ng the rudimental education of the children of
the State to be provided for by their parents, as best they could.
Primary schools were gotten up in the different neighborhoods by the
concentrated action of its members, and a teacher employed, and paid by
each parent at so much per capita for his children. In these schools
almost every Georgian--yes, almost every Southerner--commenced his
education. It was at these schools were mingled the sexes in pursuit of
their A, B, C, and the incidents occurring here became the cherished
memories of after life. Many a man of eminence has gone out from these
schools with a better education with which to begin life and a conflict
with the world, than is obtained now at some of the institutions called
colleges.

Young men without means, who had acquired sufficient of the rudiments
of an English education, but who desired to pursue their studies and
complete an education to subserve the purposes of the pursuit in life
selected by them, frequently were the teachers in the primary schools.
From this class arose most of those men so distinguished in her earlier
history. Some were natives, and some were immigrants from other States,
who sought a new field for their efforts, and where to make their
future homes. Such were William H. Crawford, Abram Baldwin, and many
others, whose names are now borne by the finest counties in the
State--a monument to their virtues, talents, and public services,
erected by a grateful people.

These primitive schools made the children of every neighborhood
familiar to each other, and encouraged a homogeneous feeling in the
rising population of the State. This sameness of education and of
sentiment created a public opinion more efficacious in directing and
controlling public morals than any statutory law, or its most efficient
administration. It promoted an _esprit du corps_ throughout the
country, and formed the basis of that chivalrous emprise so peculiarly
Southern.

The recollections of these school-days are full of little incidents
confirmatory of these views. I will relate one out of a thousand I
might enumerate. A very pretty little girl of eight years, full of life
and spirit, had incurred, by some act of childish mischief, the penalty
of the switch--the only and universal means of correction in the
country schools. She was the favorite of a lad of twelve, who sat
looking on, and listening to the questions propounded to his
sweetheart, and learning