Public school education in North Carolina

Preface

That the history of education, as a subject which contributes to the professional training and equipment of teachers, has been on trial for its life, no serious student of the subject will undertake to deny. Some of the charges made against it have been grave enough to cause the real services of the subject to be honestly questioned by many of its ardent students and supporters. In fact, the conviction has grown in recent years, even among those engaged in the professional preparation of teachers, that the history of educational theory and practice needed to justify itself. As a result, its place in the curriculum of institutions devoted to the training of teachers has been challenged by subjects of a character more popularly accepted as utilitarian and immediately useful as pedagogical tools.

But the critics have served a useful purpose, and their charges against the history of education have tended to strengthen its cause and to increase its champions. In this respect its career bears a striking likeness to that of general history, which likewise tardily found a place in the curriculum. The more remote its interests and the more encyclopaedic its completeness, the more worthy history was once esteemed, not so much for its practical value in interpreting present-day conditions and tendencies as for its alluring and fascinating character. For generations the results were far from v/holesome and safe. To-day, however, the historical point of view is vi PREFACE

becoming more and more rationalized, narrowness and provincialism are decreasing, and a keener and more lively interest in human affairs is steadily developing.

A similar reform has been demanded of the history of education. In this subject a student might become an able expositor of the educational theories of Plato, Aristotle, Rabelais, Herbart, and Spencer, and discuss creditably the principal features of ancient school systems, without being able to recognize tendencies in modern education, detect an educational fad, or explain the manner of raising school finances or of electing local school officers. Gradually, therefore, it has become necessary to present the subject so as to impel a more complete analysis of modern educational problems and a clearer and more rational understanding of those practices with which the teachers themselves are constantly concerned.

In this conception of the value of the subject may be found the chief purpose of this book. The author believes that a study of the educational conditions of the past, which are often in striking contrast to present conditions, will help teachers and educational administrators to a more satisfactory understanding of the present situation, and assist in breaking up a complacent acceptance of those practices which are more traditional than rational. This report of public educational progress in North Carolina has been prepared in the hope that it may be of real service to teachers, on whom the burden of educational advancement so largely rests, and to whom every possible encouragement, inspiration, and support should be given in their work of disseminating intelhgence.

The author has undertaken to include in the book

PREFACE vii

historical material sufficient to aid the reader and student to draw correct conclusions concerning the subject. An effort has also been made to make clear the relation between social and economic forces and educational development; to show how the ideals of a people are reflected in their school system; and to suggest relations between present educational problems and current educational practices so many of which have been traditionally received. There would be less excuse for such a book if there were already accessible to teachers and the general reader any complete story of public education in the State. Parts of two chapters were first published in the South Atlantic Quarterly and in the North Carolina Booklet and are here included through the courtesy of the editors of those publications. In order that the entire work may later be relieved of its inaccuracies the author will welcome any criticisms concerning it.

To my colleagues and former teachers, Professor Eugene C. Brooks, of the Department of Education, and Professor William K. Boyd, of the Department of History, in Trinity College, I am especially indebted; to the former for first stimulating my interest in educational history, and to the latter for arousing my interest in North Carolina and Southern history, and to both for constant encouragement and advice and for sympathetic interest and assistance in the present work, I also acknowledge my indebtedness to my former teacher. Professor Paul Monroe, of Columbia University, whose scholarly advice has all along encouraged my historical and educational studies. To Dr. James Y. Joyner, state superintendent of public instruction, I am indebted for the concluding chapter and for his kindly interest in the entire book. I am also indebted to Professor N. W.

viii PREFACE

Walker, state inspector of high schools and Professor of Secondary Education in the University of North Carolina, for suggestions concerning, and assistance in the treatment of, secondary education, in Chapter XVI, and for reading apart of the proof; to Mr. E. E. Sams, state supervisor of teacher-training. Professor L. A. Williams, of the University of North Carolina, Professor C. W. Wilson, of the East Carolina Teachers' Training School, and Superintendent Samuel B. Underwood, of the Pitt County Schools, I am indebted for examining the manuscript and for making helpful suggestions. To my wife, Annie Turner Knight, I am indebted for assistance in reading the proof and in the preparation of the index.

Edgar W. Knight.

Trinity College

Durham. North Carolina

August, 1916

Contents

I. Under the Lords Proprietors .... 1

II. The Apprenticeship System 14

III Under Royal Rule 32

Chapter I

Although North Carolina developed before 1860 the most creditable system of public education to be found in any of the States which seceded from the Union, her intellectual and educational growth was very slow during the colonial period. This slowness was due to the conditions under which the colony was settled — conditions which naturally lent themselves very sparingly to educational enterprises. Especially is this true of the period from 1663, when settlements first began to be made in the region around Albemarle Sound, to 1728, when the transfer from proprietary to royal ownership of the colony was made.

The earliest settlers in North Carolina migrated from the northern colony of Virginia from 1650 to 1675, not as religious refugees, but principally for economic advantage. After 1663, however, when the intolerant and illegal government of Berkeley in Virginia was resisted by Bacon's rebellion, some came for political reasons, and North Carolina soon found herself accommodating "rogues, runaways, and rebels" who refused to tolerate Berkeley and his tyranny. But the colony grew exceedingly slowly, although in 1670 immigrants were encouraged by the promise of the Assembly of exemption from taxation for one year and protection for five years from suits for debts made before coming into the colony. Even these attractions, however, induced but few. When William Drummond was appointed the first "governor of Albemarle," in 1663, his commission extended over sixteen hundred square miles of territory which was so sparsely settled that there were perhaps not more than fifteen hundred people in the entire settlement. In 1675 there were probably four thousand people in the colony, less than three to a square mile. In 1728 the entire population was not more than ten thousand. Immigration before 1728, therefore, must have been very slight.^

This slow growth of population is but one explanation of the colony's slow educational development. From the beginning of the colony the tendency was necessarily toward rural rather than urban communities, the mild climate and the fertile soil both contributing to a stimulation of rural life. The earliest settlers took up large tracts of land on the water-courses, which furnished practically the only means of communication, and agriculture soon became the most promising pursuit of the colonists. The dangerous coasts and poor harbors made the colony difficult of access and retarded the commercial interests of the people. Moreover, there were frequent complaints against the unsatisfactory government, and conflicts between the inhabitants and the proprietors, or their representatives, " who reckoned the lives of the colonists only in quitrents and taxes." Occasional religious dissensions and a scarcity of teachers

1 Weeks, Libraries and Literature in North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century, in House Documents, vol. 62.

may also be noted as other conditions unfavorable to educational and intellectual activity.

Likewise, the need for schools and education was not keenly felt by those in authority. The educational philosophy of seventeenth-century England, "that the great body of the people were to obey and not to govern, and that the social status of unborn generations was already fixed," was now, as at a later time, widespread and persistent. This was the philosophy, not only for the colonies, but for the mother country as well. As late as the beginning of the nineteenth century it was held by many that the surest way to serve the public welfare was by keeping great numbers of the people "ignorant as well as poor. Knowledge both enlarges and multiplies our desires, and the few things man wishes for, the more easily his necessity may be supplied." ^ This is an argument which has been frequently used to defeat universal public education. 2

A few teachers gradually found their way into the colony, however. The first of these were the lay readers appointed in the churches built by the early settlers. In the charter which granted Carolina to Robert Heath in 1629, provisions were made for the establishment of a State Church, and these provisions were continued in the charters to the lords proprietors in 1663 and 1665. The first practical effort to build up a State Church in the colony came with the Vestry Act of 1701. The first preacher of the English Church arrived about 1703 and the first churches were built a few years later. By the Vestry Act of 1715 the colony was divided into nine parishes and vestrymen were appointed in each. Provi-

* See p. 68, note.

' Adams, History of the Elementary School Contest in England, p. 46.

sion was made for the purchase of glebe lands, for the employment and support of ministers, and for general church organization.

Brickell, writing of North Carolina in the early eighteenth century, said: —

The religion by law established is the Protestant, as it is professed in England, and though they seldom have orthodox clergymen among them, yet there are not only glebe lands laid out for that use commodious to each town, but likewise for building churches. The want of these Protestant clergy is generally supplied by some schoolmasters who read the Liturgy, and then a sermon out of Dr. Tillotson or some good practical divine every Sunday. These are the most numerous and are dispersed through the whole province.^

But this establishment of the English Church was not altogether an advantage to education, even though perhaps many if not all of the schoolmasters in the colony were its missionaries, ministers, or lay readers. Dissenters, especially Baptists and Quakers, were numerous in the colony and sternly opposed the regulations of the establishment. The troubles which naturally arose resulted in a lack of union in educational ideals and practices. After the transfer to royal control in 1729, the instructions to the governors, beginning with George Burrington in 1730 and continuing for many years, proved retarding to educational development. By these instructions North Carolina, already under the ecclesiastical control of the English Church, was seriously hampered in the case of school-teachers : —

And we do further direct that no Schoolmaster be henceforth permitted to come from the Kingdom and to keep school in that our said Province without the license of the Lord

* Natural History of North Carolina, p. 35.

Bishop of London, and that no other person now there or that shall come from other parts shall be admitted to keep school in North Carolina without your license first obtained.^

These instructions to Burrington practically reproduced that tyrannical measure known as the English Schism Act of 1714, which deprived dissenters of the means of providing educational facilities for their own children. By it no one was allowed to teach in a public or private school or to give instruction in any form without first securing the privilege from the Bishop of London. This reproduced Schism Act seems to have been enforced in the colony at least three times after it was repealed in England, in a school at Newbern in 1766, at Edenton in 1768, and in the case of Queen's Museum, at Charlotte, in 1773. The repeal of the act in England

only makes its reenactment for the colony the more exasperating. School-teachers were few enough in North Carolina during the whole period of its colonial existence. Of those who did appear, some, no doubt, were dissenters; but with fiendish atrocity the English Government closes to them the avenue to greater usefulness. This is the greeting which the royal government sends out to the daughter rejoicing in her recent escape from the rule of the proprietors. This was the precious heritage with which the first royal governor comes out to meet the subjects who had thrown off the rule of the proprietors and claimed the king's protection. It seemed that the new government was to be worse than the old, for the royal government now took the lead in ecclesiastical legislation and had, unfortunately, a large following in the colony. ^

In spite of the ecclesiastical evils which followed the establishment of the English Church in North Carolina, however, the intellectual and educational life of the col-

1 Col. Rec, vol. Ill, pp. 110, 111.

* Weeks, Church and State in North Carolina, pp. 24, 25.

ony was somewhat encouraged and assisted by it. Almost simultaneously with its establishment, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts began its educational labors in the colony. This organization was one of the most prominent of the charitable and religious agencies which assisted education in most of the English colonies. It was formed in London by royal charter in 1701 to aid the Established Church in its colonial possessions, in supplying better-trained ministers, in establishing and reviving churches, and in training children in church doctrine as well as in other subjects. The membership of the organization was made up largely of prelates, the clergy, and the more influential laity. Funds for its maintenance and work were secured by subscriptions, bequests, donations, royal benefactions, and frequent church contributions. From 1701 to 1780 the Society spent more than £230,000 in its work in the colonies of America. Of the Southern colonies. South Carolina received the greatest attention. The missionaries of the Society "brought with them the first parish or public libraries and its lay readers were the first teachers." Charles GriflBn, who in 1705 came from the West Indies and settled in Pasquotank, is said to have been the first professional teacher in the colony. Here he taught school three years and with such success that even the Quakers patronized him. In 1708 his school was transferred to a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the Reverend James Adams, who had settled in that community. Griffin later went to Chowan, where he became reader of the vestry, and conducted a school for one year. In 1709 he became a Quaker. Ten years later he probably taught a school for Indians in Christina, Virginia, and later still he probably became a professor in William and Mary College.^

A few others were also engaged in teaching in the colony during the proprietary period. One of these, Mashburn by name, had a school at Sarum near the Virginia border in 1712, and his work was so well thought of that he deserved compensation by the Society. "What children he has under his care can both write and read very distinctly," wrote the Reverend Giles Rainsford, "and gave before me such an account of the grounds and principles of the Christian religion that it strangely surprised me to hear it." Rainsford believed that Mashburn's work should be encouraged.

Not only did the Society furnish teachers, but its missionaries gave books for the use of the pupils and also established parish or public libraries. The first of these public libraries was made possible by the Reverend Thomas Bray, founder and one of the leaders of the Society, and later the Bishop of London's commissary in Maryland. He came to America in March, 1700. The establishment of libraries soon became a part of his larger scheme of educational and religious activity in the colonies, and during his work here he helped to establish thirty-nine or more, many of them with more than one thousand volumes.

The only library which Dr. Bray gave to North Carolina was established in Bath, which was made a township about 1705. Here it seems not to have been properly cared for and used, and in 1712 the Reverend Giles Rainsford said that the books were lost "by those wretches that do not consider the benefit of so valuable

1 Weeks, Libraries and Literature in North C<irolina, in House Documents, vol. 62, p. 175, note.

a gift"; and two years later John Urmstone, that quarrelsome, haughty, and notoriously wicked clergyman of the English Church whose career in the colony was a constant reproach, stated that the "famous library sent in by Dr. Bray's directions is, in a great measure, destroyed. I am told the books are all unbound and have served for some time as waste paper."

Urmstone's statements are probably incorrect, however, because in 1715 there was passed the only act during the proprietary period which looked to an encouragement of literature, and this looked to the preservation of the library. This law is very similar to one passed on the same subject in South Carolina in 1700, concerning which Dr. Weeks says: "Is it not possible that a draft of the act was sent over with the books, filled out in the province, and passed in each near the same time? I am inclined to think that the North Carolina act was several years old in 1715." ^

Fear that the books of the library "will quickly be embezzled, damaged, or lost" led to the passage of the law "for the more effectual preservation of the same." By this act provision was made for the appointment of a librarian who was to become responsible for the books, and be "bound and obliged to keep and preserve the several and respective books therein, from waste, damage, embezzlement, and all other destruction," and to give for them two receipts, one to the library commissioners and one to the church wardens. The library was not to be moved from Bath. Books could be borrowed by giving a receipt for them, "with a promise to return the said book or books, if a folio, in four months' time;

* Libraries and Literature in North Carolina, in House Documents, vol. 62, pp. 179, 180, and note.

if a quarto, in two months' time; if an octavo, or under, in one month's time; upon penalty of paying three times the value of the said book or books so borrowed, in case of failure in returning the same." Catalogues of all the books were to be made, and the commissioners every Easter Monday were to examine the catalogues to see that no books were lost.

What the library contained, who the librarians were, how extensively the books were used, and what disposition was finally made of them are questions about which little or nothing is known. With the exception of the law of 1715 there is no further record of the library. One view held is that the books finally came into the hands of Edward Moseley and were the same as those he gave to Eden ton eight years later. ^

There were a few other parish libraries in the colony before 1729, the end of proprietary control. All the missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had books which were not only of service to them, but were perhaps intended for a limited use among the people in educating them in the orthodox faith. Most of these books were religious and doctrinal. Among these missionaries whose supply of books was more or less adequate were the Reverends James Adams, Giles Rainsford, John Urmstone, Ebenezer Taylor, and William Gordon. Through some of these men tracts were distributed and frequently "some books for the use of scholars." The missionaries occasionally received new supplies of books from the Society. Only a few books were sent over, however, during the closing years of proprietary control and but few during the early years of royal rule. During the middle and latter part of royal 1 See p. 10.

rule, however, new interest was taken in this phase of the work of the Society and many books were received in the colony. This part of the Society's activity must be highly praised, for through it opportunity was given to cultivate a taste for books and to foster an educational sentiment which was beginning to show slight growth.

The establishment of a library in Edenton by Edward Moseley, for nearly half a century the leading figure in the life of the colony, is one of the few notable efforts of the period to encourage education. In 1720 he sent some money to the secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel with the instruction that it be spent for some useful books for use in Chowan, but the Society seems to have taken no notice of his request and the books were never received. Three years later he sent to the secretary a list of books which he had collected in America with the request that the Society accept them as the nucleus of a provincial library to be established in Edenton. The books, which were worth several hundred dollars, were mostly religious and scholastic and largely in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. There were listed twenty-six folio volumes, twelve quarto volumes, and thirty-eight octavo volumes. There is no evidence that the Society ever accepted Moseley's gift, and the books probably remained in his private collection, which at his death in 1749 numbered four hundred volumes. Many of these were folios and bound in sheep.

Perhaps the most complete and representative colonial library of North Carolina was the collection of Samuel Johnston (1733-1816), the beginning of which was made by Governor Eden (1673-1722), whose daughter, Penelope, married Governor Gabriel Johnston. At the death of Governor Johnston in 1752 the library passed to his nephew, Samuel. The collection, as made by Eden, Gabriel Johnston, and Samuel Johnston, consisted of history and politics, biography, travels, philosophy, the classics, science and medicine, law, domestic affairs and agriculture, theology and sermons, essays and miscellaneous literature, encyclopaedias, grammars, poetry and the drama — in all perhaps more than five hundred volumes.

In the eastern part of the colony there were many other less important private libraries which are evidence of a degree of culture not often believed to have existed in North Carolina in the eighteenth century. This section of the colony was the first part to be settled and was more or less representative of English culture. The libraries of James Innes, of John Hodgson, James Iredell, William Hooper, Archibald Maclaine, Joseph Gahtier, Willie Jones, of Halifax County, John Burgwin, William Cathcart, and others were more or less important, however, as reflecting educational conditions in the eastern and older section of the colony which was settled largely by the English. In the western section* where many Scotch and Scotch-Irish emigrated after 1746, there was evidence also of intellectual activity. Libraries existed here as in the eastern section, and many of the settlers were educated and cultured. The influence of Princeton College, to be noted later, from which many preachers and teachers came, soon came to be extensive and powerful. Among those of this region who had valuable collections of books may be mentioned, Waightstill Avery, the Reverend David Caldwell, the Reverend James Hall, the Reverend John Barr, the founder of the Thyatira Circulating Library, Joseph

Graham, the Reverend Henry Patillo, and others. Circulating Hbraries were founded in some of the counties and seem to have been extensively used.^

In the eastern section especially, the Established Church doubtless assisted somewhat in furnishing the few teachers who were at work before 1729. Through it and its adjunct organization, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, books and tracts were distributed among the parishioners and furnished to the children. But the work of the Society was slight in North Carolina as compared with its achievements in the colony of South Carolina. More could perhaps have been accomplished in North Carolina if the reproduced Schism Act had not been applied and if the dissenters had not been unfortunately alienated. Little common religion resulted in lack of union in educational matters. Moreover, the people were not homogeneous and a long time was required to fuse the many diverse elements of the population. The well-to-do were provided for by a form of tutorial instruction, but schools and the means of education for the less fortunate classes were few. However, in spite of the conditions which retarded public schools for the masses, local efforts were occasionally made for a form of education which was more or less popular for many years. The chief of these efforts was that of the poor law and apprenticeship system, the operation of which will be considered in the following chapter.

1 Weeks, Libraries and Literature in North Carolina.

The Colonial Records of North Carolina; Brickell, A Natural History of North Carolina; Weeks, Church and State in North Carolina, Libraries and Literature in North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century, The Religious Development in the Province of North Carolina, and Calvin Henderson Wiley and the Organization of the Common Schools of North Carolina; Smith, History of Education in North Carolina; Kemp, The Support of Schools in Colonial New York by the S. P. G.; Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. i; Hawks, History of North Carolina; Foote, Sketches of North Carolina; Cyclopedia of Education, edited by Paul Monroe, vol. n, article, "Colonial Period in American Education."

1. What were some of the natural obstacles in the way of educational development in North Carolina during the early history of the colony.''

2. Compare the economic and social conditions of North Carolina with those of the New England colonies.

3. Compare the early settlers of North Carolina with those of the other American colonies with respect to origin, religious and economic conditions.

4. What was the condition of education in England when settlements began to be made in America.''

5. How did this condition affect the educational ideals and practices of the colonists?

6. In what way did the Established Church aid education in North Carolina? In what way did it retard educational progress?

7. What was the purpose of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts?

8. Illustrate by the early history of North Carolina how educational conditions are the result of social and economic forces.

9. How are the ideals of a people reflected in their educational practices?

Chapter II

Just as our modem public-school system cannot be adequately understood except in the light of colonial conditions, so also must colonial custom and practice be explained in view of European antecedents. This applies to education in all the EngUsh colonies, and especially in Virginia and the Carolinas, where the general mental attitude toward education in colonial days was similar to that of the mother country. Here the English spirit was everywhere in evidence. The dominating influences were here, as in England, more or less aristocratic; and these produced a tardiness and indifference to so-called popular education. In actual practice the tutor or the small school, or, as in not a few cases, education in England, was the rule of the well-to-do. The less prosperous classes were cared for educationally through poor-relief and apprenticeship laws after the manner of the mother country. A brief consideration of this practice is now in order.

The poor-law and the apprenticeship system not only had their foundations in similar laws and practices in England, but in many cases the legislation was directly taken over, certainly adapted, from the principles found in the famous series of poor-reUef and apprenticeship statutes which developed in England during the second half of the sixteenth century.^ Legislation of this kind

* " Be it therefore enacted by the authoritie of this Grand Assembly, according to the aforesayd laudable custom in the Kingdom of Engseemed necessary in order to take care of the gradually increasing dependent class, a group made up of journeymen, apprentices, vagrants, "thieves and sturdy beggars," whose wages, employment, or migration was in almost every case determined by some one of the upper classes of English population. Caring for this dependent element was an immense task. The suppression of English monasteries by Henry VIII and Edward VI, on the alleged ground of negligence and certain forms of irreligion and immorality, destroyed many facilities and important agencies for poor relief and elementary education.^ Elizabeth undertook to make amends for these acts of destruction to monasteries and guilds, by a series of poor-relief and apprenticeship enactments which culminated in the oft-cited law of 1601, which remained in force in England until the early part of the nineteenth century.^ The execution and enforcement of these acts, however, were placed in the hands of local justices of the peace, who were country gentlemen. It should be noted at this point that many of the early colonists were of this class and were trained in the interpretation and

land . . ." is now and then a part of the preamble of some of the early Virginia acts on which similar acts in the colony of North Carolina were based. The influence of the legislation in Virginia, based on the laws in England, is seen in North Carolina throughout the colonial period.