one thing needed in North Carolina, the great want for which all her advantages offered no compensation. And there were the materials for such a people, a working population unexcelled in sobriety, morality, and sturdiness of character, industrious, frugal, and conservative. But the masses, generally, were born homeless; the better part grew up to move, and for long years the situation was not comprehended even by the most sagacious of our leaders. At last the truth began to dawn dimly on various classes, and to some it came as an intuition.” Again Dr. Wiley very pertinently remarks on the introduction of the school system: "This population was proverbially tenacious of old habits, conservative to the point of stubbornness, with no neighboring precedents or examples, and no persons trained under such systems. The experiment was an absolute novelty in this region, the cause occupied little of the thoughts of Southern statesmen, and it began among a people inured to light taxes and the less inclined to be taxed for education from the fact that there was a large school fund. The accumulation of the fund was a practical and strong teaching against current taxation, and since its inception the principle of distribution was changed from the basis of white to that of Federal population, and thus an element of sectional jealousy and strife was added to other inherent trials. The idea of a charity system was connected with it, rendering it obnoxious to many interested in it, and there were no appliances for the instruction and training of the vast number of managers and teachers immediately needed, while many of the old field' instructors, as the teachers of primary subscription schools were called, received it with jealousy, prepared to make war upon it. But the schools were organized under the new law. The report on the finances of the literary board for 1842 was as follows: Cash on hand November 1, 1840.. Income from all sources, November 1, 1840, to November 1, 1842 (including entries for vacant lands, interest on money invested in stock of navigation companies and bank stock, and for capital and interest on loans).. The disbursements were: Support of common schools, 1841 Investments (loans, draining swamps, railroad bonds, etc.).. Total expenses. Balance on hand November 1, 1842.. $78,007.06 222,936.50 300, 943.56 32,836. 12 65, 277. 14 98, 113.26 144, 832.00 242, 945.26 57,998.30 For the two years from November 1, 1842, to November 1, 1844, the total income of the board from all sources, and including the balance brought over, was $316,459.81. The total expenditures were $252,130.41. Of this amount $175,744.57 went to the schools. It may be of interest to give the expenditures by months, to show the seasons mostly preferred for the schools: The total income for 1845 and 1846 was $293,007.87. Of this sum $61,466.01 was paid out for common schools in 1845 and $96.702.01 in 1846 Leaving a total in the treasury, after deducting all other expenses, of. $127, 319. 63 Income from all sources, 1847-48.. Disbursements to schools, 1847... Total for 1847 and 1848 Other expenses, including building of Deaf and Dumb Asylum and appropriation for deaf and dumb education, draining of swamp linds, and a loan to Floral College.. Balance on hand November 1, 1848 Disbursements for schools, 1849. Total.... Amount on hand November 1, 1850 358, 218. 31 96, 511.31 101, 530. 04 198,041.35 23, 964. 27 136, 212.69 347,902.37 99,449.38 107, 839.00 22,921.32 229, 709. 70 118,192.67 Such was the course of the first period of actual trial of the school system. The school fund was in good condition and a steady revenue was received from it. But the evils of the system were perhaps larger than the good results. In the first place, there was no efficient supervision, and under the system in vogue there could be none. Until 1853 the literary board was the chief executive head of the system. This was an awkward arrangement, and the board urged on the legislature the more. simple and efficient plan of a single executive chief or superintendent. The biennial reports of the board were mostly confined to this one object, and hence for twelve years friends of the schools labored in darkness. As it was, the system could not be managed as a whole, and was left largely to local officers and to a public wholly unused to such cares. Whatever there was of error was allowed to grow unheeded, and there was no published record of progress. "Some of the legislative provisions were wise-remarkably so, considering the circumstances and they laid a broad and good foundation, but they could not be prudently added to from time to time, and it was impossible for any man to survey the whole system in its details, in its wants, and in its results." Returns from the counties could not be enforced, and the result was that hardly half made regular reports to the board. No special report by the State authorities was provided for; consequently there was no general information on the subject. The first forms, which were necessarily imperfect, were not improved, and were often clumsily filled or entirely neglected. Diverse habits sprang up in different counties, and the best county systems, made so by the exertions of discreet and zealous local friends, naturally felt least interest in State action and in the system as a whole, and it was not until 1849 that the various acts relating to the common schools were collected and published. The character of much of this legislation was permissive. Thus the act of 1846 provided that the board of county superintendents might appoint a committee of five to examine "into the qualifications, mental and moral," of applicants for teachers' positions. Where there were such committees persons could not teach without their certificate, but this, when given, was little more than a testimonial of moral character. Another reason for the small success of the schools during the first decade of their existence is summarized by Dr. Wiley, in his special report, as follows: Under the constitutional provision of 1776 the schools were not to be charity schools. They were to be subsidized by the State, but every man was expected to pay something toward the instruction of his children, but the idea of charity was attached to the common schools and the name itself helped to raise a barrier between the upper and lower classes of society. It seemed as if these schools were to erect a fence between the two. It prevented many from sending their children to these schools, and kept the more intelligent part from taking any active part in the management of the schools." Further, the common schools were a novelty to the people; they were imported from the outside and did not grow in the soil; hence it took more time for the people to understand and appreciate them. They were at first considered as a sort of labor-saving machine and expected to work themselves, Then came the imperfections of the system itself. The plan adopted in 1840 was dominated by the ideas in the plan submitted by Judge Murphey in 1817. His idea as to a literary board was framed into a law: "It was enacted that there should be a 'Board of Literature in this State,' to be called The President and Directors of the Literary Fund of North Carolina;' so called because there was then only a fund and no public schools. This board became mere trustees of the fund-they have been useful as such, and as such only have tried to be useful, it being impossible, in the nature of things, that they could, without immense cost to the State, officially discharge the duties of the head of the public schools, as originally intended by Judge Murphey. Nevertheless, when we established our system of public schools, this literary board was made the nominal head—and thus, as I stated, we were still under the influence of the erroneous conclusions of one active intellect which thought for us twenty years before. This board, however, was but a nominal head, divested of all the powers necessary to make it useful as such; and so we launched our experiment, so new to our people, so complicated, so liable to difficulty, and cut ourselves off from all direct communication with it." The radical defects of the system were soon seen and changes were repeatedly urged on the assembly. At the end of the first year it was not known how many schools had been established; it was not known thirteen years later, for there were no means by which the system could observe and note its own deficiencies, ascertain its own progress, and record its own experience. Another vital defect was the permissive character of the legislation. The laws of 1838 and 1840 left it to the counties to say whether they would have the system at all. They took their time. In 1840 Governor Dudley said in his message: "Most of the counties have adopted the common-school system, and a few have received the State's quota of money to aid them." It was not until 1846 that the school system had been adopted in all. The law of 1840 simply "authorized and empowered," but did not require the counties to levy a local tax, and the effect of this laxness was soon felt. In 1844 the literary board says: "In some counties the justices fail to lay any tax whatever for common schools, alleging that the law does not impose it as a peremptory duty on them to do so, but leaves it to their discretion." In 1848 Governor Graham asked if the counties should not be required to raise by local taxation at least one-half as much as they received from the State before being paid anything from the State quota. The board said on the same subject: “It seems, however, to be expedient to require of each county imperatively to raise by local taxation, annually, a sum equal to at least one-half of that received from the State, to the end that schools may be maintained a sufficient portion of each year in the several districts, and to withhold from any county her share in the State's distribution until her chairman shall make the report now required of him by law." 1 The census of 1850 gives the total annual income of the public schools from taxation as $42,936. The income from all sources, endowment, taxation, public funds and other sources is put down as $158,564. The total income of the academies and other schools was $187,648. But this requirement was not then made, and not until August 10, 1897, was the question of local taxation for schools submitted to the State as a whole. One of the most difficult problems which the new system had to solve was how the local academies, encouraged to some extent by lotteries granted by the legislature, were to be brought into relations with it. 46 The "old field schools," which this new system supplanted, "so called," says Dr. Wiley, because generally located on or near worn-out and unfenced fields grown over with sedge and scrub pines, and on which were the playgrounds, did not number 1,200 in all the State, and were taught by persons widely variant in character and qualifications. Some of these were seininaries of learning of a high order, conducted by men of mark in their day, and whose labors have exerted a wide and lasting influence for good, not only in this but in many other States; but the large majority of teachers instructed only in the elementary branches of spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic. English grammar was not taught, perhaps, in a majority of the schools, and geography as a general thing was an un nown science. The text books in every branch were few, unattractive, and often very defective; but one good result of the want of readers was the general use of the Holy Scriptures, and especially of the New Testament. The teacher, in most cases a law to himself and a neighborhood oracle, knew little of the methods of his brethren in other places, and never regarded himself as an element of a general system; and his progress was only in the mechanical art of writing, and from years of practice many became masters in penmanship and naturally looked with contempt on their brethren of a new generation whose qualifications were mental and who had not spent a lifetime in learning to make graceful curvatures and flourishes with the quill." On these schools Dr. Wiley says, in his special report in 1855 (1 p. 17-20): "From the first the facilities for improvement furnished to the masses were very indifferent; and down to a period within the memory of the middle aged, and even of the younger portion of our citizens, our voluntary subscription system of old field schools was, to say the least, utterly inadequate to the necessities of the times, giving no promise of ever effecting, within any reasonable period, the object of those who framed the clause of the constitution before alluded to. "The schoolhouses were few and far between, located in the more thickly settled neighborhoods, and bad as are our common schoolhouses, not at all equal to them as a general thing in comfort and convenience of arrangement, while there was not a house of any kind expressly dedicated to the purposes of teaching for every 10 miles square of territory in the State. "The teachers as a class were indifferent scholars; and I say this with high respect for a race among whom there were some useful and devoted public servants and benefactors. But much as we complain now, salaries then were a good deal lower than what they now are; and even had they been equal or larger, the advantage in this respect would still belong to the modern cash incomes, promptly paid, over the uncertain earnings, which were often long delayed and part of which was very frequently paid in barter. There were a great multitude of little collections to make, and men of active business habits were not eager to engage in a calling whose small profits were as hard to collect as they were to make. The lazy, the lame, the eccentric, the crippled, were but too often the old field teachers;' and while many of them could not write their own 'articles' (as agreements between teachers and parents were called), a collection of those written by the masters would form a literary curiosity as unique in style, spelling, and chirography as any contribution of the kind that could now be made by any class of teachers. "The studies pursued were spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic; and if those who applied themselves to them in the old schools succeeded better as men and women than those who now study in our common schools, it is another illustration of the advantages of early hardships, while the praise is due mainly to the energy, industry, and perseverance of the pupils and not to the schools. “Grammar and geography were almost wholly unknown in the best of these It was not at all uncommon to find these houses without ground or loft floors, with chimneys built of sticks and dirt. Fuel was supplied by brush, which the children were sent out every few hours to gather, and about the fire there was a perpetual scramble for the inside position, while the young men and women and older children ciphered out of doors in the sun, forming very social but not studious little parties on the sunny side of all the surrounding trees. schools, and many of our middle-age people who now read the newspapers teeming with news from the four corners of the earth, all knit together with railroads and telegraphs, feel and complain of their ignorance of the latter study, and would give much to be able to trace upon the map the connections and bearings of countries formerly seldom heard of and now mixed up with their nearest political and religious interests and affecting the prices even of their produce and labor. The method of teaching was extremely primitive; to look on the book and make a decent drouing noise of any kind, not out of the common key, would insure immunity from the all-potent rod, while this habit of noise, pleasant as it is as a reminiscence, because it was the music of our early years, was anything else than an advantage to those who really wished to bend their minds to study. Hence all these, and all who claimed to be such, were allowed to pursue their studies out of doors; and among the white heads with which the sunny landscape would blossom, perhaps one in every ten would be following out some useful train of thought or diving into the mysteries of Dilworth and Pike. He would work out the sums' for all the others, and, as blackboards were unknown, the scholar had but to run in, hold up his slate to the teacher, get an approving nod, and return to his amusements. There were no lectures, few explanations, no oral instruction; to get through the book was the great end, and to whip well the paramount means. Few and indifferent as these schools were, they were not generally kept for a longer term than the great majority of common schools now are, and the attendance was equally uncertain and irregular. The schools were generally limited to a quarter of three months during the coldest part of the winter, and as families with two to six children would subscribe half a scholar, the house would often be jammed with sixty students and as often hold fifteen or twenty. Half a scholar! Why, can't we remember when five children would biennially get the benefit of the teaching due half a scholar for three months; that is, when one and a half months' schooling every year, or every two years, would be divided among three to five children, making six to ten days or more apiece? The good old times, which, divested of all romance, of all the tender fancies which_naturally cluster around the recollections of all childhood, were times which tried the souls of those who wished to gain a good education and which throw their still lingering shadows upon the present age." VIII. REORGANIZATION ANd Growth, 1852-1861. The common-school system had begun in 1838 with considerable means, and the small impression that it created on the thinking people of the State and on the public generally proves that it was not considered a part of the governmental machinery, but as a local interest with which local authorities could deal largely at their discretion. 66 The law of 1825 had provided that the distribution of the literary fund should be on the basis of the free white population, but the act of 1840 changed the basis from white to Federal population. Governor Manly, in his message to the legis lature of 1850-51, claimed that the rule adopted in 1840 carried on its face a vio. lation of the spirit and object of the injunction of the constitution; is a breach of the public faith given by the legislature of 1825; is at variance with the rule in other Southern States; divides the fund not according to the public necessity, but the wealth of the people, and is in itself unequal and unjust.' The advocates of the existing system defended their side with equal vigor, and thus were sown the seeds of dissention and jealousy with which Dr. Wiley had to deal during the whole of his administration. "The system, as then organized, was not only deficient in its organization but in accountability, uniformity, and its general management. For a period of ten years about $90.000 have been placed annually in the hands of the various school committees of the State, a sum larger than the whole amount of the State's revenue paid into the public treasury during that period. This large sum, forming an aggregate of nearly a million of dollars, has within this brief period been spent, and yet no adequate provision has been made, much less enforced, for even |