Frederick Johnston Given Post – Literary Fund Established In 1810 – Act Aids In 1829
From the 1938 centennial edition of The Times-Register
Nothing that resembles public schools as we know them today were provided by the greater part of Virginia until 1870. In roanoke county as well as in practically all of the other counties no action was taken on a system of public education until that time although this county did have school commissioners and school districts.
In the early court records of this county we find that school commissioners were appointed by the county court as early as October 2, 1839, which was soon after the county was formed. On that date the court appointed as school commissioners the following: James McClanahan, Elias Thomas, Lewist Harvey, James Kyle, John F. J. White and Powell Huff.
A superintendent of schools was elected by the school commissioners on Feb. 17, 1851 when Frederick Johnston was chosen to that post but his position was hardly comparable to that of a superintendent of schools as we regard it today.
Literary Fund Started
In 1810 a Literary fund was established and through certain taxes this fund grew considerably from year to year and it is still in existence. However, there were no free public schools until 1870 and the largest part of the money for educational purposes in this state previous to that time was spend for higher education and this state had some fine institutions of higher learning before 1870.
In 1829 an act was passed which permitted counties to spend ten percent of their state funds for building schoolhouses but few counties did so and there are no records to indicate that any schoolhouses were built in Roanoke county through taxation until 1870.
Thomas Jefferson outlined the first concrete plan for free public schools in an act passed in 1796 but his plan was optional with the county courts and they did not take action in most instances. in 1817 – 1818 an act was passed by the lower house of the legislature providing for a school system but the measure was killed in the senate.
An act was passed in 1846 providing for a school system to be set up in case the county court called for an election and two-thirds of the freeholders approved the idea. However, the court of this county was not compelled to call any election and they did not do so.
School Districts Set Up
School districts and school commissioners were set up in that year in this county but it was mainly for the purpose of having the commissioners seek out the indigent children of the districts and hiring a teacher for them, Teachers were hired at the rate of 3½ to 4 cents per day per pupil with any place available used for holding sessions.
However, to be educated at public expense was looked down upon on that day as the parents of the children who recieved public education were regarded as paupers. For that reason a majority of the children of poor parents got along without the advantages of schooling.
Regardless of this fact a number of boys and girls took advantage of the free schooling and the state records show that in 1851 there were 63,370 pupils who had been in school for a period of fifty-four days.
Private schools were maintained in the early days of this state. A family who could afford to hire a teacher would do so and since the teacher was paid on a per diem basis according to the number of pupils he got as many as he could. Not only did he teach the children of the person who hired him originally but he got as many of the neighboring children as possible.
In this state the teacher was not governed by the state or church as was the case in England from which country Virginia borrowed most of her laws. The state in the early days licensed teachers and sometimes the teacher was a clergyman but no supervision over the teaching was exercised by the state or church.
– Prepared by Lingjie Gu
