Xi.
University men and Confederate education.
Such was the position of the alumni of the
University in the field and in the legislative and executive branches of the general government of the
Confederacy.
Their work for Confederate Education was not less noticeable.
Archibald D. Murphey was the first man to agitate the question of public schools in
North Carolina.
Bartlett Yancey drew the bill under which the public schools were organized, and
Calvin H. Wiley was the organizer.
These were all University men.
Wiley succeeded in giving to
North Carolina the best public school system that there was in the
South before the war. He was
Superintendent of Public Instruction in
North Carolina during the war, and through his efforts, with the assistance of
Governor Vance, the public schools of the
State were kept open during the whole of the momentous period.
In his report to
Governor Vance in 1863 he says: ‘It is a subject of devout gratitude to one to be able to announce that our common schools still live and are full of glorious promise.
Through all this dark night of storm their cheerful radiance has been seen on every hill and in every valley of our dear old State; and while the whole continent reels with the shock of terrible and ruthless war, covering the face of nature with ruin and desolation, there are here scattered through the wilderness hundreds of humming hives where thousands of youthful minds are busily learning those peaceful arts which, under the blessing of God, are to preserve our civilization and to aid in perpetuating the liberty and independence for which this generation is manfully contending.’
In the same year (1863) fifty counties reported 35,495 pupils, and fifty-four counties received $240,685.38 for schools.
It is probable that there were then not less than 50,000 children in the
State attending school.
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35]
This beneficent system remained vigorous to the end. The public school was maintained in
North Carolina throughout the war, except in those sections where the
Federals had control, and
Sherman's army on its entrance into
Raleigh found
Dr. Wiley at his desk receiving reports and tabulating statements on the condition of the schools.
The position of
Dr. Wiley among Southern educators, generally, was not less distinguished.
He was regarded by all as an honored and trusted leader.
1 Another alumnus,
Colonel William Bingham, class of 1856, remained at the head of his private school for boys during the whole of the war period.
The school was continued at
Oaks, in Orange county, and ten miles from a railroad, until the winter of 1864-65, when it was removed to
Mebane, N. C. It was then put under a military organization, it officers were commissioned by the
State, and the cadets were exempted from duty until eighteen years of age. The difficulties were great, one of the most serious being the lack of the necessary books.
This want was met by the preparation of
Bingham's series of English and Latin text-books, which have been republished since the war and are now used in every State of the
Union.
2
Perhaps the most curious of the educational enterprises of our alumni was the law school for Confederate prisoners, established on
Johnson's Island in 1863 and 1864, by
Joseph J. Davis (1847-50), who was then a prisoner of war.
