Early Education in West Virginia

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History of Education in West Virginia
Prepared under the direction of the State Superintendent of Free Schools
1904, Charleston: The Tribune Printing Company, 1904
pgs. 17-54

Early Education in West Virginia

VIRGIL A. LEWIS, M. A.

Lord Bacon has said that "Knowledge is Power." He did not say that
knowledge is virtue or that knowledge would necessarily bring happi-
ness to its possessor. Yet, the experience of all ages has proved that an
educated people will, other things being equal, be the most industrious,
most prosperous and most virtuous, and, therefore, the most happy.
And since the light of revealed knowledge has dawned upon the world,
the necessity for education has become vastly more apparent.

Some one has said that History is but "a record of bleeding centuries
preserved by the book-keepers of the nation." This is in great part true,
for it is little else than a story of war, plunder, devastation and desola-
tion. But there are some noted exceptions. It was the boast of J. R.
Green, the author of the "History of the English People," that, therein, he
had given more space to Chaucer than to Creasy; to Caxton than to the
strife between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians; to the poet and his-
torian than to the soldier, mariner, or crusader; to the founding of
Oxford University than to the battle of Waterloo; to intellectual ad-
vancement than to the record of the slaughter of men and the desolation
of homes. In this he did right for the world of today cares not so much
for the records of the wars of a state or nation as for the story of its
intellectual development. West Virginia was once a land of block-
houses, forts, and stockades; now it is a land of school-houses. The
story of the transition from the former to the latter is an interesting one,
for it tells how the mental activities of the people have kept pace with
the material development of this Transallegheny region.

THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO FOUND AN ENGLISH SCHOOL IN AMERICA

For many years the history of West Virginia is a part of that of Vir-
ginia and if we would learn its story we must look beyond the Blue
Ridge, even to the shores of the Chesapeake, for the causes which have
acted in advancing or retarding the progress of the first settlers of
the State and of their immediate descendants as well. The earliest Eng-
lish settlement in America was made in 1607, at Jamestown on the banks
of the historic James river This was thirteen years and six months
before a single white man found a home on the shores of New England.

THE UNIVERSITY OF HENRICO

Many of the foremost literary men and profoundest scholars of Eng-
land were members of the Virginia Company of London; and George
Percy, John Porey, Alexander Whitaker, George Sandys, and others who
had come to the Colony were educated men Hence we are not surprised
to find the Company, after having established representative government
in Virginia—the first in America—engaged in an effort to found, on the
banks of the James, in 1619, the first educational institution in North
America north of the parallel of Mexico. This was to be the University of
Henrico and its location was to be on the northern or eastern bank of the
James river, ten miles below the Falls—now Richmond. Here the Com-
pany, on the recommendation of its treasurer, Sir Edwin Sandys, donated,
or set aside, fifteen thousand acres of land and furnished one hundred
tenants to cultivate this for the support of the College. King James I,
a friend of the proposed school issued instructions to the bishops of
England, to collect money to build a University in Virginia. In these he
said: "Wherefore, do we require you and hereby authorize you to write
letters * * * * to zealous men of the diocese, that they may, by
their own example in contribution and by exhortation to others, move
the people within the several charges to contribute to so good a work
* * * to be employed for this goodly purpose and no other." Fifteen
hundred pounds—more than seven thousand dollars—were thus collected
Then there were private donations and bequests.  Gabriel Barker, a
member of the Company, gave five hundred pounds for the education of
Indian children in the institution; a person unknown sent a communion
table for the University; still another, who concealed his Identity, gave
many excellent books to the value of ten pounds, together with a map
"of all that coast of America". Nicholas Farrar gave by will three hun-
dred pounds for the same object; Reverend Thomas Bargrave, a minister
in the Colony, gave a library valued at one thousand marks; and the in-
habitants along the banks of the James made a contribution of fifteen
hundred pounds to build a house of entertainment at Henrico—the pro-
posed seat of the University. In mid-summer of this year, George Thorpe,
the Superintendent of the School—the first English school teacher in
America—arrived in Virginia, and fixed his residence at Henrico, where
work on the institution began. In October, 1621, Sir Francis Wyatt,
Governor of the Colony, arrived at Jamestown bringing a series of instruc-
tions from the Company for his own guidance, and one of these was that
he should see to it that every town or borough "have taught some chil-
dren fit for College." It is fair to presume that in compliance with this
requirement he caused schools to be established for this purpose.

THE EAST INDIA SCHOOL AT CHARLES CITY

But still another effort was made to found thus early, a school in
Virginia. In 1621, Rev. Patrick Copeland, Chaplain of the East India
ship the "Royal James" collected from the mariners and passengers
when homeward bound to England, the sum of seventy pounds, eight
shillings and six pence, to aid in founding a seminary or preparatory
school at Charles City in Virginia, to be known as the East India School.
Other donations of money and books were made in England. The Vir-
ginia Company of London appropriated a thousand acres of land with five
tenants to aid in its support. The good ship "Abagail" brought over a
number of mechanics, ship-carpenters and others; also, "a select number
to build the East India School at Charles City". Its projector. Rev. Pat-
rick Copeland, was chosen its Rector, but for reasons now to appear, he
never crossed the ocean.

DEATH, WRECK, AND RUIN

A terrible tragedy now darkened all the land of Virginia. 0-pech-an-
ca-no resolved to destroy the colony and in the Indian massacre on
March 22, 1622, three hundred and forty-seven of the settlers fell in
death at the hands of a barbarous and perfidious people. Superintendent
Thorpe and seventeen of the people of the University of Henrico, were
among the slain, and five victims fell at Charles City, the seat of
the East India School. Whether these last were the five tenants
sent by the Company to till its lands cannot now be known, but
it is probable that they were. The direful calamity stayed the progress
of education in the Colony. Had it not been so the East India School
and the University of Henrico, with equipment, and preparatory schools
"teaching some children fit for the College" would have begun its work
fifteen years before Harvard, seventy-two years before William and Mary
opened its doors to students and eighty years before Yale had an exist-
ence.

EDUCATION IN VIRGINIA BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

In 1624, two years after the massacre, King James, by quo warranto
proceedings, dissolved the Virginia Company of London, and Virginia be-
came a Crown Colony. The Established Church of England had already
divided the settled portion of the Colony into parishes and it was in these
that Sir Francis Wyatt, the governor, in 1621, was directed by the Com-
pany "to have taught some children fit for the College."

THE PARISH SCHOOLS—FREE SCHOOLS ESTABLISHED BY INDIVIDUALS

Wyatt's instruction was doubtless, the origin of the Parish or Paro-
chial Schools in Virginia. Thenceforth for more than a hundred years
the records of the schools belong to the history of the Church rather than
to the annals of the Colony. Therefore, historians of that time gave but
little attention to educational matters. From the acts of the House of Bur-
gesses we learn that in 1643, Benjamin Symms devised a freehold of
two hundred acres on Poccosin river in Elizabeth City County for the
support of a free school for the education and instruction of the children
of the parishes of Elizabeth and Kiquotan. It also appears that, soon after,
Thomas Baton died, and having been prompted by the good intent of
Symms, left an estate in the same county for a similar purpose. In 1675
Henry Peasley devised by will six hundred acres of land in Gloucester
county, for the maintenance of a free school for the education of the chil-
dren of Abingdon and Ware parishes forever. It was known as the "Peas-
ley Free School, and it continued its good work for full eighty years with-
out interruption.

In 1660, the House of Burgesses provided for the establishment of a
College, but there were delays and it was not until 1693 that William and
Mary College, the oldest institution of learning south of the Potomac
river, was opened for the admission of students.

John Burk, the Virginia historian, writing in 1804, of the conditions
in the Colony immediately preceding the Revolution, says: "Although
the arts by no means kept pace with commerce, yet their infant specimens
gave a promise of maturity and glory. The science of education had
gradually become more liberal and men of erudition, attracted by the ris-
ing tame of the Colony, and the generous patronage of the Legislature,
abandoned their countries and came as teachers to Virginia. The Col-
lege of William and Mary had been open tor three quarters of a century
and many young men who were to be among the founders of this nation,
thereby raising high their own tame and the glory of their country, had
already gone out from its walls.

EDUCATION IN VIRGINIA AFTER THE REVOLUTION

With the close of the Revolution, the Established Church ceased to
exist in Virginia, and the titles to the Glebe lands and other property
vested in the State, or rather in the counties in which these were situ-
ated, and thus terminated the Parish Schools.

THE CHARITY SCHOOLS

This gave rise to what were known as "Charity Schools". The people
of King George, New Kent and other Parishes, petitioned the General
Assembly for needed legislation in the disposition of this property, and in
some, as in the first named county, free schools were established with
the proceeds of its sales; while in others, among them New Kent, the
funds were used for building houses and employing teachers for the edu-
cation of poor children—hence the Charity Schools. Then, too, num-
bers of similar schools were established and maintained by charitably
disposed persons for the children of indigent parents and the Charity
Schools—free schools for poor children—became widely known in Vir-
ginia.

THE "PRIVATE" OR "SELECT" SCHOOLS

At the same time—the close of the Revoluton [sic]—another class of
schools known as "Private" or "Select" Schools came into operation.
Their work was much the same as that of the old Parish Schools. They
were established and maintained by a few families whose children were
the only pupils. In them teachers were employed and paid pro rata by
patrons. They continued long and traces of them may still be found in
the Virginias.

AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE OLD PART OF WEST VIRGINIA

Before proceeding to consider the beginnings of education in West
Virginia, let us notice briefly the first settlements of white men within
its borders. The "Eastern Pan-Handle," comprising the counties of Berke-
ley, Jefferson, and Morgan, and the Valley of the South Branch, in which
are Hampshire, Hardy, and Pendleton counties, may be called the
"Old Part of West Virginia." John Lederer, an explorer sent out by
Governor Berkeley, looked over on this region from the summit of
the Blue Ridge in 1769; but no white man found a home within its bor-
ders until the coming of Morgan ap Morgan in 1727, when he reared his
cabin home on the site of the present village of Bunkerhill, Berkeley
county. The same year a band of Pennsylvania Germans, seeking homes,
crossed the Potomac at the "Old Pack Horse Ford" and one mile above,
on the south side of the river, amid the gray lime-stone, halted and
founded a village which they named New Mecklenberg, from the old city
of that name in the far away Fatherland. That was the beginning of
Shepherdstown, now in Jefferson county. In 1732, Joist Hite, with a
colony of sixteen families crossed the Potomac at the "Old Pack Horse
Ford" and these found homes in the Lower Shenandoah Valley. In the
years immediately following, daring frontiersmen built their cabins along
the Opequon, Back creek, Tuscarora creek. Little and Great Cacapon and
and in the South Branch Valley. The region in which these settlements
were made was, from 1720 to 1734, on the western outskirts of Spottsyl-
vania county; from the last mentioned year to 1738, it was included in
Orange county. That part of this county lying west of the Blue Ridge was
at that date, divided into two counties—Frederick and Augusta—so named
in honor of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and his highly esteemed consort,
Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, who died sincerely lamented by the English na-
tion. Frederick county then embraced all of the West Virginia settle-
ments until 1764, when Hampshire county, named from old Hampshire
in England, was formed from western Frederick so as to Include the
whole of the South Branch Valley. In 1772, Frederick was divided into
three parts and Berkeley county formed from its northern third in which
were chiefly the West Virginia settlements then existing From eastern
Berkeley, Jefferson county was set off in 1801; and from its western part,
Morgan county was formed in 1820. These three counties now form
the "Eastern Pan-Handle" of the State. The District of West Augusta
was formed west of Hampshire county in 1776, and from it the same year
the counties of Monongalia, Ohio, and Youghiougheny were created, but
the latter was extinguished by the western extension of Mason and Dix-
on's Line. Further to the southward, Greenbrier county was formed in
1777, from parts of Botetourt and Montgomery counties which had been
set off previously from West Augusta. Kanawha county was taken from
Western Greenbrier in 1789. Thus was county organization extended
over this trans-Allegheny Region—West Virginia even to the Ohio River.
Herein we are now to look for the beginnings and development of educa-
tion.

EDUCATION IN WEST VIRGINIA BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

But little can be known of the first schools in West Virginia in the
early years of its settlement, tor from the year 1727, when Morgan ap
Morgan, the first settler within the bounds of the State, reared his cabin
home, until General Wayne, in 1794, broke the savage power at the battle
of Fallen Timbers on the Maumee river—a period of sixty-seven years—
there was little else than savage warfare in West Virginia. In these days
of alarm, of midnight burnings, of the rencounter of the rifle, of the tragedy
of the tomahawk and scalping knife; when the people were confined in
frontier forts, block-houses, and stockades, there could be but little time
tor education, for culture or refinement. Yet, strange as it may seem, the
little log schoolhouse might be seen here and there in the deep recesses
of the wilderness long before the Revolution. The earliest reference to a 
West Virginia school house which the writer has seen is that contained in
an entry in the journal of George Washington, when in 1747, he was survey-
ing lands for Lord Fairfax on the Upper Potomac, and in the South Branch,
Cacapon and Patterson Creek Valleys in the Old Part of West Virginia.
On the 18th of August of that year, he surveyed a tract by beginning at a
station in "the School House Old Field." But no stream or other object
is mentioned by which this location can be determined, nor can this be
done by any contemporary surveys. It is believed to be far up the South
Branch Valley, at what is known as the "Indian Old Fields" in Hardy
county.

The first definite mention regarding a school in the South Branch
Valley is that a man of the name of Shrock began teaching in a cabin at
Romney, the seat of justice of Hampshire county, in 1753—one hundred and
fifty-one years ago—and continued for several terms, then went—none
knew whither. That was not a long time ago, but it was two years before
the beginning of the French and Indian War; ten years before the fall of
Quebec; twenty-one years before a white man found a home in Kentucky,
and twenty-three years before the signing of the Declaration of Independ-
ence.

The Parish Schools so common in Virginia east of the Blue Ridge and
in the Upper Shenandoah Valley, were almost unknown in what is now
West Virginia. Old Frederick Parish included the early West Virginia set-
tlements in what are now Hampshire, Hardy, Berkeley, Morgan, and Jef-
ferson counties, and as these were formed other parishes were created but
there is little evidence of the existence of Parish Schools therein.

EDUCATION IN WEST VIRGINIA AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION

In June, 1776, Virginia adopted a Constitution—the first framed for an
American State—and there was not the slightest reference, even that of a
word, relating to education. The State began her existence without any
legal provision whatever relating to schools, in her organic law.

The Charity Schools before described can scarcely be said to have had
any existence west of the Blue Ridge. A few, however, appear to have
been opened in Berkeley, Hampshire, and some of the more western
counties as they then were. J. E. Norris, the historian of the Lower
Shenandoah Valley, says: "These Charity Schools were sometimes main-
tained at the expense of the towns where they were located, and others
were established and supported by the generosity of Individuals, and
none but extremely poor parents ever thought of sending their children to
them, they being patronized by orphans and very indigent persons."  As
late as 1817, the General Assembly provided that all moneys in the hands
of any county or corporation acquired from the sale of glebe lands should
be applied to the education of poor youth therein. This act, however, was
chiefly operative in the eastern part of the Commonwealth. As before
stated the "Private" or "Select" schools were long in operation and did
good work. Similar schools in modified form still exist in West Virginia.

THE COMMON PRIMARY SCHOOLS

We are now to notice the most important system of schools that ever
had an existence on the Virginia frontier—now West Virginia. These,
known as Common Primary Schools, were established as pioneer schools
by the frontiersmen who assembled in their respective neighborhoods,
erected the school houses at their own expense, and then employed the
teachers These schools differed from the "Private" or "Select" schools
in this: They were open to all children of all parents who were able and
willing to pay tuition. They were the historic schools of early West Vir-
ginia. Thousands of them were established in the long period through
which they continued, tor under the name of "Old Field Schools" they were
in operation nearly a hundred years. They are to receive notice more fully
as this article progresses.

THE FIRST PUBLIC SCHOOL LAW THAT AFFECTED WEST VIRGINIA

Notwithstanding the lack of constitutional authority, the General As-
sembly, on December 26, 1796, enacted the first Virginia School Law that
in any way effected West Virginia. At that time, ten of the present West
Virginia counties had an existence; these were Hampshire, Berkeley,
Monongalia, Ohio, Greenbrier, Harrison, Hardy, Randolph, Pendleton, and
Kanawha, formed in the order named. This act was called the "Aldermanic
School Law," and it contained a preamble in which it was said that
"Whereas it appeareth that the great advantages which civilized and
polished nations appear to enjoy, beyond the savage and barbarous nations
of the world, are principally derived from the invention and use of letters,
by means whereof the knowledge and experience of past days are recorded
and transmitted, so that man, availing himself in succession of the
accumulated wisdom and discoveries of his predecessors, is enabled more
successfully to pursue and improve not only those acts which contribute
to the support, convenience and ornament of life, but those also which
tend to illumine and ennoble his understanding and his nature." Further,
that "if the minds of the citizens be not rendered liberal and humane, and
be not fully impressed with the importance of the principles from which
these blessings proceed, there can be no real stability or lasting permanency
of the liberty, justice and order of a republican government."

With a view, therefore, to lay the first foundation of a system of
education which should tend to produce these desirable results, it was pro-
vided in this act that in each county of the State, the people should
annually elect "three of their most honest and able men" to be called
Aldermen of the county; that these should meet annually on the second
Monday in May, at their court house, there to consider the expediency of
putting the act into execution, having regard to the state of the population
within the county; that if this was deemed best, they should proceed to
divide the county into sections, regulating the size of these so that each
should contain a sufficient number of children to make up a school; that
each section should be given a particular name; that a list of these names
should be supplied to the clerk of the county court who was required to
make record thereof in his office; that these should remain unaltered until
a change was rendered necessary by an increase or decrease in inhabitants,
and that then succeeding Aldermen should make such change as the
county court directed. After this action had been taken by the Aldermen,
it was made the duty of the householders of each section to meet on the
ensuing first Monday in September at such place as the Aldermen should
have designated and given notice of; and when thus assembled, they should
agree upon the most available site for the location of a schoolhouse. If
a tie resulted, it was the duty of the Aldermen living outside the section to
cast the deciding votes. A site having thus been chosen, the Aldermen
were at once to proceed to have a schoolhouse erected, kept in repair, and
rebuilt when necessary; but in the latter case the householders were again
to assemble and determine whether this should be upon the same site
or another.

When the house was ready for occupancy, it was the duty of the Alder-
men to select a teacher tor the school who might be removed by them for
cause; and it was their duty, or at least that of one of them, to "visit
the school once in every half year at least," examine the pupils, and
superintend the conduct of the teacher in everything relative to his
school, in which the law declared "there shall be taught reading, writing,
and common arithmetic; and all free children, male and female, resident
within the respective sections, shall be entitled to receive tuition gratis,
for the term of three years; and as much longer at private expense as their
parents, guardians, or friends shall think proper."  The expense of
building the house and the salary of the teacher in the different sections,
was defrayed by the inhabitants of each county in proportion to the amount
of their public assessments and county levies. This was to be ascertained
by the Aldermen of each county respectively, and to be collected by the
sheriff just as other public taxes are collected; and it was made the duty
of this official to pay all school money to the Alderman. Such was Vir-
ginia's first Free School Law, enacted one hundred and eight years ago,
by the provisions of which, schoolhouses were to be erected and teachers
employed at public expense; and all children were to have three years
schooling, tuition gratis.

This was made operative from and after the first day of January, 1797.
As stated, there were at that time, ten of the present West Virginia counties
then existing and they covered the entire area of the present State. How
many of them put into force and operation "The Public School Law of
1796" can now only be learned by investigation and research among the
musty and dusty records of more than a century ago. But action was taken
by at least some, perhaps all of them, for certain it is that at the beginning
of the century ensuing, schools were established here and there over West
Virginia where there was a sufficient population. The Indian wars were
past. The frightful warwhoop of the savage was no more heard south
of the Ohio; and these frontiersmen, brave as ever dared the perils of the
wilderness, did assemble, select sites, and provide tor the building of
schoolhouses, whether in the section as prescribed by the "Law of 1796,"
the cost of erection to be defrayed by taxation, or by their own hands and
at their own cost, certain it is that they were provided and in them began
a system of schools ante-dating the Louisiana Purchase and the admission
of Ohio into the Union.

THE LITERARY FUND OF VIRGINIA AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR IN WEST VIRGINIA

We are now to make inquiry regarding what was known for more than
fifty years as the "Literary Fund of Virginia." Prior to 1776—the begin-
ning of the Commonwealth—escheats, penalties, and forfeitures in the
Colony went to the King. From the last mentioned date to 1809—a period
of thirty-three years—the moneys derived from these sources were placed
to the credit of the General State Fund. But in Section 1 of Chapter XIV
of the Acts of 1809, it was provided "That all escheats, confiscations, for-
feitures, and all personal property accruing to the Commonwealth as
derelict and having no rightful owner, which have accrued since the sec-
ond day of February one thousand eight hundred and ten, and which
shall hereafter accrue to the Commonwealth, be, and the same are hereby
appropriated to the encouragement of learning; and that all militia fines
and the arrears thereof, due to the Commonwealth on the eleventh day of
February one thousand eight hundred and eleven, and thenceforth accruing
or to accrue, be also and the same are hereby appropriated to the encourage-
ment of learning.

The act which thus created the "Literary Fund" declared that it should
"be appropriated to the sole benefit of a school or schools to be" kept
within each and every county in the Commonwealth, subject to such orders
and regulations as the General Assembly shall hereafter direct. And,
whereas, the object aforesaid is equally humane, just and necessary, Involv-
ing alike the interests of humanity and the preservation of the Constitu-
tion, laws and liberty of the good people of this Commonwealth; this
present General Assembly solemnly protests against any other application
of the said Fund by any succeeding General Assembly to any other object
than the education of the poor."

In 1810, the Auditor of Public Accounts was directed by Act of the
Assembly to open an account to be designated "The Literary Fund" and to
place to its credit every payment made on account of any of the escheats,
confiscations, forfeitures, fines and penalties appropriated to the encour-
agement of learning. In the same year the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor,
Treasurer, Attorney-General, and President of the Court of Appeals, and
their successors in office were constituted a body corporate under the name
and style of the "President and Directors of the Literary Fund," of which
the Governor was the presiding officer. It was to make an annual report
to the General Assembly showing the condition of the funds committed to
its care, with such recommendations for the improvement thereof as
seemed advisable For the speedy and certain collection of all moneys
due to the Literary Fund, the President and Directors were required to ap-
point in each county an attorney or agent who acted without any tee or
emolument in reporting all funds due to or collected and not paid into
the State Treasury to the credit of the Literary Fund, which the President
and Directors were empowered to invest in the stock of banks within the
Commonwealth.

On the 9th of February, 1814, it was enacted that the titles to all lands
and lots forfeited for the non-payment of taxes should vest in the Presi-
dent and Directors of the Literary Fund, and all tax thereon be ex-
tinguished, and all moneys afterward received from the redemption or
sale of these lands and lots were absolutely deemed to be a part of the
Literary Fund.

On the 20th of February, 1812, the General Assembly authorized the
Farmer's Bank of Virginia to make loans to the National Government to
aid it in the prosecution of the Second War with Great Britain; and by an
act of February 24, 1816, the Literary Fund was largely increased by the
donation or appropriation to it of these loans as they were paid back by
the United States.

THE APPLICATION OF THE LITERARY FUND

It is seen that the primary object of the creation of the Literary Fund
was the education of the children of indigent parents—that is of the
poor youth of the Commonwealth. For the purpose of carrying into effect
this primary object of its institution, the Assembly, in 1817, directed the
President and directors to set apart annually the sum of $45,000 to be
paid to the several counties in such proportion as the free white popula-
tion of each bore to that of the whole State. At the same time It was made
the duty of the court of each county to appoint not less than five nor more
than fifteen discreet persons to be called "School Commissioners" who
were to meet annually in November at the Court House and to hold such
extra meetings as might be necessary. A majority formed a quorum. One
of the members was elected Treasurer and authorized to receive tor his
county its quota of the Literary Fund. Before doing this he was required
to give bond in the penalty of two thousand dollars payable to the President
and Directors of the Literary Fund.

The commissioners had power to determine what number of poor
children they would educate in their county; what sum should be paid for
their education; to authorize each of themselves to select so many children
as they may deem expedient, and to draw orders upon their treasurer,
for the payment of the expense of tuition and of furnishing such children
with proper books and materials for writing and ciphering. The poor chil-
dren thus selected were (with the assent of father, mother, or guardian)
sent to such school as was most convenient, therein to be taught reading,
writing and arithmetic.

The said school commissioners were required to present annually a
statement to the President and Directors of the Literary Fund, exhibiting
the number of schools and indigent children in their county; the price
paid for their tuition; the number of indigent children educated in such
schools; and what further appropriation from the Literary Fund would, in
their opinion, be sufficient to furnish the means of education to all the
indigent children in their county.

In 1817, the sum of $15,000 per annum was appropriated out of the
resources of the Literary Fund for the purpose of procuring land and per-
manently endowing the University of Virginia; but it was declared that
this should in no wise impair or diminish the appropriation made for
the education of the poor in the several counties of the Commonwealth.
January 25, 1819, an additional $20,000 was appropriated out of the
revenue of the Literary Fund for the education of the poor; but this was
repealed at the same session by an act of March 3, 1819. On the same date
the Assembly passed an act to reduce into one act the several acts con-
cerning the Literary Fund. This took effect January 1, 1820, when all legis-
lation relating to the Literary Fund previously to that date was in full
force and operation. The fund increased rapidly and on the 30th of Septem-
ber, 1833, it amounted to $1,551,837.47, of which $1,501,803.34 were profit-
ably invested in stocks and bonds. The appropriation for the education
of poor children bad, in the past thirteen years, been largely increased.

EDUCATION IN WEST VIRGINIA IN THE EARLY PAST OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

We have seen how the "Aldermanic School Law" was enacted in 1796,
and how the "Common Primary Schools" previously existing were so
modified by it that all white children might attend them three years tuition
gratis. To that extent they were free schools. And this very fact, of it-
self, developed opposition to them. The people—some of them—had in
mind the poverty feature of the old Charity Schools of other days. "Hence
there was," says Norris, an author before quoted, "a certain stigma at-
tached to these lower schools, not alone for the contact with poor chil-
dren, whose rude manners may have been entailed upon them by an idle
and dissolute father, or a worthless mother, but from the innate Vir-
ginia idea of independence; that sense of not being dependent upon their
fellow men or the State, for material support or assistance, especially in
the matter of education of their children. This feeling, the result of ex-
perience in this regard, was ingrained and set." This, of itself, produced
much of the illiteracy of the Commonwealth. But a large part of the people
patronized these schools and when the three years of tuition gratis were
passed, paid tuition and kept their children in school. Very many of these
frontiersmen—pioneers of the wilderness—were unable to do this, and the
short term of but a few months the three years of free school afforded
out scant opportunity for the education of their children who thus grew up
in ignorance if not in illiteracy. It was to meet these conditions that the
Literary Fund was created, and it became a mighy educational factor
despite the refusal to accept its benefactions by so many of those for whom
they were intended.

A VIEW OF EDUCATIONAL CONDITIONS IN WEST VIRGINIA IN 1833

A view of educational conditions in 1833, will be of interest. This date
has been selected because it is just thirty years before West Virginia was
admitted into the Union and that period may be said to have been the
"boyhood days" of the men who made the State.

The Common Primary Schools under the provisions of the "Aldermanic
School Law of 1796" were in operation, as were other schools of higher
order. Joseph Martin's "Gazeteer of Virginia," published at that time
shows that schools of various grades existed generally throughout West
Virginia. Of the many he mentions a few. Evidence the following: At
Martinsburg there were one male and one female academy and three
common schools; at Wellsburg, one academy in which were taught the
Greek and Latin languages, with three female and one male English
school; at Barboursville, one common school; at Guyandotte, one primary
school; at Anthony's Creek, three common schools; at Frankfort, two com-
mon schools, one for males and one for females; at Lewisburg, one academy
and one common school; at Cold Stream Mill, one classical school; at
Springfield, one Seminary in which were taught all the necessary branches
of an English education; at Trout Run, one common school; at Bridgeport,
one common school; at Clarksburg, one academy and two common schools;
at Lewisport, one common school; at Pruntytown, one common school; at
Shinnston, one common school; at Ripley, one common school; at Ravens-
wood, three common schools; at Charles Town, one academy and several
other schools; at Harpers' Ferry, two academies—one male and one female
—and two common schools; at Middleway, two common schools; at Charles-
ton one academy and one infant school—kindergarten, the first in the
State; at Buckhannon, schools taught in the winter; at Leading Creek, two
common schools; at Weston, one common school; at Ballardsville, two
schools in which were taught all the branches of an English education; at
Point Pleasant, one common school; at Blackville, one common school; at
Glenville, one common school; at Polsley's Mills, one common school; at
Morgantown, one academy of two departments in which were taught the
languages, painting, drawing, etc., and one common school; West Liberty,
one academy and two common schools; at Huntersville, one school in which
the ordinary branches of an English education were taught; at Brandon-
ville one common school; at Beverly, one common school; at Middlebourne,
one common school; at Parkersburg, three common schools.

The revenues of the Literary Fund, which, as we have seen, amounted
at this time to more than a million and a half of dollars, were also being
used to advance educational interests. There were then twenty-four of the
present counties of West Virginia checkered on the map of Virginia. These
were Berkeley, Brooke, Cabell, Fayette, Greenbrier, Hampshire, Hardy, Har-
rison, Jackson, Jefferson, Kanawha, Lewis, Logan, Mason, Monongalia,
Monroe, Nicholas, Ohio, Pendleton, Preston, Pocahontas, Randolph, Tyler,
and Wood. The operations of the President and Directors of the Literary
Fund for the year 1833, may be seen by the following table in which is
shown for the several counties, the number of school commissioners, of
common primary schools, of poor children, of poor children sent to school,
the aggregate day's attendance of poor children in school; the average day's
attendance at school of each poor child, the average rate of tuition per diem
for each poor child, the average amount paid from the Literary Fund for
each poor child, and the total amount of expenditures of the Fund in each
county.

[table deleted]

From the foregoing table, it appears that of the twenty-four "West
Virginia counties then existing, twenty-one made reports and that there
were in these from five to fifteen commissioners in each, with 678 primary
schools attended by 5,816 poor children—the beneficiaries of the Literary
Fund—that they were present 220,656 days, and that $10,454.42 were
expended in payment of their tuition from this Fund. If the reports of
the other three counties—Fayette, Jackson, and Logan—were at hand, these
several numbers would be considerably increased. Of course, this table
does not show the number of pupils in these schools whose tuition was paid
by parents or guardians. Neither does it show the number of schools in
the counties at which no poor children were in attendance.

Joseph Martin, an enthusiastic Free School man, writing at this time,
said: "Experience has already demonstrated the utility of even the existing
system, and thousands who must have groped through life in the darkness
of Ignorance, have had the cheering light of knowledge shed upon them
by means of the Common Primary Schools."

Successful work was done in these western counties tor by the census
of 1840 there were more illiterate -white persons in Virginia, east of the
Blue Ridge than were on the west side of that mountain barrier.

THE VIRGINIA SCHOOL LAW OF 1846

Thus from 1833 to 1846—a period of thirteen years—school matters
continued without change. Full fifty years had come and gone since the
introduction of the Aldermanic School System under the law of 1796, and
now this was to be remodeled. On the 5th of March, 1846, the General
Assembly passed "An Act Amending the Present Primary School System."
Important changes were made. Now it was made the duty of the county
court of each county, at its ensuing October term, to lay off according to
accurate and well known boundaries, the territory of the county into any
number of districts, having regard to the territorial extent and population
of the same, and to appoint for each of the districts one school commis-
sioner. These, when appointed, constituted collectively the Board of
School Commissioners for the county. It was to meet at the Court House
in the ensuing November, and, having organized, proceed to elect a superin-
tendent of the schools of the county, who should execute a bond payable to
the directors of the Literary Fund, and who should perform the duties of
treasurer and clerk of the board. The commissioner of each district trans-
acted the school business within it; registered and reported to the county
superintendent all the children within his district between the ages of five
and sixteen years; entered into a contract with the teachers of his district
to teach a number of indigent children as many days as his district's pro-
portion of the county's quota of the Literary Fund would pay for, and re-
quired this teacher to keep an accurate account of the attendance of such
children. Reports were made to the county superintendent who kept a
record of all the children enrolled in the schools of his county, and reported
the same to the Board with such information as he deemed useful to it. In
September of each year he made an annual report to the Directors of the
Literary Fund, showing his receipts and disbursements, the ages and sexes
of the children of the county, with the actual number of days of attendance
of indigent pupils, and the amount of compensation per diem paid to
teachers for their instruction. For his services, he received two and a half
per cent of the amount passing through his hands and actually expended
for the purposes of education. This law was in no wise an improvement
over that which preceded it. It was the continuation of the same system
that had been in operation for more than fifty years, but under changed
conditions, and it was not to end until civil war came to desolate the land.

"THE OLD FIELD SCHOOLS"

It has been stated that these Common Primary Schools as they existed
under the Law of 1796 and under that of 1846, as well, came to be known
as "Old Field Schools" from the location of the schoolhouses.

THE WEST VIBGINIA SCHOOLHOOSE OF THE OLDEN TIME

No matter how the selection of a site was made. It was the same.
Down on the broad river bottoms, in the valleys of smaller streams, or
among the hills where was a bubbling spring or rippling brook, a spot, in
juxtaposition to half a dozen or more cabin homes was agreed upon by the-
heads of the families as a suitable place for a schoolhouse. It was an old
"clearing" which tradition said was made by a man who was killed by the
Indians, lost In the woods and never afterward heard of, or, tired of the
wilderness, had gone back over "the Ridge"—the Blue Ridge.

There, on the margin of that "improvement"—an "old field"—where
half a dozen paths bisected, with the primitive forest in the rear and the
plat of wild grass and tangled weeds in front, these men—advance guard
of civilization—reared the schoolhouse. Rude structure it was; in size,
perhaps 16x18 feet; the walls built of logs, sometimes hewn, but usually
round, and from eight to twelve inches in diameter—the interstices chinked
with sticks and stones and daubed with clay; the roof of clapboards held
in place by heavy weight poles; the door of slabs hung on wooden hinges;
the floor, if any, was made of puncheons split from the body of a large
tree and hewn so as to have somewhat the quality of smoothness; a fire-
place, ample aa that of an ancient baron, spanned over half of one end of
the building and was surmounted by a "cat-and-clay" chimney, not unlike
a tall partridge trap, ever tottering to its fall. Logs ten inches in diameter,
split in halves, and pins or legs inserted in the oval sides, answered for
seats. Along the side of the wall pins were inserted and on them rested
a broad slab, sloping downward, used as a writing desk; just above it, a log
was chopped out and in its place was a long frame-work resembling sash
for holding a single row of panes of plass[sic], in the absence of which,
greased paper was sometimes pasted to admit the light. Such was the
structure in which was taught the "old field school" of the long ago. It was
used alike for school purposes and divine worship, and in neither was it
void of results.

THE SCHOOL AND THE SCHOOL MASTER

Autumn came. A stranger appeared upon the scene and the report went
from cabin to cabin that there was a schoolmaster in the neighborhood.
Look at him. He is clad in the garb of the border. Whence he came, none
know. He brings no credentials or diploma from a college faculty, for
none is required. It is only necessary that he teach the three R's—read-
ing, 'riting and 'rithmetic. He binds himself to do this in his "article"
which he carries from house to house, soliciting subscriptions to the school
which he is to "keep" for so much a "quarter" and "board 'round"—that is
with the pupils. Then he goes to the school commissioner of the section of
district, who, in compliance with the law of '96 or of '46, enters into a con-
tract to pay from his quota of the Literary Fund the tuition of the indi-
gent children of the neighborhood. Then the day is announced for school
to begin and it is understod[sic] that the "master" will board the first week at
John Smith's but none can divine where he will stay the next.

Monday morning comes. The "master" goes early and with the aid of
one of Smith's big boys, puts on a "back-log," and soon a fire is roaring on
the hearth. Then the boys and girls for half a dozen miles around begin
to arrive. William Jones cannot come this week, for his father did not
get his shoes made, owing to the tact that the leather "stayed green" too
long in the tan trough. Bettie Davis is not there either for her mother did
not get her linsey-woolsey frock made in time. The master, meantime, has
been making preparations for the "quarter" by cutting a bundle of withes
in the forest near by. All is in readiness, and a stentorian voice from the
door cries out "Come in to books." In they go, with lunches in chip
baskets made from the tough splits of the oak or hickory of the hills.
Under the arms are copies of the "English Reader" and Webster's "Ele-
mentary Speller." And now, woe be to the one who provokes the wrath of
him who presides over this temple of learning. The "quarter" closes in due
time; the master collects tuition from the parents who are able to pay
this; then, with sworn statement of amount due for teaching the Indigent
children he proceeds to the treasurer of the county school commissioners,
from whom he receives this—then goes, perhaps none know where.

Such was the "jolly old pedagogue" of "ye olden time." Many of them
were highly educated men and they filled their mission well. In that "Old
Field Schoolhouse," we, in imagination, see one of them yet. Thought-
fully he stands by an apperture in the wall, called by courtesy a window,
either mending pens or making new ones from the quills from the wing of
the goose, the wild turkey or, perchance, from that of the eagle—brave bird
of the mountain—for some of the dozen flaxen-haired urchins some of
whom are afterward to be the boast of their country, or the warriors or
magistrates of embryo states in the West.

THE BOYS AND GIELS OF THE "OLD FIELD SCHOOLS"

Statistics of these times show that tens of thousands of boys and
girls attended these "Old Field Schools." There they learned discipline
and to spell and read and write and cipher; but that nobler inde-
pendent manhood was due to instruction within no more than exercise
without. For did not the Romans, even the wealthiest of them, teach
their sons and daughters to be tolerant of hunger and cold, to go barefoot
on the campus and to swim the Tiber in January? May be there was
riot enough of book lore in these Old Field Schools, but the boys had
their early privileges that other generations have not had. There was
the brave walk through the sleet and the snow; the game of hide-and-
seek among the chinquepin bushes, the bull-pen-ball, the scramble for
the wild grapes, the chase of the flying squirrel through the thickets of
laurel, the bloom of which other boys and girls have made the State
flower; the climbing high among the limbs to dislodge the raccoon from
his hole in the black gum tree. We wonder what has become of the
boys that went to the Old Field School at Bear Creek, Big Bend, Locust
Knob, Sugar Camp Hollow, Deer Creek, and a thousand other places
among the West Virginia hills. Many thousands of them stayed in the
land of their nativity and they and their descendants became the home
builders of West Virginia. They helped to shoot barbarism out of the
Ohio Valley. Some went to become founders of other states and to never
return. Some went away awhile and then came back to tell of steam-
boats, and Richmond and Pittsburg, and Cincinnati, and fireworks; some
warred with the Briton in 1812; others studied war with Scott and Tay-
lor in Mexico. But others went to make names that are long to last; two
early governors of Ohio attended the Old Field Schools of Berkeley
county; Reuben Chapman, one of the best governors Alabama ever had,
was a student in the Old Field Schools of Randolph county; Jesse
Quinn Thornton, who wrote the first constitution of Oregon attended
the Old Field Schools of Mason county; Lorenzo Waugh, who was a pupil
in an Old Field School in Pocahontas county, then taught in the Old
Field Schools of Harrison and Mason counties, afterwards gathered the
first Methodist congregation ever assembled in the Sacramento Valley;
James T. Farley studied in the Old Field Schools of Monroe county then
went to the Pacific Coast, afterward to visit the home of his childhood
when a United States Senator from California; Thomas A. Morris at-
tended an Old Field School in Cabell county and was afterwads a distin-
guished bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Thomas and Samuel
Mullody attended the Old Field Schools of Hampshire county, and the
former served two years as the tutor of the crown prince of Naples and
died while president of Georgetown University; the latter, at the time
of his death was president of Worcester College, Massachusetts; Stone-
wall Jackson attended an Old Field School in Lewis, county, won dis-
tinction in Mexico, and gave up his life at Chancellorsville tor the Lost
Cause; .Jesse L. Reno attended an Old Field School in Ohio county,
achieved honor in Mexico, and died on South Mountain, Maryland, while
gallantly leading the Ninth Army Corps in battle for the Union. No, these
Old Field Schools were not barren of results, but were rather a mighty
factor in civilization.

WEST VIRGINIA ACADEMIES, SEMINARIES, AND COLLEGES OF THE OLDEN TIME

By far the most important, the most potent factors in early educa-
tional work in West Virginia were the many academies which, as char-
tered institutions, were scattered over the State, and whose management
and control were in the hands of the foremost men of the community, who
were made bodies corporate by the acts of the General Assembly of
Virginia.

We have seen that, for a series of years, the settlements in the
Eastern Pan-Handle and the South Branch Valley were included in
Frederick county of which Winchester early became the seat of justice.
This town was the chief mart of trade long after the formation of Hamp-
shire and Berkeley counties. There, for many years, the people obtained
their supplies of merchandise, and there, too, their sons and daughters
were first offered the advantages of secondary and higher education.
In the Alexandria Advertiser, of June 22, 1786—one year before the first
newspaper published in the United States west of the Blue Ridge made
its appearance—the trustees of the "Winchester, Latin, Greek, and Eng-
lish Schools" advertised that "having elected Mr. Armstrong and Mr.
Potter, two gentlemen of character and ability to take charge of the
institution, we do hereby give notice that the schools will open on the
first Monday in July. They set forth that the "climate is healthful, the
country plentiful, and the town growing." Such was the first classical
school of the Lower Shenandoah Valley which opened its doors to the
young men and women of what is now the eastern part of West Virginia.

The oldest of these institutions within the limits of the State was
located at Shepherdstown, now in Jefferson county. The exact date of
its establishment is not known, but it antedated the Revolution. Rever-
end Robert Stubbs, who on the 3rd day of December, 1787, made affidavit
that he had witnessed the test trial of James Rumsey's steamboat, on the
Potomac, subscribed himself as "Teacher of the Academy at Shepherds-
town."

George Washington did much to arouse an interest in secondary
education on the part of the people of Virginia. On the 15th of Decem-
ber, 1794, while President of the United States, he wrote Edmond Ran-
dolph, the Secretary of State, upon the subpect [sic] of higher education, and
said: "It has always been a source of serious regret to me to see the
youth of these United States sent to foreign countries for the purpose of
education, often before their minds are formed or they have imbibed any
adequate ideas of the happiness of their own; contracting, too frequently,
not only habits of dissipation and extravagance, but principles unfriendly
to republican government and to the true and genial liberties of man-
kind, which, thereafter, are rarely overcome."

The age of academies in the Commonwealth had already begun, and
was long to continue. In the following partial list of these institutions
in West Virginia, the number, together with date of incorporation, and
place of establishment, in the order named, are given; that is to say:

1. The Academy of Shepherdstown, at Shepherdstown, in Jefferson
county, incorporated in 17—.

2. The Randolph Academy, at Clarksburg, in Harrison county, in-
corporated December 11, 1787.

3. The Charlestown Academy, at Charles Town, in Jefferson county,
incorporated December 25, 1797.

4. The Brooke Academy, at Wellsburg, in Brooke county, incorpo-
rated January 10, 1897.

5. The Mount Carmel School, at West Union, in Preston county—
then Monongalia—established in 1801.

6. The Lewisburg Academy, at Lewisburg, in Greenbrier county,
incorporated in 1812.

7. The Lancasterian Academy, at Wheeling, in Ohio county, in-
corporated October 10, 1814.

8. The Monongalia Academy, at Morgantown, in Monongalia county,
incorporated November 29, 1814.

9. The Mercer Academy, in Charleston, Kanawha county, incorpo-
rated November 29, 1818.

10. The Union Academy, at Union, in Monroe county, incorporated
January 27, 1820.

11. The Martinsburg Academy, at Martinsburg, in Berkeley county,
incorporated January 28, 1822.

12. The Romney Classical Institute, at Romney, in Hampshire
county, established in 1824.

13. The Wheeling Academy, at Wheeling, in Ohio county, incorpo-
rated February 21, 1827.

14. The Seymour Academy, at Morefield [sic], in Hardy county, in-
corporated February 16, 1832.

15. The Red Sulphur Seminary, at Red Sulphur Springs, in Monroe
county, opened April 15, 1832.

16. The West Liberty Academy, at West Liberty, in Ohio county,
incorporated March 20, 1837.                      

17. The Marshall Academy, at Guyandotte—now Huntington—in
Cabell county incorporated March 13, 1838.

18. The Parkersburg Academy Association, at Parkersburg, in Wood
county, incorporated April 5, 1838.

19. The Morgantown Female Academy, at Morgantown, in Monon-
galia county, incorporated January 30, 1839.

20. The Bethany College, at Bethany, in Brooke county, incorporated
in the autumn of 1840.

21. The Preston Academy, at Kingwood, in Preston county, in-
corporated January 2, 1841.

22. The Huntersville Academy, at Huntersville, in Pocahontas
county, incorporated January 18, 1842.

23. The Asbury Academy, at Parkersburg, in Wood county, incor-
porated February 8, 1842.

24. The Little Levels Academy, at Hillsboro in Pocahontas county,
incorporated February 14, 1842.

25. The Rector College, at Pruntytown, in Taylor county, incorpo-
rated February 14, 1842.

26. The Greenbank Academy, at Greenbank, in Pocahontas county,
incorporated March 26, 1842.

27. The Northwestern Academy, at Claksburg [sic], in Harrison county,
incorporated March 26, 1842.

28. The Brandonville Academy, at Brandonville, in Preston county,
incorporated in 1843.

29. The Weston Academy, at Weston, in Lewis county, incorporated
January 18, 1844.

30. The Potomac Seminary, at Romney, in Hampshire county, in-
corporated December 12, 1846.

31. The Male and Female Academy at Buckhannon, in Upshur
county—then Lewis—incorporated February 1, 1847.

32. The Lewis County Seminary, at Weston, in Lewis county, in-
corporated March 20, 1847.

33. The Wheeling Female Seminary, at Wheeling, in Ohio county,
incorporated January 24, 1848.

34. The Buffalo Academy, at Buffalo, in Putnam county, incor-
porated March 16, 1849.

35. The Academy of the Visitation, at Wheeling, in Ohio county, in-
corporated March 14, 1850.

36. The Wellsburg Female Academy, at Wellsburg, in Brooke county,
incorporated March 17, 1851.

37. The Meade Collegiate Institute, at or near Parkersburg, in-
corporated March 21, 1851.

38. The South Branch Academical Institute, at Moorefleld, in Hardy
county, incorporated March 31, 1851.

39. The Fairmont Academy, at Fairmont, in Marion county, in-
corporated February 17, 1852.

40. The Wheeling Female Seminary, at Wheeling, in Ohio county,
incorporated April 12, 1852.

41. The West Union Academy, at West Union, in Doddridge county,
incorporated April 16, 1852.

42. The Morgan Academy, at Berkeley Springs, in Morgan county,
incorporated January 10, 1853.

43. The Logan Institute, at Logan Court House, in Logan county, in-
corporated February 21, 1853.

44. The Ashton Academy, at Mercer's Bottom, in Mason county, in-
corporated January 7, 1856.        

45. The Point Pleasant Academy, at Point Pleasant, in Mason
county, incorporated February 26, 1856.      

46. The Polytechnic College, at Aracoma, in Logan county, incor-
porated February 28, 1856.

47. The Fairmont Male and Female Seminary, at Fairmont, in Mar-
ion county, incorporated March 12, 1856.

48. The Harper's Ferry Female Institute, at Harper's Ferry, in
Jefferson county, incorporated March 18, 1856.

49. The Woodburn Female Seminary, at Morgantown, in Monon-
galia county, incorporated January 4, 1858.

50. The Lewisburg Female Institute, at Lewisburg, in Greenbrier
county, incorporated April 7, 1858.

51. The Levelton Male and Female College, at Hillsboro, in Pocahon-
tas county, incorporated February 27, 1860.

52. The Union College, at Union, in Monroe county, incorporated
March 28, 1860.

53. The Parkersburg Classical and Scientific Institute, at Parkers-
burg, in Wood county, incorporated March 18, 1861.

OBSERVATIONS

West Virginia was, indeed, a land of academies. A few of these
named did but little or no work, but nearly all of them were as beacon
lights of education set among the hills and valleys of the State. Shep-
herdstown Academy dtd nearly a hundred years of educational work.
Randolph Academy was the first institution uf learning established west
of the Allegheny mountains; it had among its first board of twenty-
eight trustees Edmund Randolph, Benjamin Harrison, George Mason
and Patrick Henry, and as part of its revenues it received one-eighth of
the surveyors' fees of the counties of Harrison, Monongalla, Ohio and
Randolph, which sums had been paid formerly to the support of the col-
lege of William and Mary. The act declared that the school was estab-
lished tor the benefit of the people of these tour counties, which then em-
braced all of what it now West Virginia north of the Little Kanawha
river. George Gowers, a graduate of Oxford, England, was its first prin-
cipal, and tor twenty years he taught Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and the
sciences within its walls. Its work extended over more than fifty years
and among its teachers in 1830-40 was Francis H. Pierpont, afterward
Governor of Virginia under the Reorganized Government. Charles Town
Academy was long a center of learning and prepared young men to enter
William and Mary College and other institutions of high order. Brooke
Academy began its work in 1778—twenty-two years before the date of its
incorporation—and was the earliest institution of learning on the Ohio
river south of Pittsburg. In 1843, it had a president, four members in its
faculty, and a hundred students. After a successful career of more than
half a century it was merged, in 1852, into Meade Collegiate Institute.
The Mount Carmel School, after doing forty-eight years work, lost its
building by fire and was then removed to another locality. The Linsly
Academy was opened in 1808—four years before the date of its incorpora-
tion. It was a noted center of education and culture for more than fifty
years and from its halls went forth many legislators, great debaters,
scientists and soldiers who made lasting names. The Lancasterian
Academy was the beginning of the Linsly Institute at Wheeling, still a
flourishing institution of learning after a successful career of almost a
hundred years. The Monongalia Academy was for many years the most
flourishing institution of learning on the, banks of the Monongahela
river and, in 1867, its property, including that of Woodburn Seminary,
the whole valued at $51,000, was donated to the State by the people of
Morgantown in consideration of the location of the University at that
place. Mercer Academy did more than all things else to mold the educa-
tional sentiment of the Great Kanawha' Valley nearly a century ago, and
forty-six years of successful work is to be placed to its credit. Its prop-
erty passed to the Board of Education under the Free School System, and
the present high school building of Charleston bears the name of Mercer
in commemoration of the old academy. In the Martinsburg Gazette of
January 10, 1812, Obed White, and David Hunter, trustees, advertised the
Martinsburg Academy as a school of very high order. John B. Hoge
was the instructor in Greek and Latin and the tuition was $20.00 per
annum. The Romney Classical Institute exerted a great influence upon
the educational work of the South Branch Valley for nearly sixty years
and its property—a valuable one—was, in 1870, donated to the State
of West Virginia in consideration of the location of the Schools for the
Deaf and the Blind at Romney. The course of study in the Red Sul-
phur Seminary embraced the ancient languages and mathematics and
with William Burk as principal and James MaCauley, assistant, the in-
stitution did many years of excellent work. The Seymour Academy was
long the pride of Moorefield and the Upper South Branch Valley. The
West Liberty Academy began its work in 1837; lost its building by fire
in 1840, but it was rebuilt and made the old town famous for many
years. In 1870, it was sold to the State of West Virginia for $6,000 and
became the nucleus of the Branch of the State Normal School. Marshall
Academy was tor a quarter of a century the most famous institution of
learning in Western Virginia. Soon after it was opened, two boys —
students — climed [sic] high up among the branches of an old beech tree in
the yard and carved their names in its smooth bark; one of them was
atterward the first adjutant-general of West Virginia and long a judge
of her courts; the other became a judge of the court of appeals of
Louisiana. In 1850, the Academy was changed into Marshall College,
and in 1867, the Cabell county authorities gave its property worth
$10,000 to West Virginia, thus securing the location of the State Normal
School at that place. Rector College, a Baptist institution at Pruntytown,
had its beginning in the Western Virginia Educational Society of that
place, which was incorporated March 28, 1838. In 1849, the Assembly
provided that scholarships might be established in this institution, which,
in 1850, had three professors in its faculty, fifty students, and a library of
two thousand, five hundred volumes. Bethany College, whose history
is forever associated with the name of Alexander Campbell, the illustri-
ous founder of the Church of the Desciples of Christ, is the oldest among
forty or fifty institutions of learning of that denomination. Under the
name of Buffalo Academy, it did eighteen years of work before being
erected into a College. So that eighty years is the measure of its use-
fulness in education in West Virginia. By an act of Assembly in 1849,
it was provided that scholarships might be created in this institution.
The Little Levels Academy accomplished eighteen years of work among
the mountains and in the valleys of Pocahontas county, and then its
property was transferred to the Board of Education under the Free
School System. The Preston Academy began its work under the adminis-
tration of Doctor Alexander Martin, who was afterward the first presi-
dent of the West Virginia University, and it was long a power tor good.
The Northwestern Virginia Academy at Clarksburg, a Methodist institu-
tion, had tor its first principal the distinguished Gordon Battelle, whose
successor was Doctor Martin, who came from Kingwood for the purpose;
and he in turn was succeeded by Doctor William Ryland White, who had
served twelve years when he was elected first State Superintendent of
Free Schools of West Virginia. The Academy building was erected in
1842, and the school at once took a high rank. In 1849, the General
Assembly provided that scholarships might be established therein. In
1843, Henry Howe, the historian, found a flourishing academy at Holli-
day's Cove, in Brooke county. The Male and Female Academy at Buck-
hannon did much to create the splendid educational sentiment which 
for halt a century has prevailed in that locality, and to a greater extent
now than ever before. The Potomac Seminary — now the Potomac Acad-
emy— still continues its good work begun at Romney fifty-seven years
ago. The Lewis county Seminary was so successful that after ten years
its name was changed and it was by act of Assembly erected into Weston
College. The Wheeling Female Seminary was long under the manage-
ment of Mrs. S. B. Thompson and was very successful. In 1855, it was
occupying its own building erected at a cost of $20,000. In addition to the
regular academic course, full instruction was given in music, drawing,
and modern languages; the faculty then consisted of seven accomplished
teachers. Throughout all the years since then the institution has been
fulfilling its mission and the citizens of Wheeling are proud of it today.
Buffalo Academy made an excellent record in the Great Kanawha Valley
as a school of high grade, and then its property was sold to the board
of education under the Free School System. The Meade Collegiate In-
stitute was removed from Parkersburg to Wellsburg where it became the
successor of Brooke Academy and did good work. The Academy of the
Visitation began its work at the corner of Eoff and Fourteenth Streets in
Wheeling, in 1848, and there continued until 1865, when it was removed
to Mount De Chantal, an eminence in Pleasant Valley two miles east of
Wheeling, where for about forty years it has continued to train its
students for the highest duties of life. Fifty-five years spans its period
of work. The Fairmont Academy and the Fairmont Male and Female
Seminary did thorough work and paved the way for the location of the
Branch of the State Normal School at that place. The Lewisburg Female
Institute has, for forty-five years, been earning the splendid reputation
and large patronage it now enjoys. West Union Academy did eight years
work and the property was then sold by its board of trustees. The South
Branch Academical Institute, the Morgan Academy, the Point Pleasant
Academy and others had accomplished successful work and were still
engaged in it in 1860.

These academies, seminaries, and colleges had resulted in great good
and had done much to create an interest in secondary and higher educa-
tion. Many hundreds of young men had gone forth from them in quest
of that learning that was to fit them for the highest callings in life.
From the Eastern Pan-Handle and the Greenbrier Region some -went to
the Virginia University at Charlottesvllle, or Washington College at
Lexington. From the northern part of the State some went to Uniontown
College, or Washington College, Pennsylvania. While from the Great
Kanawha Valley and the counties lying along the Ohio river, others went
to the Ohio University at Athens.

Such, in brief, is the story of early educational work in West Vir-
ginia; and such with the Old Field Schools in vogue and her many
splendid academies, were her educational facilities in 1860. In 1848,
John G. Jacob, then among the foremost literary men of Western Vir-
ginia, when writing of educational matters, said: "Under the General
Law of Virginia, which makes quite liberal provision for common school
education, though clogged with provisions which render it distasteful to
the class it is intended to benefit, the facilities for acquiring a com-
mon school education are good, and where there is a disposition, there is
abundant opportunity. West Virginia people had made the most of
their opportunities, but they anxiously sought something better than,
they had known, and this was near at hand."

A NEW ERA IN EDUCATIONAL WORK IN VIRGINIA——FIRST FREE SCHOOLS IN WEST
VIRGINIA

If we would learn of the origin of popular education in West Virginia
we must return to the year 1846, which marks an era in the annuls of
Virginia. We have seen how the Aldermanic School Law was amended
that year and the operation of the Common Primary School System
changed. Almost from the foundation of the Commonwealth there had
been in it many men who were advocates of a Free School System.
Prominent among these were John Burk, the historian, Thomas Jeffer-
son, Joseph Martin and James McDowell. The number increased as the
years went by and the school men were hoping for something better in
education than the Commonwealth had yet known.

Prompted by this desire, a large number of them assembled in Rich-
mond in December, 1845, for the purpose of discussing the bringing before
the Assembly a bill providing for a Free School System. Governor James
McDowell voiced the sentiment of this Convention and in an eloquent ad-
dress before it, he, after describing existing conditions, said: "We trust
that we shall soon be delivered from this dominion of darkness, that we
shall never be contented until every child can read and write, and every
darkened understanding be illumined with the benign influence of educa-
tion."

An Act for the Establishment of a District Public School System.
Under this title these people had a bill prepared and it was enacted into a
law March 5, 1846. It provided that upon the petition of one-third of the
qualified voters of the county to the court thereof, that body should submit
to the voters thereof, the question of a "District Public School System";
and if it appeared that two-thirds of the votes cast at such an election
favored such system, it should be adopted. Its principal provisions were:
That the school commissioners in office in any county at the time of its
adoption, should divide the county into precincts, each containing as many
school districts as might be thought convenient; that each school district
should contain a sufficient number of children to make up a school; that
in each precinct there should be annually elected a school commissioner;
and that the commissioners thus chosen in the several precincts should be
a body corporate under the name of the Board of School Commissioners tor
the county; that it should appoint a clerk whose salary should not exceed
one hundred dollars per annum; that in each school district three trustees
should be appointed, who should purchase a site, erect a good and suffi-
cient schoolhouse, furnish the school with proper fixtures, books, apparatus
and fuel, and keep the house and enclosure in good repair; that they
should then employ a teacher for the school and have power to remove him
for good cause; that no teacher should be employed by them whose qualifi-
cations for teaching and whose moral character had not been examined and
approved by the school commissioners or by some persons or person deputed
by them for that purpose, and a certificate to that effect presented to
the trustees. They, or one of them, were to visit the school once in every
month, and examine the scholars and address the pupils if they saw fit and
exhort them to prosecute their studies diligently. They might suspend or
expel all pupils who were found guilty of grossly reprehensible conduct,
or incorrigibly bad habits. Annually they were to make a report to the
Board of Commissioners of the condition, operation, and expense of the
school. It was further provided that the expense of purchasing a site,
of building, renting, or leasing and repairing the schoolhouses of the
several districts and furnishing them with necessary seats, desks, fixtures
and books, and the salaries of teachers was to be defrayed by the inhabi-
tants of the county by a uniform rate of taxation to be collected as other
taxes are collected. To this fund was to be added the quota of the county
due from the Literary Fund. All children over six years of age were
entitled to attend these schools free of charge—a free school system.

AN ACT TO ESTABLISH DISTRICT FREE SCHOOLS IN SEVERAL OF THE COUNTIES

The fatal defect of the District Free School System just mentioned,
was that it required a petition signed by one-third of the voters of the
county before the question of its adoption could be submitted, and a two-
thirds vote to adopt it. Free School men in the Legislature saw this and
on the 25th of February, 1846, secured the passage of a special act which
prescribed a system of free schools to be optional for sixteen counties of the
State, among them being the West Virginia counties of Brooke, Jefferson
and Kanawha. Elections were to be held on Thursday, April 23, 1846, or,
if there was not sufficient time for this, an election might be held on April
22, 1847. "Do you vote for the Free School or against it?" This was the
question asked the voter. It required a two-thirds vote to adopt it. This
act embodied many of the provisions of the General Law noticed last above.
The Board of Commissioners organized by electing a president and secre-
tary, the latter of whom received twenty-five dollars per annum. School-
houses were to be erected; seats, desks, and books supplied, teachers em-
ployed, and in the schools provided were to be thoroughly taught reading,
writing, arithmetic, English grammar and geography, and whenever it was
practicable, history, especially of Virginia and the United States, and the
elements of physical science, and such other and higher branches as the
school commissioners might direct. All white children, male and female,
between the ages of five and twenty-one years, resident within the districts,
were entitled to receive instruction at these schools free of charge. The
total expense of these county schools was to be defrayed as follows: First.
By the quota of the county from the Literary Fund. Second. Interest on
the Glebe Land Fund, if any. Third. By fines and forfeitures. Fourth.
By donations, bequests, and devises. Fifth. By assessment upon the same
subjects of taxation from which the revenue of the State was raised.

Such was the special Free School System offered by the State of Vir-
ginia to West Virginia counties in 1846. The three of these named in the
act—Brooke, Jefferson, and Kanawha—each voted upon the question of
adoption in 1847. The first rejected it while both the others adopted it.
Various other counties west of the mountains, within the next few years,
voted upon the adoption of the General Free School Law, or the special act
embracing its chief provisions. Marshall county rejected one of these in
1854; Hancock took similar action the next year; then Cabell and Wayne
voted a proposition to adopt a system prescribed for Patrick county. Thus
it was that that in 1860 but three counties west of the mountains—that Is
In West Virginia—had free schools.

A WEST VIRGINIA FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM

West Virginia was admitted into the Union June 20, 1863. With the
rise of the New State came a Free School System such as the school men
within its limits had longed to see.

The first step leading to the inauguration of this system was taken
on the 27th day of November, 1861, when Honorable John Hall, of Mason
county. President of the first State Constitutional Convention, sitting at
Wheeling, named a committee on education consisting of Gordon Battelle
of Ohio county; William E. Stevenson, of Wood county; Robert Hager, of
Boone county; Thomas Trainer, of Marshall county; James W. Parsons, of
Tucker county; William Walker, of Wyoming county; and George Sheetz,
of Hampshire county. Gordon Battelle, chairman of the committee, was a
Methodist minister who had been principal of the old Northwestern
Academy at Clarksburg tor twelve years, and one of his associates, William
E. Stevenson, was afterward second governor of the State. These gentle-
men went to work energetically and the committee made its preliminary
report on Wednesday, January 22, 1862, and a most interesting document
it was. The amended and final report was made February 4, ensuing. These
two reports contained almost every provision that was afterward incor-
porated into the General School Law of the State and from them were taken
the sections relating to education which were inserted in the first Constitu-
tion as framed at that time. The chief of these provisions were those pro-
viding for an "Invested or Irreducible School Fund"; for "the establish-
ment and support of a thorough and efficient system of Free Schools"; for
"the election of a General Superintendent of Free Schools; for a "county
superintendent of each county"; and for the election of such other officers
as should be necessary to render the system effective." Thus was a public
school system fixed firmly in the organic law of the State.

The Constitution was ratified, and on the 20th of June, 1863, the state-
hood of West Virginia began. On that day the first Legislature of West
Virginia assembled, and on Wednesday, June 24th,—four days later—Hon.
John M. Phelps, another Mason county man, who had been elected Presi-
dent of the Senate, then sitting in the Linsly Institute at Wheeling,
appointed a Senate Committee on Education consisting of John H. Atkin-
son, of Hancock county; Thomas K. McCann, of Greenbrier county; John
B. Bowen, of Wayne county; Chester D. Hubbard, of Ohio county, and Wil-
liam E. Stevenson, of Wood county. At the same time, Spicer Patrick, of
Kanawha county, speaker of the House of Delegates, appointed a House
Committee on Education composed of A. F. Ross, of Ohio county; S. R.
Dawson, of Ritchie county; George C. Bowyer, of Putnam county; Daniel
Sweeney, of Tyler county; and Thomas Copley, of Wayne county. The
joint -work of these two committees was the first school law of the State,
known as Chapter CXXXVII of the Acts of 1863, passed December 10 ot
that year, and entitled "An Act providing tor the Establishment ot a
System of Free Schools." It was largely the work of Mr. Ross ot the House
Committee, who was himself an efficient and experienced teacher who had
served sixteen years as Professor of Ancient Languages in Bethany College,
and later as principal of West Liberty Academy. Under this law our school
system had its origin and first years ot development.

This law provided for the election of a State Superintendent ot Free
Schools by the joint vote ot both branches of the Legislature and this
occurred on the first day of June, 1864, when William Ryland White was
elected for a term of two years. He took the oath of office and entered
upon the discharge ot his duties. Thus the Free School System of the
State began to be.

THE BEGINNING OF THE SYSTEM

Superintendent White went to work energetically to put the system
into operation and so well did he do this that he won for himself the title
of "The Horace Mann of West Virginia." County organization, of which
the State is since justly proud, was speedily effected. Then the friends of
education saw that the crying need of the Public School System was a
corps of trained and educated teachers, and that the development of the
"thorough and efficient system of free schools," contemplated by the Con-
stitution, must wait the establishment of Normal Schools and higher insti-
tutions of learning. State Superintendent White led in the movement to
secure these and with his accustomed energy pressed the matter upon the
Legislature. So much in earnest was he that he declared to that body that
"It would be better to suspend the schools of the State for two years and
donate the entire school revenues for that time to the establishment and
endowment of a State Normal School than to have none at all." Here, as
in the field of public primary schools, his efforts were crowned with suc-
cess, and the year 1867, witnessed provisions made for not only one Normal
School but for three, one of which was at West Liberty, another at Fair-
mont, and a third at Guyandotte—now Huntington. But this was not the
only result of the efforts of Superintendent White and other school men in
this direction, for in 1872, three other Normal Schools were added to the
list—one at Shepherdstown, a second at Glenville, and a third at Concord—
now Athens.

The State Normal School with its five branches thus enumerated has
wrought a mighty work for West Virginia. All now have splendid build-
ings with excellent equipment, libraries, and all that is necessary to the
best and therefore the most successful work. The State has spent a million
dollars on these properties. Many hundreds of graduates have gone out
from them and they have enrolled nearly twenty-five thousand students.
These trained men and women, learned as they are, not only in the subjects
taught but in the best methods and the science of teaching them, as prin-
cipals of high and graded schools, teachers in the common schools, county
superintendents, instructors in institutes, lecturers, writers tor school
journals, editors of newspapers, and leaders in educational progress—
they have become a vast power, a mighty agency, tor uplifting and making
more efficient the whole work of education in West Virginia. Such Is the
result accomplished by a splendid Normal School System—a system that Is
not surpassed by any other of its kind in the Union—one in which an army
has now been trained, not for war, but to wage the battles of peace, and
thus, by breaking down the strongholds of ignorance, to win for the State
victories that place her people high up in the intellectual scale.

The State University, an institution which in a few years has risen to
a first rank among'educational institutions south of Mason and Dixon's
line, stands at the head of our school system. Midway between it and the
Primary Schools are the Preparatory Schools, High Schools, and Graded
Schools, the whole soon to be a completely articulated system.

A CONCLUDING OBSERVATION

The solicitude of the men who organized the State was never allayed,
not even amid the clash of arms and the then uncertainty of the final re-
sult of the desperate conflict. Their purpose—that which was uppermost in
their minds—was the founding of a commonwealth with tree schools and
universal education whatever might come, posterity must be educated tor
in that alone they saw the hope of the future. The result is our Free
School System—the richest treasure of West Virginia. Her good name aa
well as the continuation of substantial prosperity, is entirely dependent
upon the initial direction given the minds of the young. Care on the one
hand, neglect on the other, bring forth responsive fruit to tell in after years
in the grateful form of public virtue andd enlightenment, or in the melan-
choly spectacle of public vice and popular ignorance and abasement. The
wisdom of statesmen is never more wisely directed than when it aims to
establish the one and guard against the other. Such statesmenship knows
that it must act always by anticipation; knows that it is dealing with
functions in a state of constant change and progression; that it is
moulding and shaping that which though incorporeal and intangible, bears
direct analogy to that which is corporeal and material, in that it is im-
pressible to good or evil, retains the shape and form to which it is moulded,
and, in its material powers, presents the perfection of the wise directing
hand, or the distortion of wicked neglect.

That, therefore, which is the chief source of greatest gratification
to all West Virginians and to those who have come to live among us. Is
the knowledge that for forty years our wisest statesmanship has been con-
stantly and unerringly directed toward the advancement and promotion
of every educational interest, and that the intellectual development has
kept pace with the material development ot our State. That, while the pro-
ductive energy opens up to the commerce of the world our boundless re-
sources ot mine, quarry and forest, which ages of the most active industry
cannot exhaust, and while the product of factory, of shop, and forge, to-
gether with our coke and coal, and iron and lumber, are taken up by the
great arteries of trade and distributed to the marts and ports of the
civilized world, the educational facilities of our children and our children's
children and the full growth of intellectual life among all classes of our
people, have immeasurably grown and increased since this Great Mountain
State began her career as a member of the American Union. Those who
compare it with the unfolding or the mental life of sister commonwealths,
stand in wonder and astonishment. West Virginia has, indeed, been con-
verted into a land of free schools, of culture, of refinement, and of a
home life fitted to adorn the highest type of civilized and enlightened
commonwealths.