the inferior courts were authorized to raise by an extra tax an amount sufficient, when added to the pro rata distribution from the State, to educate the poor children in their respective counties. The leading provision of the law establishing the poor school system made it the duty of the magistrates in the districts to report to the inferior court, an. nually, the names of all the children in their respective districts deemed by them proper persons to receive a portion of the fund set apart for the education of the poor. These returns were sent by the inferior court to the "executive office," and formed the basis for the distribution of the fund, which amounted to about twenty thousand dollars.2 OBJECTIONS TO THE POOR SCHOOL SYSTEM. This duty of the magistrates, under the law, to make returns of the poor children, was often entirely neglected. Even when made these returns were very imperfect. Not more than three-fourths of the poor children in the State were returned, and of those returned (as was learned from commissioners of the poor school fund in a few counties), little more than half were sent to school, and those who went did not attend four months in the year. In 1849 thirty-two counties made no returns of their poor children. In 1850 fifteen counties failed to make returns; and notwithstanding the law provided that counties making no returns should participate in the educational fund agreeably to the last return on record,3 in the same year eight counties received nothing because they had never made a return. In further illustration of the general indifference then felt on the subject of poor schools, we quote from Governor George W. Crawford's message of 1845. He says that "during the past year [viz, 1844] only fifty-three of the ninety-three counties of the State made application at the treasury for their allotments of the poor school fund," and when, too, the penalty for default was known to be an absolute forfeiture of claim 5 Another objection to the poor school plan were its gross injustice to the poorer counties, where there were the greatest number of poor children and the least ability to bear taxation. For instance, the counties of Newton and Jasper paid into the treasury, as State tax, $5,910, and returned some 120 poor children; whilst those of Union and Gilmer, which paid a State tax of $1,594, returned 2,884 poor children. Mr. Calvin presents the following view of the poor schools, as they An act to provide for the education of the poor, assented to December 27, 1843. (Laws of 1843, pp. 43-5.) 2 Lewis's Report, p. 26. The poor school fund seems to have been originally much larger, for the same writer (p. 31), referring to the provision made for the education of indigent children, says that "as far back as 1836, forty thousand dollars were annually distributed for this purpose." 3 Prince's Digest, p. 22. 4 Lewis's Report, p. 27. 5 Ibid., p. 83. 6 Ibid., p. 27. * * existed in 1869: 1 "Under the laws now in force," he writes, “ a board of education in each county, consisting of the Ordinary, as ex-officio treasurer of the poor school fund, and a commissioner appointed by the judge of the superior court, issues license to almost any person, author izing said person to teach when, where, and how he or she may please. As a general rule, the teacher provides his own school-room and school furniture (of the most primitive kind), and is allowed seven cents a day for each pupil in actual attendance; he files his account with the Ordinary quarterly, and receives compensation at the expiration of the year. * No argument is necessary to prove that the absolute effect of this system is to transform the State schools from common schools (such as the people wish) into the veriest pauper or poor schools,' as they are termed. The law-making power seems all the while to have been laboring under the impression that the children in our State belong to two classes-regarding the one as belonging to rich families, and the other as paupers. This is a mistake, though measurably ad bered to still. We have made these schools mere charities. * * The 'poor schools' of this State, by reason of the law which creates them, are robbed of the influence for good that they might otherwise wield. The very law subjects every patron of these schools to the jeer of pauperism." In the same spirit had Governor William Schley written, as far back as 1837. In referring to the distinction as made by the General Assembly of academic and poor school funds, he remarked: "There should be no such designations as academic and poor school, because they are invidious and insulting. Poverty, though a great inconvenience, is no crime; and it is highly improper, whilst you offer to aid the cause of education, to say to a portion of the people, You are poor.' Thousands of freemen who, though indigent, are honest, patriotic, and valuable citizens, will refuse your bounty and despise the hand that offers it, because it is accompanied with insult."2 6 The truth of Governor Schley's observation was abundantly confirmed by the results which everywhere attended the workings of the poor school system. We are told by Kiddle and Schem3 that in 1850 there were in Georgia 213,903 white adults, of whom twenty per cent. were unable to read and write; and a reference to the United States Census of 1860, when the number of illiterates had been reduced to eighteen per cent., shows that there were then in the State 16,900 males and 26,784 females (white) over twenty-one years of age, ignorant of even the simplest rudiments of learning. Amply had it been demonstrated that the poor school system in its then state was wholly inadequate to meet the educational demands which it was designed to supply. Clearly apparent it was that a reform in 1 Popular Education in Georgia, p. 5. 2 Lewis's Report, pp. 76-7. 3 Cyclopædia of Education. New York and London, 1877. Page 347. its methods was greatly needed, and that a system was wanted which, in the language of Thomas R. R. Cobb, "should remedy these defects, avoiding others: schools to which the children of the poorest citizens might be sent without submitting parent or child to the jeer of pauperism: school-houses which should awaken a feeling of pride in every neighborhood,' and cause the richest to feel that no private teaching can afford equal advantages to the common schools." For a correct understanding of the difficulties inherent in and the reason for the failure of the poor school plan, it must be remembered that, previous to the Civil War, the people of Georgia looked to pri vate or independent schools for the education of their sous and daugh. ters. The system of education adopted and attempted by the State contemplated that provision should be made for the instruction of indigent white children in the elementary branches of an English educa tion. The question of the cost of tuition in private schools was not considered. The stand-point from which the people viewed the subject rendered the consideration of that item entirely unnecessary. The means were at hand, and the people cheerfully used them. Public sentiment, as a rule, was against the suggestion that it was the province and duty of the State to educate her youth. It was conceded, however, that the State might, with measurable propriety, provide for the intellectual training of children whose parents were too poor to pay tuition in the independent schools.2 To this end it was that poor schools were established; and had that fatal error which was the spirit and leading idea of the theory upon which the system was based from its inception to its abolition-I mean the condition of pauperism, which was an inseparable incident to a participation in its benefits-been thoroughly eradicated, there can be no doubt that the system would have proved a most wholesome institution, and one productive of considerable good for the indigent classes. In speaking of the poor schools, Mr. Calvin says (Popular Education in Georgia, p. 7): "They [poor schools] are never visited. They are generally accounted 'Hedge Schools,' and so denominated, secretly and openly." Augusta Centennial Chronicle, Augusta, Ga., May, 1885. CHAPTER III. THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.1 HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. That there was no regularly organized system of common schools supported by public taxation in Georgia prior to the Civil War has been already shown. Of the attempts toward the establishment of such a system we are now to speak. Efforts were made in 1845 and again in 1856 to inaugurate a common school system in the State, both of which were unsuccessful. Still it was evident that the people of Georgia were beginning to feel the need, and were expecting the erection of public, or free schools. They took their first step in that direction when, ou December 11, 1858, the Legislature set apart one hundred thousand dollars annually of the net earnings of the Western and Atlantic Railroad (State property) for educational purposes; and provided that, upon the payment of any portion of the public debt of the State by means of the sinking fund, bonds of the State to a like amount should be executed by the Governor and deposited with the Secretary of State, who should hold them as trustee of the educational fund, the interest thereon at six per cent. to be appropriated to school purposes.2 Atlanta, Ga., 1876. Pp. 179–82. Thomas P. Janes's Hand-Book of Georgia. Henderson's Commonwealth of Georgia, etc. Dr. Orr's Address on the Best School System for a Southern State. Atlanta, Ga., 1886. Pp. 16. Also his Reports to the General Assembly from 1878 to 1887, and the Report for 1888 of his successor, James S. Hook. Public School Laws of the State of Georgia of General Operation and now of Force throughout the State. Atlanta, Ga., 1886. Report on a System of Public Schools for the State of Georgia. Savannah, 1870. Pp. 18. 12. Popular Education in Georgia, etc., by Martin V. Calvin. Augusta, Ga., 1870. Pp. Code of Georgia, 1882. Pp. 260-7. Extract from Governor Smith's Message to the Legislature in January, 1877 (quoted in Derry's Georgia, etc.). Philadelphia, 1878. Pp. 109–12. 2 See an act to provide for the education of the people of this State between certain ages, and to provide an annual sinking fund for the extinguishment of the public debt. (Acts of 1858, pp. 49-51.) By an act to "alter and amend" this, approved December 21st of the following year, it was provided that the ages of the children who were to receive the benefits of education from this source should be between six and eighteen years (Laws of 1859, pp. 29-30). 30 These measures contemplated the realization at no distant day of a fund sufficient to establish free schools throughout the State. This anticipation would probably have been realized but for the Civil War. The provisions of the law went so far as to allow the people of any county to establish free schools and use their share of the funds for this purpose; and, in 1860, in one county (Forsyth) free schools were established and successfully carried on. The public school system, as now known in Georgia, sprang up after the War, and was essentially an outgrowth of the many changes effected by it. "Most of the States in the South," says Doctor Orr, 1" in adopting new constitutions under the reconstruction acts, incorporated into the fundamental law the public school policy. * * .* Not only were constitutions which provide for public education generally adopted, but in every State in the South the attempt has been made to inaugurate a school system under laws passed in accordance with the new constitutional requirements." Georgia formed no exception to this rule. In her Constitution of 1868 she provided for "a thorough system of general education to be forever free to all children of the State."2 Two years later, in October, 1870, the first public school law was enacted; and it is an interesting fact in connection with that law that its main provisions were identical with a plan submitted to the Legislature by the FIRST STATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION. This body, in the month of August, 1869, held its first annual meeting, as a regular organization, in the city of Atlanta. A committee was raised to report upon a school system adapted to the condition and wants of Georgia. This report was to be submitted, first to the executive committee of the Association, and, after revision by its members, to the Association itself, at a special session to be held in the following November at Macon. Some changes were made in the committee after its first appointment, and it finally stood as follows: Gustavus J. Orr, the late respected State School Commissioner, chairman; the late Bernard Mallon, for many years superintendent of the schools of Atlanta; the late John M. Bonnell, at that time president of the Wesleyan Female College; Martin V. Calvin, a Representative in the Legislature from Richmond County; and David W. Lewis, late President of the North Georgia Agricultural College at Dahlonega. A meeting of the committee was held, and each member having fully given his views,3 Doctor Orr was directed to write the report. When Educational Needs of the South, p. 9. 2 Article VI, section 1. (Code of Georgia, 1873, p. 925.) 3 It is noteworthy that Mr. Calvin had read a paper (Popular Education in Georgia, etc.) before the Georgia Teachers' Association, at its meeting in August, 1869, which, after discussion, had been referred to a committee of five as above stated, who were instructed to report a system of common schools for the State; and that |