SC & Charleston - Education and Schools in Colonial Times

Two years after his arrival (1722) another act was passed by the General Assembly. The original of this act was not to be found when the Statutes at Large were compiled, but the text is given in Trott's Laws. By this act the Justices of County and Precinct courts were authorized to purchase lands, erect a free school in each county and precinct, and to assess the expense upon the lands and slaves within these respective jurisdictions. They were to appoint masters who should be "well skilled in the Latin tongue," and be allowed £25 proclamation money per annum. Ten poor children were to be taught free of expense in each school if sent by the justices.1 

The acts of Assembly we have mentioned were based upon the fact that many pious persons had previously be queathed legacies for the establishment of free schools. As an instance of the legacies referred to in the recital of the acts of 1712, there is on record the will of one Dove Williams, on the 5th of May, 1711, by which he gave the sum of £100 toward the building, furnishing, and main taining the free school in Charlestown. Such bequests continued and increased to a much greater extent, showing how general was the interest in the subject, and how desirous and earnest were the people in diffusing education in the province generally. In 1721 Richard Berresford died, leaving a will whereby he devised one-third of the yearly profits of his estate for the support of one or more schoolmasters, who should teach writing, accounts, mathe matics, and other liberal learning, and the other two-thirds for the support, maintenance, and education of the poor of the parish of St. Thomas. The vestry received from his estate in pursuance of this devise £6500 for promoting these pious and charitable purposes.1 This fund, Dr. Ramsay says, was still in existence when he wrote (1808), and had long been known by the name of the " Berresford Bounty." 

Indeed, it was preserved until destroyed, or nearly so, during the late war between the States. Mr. Berresford's example was soon followed by Mr. Richard Harris, who left in 1732 to the same vestry £500, to be put out at interest until it rose to £1000, the interest on which should then be applied to the education and main tenance of the poor children of the parish.3

Mr. James Child, of St. John's Parish, laid out a town on the western branch of Cooper River, which was called Childsberry, and afterwards Strawberry, and left several legacies to promote its settlement. He gave one square for a "college or university," £600 currency and a lot for a free school and house for the master. The inhabitants subscribed a further sum of £2200, and to these was added £200 given by Francis Williams. 

To cany out the purpose of these lega cies the Assembly passed an act in 1733 for "erecting a free school at Childsberry." No person was eligible to be a trustee unless he subscribed £100, or was entitled to vote unless he subscribed £50. 

In 1728 the Rev. Richard Ludlam, A.M., died, leaving to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which had sent him out as a missionary, all his estate, real and personal, in trust for the maintenance of a school for the instruction of the poor of the parish of St. James, Goose Creek. In 1742 the Society wrote to the vestry that £592 7s. 6d. sterling was at interest at ten per cent per annum, and that there were still some lands unsold. The vestry did not, however, think that sum sufficient for the endowment of a school, and so did nothing until 1744, when they raised by subscription an additional sum of £2275. 

In 1765 the Rev. Mr. Harrison, in transmitting to the Society the accounts of the Ludlam legacy, informs the Society that the parish ioners had signed a subscription of £200 sterling toward the building of a schoolhouse if the Society would agree to certain conditions in regard to the management of the school. These conditions were accepted by the Society, who sent out a power of attorney to carry them into effect. In the same year Mr. Peter Taylor gave by his will £100 sterling, to be put out on good security until the school should be erected on the land purchased, and then the interest on it was to be applied to the education of poor children. In 1778 the Ludlam fund amounted to £15,272, in currency about £2000 sterling.2

From various subscribers –

" Whereas nothing is more likely to promote the practice of Christianity and virtue than the early and pious education of Youth, we whose names are underwritten do hereby agree and oblige ourselves our execu tors and administrators to pay yearly for three years successively, viz. on or before June 18, 1745, 1746, and 1747 to the Rev. Mr. Millechamp or the church wardens for the time being, the several and respective sums of money over against our names respectively subscribed, for the setting up of a school in the parish of St. James, Goose Creek, on the land for that purpose purchased, for instructing Children in the knowledge and practice of the Christian Religion and for teaching them such other things as are suitable to their capacity."

The Fellowship Society, incorporated in 1769, one of the very first organizations in this country for the care and relief of the insane, appropriated one-half of its funds for that purpose, and the other moiety it bestowed on the gratuitous education of the children of the poor. The St. Andrew's Society likewise appropriated a portion of their funds for similar purposes.

The Winyaw Indigo Society originated in a convivial club formed about the year 1740, which met in George town once a month to talk over the latest news from London and the growth and prosperity of the indigo plant. From the initiation fees and annual contributions, which were paid in indigo and not in money, a considerable surplus fund was accumulated about 1753. The question arose: To what good purpose should this fund be devoted ? Tradi tion relates that at the close of a discussion upon the subject the President called upon the members to fill their glasses, as he wished to close the debate by a definite proposition, which, if it met their approbation, each mem ber would signify it by emptying his glass. He said: " There may be intellectual food which the present state of society is not fit to partake of; to lay such before it would be as absurd as to give a quadrant to an Indian; but knowledge is indeed as free as air. It has been wisely ordained that light should have no color, water no taste, and air no odor; so, indeed, knowledge should be equally pure and without admixture of creed or cant. I move therefore that the surplus funds in the treasury be devoted to the establishment of an independent charity school for the poor." The meeting rose to its feet.

The glasses were each turned down without staining the tablecloth, and the school of the Winyaw Indigo Society was estab lished. This school for more than one hundred years was the school for all the country between Charlestown and the North Carolina line. In its infancy it supplied the place of primary school, high school, grammar school, and college. " The rich and poor alike drank of this fountain of knowledge, and the farmer, the planter, the mechanic, the artisan, the general of armies, lawyers, doctors, priests, senators, and Governors of States have each looked back to the Winyaw Indigo Society as the grand source of their success or their distinction. To many of them it was the only source of their education. Here they began, here they ended, that disciplinary course which was the only preparation for the stern conflicts of life." Some years after the school had been in operation the trustees allowed the principal to receive fifteen pay scholars, for whose teaching he was paid $600, in addition to his regular salary of $1000; and if as many as fifteen more applied for admission, an assistant was employed at a salary of $600. The institution thus became an important grammar and classical school on account of the efficiency of its teachers, and was patronized by the people of a large area of country.

We find mentioned in the Gazette two schools in the neighborhood of Dorchester, one at Wasmassaw in 1731, and another at Ashley Ferry in 1751. Ramsay tells us that education was also fostered in South Carolina by several societies as a part of a general plan of charity. 

About the year 1736 several of the French Protestant congregation, having among them an individual who was in low circumstances and had opened a small tavern in order to maintain his family, agreed to meet at his house whenever they had any business to transact, and to spend an evening or two there every week. From this they were called the French Club. After a short time they further agreed to contribute fifteen pence at every meeting toward raising a fund for the relief of any of the members who might stand in need of support, and from that circumstance the society derived the name of the Two-bit Club. 

Persons who had some knowledge of French became members, that they might improve them selves in that language, no other being allowed to be spoken in the society. The society then established a school to the support of which it devoted a part of its growing income, and paid the salary of a schoolmaster and school mistress for the education of children of both sexes. From the beginning of the school until the time when Ramsay wrote in 1808 several hundred pupils had received the benefit of a plain education from its bounty. Pupils were received in succession.

None under eight were admitted, and none were retained over fourteen — girls not beyond twelve ; as fast as any of the pupils were dismissed, their places were supplied by the admission of others. The number of the pupils when Ramsay wrote was seventy- two. The funds then amounted to $137,000. The society was incorporated in 1751, by the name of the South Carolina Society. It was the first society incorporated, which gave the idea it was the first formed, which was, however, a mistake.  In 1744 a school was established by a society at Jacksonboro, in which the " learned languages, mathe matics, and writing were taught."

The interest which the colonists in South Carolina took in educational matters clearly appears from a perusal of the Gazettes from 1733 to 1774, now on file in the Charles ton Library.3

The following is a copy of the first advertisement we have found, May 12, 1733 : — At the house of Mrs. Delaweare on Broad Street is taught these sciences. Arithmetic Surveying Astronomy Algebra Dialling Gauging Geometry Navigation Fortification Trigonometry The STEREOGRAPHIC and ORTHOGRAPHIC Projection of this Sphere. The use of the Globe and the Italian method of Bookkeeping by John Miller.

During this time there are more than four hundred and twelve advertisements relating to schools and schoolmasters ; and from these it appears that during the forty years there were nearly two hundred persons engaged in teaching in the province as tutors, schoolmasters, or schoolmistresses.4 There were day schools, evening schools, and boarding schools; schools for boys and schools for girls. A knowledge of English, Latin, and Greek could be obtained in the colony at any time after 1712. 

In addition to the schools there were lectures upon educational subjects. In 1739 Mr. Anderson lectures on Natural Philosophy. October 31, 1748, Samuel Domjen announces in the Gazette that, having in his travels in Europe studied and made wonderful experiments in electricity, he proposes to show the surprising effects thereof at Mr. Blythe's tavern in Broad Street during the hours from three to five in the afternoon of Wednesday and Friday, and when desired will wait on the ladies and gentlemen at their houses to show the experiments. " Each person admitted to see them to pay 2s., who also may be electrified if they please." 

In 1752 Mr. Evans gave two courses of lectures on Philosophy. He lectured every day, Sundays excepted. In 1754 Robert Skedday, A.B., gives a course of lectures on Natural Philosophy, viz. Astronomy, Mechanics, Hydrostatics, and Optics.

In 1765 Mr. Wil liam Johnson advertises to give a course of lectures on "that instructive and entertaining branch of natural philosophy called Electricity." The course was to consist of two lectures, in which all the properties of that wonderful element as far as the latest discoveries have made us acquainted therewith, and the principal laws by which it acts, were to be demonstrated in a number of curious ex periments, many of which were entirely new. Among many other particulars Mr. Johnson proposed to show that the electric fire commonly produced by friction of glass and other electrical substances is not created by that friction, but is a real element or fluid body diffused through all places in or near the earth ; and that our bodies contain enough of it at all times to set a house on fire. 

In his second lecture this fire was to be shown to be real lightning, together with many curious experiments representing the various phenomena of thunder-storms. Mr. Johnson was thus entertaining and instructing the people of Charlestown with Franklin's new discoveries. And with an eye to business he advertises that those who desire to have their habitations guarded from the fatal violence of this most awful power of nature, with which this colony had been often dreadfully visited, might learn from his lectures and experiments more of the nature and propensities of lightning than had been known in the world until within a few years ; and at the same time would have an opportunity of being fully convinced that the method proposed for security, if put in practice with proper precautions, would be attended with success ; and that they would understand, that instead of there being any just objection thereto, on the ground of its being a presumption in the face of the Almighty, they would have the utmost reason to bless God for a discovery so important and eminently useful. Mr. Johnson also undertook in these lectures to explain all the principal properties of that other useful branch of natural philosophy called Magnetism.

The colonists of South Carolina might thus well challenge comparison with those of any other province in America, and for that matter with the people at home in old England, for their efforts in behalf of the general and common education of the people. In no province, we venture to affirm, was more provision made by the wealthy for the education of the poor. There was, however, no similar system to that of the common schools which was growing up at the time in New England. The physical conditions of the province and of the colonists prevented it. The population was not equally scattered throughout the country, allowing the settlements of neighborhoods such as the New England townships. 

The low country was settled in large plantations, which were mostly unhealthy for the white man in the summer, thus requiring the planters to reside in Charlestown or in some resort, as Georgetown and Beaufort, during that season. This necessitated provision to be made for private education on the plantations in the winter or the sending of the children to boarding-schools in Charlestown or elsewhere. The Gazettes of this time contain numerous advertisements for teachers in private families, and by persons willing to become such tutors. With the accumulating wealth of the province it became the fashion after 1750, indeed to a considerable extent even before, to send the children of the opulent to England for their whole education.  

Many of the young men who came into public life just before the Revolution had spent the whole of their youth in England, or settled first at Eton or some other school, and then at Oxford or Cambridge. Thus it was that Chief Justice Charles Pinckney, when retired from the Bench and sent as the agent of South Carolina to London, took with him his two young sons, Charles Cotesworth and Thomas, and William Henry Drayton, and left them at school there. Besides these, Arthur Middleton, Thomas Hey ward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr. (three of the signers of the Declaration of Independence), Christopher Gadsden, John Rutledge, Hugh Rutledge, Henry Laurens, John Laurens, Gabriel Manigault, Peter Manigault, and Wil liam Wragg were sent to England for their education. 

Before and just after the Revolution, says Hugh S. Legare in a note to his Essay on Classical Learning, many, perhaps it would be more accurate to say most, of the youth of South Carolina of opulent families were educated in English schools and universities. There can be no doubt, he adds, that their attainments in polite literature were very far superior to those of their contemporaries at the North, and the standard of scholarship in Charlestown was consequently much higher than in any other city on the Continent. So too in his Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century, by Dr. Samuel Miller of Princeton, in 1708, the belief is expressed that the learned languages, especially the Greek, were less studied in the Eastern than in the Southern and Middle states. The reason he assigns is that, owing to the superior wealth of the individuals in the latter States, more of their sons were educated in Europe, and brought home with them a more accurate knowledge of the classics.

Dr. Ramsay calls attention to the fact that the natives of Carolina who were educated in Great Britain were not biassed in favor of that country, but that most of them joined heartily in the Revolution, and from their superior knowledge were eminently useful as civil and military officers in directing the efforts of their countrymen in defence of their rights. This, he observes, is the more remarkable, as the reverse took place in the other provinces. 

During the discussion of the non-importation agreement in 1769 appears an essay in the South Carolina Gazette of November 9, in which the writer, "Carolinacus," suggests that a great economy can be promoted by home education. He calls attention to the large sums of money annually remitted to England to maintain the children there, which in effect is so much money lost to the province, and urges that the example of the northern provinces in educating their youths at home be followed in this. Such a plan, he says, would engage men of real learning to come amongst them. Lieutenant Governor Bull was too loyal a Governor to encourage the non-importation agreement; but he was a man of learning himself, — the first native American to take a degree in medicine abroad, — and upon much higher grounds was in favor of establishing a college in South Carolina.

On the 30th of January, 1770, he sent in to the Assembly a special message upon the subject. He had upon former occasions, he said, recommended to them such matters as concerned the encouragement of trade and the wealth of the province. He had now to propose for their consideration a matter of greater importance, as it would transmit their wealth with additional advantage to their latest posterity. He meant the establishing in the province of seminaries of liberal education, whereby the youth — -the future hope and support of the country — would be rendered more capable of serving themselves and the community of which they were members. The expense, and particularly the anxiety of parents, on account of the danger to the morals and lives of their children when far removed from parental oversight, deterred many from bestowing the inestimable advantages upon their offspring which were then not to be obtained but by sending them abroad. As appeared by a memorial of the Vice Presidents and commissioners of free schools, a short time before, the masters of the free schools coming out from England, being clergymen, were constantly removed from the schools to benefices in the church, and this frequent change was an impediment to their progress. To meet this, Lieutenant Governor Bull in this message urged that though the provisions for the masters of the free schools were more liberal than could have been expected in the infant and weak state of the province when made, that it was now indispensable to put the free schools upon such a footing as would induce masters not only to under take but continue their charge. The present flourishing state of the province could well afford the expense of suitable salaries and buildings for the purpose. But, the Governor went on to observe, grammar schools alone were not sufficient, as they lay only the foundation of the education of those who are to be employed in the learned professions, or who by their fortunes will be placed in the foremost rank of public servants, and to be not only the defence, but ornament, of their country. Such an educa tion could not be implanted but by the instruction of learned professors in the various branches of the liberal arts and sciences, and is most successfully conveyed by students residing in colleges and conforming to wholesome statutes for their good government. It would, he ac knowledged, be the work of time to build and endow such a seminary, but the benefits which the province would re ceive would overbalance all considerations of that nature. In conclusion, the Lieutenant Governor called the atten tion of the Assembly to the unhappy condition of the back settlers, who were destitute of instruction, even in the lowest and most necessary parts of education, and recom mended the establishment of schools at the Waxhaws, Camden, Broad River, Ninety-six, New Bordeaux, and the Congarees. In pursuance of this recommendation of Governor Bull a bill was drawn "for founding, erecting, and endowing public schools and a college for the educa tion of the youth of this province," a considerable portion of which was said to be in the handwriting of John Rutledge. After making full provision for public schools, the bill provided for founding and endowing a college in the province; for the appointment of commissioners and a Board of Trustees, of which the Governor and the Speaker of the Commons' House of Assembly were to be ex officio members, to be called "the Trustees of the College of South Carolina." There were to be a President, who should be Professor of Divinity, Moral Philosophy, and of the Greek and Hebrew languages, at a salary of £350 sterling per annum; a Professor of the Civil and Common Law and of the Municipal Laws of the province, with a salary of £200; a Professor of Physic, Anatomy, Botany, and Chemistry, £200; a Professor of Mathematics and of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, £200; a Professor of History, Chronology, and Modern Languages, £200. The President was, of course, to be of the religion of the Church of England. To John Rutledge has usually been attributed the credit of having made the suggestion of this college, from the fact that most of the bill was in his handwriting; but the message of Lieutenant Governor Bull clearly indicates that he was the author of this attempt to provide a plan of higher education in the colony, and no doubt he had John Rutledge's hearty cooperation in the scheme. But the time was not propitious for the introduction of any such wise measure.

The people were all aflame about the non-importation agreement, and could think of nothing but their meet ings and doings under the Liberty Tree. William Henry Drayton, as we shall see, had just left the prov ince in disgust at the measures he was soon to return to espouse. William Wragg had retired in despair; Christopher Gadsden was pressing on in the road which could end only in revolution; and John Rutledge him self was conniving at the misappropriation of the pub lic funds for the benefit of Wilkes. He might assist Governor Bull by drafting a bill to carry out recom mendations which his own judgment no doubt clearly approved, but he could not divert the attention of the people under the Liberty Tree from the enforcement of the "agreement" to consider so theoretical a matter as that of education.

But while Governor Bull could not induce the General Assembly to forego the disputes with the Royal govern ment sufficiently to attend to this matter of the promotion of colleges for higher education, the northern colonies saw the opportunity of raising funds for the support of such institutions in America, and availed themselves of it. The Gazette of the 15th of February (1770) reports, " We have now here no less than two solicitors for benefactions to colleges in northern colonies, viz. : the Rev. Hezekiah Smith, who collects for one intended to be established in Rhode Island government, the President whereof always is to be a Baptist, and the majority of the Trustees of the same profession; the other, the Rev. Mr. Caldwell, who has met with great success in gathering for that estab lished in Prince Town in New Jersey, and we are told if this continues we may expect annual visits for the sup port of those foundations. Surely, if we can afford this, we ought not to delay procuring an establishment here for the benefit of our posterity." Two years later, March 26, 1772, the Gazette announces: "The Rev. Dr. William Smith, we are assured, has collected not less than £1000 sterling in the short time he has been here by donations for the use of the college : an evident proof of how liber ally and readily the inhabitants of this province would contribute to promote so necessary and desirable an es tablishment among themselves." In the minutes of the Board of Trustees of the College of Philadelphia (now University of Pennsylvania) there is an order of the date of April 15, 1772, "that the names of the several gentlemen who so kindly contributed toward the college in collec tions made for the same in South Carolina by Dr. Smith be inserted in this book as a perpetual testimony of the obligation which this seminary is under to them. The list is headed by Lieutenant Governor Bull himself with a contribution of £150 South Carolina currency; Henry Middleton, £350; Thomas Smith, £350; Gabriel Mani- gault, £700; Miles Brewton, £275; Charles Pinckney, £147; Christopher Gadsden, £140; Thomas Ferguson, £350; and so on, almost every man in the colony of any prominence contributing and making up a sum equivalent to £1061 10s. Id. sterling. The people of South Carolina thus contributed to the establishment of three of the great institutions of learning in the country, — Princeton, Brown University, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Governor Bull, as we have seen, called the attention of the General Assembly to the want of schools in the upper part of the province. The year before, i.e. in 1768, a society had been formed by the inhabitants of the Ninety- six District for the purpose of endowing and supporting a school there, the society was incorporated in the session of the General Assembly to which Governor Bull sent his message, and at the same session Thomas Bell, William and Patrick Calhoun, and Andrew Williamson petitioned the Assembly in behalf of themselves and of "other inhabitants of the back parts of the province " among other things, as we shall see, for ministers of the gospel and schoolmasters. But the want of public schools in this section of the State was supplied, in a great measure, by the Presbyterian clergymen who came down with the Scotch-Irish immigration. Churches and schoolhouses were built together by the ministers of that church, which from the earliest times has been foremost in the cause of education in this country. Of the zeal of the women of these people we have already had occasion to quote the eloquent description of their historian. These Presbyte rian clergymen came from Ireland, — some from Scotland, — and were usually men of education, some of the highest education. They read and wrote Latin fluently, and appear to have been required to defend a thesis, and to explain the Greek Testament upon joining the presbytery. At least such was expected of Archibald Simpson when he began his ministry as a probationer. Some were excellent arithmeticians, and all were good penmen. The " Master," as the teacher was called, discharged many duties usually performed by lawyers and surveyors. In the absence of lawyers, in that section, he drew all the wills and titles to land, and made all the difficult calculations. No man in the settlement was more honorable or honored than the "Master." The title signified more than "Reverend" or " Doctor " does now.

It is a curious and interesting fact in the history of South Carolina that the very first instance in which the names of the English churchmen and the Huguenots on the coast, and of the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of the upper country, are commingled, is in the establishment of a school. The Mount Zion Society was established in the city of Charlestown January 9th and incorporated February 12, 1777, the year after the battle of Fort Moultrie, for the purpose of founding, endowing, and supporting a public school in the District of Camden, for the education and instruction of youth.

Chas - Free School In Dorchester - 1755

AN Act of The GENERAL ASSEMBLY of this PRovince, ENTitled “AN ACT for Founding AND ERECTING, goverNING, ordering AND visiting, A FREE SNhool. At the Town of Dotchester, IN THE PARIsh of St. George, IN BERKLEY county, For the use of The INHABITANTs of the PRovince of South CAROLINA."

Schoolmaster to be paid 50 pounds in SC money every six months.

. . . That the school-master, ushers and teachers to be appointed as aforesaid, shall freely and without any manner of fee or reward whatsoever, teach and instruct ten poor scholars, and as many more as the president and any four of the said commissioners shall from time to time approve of and judge fit to nominate and appoint.