Race, Religion, and Redemption: William Henry Ruffner and the Moral Foundations of Education in Virginia Author(S): Thomas C

Race, Religion, and Redemption: William Henry Ruffner and the Moral Foundations of Education in Virginia Author(s): Thomas C. Hunt, Jennings L. Wagoner Jr. and Jennings J. Wagoner Jr. Source: American Presbyterians, Vol. 66, No. 1 (SPRING 1988), pp. 1-9 Published by: Presbyterian Historical Society Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23330761 Accessed: 06-01-2019 20:25 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23330761?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Presbyterian Historical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Presbyterians This content downloaded from 199.111.241.10 on Sun, 06 Jan 2019 20:25:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Race, Religion, and Redemption: William Henry Ruffner and the Moral Foundations of Education in Virginia by Thomas C. Hunt and Jennings L. Wagoner, Jr. TODAY, IT IS COMMONLY ASSUMED IN Puryear of Richmond College and J. Wil AMERICA that the state, the civic entity, liam Jones, a Baptist clergyman who wrote has a basic right to educate, and that this a series of articles under the nom de right is to be exercised through schools plume "Civis" in the Religious Herald and that are public in access, control, and sup in the widely circulated Southern Planter port. In the nineteenth century, however, and Farmer.3 In combination, the charges the government's right to educate and to these religious spokesmen hurled against levy taxes for school support was repeat Superintendent Ruffner and the public edly questioned and often strongly re schools generated a crisis of confidence in sisted. In Virginia and throughout the public education in Virginia that quite lit South as well as in other parts of the na erally threatened its survival in its infancy tion, attempts to establish and maintain stage. public schools were fraught with contro To probe into the debates that divided versy over questions involving race, reli these Protestant Christians over the pro gion, and the redemptive or morally ele priety of public schooling is to uncover vating possibilities of nondenominational the roots of a concern that has again resur education. faced in contemporary arguments over Much of the credit for establishing a tax the nature of public education. The funda supported system of public schools in Vir mental question addressed by both Ruff ginia must go to William Henry Ruffner, neran and his critics in the 1870s was that of ordained Presbyterian minister, who thein "morality" of public schooling. These 1870 became Virginia's first Superinten debates not only brought into question dent of Public Instruction.1 Ruffner's ef the morality or "Tightness" of taxation in forts in behalf of public education, how support of common schools for blacks as ever, were severely circumscribed by well as whites even in separate schools, attacks from coreligionists. The Reverend but more fundamentally focused on the Robert Lewis Dabney of the Union The "moral foundations" of any form of public ological Seminary of Virginia and later education. Critics of public schools main founder of the Austin Presbyterian The tained that by their very nature state-sup ological Seminary, emerged as one of ported schools had to be secular and Ruffner's most vocal and hostile critics.2 In therefore could not but be immoral. Ruff the mid-1870s, Dabney joined in on an as ner and his allies argued that, although sault against Ruffner and the public school nonsectarian, public schools could and system that was being spearheaded by would in fact be guardians of morality. The Baptist opponents, Professor Bennett struggle surrounding the beginnings of Dr. Hunt is a member of the faculty of the College of Education, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Dr. Wagoner is a professor in the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia. American Presbyterians, 66:1 (Spring 1988) This content downloaded from 199.111.241.10 on Sun, 06 Jan 2019 20:25:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2 American Presbyterians the public education system in Virginia and old, were taught reading and the fun was thus essentially a "moral struggle," a damentals of religion by white teachers" contest in which men took sides based on including Presbyterian deacon Thomas their perception of what would best serve "Stonewall" Jackson.6 Some years later, to protect or strengthen—or prevent thewhile living in Harrisonburg, he opened further erosion of—the "moral fiber" of another Sunday school for local blacks citizens, black and white. and served for a time on the Board of Di rectors of the African Colonization Soci Establishment of the Public School System ety. William Henry and his father were both Presbyterian ministers who pro Virginia, in spite of several decades fessedof belief in the unity of the human relatively intense pro-public school senti race and brotherhood of man.7 ment expressed by many of its citizens and Both before and after the Civil War, Wil in spite too of Thomas Jefferson's pro liam Henry Ruffner argued against those posal back in 1779 for a public school syswhose minds were closed on the question tem, entered the Civil War with less than of a educating blacks, but as architect of the dozen towns and counties operating pub law which established public schools in lic "common schools." There was no state Virginia, he recognized that only a dual wide system of education. Prejudice school system had any chance of surviving against the public "pauper schools" had in the racially divided commonwealth. led the wealthier whites to support private Even the idea of a "separate but equal" institutions, and half of the white children system of schools proved to be a cause of of the state had never been inside a public continuing controversy and provoked hos school. Nearly twenty-two percent of the tile attacks by conservative Virginians who white population was illiterate in I860.4 objected both to public schools in general The Act of Congress by which Virginia and schools for freedmen in particular. was readmitted to the Union in 1869 de Nonetheless, the arrival—if not the sur clared in Article VIII, Section 3, that "the vival—of a new order was announced in Constitution of Virginia shall never Julybe of 1870, when Governor Gilbert C. amended or changed as to deprive Walkerany signed into law a bill entitled "An citizen or class of citizens of the United Act to Establish and Maintain a Uniform States of the school rights and privileges System of Public Free Schools." Although secured by the constitution of said state." Walker in time proved to be less than en Thus, to the body of citizens to be edu thusiastic in his support of public schools, cated was added the entire black popula he boldly proclaimed in his inaugural ad tion recently freed from slavery. Freed dress that "free education for all" (includ men constituted nearly one-half the ing the "colored," who have the "fran population of the state and the 1870 cenchise") would be one of the "chief tenets" sus indicated that 207,000 freedmen were of his political faith.8 totally illiterate.5 Such were the conditions Ruffner's labors during his first few confronting William Henry Ruffner when years as Superintendent of Public Instruc he took office in 1870 as the first Superin tion resulted in significant gains in the tendent of Public Instruction. number of teachers and pupils of both Superintendent Ruffner, like his father races who constituted the human capital Henry Ruffner, President of Washington of the new system of public schools. He College, had been an outspoken oppo informed local superintendents where nent of slavery. As a young man in the they might secure competent black teach 1840s, William Henry Ruffner had organ ers and encouraged white southerners to ized the first Sunday school for blacks in engage in the instruction of freedmen Lexington where "some hundreds, young "with a view to elevate their character, and This content downloaded from 199.111.241.10 on Sun, 06 Jan 2019 20:25:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms William Henry Ruffner 3 same time to keep alive public school sup port and educational opportunity for Vir ginia blacks and whites alike.10The height ened controversy over the role of race and religion in the fledgling public school sys tem threw Ruffner and his allies into a bat tle that gained the intensity of a holy war. War Against the Public Schools Guerrilla attacks against the public schools that had been occurring for sev eral years erupted into an open declara tion of war against the schools in 1875. The escalation of conflict was announced by Professor Bennett Puryear of Richmond College who proclaimed in the pages of the Religious Herald that the provision for public schools amounted to state pater nalism and tended to "relax individual energy and debauch private morality." Puryear contended that the entire system of public education violated the American principle that allowed each citizen to con William Henry Ruffner and duct his own affairs without undue gov W.H.

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