University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER X

THE FOUNDATION OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL
SYSTEM IN VIRGINIA

There is no public enterprise in Virginia which is closer to
the homes or to the hearts of her people than the state-wide
public free school system. Yet it is comparatively modern,
and was adopted by the State with no small degree of misgiving
on the part of many of her citizens. The idea, however,
was not new to the people, and several attempts were made
by the Commonwealth before 1860 to introduce the system.
The Virginia Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge,
which was submitted to the legislature on June 18, 1779,
was "the first American proposal for a modern state school
system."[1] This bill was drawn up by Jefferson, when he
met Wythe and Pendleton in Williamsburg, in 1779, to revise
the laws of Virginia.

It provided for the division of each county into school
wards. In each ward, the citizens should meet and build a
school house at a point convenient to all. Here their children
would come to be taught without having to pay tuition. The
State should be divided into larger districts, each with an
academy (or high school) supported jointly by the counties
of that district. The most promising boy of each elementary
school should have his expenses paid at the nearest academy,
and twenty of the brightest youths throughout the State
should be sent to William and Mary, which should be made
a university and the head of the whole public school system.

The bill was received with enthusiasm; but lack of funds
during and immediately following the Revolution delayed
action thereon until 1796. At this time the bill was passed;
but a feature was introduced which made it inoperative from
the beginning. The legislature "left it to the court of each
county to determine for itself, when the act should be carried
into execution, within their county." The court was made up
of the justices of the county. Since it was provided that the
expenses of these schools should be borne by the inhabitants
of the county, everyone in proportion to his general tax rate,
the justices, who were generally of the more wealthy class,
which paid most of the taxes, were unwilling to assume the
burden of educating other people's children. But public
opinion would have forced the hands of the justices had there
not been other and more potent obstacles in the way. The
plantation system tended to make each planter's home a self-sustaining
community. This economic self-reliance produced
a corresponding political self-reliance. Aside from its function
of protecting the people and their property, the state
government touched the lives of the people along very few
lines until about the beginning of the twentieth century. The
difficulty of bringing children together in thinly settled districts,
in which the roads were almost impassable in winter,
was alone sufficient to prevent a proper system of public
schools. There was no means of bringing together for common
action the various elements in the community. Private
schools, many of which were already established, complicated
the problem. Finally, sectional and political differences and
friction hindered effective legislation along this and other
lines. Some of these obstacles remained even after Virginia
became more thickly settled; and they impede progress even
today.

By act of February 2, 1810, Virginia created a Literary
Fund for the promotion of learning.[2] In 1811 the General

Assembly set aside the income from the fund to provide
schools for the poor throughout the State. The next year after
its creation, a board was created to invest the income of the
fund and to superintend the expenditure of the interest as
directed by the General Assembly. The first appropriation
from the interest of the fund was made in 1818. Forty-five
thousand dollars was to be given annually to elementary
education and $15,000 to the University of Virginia, which
was to be created. The latter appropriation remained the
same until 1861. As the revenues from funds increased, however,
the appropriation for schools increased. The Constitution
of 1851 was the first to recognize free schools. It provided
for the application of one-half of the capitation taxes collected
by the State to primary and free schools. Two years later, all
the capitation taxes were given for this purpose.

While the Literary Fund was developing in size and usefulness,
attempts were made to strengthen the free school
system. In 1817, Charles F. Mercer brought forward in the
legislature a General Education Bill, which provided for a
board of public instruction, and for the division of the State
into townships, with trustees elected by the county courts.
All white children should have free tuition. The bill was
passed by a good majority in the lower house, but the vote
tied in the upper house, and the speaker cast his vote in the
negative. Had this bill become a law, the State would have
had a good basis upon which to develop a real free school
system. Instead of this, the law enacted in 1818 provided
for a system of schools for the poor. An act of 1829 removed
the distinction between rich and poor, but it made the adoption
optional with the counties. It also left to the discretion of
each county the tax rate to support the schools. Furthermore,
the system was not suited to a sparsely settled region. It was

a failure. It was at this time that the Second Auditor was
made "superintendent" of the Literary Fund, and was given
general supervision of the school system.

In 1840, the Federal census for the first time recorded
the number of illiterates. It revealed 58,732 men and women
in Virginia (including what is now West Virginia) who could
not read and write. Dr. Henry Ruffner placed the number
at 75,000 to 100,000. A citizen of the State, living at that
time, wrote that "the discovery of so appalling and melancholy
a fact awakened universal astonishment and alarm.
Public meetings were held; patriotic addresses delivered;
educational conventions called; and educational associations
formed. Successive governors, particularly Governor
McDowell, repeatedly and eloquently invoked the attention of
the legislature to the subject; distinguished members in both
houses of that body evinced a laudable zeal in the cause;
the public press lent all its power to further their efforts,
wisely merging all party distinctions in a united advocacy
of the common interest; and, thus, many hopeful manifestations
were exhibited throughout the State, of the immediate
adoption of some general and efficient system of popular
instruction."[3] Among the more noted educational bodies
which might be mentioned were the Richmond Educational
Convention of December 9 and 10, 1845, presided over by
Governor James McDowell, at which there were 200 delegates,
and the Lexington Convention of 1841, at which Henry
Ruffner, father of William H. Ruffner, presented his scheme
for a public school system, which may have been the foundation
of our present school system. This agitation resulted
in the law of 1846 which provided for primary free
schools. The system, however, was not state-wide. Its establishment
in each county required the assent of two-thirds of

the voters. Three counties were by special enactment permitted
to introduce schools by consent of a majority of the
electors. The schools in general were supported by the
respective counties which adopted the system, and were aided
by the income from the Literary Fund.

The income from the Literary Fund was distributed to
the counties according to the population. It was used for
the most part for the instruction of indigent children. The
entire control of its expenditure in the counties was placed
in the hands of local commissioners. These commissioners
were chosen by the justices of the peace who formed the
county court in each county. Each large community had its
commissioner, whose duty it was to locate the indigent children
and provide them with a teacher. If no teacher could
be found to teach them in a separate school, he would make
an agreement with a teacher of a pay school to instruct these
students for a small sum to be appropriated from the funds
in the hands of the commissioner.

There were many reasons why the system did not work.
Sometimes the commissioners neglected their duty. It was
difficult to secure suitable teachers with the meager salaries
which were offered for the work; but the greatest obstacle
to the "pauper system," as it was called, was that people
did not like to be put into a separate class as "poor." We
may agree with an early governor of Georgia that, "Poverty,
though a great inconvenience, is no crime." But it was asking
too much of human nature to expect the self reliant and self
respecting farmer or laborer who could not afford to employ
a teacher for his children, to allow himself and his family
to be labeled as "poor," "pauper," or "indigent."

The fact that public free education and charity were so
closely related (even when free schools for all classes could
be established) caused their association to become almost
inseparable in the minds of the people, and created a prejudice
against public schools which was most difficult to overcome.

In an address before the literary societies of Washington

William H. Ruffner

College in June, 1850, the Virginia poet, John R. Thompson,
said, "Humiliating to our state pride as may be the confession,
it must be admitted that Virginia has done little
as yet in the cause of public instruction. I know no more
painful reading in the whole range of documentary publication,
to an educated Virginian, than the Report of the Second
Auditor on the state of the Literary Fund, with the accompanying
proceedings of the school commissioners throughout
the commonwealth."[4]

At that time, the people of the State were looking forward
with much interest to the Reform Convention, which was soon
to meet and draw up a new constitution. They realized that
this convention would introduce universal white male suffrage.
There was a feeling of misgiving in the minds of many of
the more conservative as to trusting the ballot, with its power
over taxation, in the hands of those who had no property.
There was but one safeguard: "Universal suffrage can cease
to be dangerous to property, only when the multitude cease to
be ignorant. Educate the people and trust them, is the true
philosophy. Knowledge is power, because it is prosperity
and protection, the common support and shield and armament
of all."

These words, spoken by a Virginian at this time,
expressed[5] the truth which Jefferson, Madison, Washington,
and other founders of the Commonwealth, had realized at the
beginning. The increasing political difficulties in national
affairs made it more than ever necessary that the people be
trained to choose able leaders. The introduction of manhood
suffrage not only made public education a necessity but
assured its introduction. The free school idea championed by
such men as Henry Ruffner, John Holt Rice, John R.
Thompson, Henry A. Wise, John B. Minor, and a host of
other great leaders, had made, and was making, itself felt

throughout the old Commonwealth. No plan had been adopted
which suited conditions in Virginia, but the adoption of a
suitable one could not have been much longer delayed.

The Second Auditor's report for 1860 shows the progress
that had been made in educating "poor" children throughout
the State, and in developing county and city free schools.
According to this report, "The number of poor children sent
to school in 106 counties and two towns in the year 1860 was
50,199; the average attendance of each poor child was fifteen
scholastic weeks, at an average cost each of $3.90; the total
amount expended for tuition, including books, compensation
of officers, and all other expenses, in 130 counties and three
towns, was $195,738.37." Eighty-one counties reported a total
of 3,197 schools. The Literary Fund at this time amounted
to $1,877,364.68.

This was a summary of the expenditure made from state
funds in what is now the two Virginias. The most encouraging
feature of the report was the account of the "district free
schools" which had been established under the Act of 1846
for the education of all classes. These were in operation
in nine counties and four towns. The counties of Elizabeth
City, King George, Northampton, Norfolk, Princess Anne,
and Washington, within the present limits of Virginia, and
Jefferson, Kanawha, and Ohio, in the modern West Virginia,
and in the towns, Fredericksburg, Norfolk, and Portsmouth
in old Virginia, and in Wheeling, now in West Virginia. Since
these "district free schools" of the counties would, without
doubt, soon have grown into a state system, had not war and
Reconstruction intervened, it will be well to see what they were
accomplishing at the beginning of the war.

The school commissioners of Elizabeth City County
reported that schools existed in each of the twelve districts.
The children were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, English
grammar, and geography, which were the subjects usually
taught in the schools. In spite of the difficulties resulting
from the fact that the county was very sparsely settled, the

schools were showing progress, and it was "a source of
pride and pleasure" to see school advantages extended to
those who would not otherwise receive them. The teachers
were paid twenty-five dollars a month[6] in Northampton
County, the schools were in operation throughout the entire
year.[7] The report from Princess Anne states that the schools
were accomplishing much good. In some districts, the patrons
supplemented the teachers' salaries in order that "some of
the higher branches of an English education" could be
taught.[8] In Washington County there were forty-eight district
free schools.[9] "The schools," said the report, "are well
conducted; the children progress in learning as fast as could
be expected, and the poor children make as much progress
in learning as the others. No person is employed as a teacher
without being examined as to qualifications and moral character,
and certified in the manner prescribed by law." There
was no report from Fredericksburg. The Norfolk superintendent
wrote, "I am satisfied there is not an institution in
the State more worthy of public confidence and admiration."
There were 556 pupils in the Portsmouth schools.[10] Encouraging
reports also came from western Virginia.[11]

Public school systems were already well established in the
chief cities of Virginia, when the state-wide system was
founded in 1871. Norfolk took the lead when she set up a
system of free schools by an ordinance of the city council
in 1850. A poll tax of $4 was levied for the maintenance
of the schools. By 1870, colored schools had already been

established under the management of a board of two white
and two colored commissioners and a colored superintendent.
In 1871, they were placed under the same administration as
the white schools. At that time, there were sixteen teachers
and 865 pupils, white and colored, in the schools; $11,472.76
had been expended for school purposes; and Superintendent
W. W. Lamb, ex-mayor of the city, had been sent by the school
board to study school methods and administration in other
cities.

Petersburg was the second city to adopt a school system
before the war. This district system was changed to a "general
system" in 1868 when Dr. Barnas Sears, agent of the
Peabody Fund, offered to give the city $2,000 provided that
it would raise about $20,000 for establishing a general system
of public schools for both races. The city council accepted
the offer, and before the end of the year the system had been
inaugurated with an enrollment of about 1,500 pupils. Times
were hard and sectional feeling intense. But liberal arrangements
were made by the president of the newly appointed
school board with New York publishers for books; and
"second-hand school desks and seats, nearly as good as new,
sufficient for the accommodation of 200 pupils, were purchased
of the City of Boston at one-third their original
cost, and in addition five good desks and tables for teachers
were presented to the schools."[12] Such was the humble beginning
of the present efficient system of schools in Petersburg.
The enrollment had increased the next year to 2,661 pupils.[13]

The city council of Richmond inaugurated its present system
of schools in April, 1869, in response to an appeal from
"a large number of citizens without distinction of party."
A school board was appointed, and $15,000 appropriated for
schools. An equal amount was contributed by "northern educational

societies, the Freedmen's Bureau, and Dr. Sears,
the agent of the Peabody Fund.[14] The enrollment for the
first session, that of 1869-1870, was 2,400 pupils. At the close
of this session, the city took entire control of both white and
colored schools, appropriated $42,625 for current expenses,
and appointed J. H. Binford city superintendent. The council
also appropriated $100,000 in 8 per cent educational bonds
for the erection of new school buildings. In addition to the
primary and grammar grades, there was an "advanced"
grammar, or high school grade, and provision was made for
a separate, well equipped high school building. When the
city schools became part of the state system in April, 1871,
the enrollment had reached 3,300. An efficient school system
had been established.

This brief sketch of the public free school movement in
Virginia prior to 1870 shows that Virginia was not unlike
all the other states of the Union which established public
school systems when circumstances allowed. With all due
respect to some men who have written able histories of education
in the United States, there was no such thing as a
Northern and a Southern attitude towards education. Generalizations
in such things are convenient and easy to make,
but often mislead. Virginia was a rural district, experiencing
the same difficulties which all rural districts have experienced
in the establishment of public schools. It seems most inconsistent
to label and set aside the South as "hostile to education,"
and "rural districts," in whatever state located, in
another group with the same label. The truth of the matter
is that before the War for Southern Independence, there was
a growing sentiment in favor of public education. North
Carolina had taken the lead in introducing a public school
system through the splendid efforts of Calvin H. Wiley, who
could say in 1860, "The educational system of North Carolina
is now attracting the favorable attention of the states south,
west, and north of us." In fact, the Georgia legislature had

actually invited him to come at their expense to aid in perfecting
a similar school system for that state.[15]

The public school idea was also rapidly materializing in
Virginia. In the words of Dr. William Arthur Maddox, "Notwithstanding
the failure of the friends of democracy to unite
on a common plan of state school government—one of the
great reasons for the retardation of the free school idea—
Virginia's present organization is not a gift of Reconstruction,
but the fulfillment of those county common school experiments
which, in 1859, may have been seen in every geographical
subdivision of the State."[16]

Aid for poor children from the income of the Literary
Fund and the provision for all children in the local public free
schools were not the only means of gratuitous instruction
given in Virginia. There were many privately endowed
schools for the poor, and Sunday schools in which rich and
poor alike received instruction in elementary school work.
And these educational aids were of less importance to the
poor than another—the generosity of their more well-to-do
neighbors. In the words of a county superintendent in 1885,
"There were few families in Southside, Virginia, who did not
have, within hornblow of their homes, prosperous neighbors,
who cheerfully paid the schooling of children when the parents
were unable to do so;" and many instances have been,
and are still known, where the aptitude and industry at
school and a subsequent most laudable ambition, have made
of these beneficiaries "men of intelligence, character, and
most useful citizens." This could have been said of other
sections of Virginia as well.

Although public district schools and public and private
charity brought education to many children in Virginia in

ante-bellum days, the work of these agencies was insignificant
in comparison with the work done by the private schools.
There were several types of these private schools, many of
which survived the war of 1861, and some of which still exist.
They were formidable rivals of the public schools, yet they
often gave the foundation upon which the public schools were
built. They furnished many teachers for the state schools;
and in many cases, their buildings were converted into public
school houses. In like manner, as we shall see later, the
Educational Association and the Educational Journal were
founded by teachers of private secondary schools and colleges,
and were later adopted and revitalized by public school
men and women.

There were several types of private schools—home school,
old field school, academy, and seminary. The home school
was conducted by a private tutor for a family and was
usually patronized by some other families in the neighborhood.
It served a temporary purpose, and was therefore
usually short lived. There was also the home boarding school
in which a teacher who had had a college training, gathered
in his home, boarded and taught a limited number of students,
and at the same time managed his farm. The "old field"
school was a free lance in the educational world. It was often
housed in a rude one-room building set down unceremoniously
in the middle of a field or vacant lot. Its reputation and
often its existence depended upon the efforts of one teacher.
Some of the teachers of the old field school attained more
than a local reputation for their excellent work. Some were
men, who have been happily described by Dr. B. M. Smith
as men of iron hand and wooden brain. There are many
citizens of Virginia today who relate with pride stories of
the warfare which existed between these tyrants of hickory
and their incorrigible students. Frequent floggings were
expected and received. Since notoriety is more easily acquired
than fame, these few masters of the old field school have often
been regarded as the typical instructors of that day.

Sometimes an old field school assumed the name if not
the dignity of the academy. The academy was a school for
boys which was, as a rule, more substantial and permanent
than the old field school. It was usually located in a town
or village and was often endowed and incorporated. Its
instructors were college graduates, well equipped and well
paid. There was many a similar institution for girls, which
was called, in Virginia, a "seminary." In addition to the
usual more solid intellectual fare prescribed for boys, the
girls were taught French and music. In both the academy
and seminary, the courses of study were limited for the most
part to Latin, mathematics, Greek, French, English composition
and literature, history, and music. These subjects also
furnished the opportunity for instruction in morality and
good citizenship. Discipline was strict and instruction was
thorough, and the teachers were men and women of culture
and refinement. Our colleges are largely the outgrowth of the
academies.

There was no official record kept of the number and of
the work of these private schools. In a letter to John Adams
written in 1814 (July 5), Jefferson speaks of "petty academies,
as they call themselves, which are starting up in every
neighborhood."

In the early '70s, Gen. Francis H. Smith of the Virginia
Military Institute, while president of the Educational Association
of Virginia, attempted to correct data of the private
schools of the State. "We are," he said, "in a great degree,
ignorant of the work actually going on and accomplished in
the private schools of Virginia."[17] This statement is equally
true today, yet we know that in every neighborhood the older
inhabitants still tell of these schools, which they or their parents

attended; and in every county and town they can point
out buildings or building sites where once flourished academies
or seminaries which gave the people of the country as
well as of the towns, men and women alike, a broad background
of classical culture and refinement. The poverty
which followed the war, and the development of the public
school system, have made the story of these schools an almost
forgotten chapter in history. A few fine examples, however,
still survive.

Superintendent Ruffner collected statistics of the private
schools, through his county superintendents, three times during
the first ten years of his administration. His report of
1872 states that in 1870 there were 25,948 students in private
schools (including colleges and technical schools) in Virginia.
There were 850 private schools. Of these, there were 187
private academies (or high schools). They employed more
than a thousand teachers. The average term of these was
eight and one-third months, and of the primary schools, six
and three-quarter months. Nine years later, there was a very
slight increase in these numbers. During the same period, the
number of students in the public schools had increased more
than 68 per cent. But the rivalry of the private schools seemed
still to trouble Dr. Ruffner, for, in his report of 1880,
he said, "It will be observed that there are colored as well
as white private schools; which illustrates a principle of
human nature seen in everything, namely, that there are
people in every community who prefer somewhat exclusive
arrangements for their families, and as they pay their private
money for this distinction, no one has a right to complain,
even if they do not gain any real advantage thereby."

Many students went from the academies to the colleges
of the Commonwealth. In 1872, in spite of the poverty of
the people, Virginia was sending 986 students to institutions
of higher learning within the State or beyond her borders.
She had attending college one student to every 772 of her

total white population. A finer record, in this respect, than
that of any Commonwealth in the Union.[18]

Although Virginia, in 1861, was only beginning her public
free secondary schools in a few localities, the idea was rapidly
developing. There was much illiteracy, a condition existing
at that time in practically every thinly settled region.
But the outlook was cheerful. Her state institutions of higher
learning were thriving. There were good academies throughout
her area. One of the most hopeful features of all was
the opportunity provided for the education of women.
Although the State provided no such higher institution as
the University of Virginia, or the Virginia Military Academy
for women, private schools, the seminaries for them, were
well established and well attended. The instruction given to
the women in these schools would, doubtless, rank higher
than that given in the junior colleges of today. In some
cases, they were of college rank, and would soon have acquired
the standing and reputation of the colleges for men in the
country had the war not blighted their growth in 1861. It
has been truly stated that "At the opening of the war, Virginia,
east of the Alleghany range, led the entire fifteen states
of the South in the arrangements for secondary and higher
education."[19] In higher education she stood first in the Union.