through the active and efficient intervention of Gen. George W. Rains, as regent, succeeded in reopening it on the 1st of January, 1868. Since that time the institution has been regular in its exercises, averaging annually from eighty to ninety pupils. The session of 1882-83, which concluded with a centennial celebration of the academy, was among the most prosperous of its existence. There were in attendance that year over one hundred pupils.

The present academical structure, situated in the midst of an ample grove of trees, was completed in 1802 at a cost of fifteen or twenty thousand dollars. Prior to this time the academy classes were instructed in a building specially rented for that purpose.

The Academy of Richmond County is well endowed for an institution of its sort, having funds sufficient to meet all current expenses and add not less than one thousand dollars per annum to its endowment fund.1

SUNBURY ACADEMY.

The legislation of the next two years (viz, 1781 and 1785), educationally considered, had reference to the establishment of the University of Georgia, and will not, therefore, concern us until we come to speak of the colleges; so we pass on to February 1, 1788, a date memorable at least for the foundation of two academies, one at Sunbury, in Liberty County, and the other at Savannah, in Chatham County. The only remarks which need be made in connection with the Chatham Academy are that, by the act incorporating it, vacant land, not to exceed in quantity five thousand acres, was reserved for its use; and that it was one of the beneficiaries at the sale of the Bethesda property in 1808, and received two-fifths of the proceeds.3

4

The Academy at Sunbury was, in an educational point of view, the e pluribus unum of its time; and when the act of February 1, 1788,5 gave it "a local habitation and a name," it soon rose to a high and influential position among the schools of southern Georgia. Abiel Holmes, James Dunwody, John Elliott, Gideon Dowse, and Peter Winn were nominated in the act as commissioners. To them, or a majority of them, was authority given to sell at public sale, and upon previous notice of thirty days in one of the gazettes of the State, any confiscated property within the County of Liberty to the amount of one thousand pounds.

In his address before the Georgia Historical Society in 1845, Doctor Church said: "The Richmond Academy has buildings and library and apparatus worth probably $30,000, an annuity from real estate amounting to $1,600, and bank stock to the amount of $12,000, besides lands which are rapidly increasing in value." (White's Statistics of Georgia, p. 71.)

2 Marbury and Crawford's Digest, p. 563.

3 Cuthbert's Digest, pp. 47-3.

* Jones's Dead Towns of Georgia. Savannah, 1878. Pp. 212-16.

5 Watkins's Digest, p. 380.

"This authority to sell confiscated property was. so far as records show, conferred then for the first time; nor did the granting of it become general in the State until some years later.

This sum, when realized, was to be by them expended in the construction of a building suitable for the purposes of the academy.

1

* * *

The fair fame of Sunbury Academy is lastingly associated with the name of Rev. William McWhir, under whose able and energetic management it passed through its most successful period. This teacher, writes Colonel Jones, "did more than all others to establish a standard of scholarship and maintain rules of study and discipline unusual in that period and among those peoples. Great was the obligation conferred upon the youths of southern Georgia, for certainly two generations, by this competent instructor and rigid disciplinarian." A native of Ireland, a graduate of Belfast College, and licensed to preach by the Presbytery of that city, he came to America in 1783 and settled in Alexandria, Va. There, for ten years, he was the principal of the academy of which General Washington was a trustee. Removing to Sunbury about 1793, he took charge of the academy, and, for nearly thirty years, made it the leading institution of learning in that entire region. Besides the Latin, Greek, and English departments, with which Doctor McWhir was thoroughly conversant, the higher branches of mathematics were also taught; and, as a preparatory school, Sunbury Academy, under his guidance, had no superior within the limits of the State. The average attendance was about seventy. Pupils were attracted not only from Liberty, but also from the adjacent counties of Chatham, Bryan, McIntosh, and Glynn. Some came from even greater distances.

The school-house-a large two-story-and-a-half double wooden building, about sixty feet square, and located in King's Square—was pulled down and sold some time about the year 1842.

Sunbury Academy has itself passed away; but not without leaving an influence on Georgia's educational progress which the State will always gratefully recognize.

OTHER ACADEMIES.

The second Constitution of Georgia, which was adopted in 1789, contained no specific grants in respect to education. Three years later, however, in December, 1792,2 we find an act authorizing the commissioners of the county academies to purchase one thousand pounds' value of confiscated property for the use and support of their respective institutions. Similar provisions were made in 18023 and in 1810, and were designed to cover all cases where the commissioners had not as yet received their portion. By the act of February 22, 1796,5 an academy was established at Louisville, in Jefferson County. This and the academies already erected at Augusta, Waynesborough, Savannah, Bruns1Dead Towns of Georgia, p. 214.

2 Cuthbert's Digest, p. 25.

3 Clayton's Digest, p. 677.

"Act of December 8, 1810 (Clayton's Digest, pp. 598, 599).

5 Marbury and Crawford's Digest, pp. 567, 568.

wick (Glynn County),1 and Sunbury, were all, so far as the writer has been able to discover,2 which had been incorporated in the State prior to the present century.

At this stage of our subject it may be well to quote the ample provision contained in Article IV, Section 13, of the third Constitution of Georgia, that of 1798:3

"The arts and sciences shall be promoted in one or more seminaries of learning, and the Legislature shall, as soon as conveniently may be, give such further donations and privileges to those already established, as may be necessary to secure the objects of their institution; and it shall be the duty of the General Assembly, at their next session, to provide effectual measures for the improvement and permanent security of the funds and endowments of such institutions."

Truthfully, and with even greater force, does Doctor Church's observation in regard to the Constitution of 1777 apply to the Constitution of 1798; for, had the broad-minded views which found expression in the latter been fully carried out, "Georgia would now have a system of education equal, if not superior, to that of any State in the Union." 4

5

In 1802, as has been seen, the General Assembly re-enacted the provision respecting the privilege of "claiming a credit of £1,000" at the sales of confiscated lands which had previously been accorded to the commissioners of county academies. The first institutions to avail themselves of the benefits of this legislation were the Academies of Greene County and Washington County, which were established about 1803.6 They were followed by Oglethorpe Academy, the name of which was shortly after its foundation changed to Meson Academy. Effingham Academy was the next in order, being incorporated in 1809; and in 18109 Mt. Enon Academy was chartered, which had been in operation since 1 Founded under the act of February 1, 1788. (Watkins's Digest, p. 381.)

7

2 See Watkins's and Marbury and Crawford's Digests. From an act approved December 14, 1793 (Marbury and Crawford's Digest, pp. 141-2), it appears that the portion of the moneys arising from the sale of acre lots in the town of Washington, Wilkes County, which was intended, under the act of July 31, 1783, to be applied to the erection and equipment of a free school there, had been utilized in the establishment of an academy, and that the same had been duly organized, and the services of teachers engaged. See also act of December 12, 1804 (Clayton's Digest, p. 213), by which the commissioners of the institution above alluded to were authorized to inaugurate a lottery for the purpose of raising two thousand dollars toward finishing the academy and purchasing literary apparatus for it.

3 Watkins's Digest, p. 42.

+ Discourse delivered before the Georgia Historical Society on the 12th day of February, 1845, by Dr. Alonzo Church, president of the University of Georgia. (White's Statistics of Georgia, p. 66.)

5 In 1792.

6 See Clayton's Digest, pp. 149-50 and 181.

7 Act of November 27, 1-07. (Cuthbert's Digest, pp. 135-6.)

8 An Act to incorporate the commissioners of the academy of Effingham County, passed December 1, 1809. (Ibid., p. 61.)

Act of December 15, 1810. (Clayton's Digest, p. 666.)

1806. The year 18112 gave birth to the Mount Zion and Powellton Academies, both of them in Hancock County. The former enjoyed an enviable reputation for many years. They were subsequently meorporated, Powellton Academy in 1815,4 and Mt. Zion Academy in 1823.5 In December, 1815, the Sand Hills Academy was founded. It was a branch school to the Academy of Richmond County until 1866, when it became an independent organization.

In 1816 Eatonton Academy, in Putnam County, was established, and for its support the funds and property formerly belonging to the Union Academy were transferred to its trustees. Two years afterward Sparta Academy, in Hancock County, and academies in Jackson and Jasper Counties were incorporated. In 1819 the Washington County Academy received a charter, being then in the sixteenth year of its active existence; and during the next twenty years the work of the erection of academies in Georgia rapidly progressed. We are told by Mr. Evaus (History of Georgia, p. 206) that there were sixty-four academies in active operation in 1829; and that (p. 232) in 1840 academies had been built in the State to the number of one hundred and seventysix, with an aggregate attendance of eight thousand pupils. These institutions of learning have grown with the growth of the State, and may now be found in every county and town in Georgia. A reference to pages 443-9 of the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1884-85 will show the names of some of the more recently established academies.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC ACADEMIES.

It may not seem improper, in this connection, to notice the Roman Catholic academies, which, while perhaps in some of their features as piring to a place among colleges, still, generally speaking, deserve to be classed with the institutions just alluded to. There are six principal academies of the Roman Catholic denomination in Georgia. Of these the first established was the Academy of St. Vincent de Paul, located at Savannah, and founded in 1845. It was incorporated in 1849, under the title of the Savannah Institute of the Sisters of Mercy, and enjoys the distinction of being not only the pioneer Catholic academy in the 1 Campbell's Georgia Baptists, p. 195.

2 Evans's History of Georgia, p. 142.

3 Rev. C. P. Beman, who afterward was president of Oglethorpe University, was for a considerable period in successful and efficient management of this institution. The present able president of the Georgia State Agricultural Society (organized in 1846), Hon. W. J. Northen, was also at one time associated, in the capacity of principal, with the Mount Zion Academy.

4 Act of November 23, 1815. (Lamar's Compilations, pp. 4-5.)

6 An Act to establish and fix the name of the Academy at Mount Zion, in the county of Hancock, and to incorporate the trustees thereof. Passed December 20, 1823. (Cuthbert's Digest, pp. 86-7.)

6 The act authorized the trustees of the Richmond Academy to establish a seminary of learning on the Sand Hills, near Augusta, to be held and considered as a branch of the Richmond Academy. (Ibid., pp. 150-1.)

7 Incorporated by act of December 15, 1809. (Clayton's Digest, pp. 581-2.)

State, but also the parent of three out of the five Catholic academies of high rank which have since arisen. I refer to the St. Mary's Academy and the Sacred Heart Academy at Augusta, and the Academy of the Immaculate Conception in Atlanta, the respective dates of their foundation being 1853, 1876, and 1867. In 1876 an academy was started at Macon, by the name of Mt. De Sales Academy. All these academies were organized and conducted by the Sisters of Mercy, but the last was founded by a distinct branch of that order and independently of the rest.

We conclude with St. Joseph's Academy, situated at Washington, Wilkes County, and under the direction of the Sisters of St. Joseph. This academy was likewise established in 1876, but did not receive its charter until 1878. Although it professes to have the right of granting diplomas, and conferring all degrees peculiar to female colleges in the State of Georgia, and has what it terms a collegiate department in addition to the elementary and preparatory departments, the course of study pursued there does not appear to materially differ from, or to be in any way superior to, the curricula in the other academies. It consists, in the case of the graduating classes, of Christian doctrine, trigonometry, English literature, mythology, geology, astronomy, logic, and moral philosophy.

The

A department of music is embraced in each of these schools, and special emphasis is laid upon this feature of the instruction. academies are well attended, and offer good advantages.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION.

So much for what Georgia has accomplished in the way of academical instruction. The important influence which her academies exerted in the earlier periods of her history cannot be questioned, nor can it be doubted that the academies were largely instrumental in laying, broad and deep, the foundations upon which the system of colleges and universities was subsequently to rest. Let us remember, however, that the facilities for education, as afforded in academies, were not accessible to all. Many there were who lived far beyond the reach of the towns and cities, where the majority of those institutions were located; under such circumstances recourse was had to the elementary schools, in which they found their only source of educational supply. In these schools the simplest elements of learning, viz, spelling, reading, penmanship, arithmetic, and sometimes English grammar and geography, were taught; and they were, Doctor Orr tells us, the sole reliance throughout the rural districts of the State for many years. We are indebted to him for the following account1 of the general plan upon which these elementary schools were conducted :

"The men who taught them were often incompetent-being sometimes See the Educational Needs of the South; an Address delivered before the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association, at the meeting of 1879, by Gustavus J. Orr. Washington, 1879. Pp. 13.