Towns of Mississippi--Naming estates--The influence of towns
on the social relations of the planters--Southern refinement
--Colleges--Oakland--Clinton--Jefferson--History of the latter
--Collegiate system of instruction--Primary departments--
Quadrennial classes.
The towns and villages of Mississippi, as in European states, are
located perfectly independent of each other, isolated among its forests,
and often many leagues apart, leaving in the intervals large tracts of
country covered with plantations, and claiming no minuter subdivision
than that of "county." Natchez, for instance, is a corporation one mile
square, but from the boundaries of the city to Woodville, the next
incorporated town south, there is an interval of thirty-eight miles. It
is necessary for the planters who reside between towns so far asunder,
to have some more particular address, than the indefinite one arising
from their vicinity to one or other of these towns. Hence has
originated the pleasing custom of naming estates, as in England; and
names so given are always regarded by the planters themselves, and by
the community, as an inseparable part of their address. These names are
generally selected with taste, such as "Monmouth," "Laurel-hill,"
"Grange," "Magnolia grove," "The Forest," "Cottage," "Briars,"
"Fatherland," and "Anchorage"--the last given by a retired navy officer
to his plantation. The name is sometimes adopted with reference to some
characteristic of the domain, as "The Oaks," "China grove," "New
Forest," &c., but more frequently it is a mere matter of fancy. Towns in
this state have usually originated from the location of a county seat,
after the formation of a new county. Here the court-house is placed, and
forms the centre of an area which is soon filled with edifices and
inhabitants. If the county lies on the river, another town may arise,
for a shipping port, but here the accumulation of towns usually ceases.
A county seat, and a cotton mart, are all that an agricultural country
requires. The towns in this state are thus dispersed two or three to
each county, nor so long as this is a planting country, will there be
any great increase to their number, although in wealth and importance
they may rival, particularly the shipping ports, the most populous
places in the valley of the west. In these towns are the banks, the
merchants, the post offices, and the several places of resort for
business or pleasure that draw the planter and his family from his
estate. Each town is the centre of a circle which extends many miles
around it into the country, and daily attracts all within its influence.
The ladies come in their carriages "to shop," the gentlemen, on
horseback, to do business with their commission merchants, visit the
banks, hear the news, dine together at the hotels, and ride back in the
evening. The southern town is properly the "Exchange" for the
neighbouring planters, and the "Broadway" for their wives and daughters.
And as no plantation is without a private carriage, the number of these
gay vehicles, filling the streets of the larger towns on pleasant
mornings in the winter, is surprising. I have counted between thirty and
forty private carriages in the streets of Natchez in one morning. In a
small country village, I once numbered seventeen, standing around a
Methodist chapel. Showy carriages and saddle horses are the peculiar
characteristics of the "moving spectacle" in the streets of
south-western towns.
Every village is a nucleus of southern society, to which the least
portion is generally contributed by itself. When a public ball is given
by the bachelors, in one of these towns--for private parties are
scarcely known--the tickets of invitation fly into the retirement of the
plantations, within the prescribed circle, often to the distance of
thirty miles. Thus families, who reside several leagues apart, on
opposite sides of the town, and who might otherwise never associate,
unless on "change," or in "shopping," meet together, like the
inhabitants of one city. This state of things unites, in a social bond,
the intelligent inhabitants of a large extent of country, who are
nearly equally wealthy, and creates a state of society in the highest
degree favourable to hospitality and social feeling. These social
"circles" often revolve within one another, and sometimes enlarge, until
they embrace several towns. The Mississippians are remarkable for their
"locomotivity;" an organ which they have plainly developed, if we
reason, as phrenologists sometimes do, from effect to cause--and whose
existence is manifest from their propensity annually to depopulate their
state, by taking northern tours during the summer months. During the
season of gayety, in the winter months, the public assemblies and
private coteries of Natchez are unsurpassed by those of any other city,
in the elegance, refinement, or loveliness of the individuals who
compose them. If you will bear in mind, that the southern females of
wealth are usually educated in the most finished style, at the first
female seminaries in the north, and, until recently, not seldom in
Europe; and recollect the personal beauty, sprightliness, and extreme
refinement of the southern lady, you will not be surprised that elegant
women grace the private circles, and shine in the gay assemblies of
southern cities.
But fashion and refinement are not confined to Natchez. In nearly every
county reside opulent planters, whose children enjoy precisely the same
advantages as are afforded in the city. Drawn from the seclusion of
their plantations, their daughters are sent to the north; whence they
return, in the course of time, with cultivated minds and elegant
manners. Hence every village can draw around it a polished circle of
its own; for refinement and wealth do not always diminish here, as in
New-England, in the inverse ratio of distance from a metropolis--and
elegant women may often be found blooming in the depths of forests far
in the interior.
Less attention is paid to the mental or personal cultivation of the male
youth of this state, than to that of the females. Many of them are
partially educated at home; and, by the time they attain the age at
which northern boys enter college, become assistants on the plantation,
which they expect one day to inherit; or, at the age of nineteen or
twenty, receive from their parents land and negroes, and commence
planting for themselves. At the age of twenty-one or two they frequently
marry. Many planters are opposed to giving their sons, whom they destine
to succeed them as farmers, a classical education. A common practical
education they consider sufficient for young gentlemen who are to bury
themselves for life in the retirement of a plantation. But Mississippi,
in this age and at this juncture, from the peculiar construction of her
political and social laws, demands an educated youth.--The majority of
the planters are able to educate their children in a superior manner;
and if they do this, they will elevate the rising generation high in the
scale of society, and give Mississippi an honourable rank among the
republics of America. Although education is not indigenous, and is too
frequently a secondary consideration in the minds of many, children in
the towns are probably as well educated as they would be at the north,
under similar circumstances, for no village is without private schools.
But the education of young children on plantations is much neglected.
Many boys and girls, whose parents reside five or ten miles from any
town or academy, and do not employ tutors, grow up to the age of eight
or ten, unable either to read or write. Some planters, who have but one
or two children, and do not think it worth while to employ a tutor for
so small a number, thoughtless of the injury their children may sustain,
suffer them to grow up at home, almost ignorant even of the alphabet,
till of an age to be sent away to a boarding-school, or an academy,
where they first learn to read. In such a state of things, it is not
uncommon to meet with very interesting and intelligent children wholly
ignorant of those childish studies, and that story-book information,
which throw such a charm over their little society, invigorating the
intellectual faculties, and laying a foundation for a superstructure of
mind. Often several families will unite and employ a tutor;
constructing, for the purpose, a school-house, in a central position
among their plantations. But those who look forward to a high rank in
American and European society for their children, employ private tutors
in their own houses, even if they have but one child. Some gentlemen
send their children, when quite young, to the north, and visit them
every summer. Two-thirds of the planters' children of this state are
educated out of it. There is annually a larger sum carried out of the
state, for the education of children at the north, and in the expenses
of parents in making them yearly visits there, than would be sufficient
to endow an institution at intervals of four or five years.
There are three colleges in Mississippi; but Mississippians have so long
been in the habit of sending their children away, when it was necessary,
that they still adhere to the custom, when there is no farther occasion
for it; and the consequence is, that their own institutions are
neglected, and soon fall into decay, while the money which they send for
the support of northern colleges, would elevate their own to high
literary distinction and usefulness.
Oakland college, twenty-five miles from Natchez, near Rodney, is a
flourishing institution under Presbyterian patronage. It is of recent
foundation, and has yet no permanent buildings; but handsome college
edifices are about to be erected for the accommodation of the students.
Its situation is rural and very healthy. Its funds are respectable, and
under the presidency of the Rev. J. Chamberlin, a gentleman of learning
and piety, it is rapidly rising into eminence. It already has about one
hundred students, and its professors are men of talent and industry, one
of whom is a son of the late Dr. Payson of Portland. It is thus that
young northerners work their way to distinction in the south and west.
There is another college at Clinton, of which I have before spoken, and
also an academy at Natchez, ranking as high as a south-western college,
under the superintendence of J. H. B. Black, Esq. of New-Jersey.
Jefferson college, in the village of Washington, six miles from Natchez,
is the oldest and best endowed institution in the state. It was founded
by private subscription in 1802, and subsequently received a grant of a
township of unsaleable land from Congress, exchanged two years since for
a more eligible tract, which sold for a very large sum. The income of
the college is now about eight thousand dollars, arising from a fund of
more than one hundred and fifty thousand. The building is a large,
three-story brick edifice, handsomely finished, and capable of
containing one hundred students. The location is highly beautiful, in a
grove of majestic oaks, and at the head of a fine green parade, which
lies, with a magnificent oak in its centre, between it and the village.
A primary department is connected with it; and a pleasant brick
building, half surrounded with galleries, on the opposite side of the
"green," is appropriated to this branch of the institution. The primary
department, which includes a moiety of the students, is under the able
superintendence of professor Crane, a native of New-Jersey, and recently
from West Point. The history of this institution will confirm what I
have stated in my remarks upon education. Since its organization until
very recently, it has laboured under pecuniary difficulties, with which
it was unable to contend; for a great part of the time it has been
without pupils or teachers; and its halls have occasionally been used
for private schools. It obtained no celebrity as a college until
1829-30, when Mr. Williston, the author of "Eloquence in the United
States," and "Williston's Tacitus," was chosen its president, and the
institution was placed under military organization, after the plan
adopted by capt. Alden Partridge. The novelty of this mode drew a great
number of pupils within its walls. The following year ill health
compelled president Williston to resign, and he was succeeded by major
Holbrook, formerly principal of the seminary in Georgetown, D. C. During
his presidency there were above one hundred and fifty cadets connected
with the institution, and it was more flourishing in every respect than
any other in the south-west. But the new president, seized with the
mania for cotton-planting, which infects all who reside here for any
length of time, devoted a portion of his attention to agricultural
pursuits, and the patrons of the college, perhaps regarding this
additional vocation as incompatible with that of instructing, withdrew
their sons, one after another, the novelty of a military education
having worn off, and fell into the old mode of keeping them at home on
their plantations, or sending them to Kentucky, the great academy for
Mississippi youth, to complete their education. During the summer the
president died, and the institution again became disorganized. In 1833,
capt. Alden Partridge was invited by the board of trustees to assume the
presidency, but after remaining a few months, returned to the north,
unable to restore it to its former flourishing condition. The college
halls became again, and for the sixth time since their foundation,
nearly deserted. In the spring of 1834, the board invited two professors
to take charge of the college until they could decide upon the choice of
a president. The present year, C. B. Dubuisson, Esq. of Philadelphia,
one of these professors, was unanimously elected president, and was
inaugurated on the 6th of July, 1835. Under the new president, who is a
finished scholar and a very amiable and energetic man, the college has
become very flourishing, and is rapidly advancing to permanent literary
distinction. Professor Symmes, a graduate of the University of Virginia,
and an able scholar, is professor of mathematics. Under these two
gentlemen, and the professor in the primary department, planters may now
have their sons as well educated as at the north. They are beginning to
think so. But if they would more generally adopt the opinion, that their
sons can be educated at the south by northern professors as well as at
the north, the literary institutions of this country would not have to
struggle for existence, scarcely able to rise above the rank of an
academy. In connexion with the disinclination which southerners have to
educating their sons at home, and their disposition to depreciate their
native institutions, there exists another cause, with a direct tendency
to check their advancement. It is the system of education pursued in
their colleges, which, in a great degree, is the result of necessity.
Until within a few years, there have been no good preparatory schools in
this state, where youth could fit themselves for admission into college.
Now, to form the lowest class in a college, it is necessary that those
who are to compose it--however large or small their number--should have
gone through a prescribed series of preparatory studies. But where
there has been no opportunity for pursuing this preparatory course, as
here in the south-west, the college must open its doors to unprepared
youth, to the great injury of its classes, or, in the absence of other
means, provide measures for fitting them for admission. These measures
all colleges here are at present taking, by the establishment of primary
departments; until the pupils of these departments are qualified for
promotion, the college classes remain vacant; and thus, though nominally
a college, the institution is, for the time being, an academy, or
preparatory school for _itself_. This is the present state of the
colleges here, and none of them have advanced so far as to open the
junior class. Jefferson College indeed has been, with the exception of
its condition under military discipline a few years since, no more than
a preparatory department since its organization. It is now rising into
the dignity of a college, although the quadrennial course, which in our
notions is inseparable from a collegiate education, is not intended by
the board to form a part of their system. The method adopted in the
University of Virginia, in relation to the routine of studies and
succession of classes, will be partially pursued. In the present state
of things, this is no doubt the preferable course to follow; but it is
to be feared that the college will never be eminent or very permanent,
until established on the good old basis of our northern institutions. If
this system were adopted, and a professor appointed to fill the chair in
each department of science, whether there were students or not--and the
freshman class opened, even by the admission of a single scholar--the
institution, with its immense fund, would stand upon an immovable
foundation. The classes would increase every year in size, and at the
end of the fifth series, or in twenty years, a class of seniors would
receive their degrees, whom even aristocratic Harvard would not disdain
to acknowledge as her foster children.