been made to the support of the common schools, but the system adopted under that name has heretofore proved inefficient and by no means equal to the expectations of those who first established it. While this has been the case in the com- mon-school system, a prejudice has prevailed against the higher institutions of learning, academies and colleges, neither of which has consequently ever received much from the munificence of the State." This report takes strong grounds against entirely free schools, advocating partial self-taxation. A great drawback to the improve- ment of the public schools was the lack of any proper head. The superintendent was merely an agent to look after the school funds, and there was no unity of action or spirit among the schools themselves. The fund itself was a prey to the vicious and the unprincipled. " It has been," says a report in 1839, "time after time plundered by a thousand hands." In some cases. sheriffs who collected school funds failed or refused to pay them over. Robert H. McEwen had been elected to the recently created office of superintendent of public schools in 1836 and reelected
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in 1838. He loaned large sums of the school money to private individuals, particularly one John Scott, with whom he was connected in business. MeEwen was sued and a receiver appointed, but heavy losses ensued. Mc- Ewen was succeeded in 1840 by R. P. Currin, who gave way in 1843 to Scott Terry. The constitution of 1834 provided that the common-school fund should be " a per- petual fund, the principal of which should never be dimin- ished by legislative appropriations." It was this wise provision which has kept alive, even under the most un- favorable circumstances, the vital spark of public instruc- tion. The establishment of the bank of 1838, one object of which was to increase the public-school fund, but par- tially accomplished its purpose. The act itself was passed by a combination of the friends of internal improvement and common schools, but was earnestly opposed as inex- pedient by Neil S. Brown, who took an active and leading part in the discussion of all measures affecting the welfare of the public schools. On the 19th of February, 1836, an act was passed making it the duty of the superintend- ent of public instruction to prepare plans for the im- provement and organization of common schools. Under this act some changes of minor importance were made in the organization of the schools, and the first scholastic year began in July, 1838.
In 1845 was passed a measure which manifested for the first time a correct understanding of the true principle of common education. This was the introduction of the feature of self-taxation for the support of common schools. The State was divided into districts, each district was to levy or not levy a tax by the vote of all qualified voters, and the secretary of state was to pay each district an amount equal to that raised by itself. Two years later, Governor Neil S. Brown recommended that county courts be allowed to levy a tax on the whole county. Speaking of the previous attempts to establish common schools, he
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says in the same message: "Yet this effort for popular education has slumbered and languished and pined, and exists now rather as a memento of the past than as a liv- ing system for future growth and expansion." One great good accomplished by the unceasing agitation of this question before the war was the gradual strengthening and spreading of the appreciation and estimate of the advantages to be derived by the people from a public- school system. In 1848 a long step forward was taken in the establishment of common schools in the city of Nashville, according to plans proposed by J. H. Ingraham. This was also an additional factor in the process of devel- opment by which Nashville has become the educational centre of the Southwest.
More than to any other one eause the credit for this is due to Dr. Philip Lindsley. Cumberland College, incor- porated in 1806, opened its doors in 1809, with James Priestly as president. In 1816 it was elosed for want of funds and Priestly resigned. The original grant of 50,000 acres had been unavailable. Congress had directed that it be laid off in one body and not sold for less than two dollars an acre. But the legislature of Tennessee located the grant in detached parcels in the region of country south of French Broad and Holston rivers, and sold it on credit for one dollar an acre. Even of this, but a small part was eventually received. In 1837-38 the General Assembly allowed the University of Nash- ville 11,520 acres in the Ocoee district, which had just been acquired from the Indians, in lieu of all claims against the State for principal and interest. In this way the sum of 840,000 was realized. But this was long after Priestly's resignation. In 1820 an attempt was made to reopen the college, but Priestly's death in 1821 frustrated it. In 1822, and again in 1823, Philip Lind-ley of New Jersey was offered the presidency but declined.
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In May, 1824, it was again offered him and this time he accepted. In 1825 Cumberland College became the University of Nashville. Lindsley had been thoroughly trained at Northern universities, especially Princeton. The motive which actuated him in leaving an established career in the North for the troubles and trials of a small, thinly-settled community was undoubtedly noble and high- minded. It was his ambition to build up a great South- western rival to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. In his Baccalaureate Address, entitled, "The Cause of Education in Tennessee," delivered at the first commencement in 1826, he unfolded his plan. Lack of means alone pre- vented its consummation. He undoubtedly raised high the standard of pedagogie excellence. He ennobled teach- ing as a profession. He liberalized the tone of the entire Southwest, and his influence was strong and widespread. Up to 1848, 398 regular graduates and 1.500 undergrad- uates had gone out from Cumberland College and the University of Nashville. It was remarked that at one time there were twenty-eight members of the United States House of Representatives who had graduated at that institution.
The present is the child of the past, and the imperfec- tions of the earlier period have come down and been per- petuated. The condition of the mass of the people as regards education in Tennessee is mortifying and even disgraceful. The losses entailed by the war and the bur- dens of general and local taxation have been but a bare justification. But the highest duty which a community owes its children, higher than every duty not the result of moral obligation, is the rudiments of an education, The time has come for Tennessee to readapt itself to the progressive spirit of the age, and offer those who are within its limits the advantages without which civilization itself is but a state of more galling bondage. The fact that
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our resources are insufficient does not lessen the weight of the obligation. The greatest, the gravest duty which now impends is that of teaching Tennessee children, all of them, irrespective of age or color, the simple art of the alphabet and the multiplication table.
CHAPTER XXV.
SEVIER TO CARROLL.
THE election of John Sevier to the governorship was practically without opposition. In fact, political contests as we now know them were of more recent development. There were no local issues involving interests within the State upon which men could align themselves, and in na- tional polities all were Jeffersonians or Republicans. The certainty of Tennessee casting its electoral vote for Jeffer- son caused the bulk of the opposition to its admission, and, in fact, Adams was only elected by a majority of three votes. The term Federalist had not yet become a by-word and a reproach. The nucleus for a division upon national questions existed. Such men as John Overton and John Haywood, men of thought and patriotism, were attraeted by the ingenious speculations and were impressed by the brilliant services of Alexander Hamilton. The Tipton party was still sullen, still sore, and still alive. The unsettled negotiations involving the navigation of the Mississippi River left the whole Southwest a smoulder- ing fire. But the Excise law of 1791, which aroused the fierce opposition of innkeepers and distillers scattered throughout the valleys of East Tennessee, and who were the bulk of the Tipton faction, retarded the feeble begin- nings of organized opposition to Sevier and to Jefferson. The storm which followed the Alien and Sedition laws of 1798 swept the last remnants of federalism from Tennes- see, and the purchase of Louisiana by Jefferson obliter- ated its traces. The Whigs, the next anti-Democratic
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