The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1921-05-11
OLD CEDAR MOUNT ACADEMY
One-Room School That Helped Pave
the Way for States School
system.

System.
R-om the Greenville Piedmont.)
"An old humble building in ap
still standing on a high hll
about one-half mile, above the Ole
homestead of the late James W. Oar
10, ESQ. on the old Greenville ane
Augusta road, ought to be preserved
&C q monument to the great WORE
.ccomnlished within it's walls" say
Dr. !. W. Daniel in one Of his Vaiua'
able and entertaining articles OF re
u-;niscences in the South Carollna
Christian Advocate. 1t was a ou'ia'
ing Of only one room and was no"
as Cedar Mount Acadamey. IN recon
struction days when Laurns county
was under martial law, when 1he
State was under the domination Oh
,be Infamous carpetbaggers n the
ignorant negores, and when eooo
men of that section were arrested
and carried to prison to pfe'eh'
them from voting, L. T. H. n
tent the school open and saved
many boys from growing up
an npportunity to fit themselves Tor
efficient service for life" Every
morning the teacher came into the
room took a pistol from his pocket
laid it within reach and then read
from the Bible. At other times Con
fede,ate veterans "came in with
e,,n and concealed themselves in the
woods near the school room to pro-
tect it from insult and rowdles VINO
nrowled about the country" So the
school went on doing its work efh-
GENTLY. Many of the pupils we're
Confederate veterans who cipher
edn under the oaks about the school
house, for it was too small to contain
all the pupils comfortably. Among
those who had their schooling there
were the late United States District
Judge Joseph T. johnson, the late
w! H. Wharton, for raany years su-
perintendent of the Epworth Or
phanage; DR.. D. W. Daniels, of Glenn
SON College; DR.. W. W. Daniel, for
merly president of Columbia Col
lege; Prof. ]. w. Daniel, OF the
chair of history in the Wesleyon Fee
male College; DR.. j. W. Daniel.
Judge H. II. Watkins of the United
States Court for the Western Dis
trict of South Carolina, is from that
community.
Cedar Mount Academy was an ex-
ception to the general condition Of
public schools in South Carolina in
that dark era. John S. Reynolds, in
his Reconstruction in South Caro-
lima" observes:
"The free school system was
worse than a failure. Of the $780,
900 appropriated the session Of
1912 not a dc lar was available
for the pay of teachers, this entire
fund having been applied to other
claims. Teachers pay certificates
were sold at ruinous discounts-usu-
SO per eent-and in some coun-
ties were absolutely valueless. The
commissioners, with occasion
al exceptions (chiefly in the eoun-
ties controlled by whites) were in
to do even the routine
work of the ofice-much less were
they able to organize, maintain OF
eSscand a school system. The school
Sessions were irregular; the teachers
became discouraged; the white tax
payers were naturally disguised and
the entire system had sunk into a
state of ~disrepute and worthless
Let the young South Caroliniai
of today never forget that it was the
iron determination of men like that
school teacher with his pistol, and
like those concealed Veterans in the
woods ready to shoot that paved the
way for the Palmetto State to have
a school system, which, while far
from what it should be, is a thou
sand times better than any they had
or buil6ed in their dreams for fu-
ture.