One of the first claims made to the credit of New England was the early
attention paid to public education. It is strictly true that, next to
building a meeting house in a new settlement, a school was put up. But
thorough investigation of this subject furnishes evidence that the chief
purpose, at least, of these schools was to fit young men for the
ministry and that they were not based, either in scope or object, upon
the plan of the public school of the present day. The evidence of this
lies in the fact that Latin, Greek and Hebrew were chiefly taught, as
though to aid the study of the Scriptures in the original texts, and
although boys and girls were doubtless also taught at these schools, to
a limited number, previous to the Revolution, the salary of the
schoolmaster was as a rule, if indeed the rule were not without
exception, paid by division among the pupils themselves and not by the
town. The famous Latin School of Boston, which is often held up to our
admiration as the beginning of the public school system, was chiefly
noted for its Latin course, and each scholar paid about five dollars a
term.
Granting, however, full measure of praise to New England and with no
desire to minimize the credit due her for her work in this cause, it is
still in order for us to ask when has credit ever been given by any
writer to South Carolina for the establishment in Charleston, about
twenty years before the founding of the Latin School in Boston, of the
first school approaching in character the public schools of to-day? The
accompanying illustration is taken from a volume of the _Charleston
Gazette_ for the year 1743, once owned by the author but now in the
possession of the Lenox Library of this city, showing the fac-simile of
an account for building a negro free school house. Some years ago the
author had in his possession a memorandum which stated that this school
house, built in 1742–3, was the second which had been erected by the
city of Charleston for the education of negro children, whose parents
indeed represented the only portion of the community unable to educate
itself. In these schools the pupils received gratuitous instruction and
were obliged to attend regularly until the age of twelve years. If the
difference in money value, then and now, be considered, it will be found
that the cost of this building could not have fallen much below five
thousand dollars.
It is evident, therefore, that the first public school, in the accepted
sense, existed in Charleston, at least as early as 1743, and not in New
England.