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CHAPTER IX.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

ORIGIN OF THE SYSTEM.

North Carolina was one of the first States to make constitutional provision for both the common and the higher education of her citizens. The heroes of 1776 recognized that liberty and enlightenment were complements of each other, and that the surest safeguard to democratic government is education; so in the initial Constitution of the State it was declared "That a school or schools shall be established by the Legislature for the convenient instruction of youth, with such salaries to the masters, paid by the public, as may enable them to instruct at low prices; and all useful learning shall be duly encouraged in one or more universities."

The above, then, is the foundation of the public-school system; but such was the financial condition of the State in the early years of its history that a half century elapsed before the fair promise of the Constitution was realized, even in a measure, in so far as it related to common schools. The University, which was chartered in 1789, and began the work of instruction in 1795, was doubtless instrumental in educating public sentiment to the importance of a State system of schools.

Not until 1816 did the public authorities take any action on this question. In that year Governor Miller, in his message to the General Assembly, called attention to the need of public schools, and recommended that some action be taken looking to their establishment. The Legislature appointed a committee, with the Hon. Archibald D. Murphey as chairman, to report upon the subject of "affording means of education to every one, however indigent." Judge Murphey has been called the father of our public-school system, and well does he deserve this title. On December 19, 1816, Judge Murphey, in behalf of the committee, submitted a report urging the establishment of "a judicious system of public education." This report, which he drafted, is worthy of close. study. The first part is devoted to a learned dissertation upon the benefits of education and the needs of the State University. Following this are suggestions for a school system. "This general system," says the report, "must include a gradation of schools regularly supporting each other, from the one in which the first rudiments of education are taught to that in which the highest branches of the sciences are cul

tivated. It is to the first schools in this gradation that your committee beg leave to draw the attention of the Legislature at this time, because in them will be taught the learning indispensable to all-reading, writing, and arithmetic. These schools must be scattered over every sec tion of the State, for in them education must be commenced, and in them it will terminate as to more than one-half of the community. They will be the most difficult of organization and the most expensive to the State; but they will be the most useful, inasmuch as all the citizens will be taught in them, and many of the children are destined never to pass to any other."

No action was taken at this session of the Legislature, and Judge Murphey was made chairman of a committee to investigate the subject more fully and report at the next session. He was much interested in this subject, and before submitting his report in 1817 he not only made. a careful study of education in the New England States, but also visited Europe to examine the Continental school systems. The result of his study and observations are embodied in the report of the committee, a voluminous but well-written and eminently suggestive document.

A comparison with the reports as published in the records of the Gen. eral Assembly for 1816 and 1817 shows that their main provisions are excellently summarized in the following extract from the admirable historical sketch of the North Carolina State school system in the Report of the Commissioner of Education (U. S.) for 1876:

"The report (of 1816) went on to suggest that from the youth edu cated in these schools at State expense teachers should be selected for schools in which they might be qualified to teach, and that discreet persons should be appointed in each county to superintend and manage the concerns of the sectional schools which should be established, to designate the children who should be educated in whole or in part at the public expense, and to apply the funds which should be consecrated to the purposes of these schools. It closed with a recommendation that the two houses should appoint three persons to digest a system of public instruction, founded upon the general principles which had been stated, and to submit the same to the next General Assembly. "The house concurring with the senate on this motion, a committee was appointed, with the same gentleman as chairman, which made an elaborate report at the session of 1817. This new report recommended the formation of a fund for public instruction, and the constitution of a board to manage the fund and carry into execution the plan of public instruction contemplated. This plan was one which was meant 'to make the progress of education natural and easy,' beginning with primary schools, in which the first rudiments of learning were to be taught, and proceeding to academies, in which youth were to be instructed in languages, ancient and modern history, mathematics, and other branches of science, preparatory to entering the University, in which instruction should be given in all the higher branches of the sciences and the prin

ciples of the useful arts. An institution for the deaf and dumb was also included in the plan.

"For the elementary instruction to be given it was proposed to divide each county in the State into two or more townships, and to have one or more primary schools established in each township, which should provide a lot of ground of not less than four acres, and erect thereon a sufficient house, and vest it in the board of public instruction. For secondary training this board was to divide the State into ten academic districts and have an academy erected in each district; the State to meet one-third of the expense of the erection and the site, and furnish one-third of the sum required for salaries of teachers, on condition of their instructing a certain number of poor children free of charge. As to the superior instruction which was meant to crown the whole, the Legislature was urged to provide the needed funds for sustaining and carrying forward the then struggling University. For knitting the whole together came the board of public instruction to be constituted, which was to consist of the Governor of the State as president, and six directors, to be appointed by the General Assembly. This board was to have power to locate the several academies to be established; to determine the number and titles of the professorships therein; to examine, appoint, and regulate the compensation of the professors and the teachers; to appoint, in the first instance, the trustees; to prescribe the course of instruction and discipline according to the general rules which should be first fixed by law; and to provide some just mode of advancing from the primary schools to the academies, and from the academies to the University, as many of the most meritorious children educated at the public expense as the proceeds of the funds for public instruction should suffice to maintain and educate."

The writer just quoted adds that "No better, more compact, or more connected scheme for the formation of a State system of instruction could well have been devised at that quite early day. The main fault in it was that it undertook too much, viz, to maintain' as well as 'educate' the children of the poor-an undertaking quite beyond the means of a State yet sparsely settled, and with the burdens of a recent war still weighing on the people. It was the expense which this portion of the plan involved that seems to have killed the project, for though the bill met with favor from the Legislature, was ordered to be printed, and put into a form for passage, the consideration of the large sums it would annually require to carry out its liberal provisions induced a pause, and that pause was fatal to it. Instead of eliminating from it the one specially impracticable feature and trying to work out the practicable ones, its advocates desired and urged its passage as a whole, and so friends fell from it and it failed."

PROVISION FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

No further legislative action was taken on this question till 1825. In that year a fund for the establishment of common schools" was estab

lished by the General Assembly "consisting of the dividends arising from the stocks then held or afterwards acquired by the State in the banks of New Berne and Cape Fear, the dividends arising from the stocks owned by the State in the Cape Fear Navigation Company, the Roanoke Navigation Company, and the Clubfoot and Harlowe's Creek Canal Company, the tax imposed by law on license to retailers of spirituous liquors and auctioneers, the unexpended balance of the agricultural fund, all moneys paid to the State for entries of vacant lands, and all the vacant and unappropriated swamp lands of the State, together with such sums of money as the Legislature may hereafter find it convenient to appropriate from time to time."

Hon. S. M. Finger, superintendent of public instruction of North Carolina, in a recent address on public education said:

"From those sources it might seem that a large fund would soon have been accumulated, but the generosity of the State as shown by act of Assembly, at Fayetteville, 1789, cut off what, under the above-recited provision, would soon have yielded a magnificent school fund. I refer to the act ceding to the United States all her territory now included in the great State of Tennessee. I recite the preamble giving the reasons for the cession of this magnificent domain, and as indicative of the character of our people at that early date.

"Whereas the United States in Congress assembled have repeatedly and earnestly recommended to the respective States, owning or claiming western territory to make cession of part of the same as a further means, as well of hastening the extinguishment of the debts, as of establishing the harmony of the United States; and the inhabitants of the said western territory being also desirous that such cession should be made in order to obtain a more ample protection than they have heretofore received. Now this State being ever desirous of doing ample justice to the public creditors, as well as establishing the harmony of the United States and complying with the reasonable desires of her citizens:

"Be it enacted, etc. The act goes on to recite the manner of making the deed, and various conditions of the grant, among which is this: "Provided, always, That no regulations made or to be made by Congress shall tend to emancipate slaves.'

“The deed was made February, 1790, for the reason stated in the preamble above recited, and the grant was accepted by Congress on the 2d day of April of that year. Thus it was that North Carolina parted with this valuable domain, because Congress requested it to be done as a means of paying the public debt, which had been incurred by the thir teen original States in their common struggle for independence. Thus it was that North Carolina surrendered what would have yielded her a magnificent school fund, under such legislation as that of 1825, above recited. This action on the part of North Carolina was in marked contrast with the action of Connecticut in reference to her public lands.

Connecticut, instead of contributing her public lands to the payment of · the common debt of the country, held her western reserve' for her own uses and from it laid the foundation of her school fund."

The following State officials were appointed to manage the school fund: the Governor, the chief justice of the supreme court, the speaker of the senate, the speaker of the house, and the State treasurer, with their successors in office. These were constituted a body corporate and politic under the title of "The president and directors of the literary fund." They were empowered to hold property, and to dispose of and improve the same, for the promotion of learning and the instruction of youth. In 1836 the constitution of the board was changed, and it was made to consist of the Governor and three others to be appointed by him biennially.

In 1837 the literary fund was largely augmented by the transfer of $1,433,757 by the General Government to North Carolina, being this State's share of the surplus deposit fund. That sum, less $300,000, was added to the literary fund, increasing this fund to more than $2,000,000. The Legislature of that year directed the president and directors of the literary fund to digest a plan for common schools suited to the condition and resources of the State, and to report the same at the next session of the General Assembly. The State was now ready to carry out the educational provisions of the Constitution, and to inaugurate a system of common schools which would, to some extent, meet the needs and requirements of the people.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS ESTABLISHED.

On December 4, 1838, the president and directors of the literary fund made their report to the General Assembly in accordance with the resolution which was passed by that body at its previous session. The principal provisions of this report and the workings of the system before the late Civil War are thus given in the Report of the Commissioner of Education (U. S.) for 1876: "It proposed to have the State divided into 1,250 school districts, each to have a school-house erected in it, as pleasantly situated and as neat and commodious as possible; to have a normal department organized in the State University for the training of teachers for the schools; to have the income of the literary fund, amounting then to about $100,000 annually, distributed among the districts at the rate of about $240 for each, to aid in the maintenance of schools, and to be supplemented by a local tax of twice that amount, levied by the county court; and, finally, to have five superintendents of schools for each county and three committee-men for each school district. The scheme provided only for common schools, and left academies to succeed these at no long interval, and colleges and universities in due time to crown the whole.

"The adoption or rejection of this system it was proposed to submit to a vote of the people; and on the 8th of January, 1839, a little more

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