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 the decision of the teacher, which was announced thus:  “Well, Mary, I must punish you.”

All eyes were directed to William.  Deliberately he laid down his books, and, stepping quickly up to the teacher, said, respectfully:  “Don’t strike her.  Whip me.  I’ll take it for her,” as he arrested with his hand the uplifted switch.  Every eye in that little log school-house brightened with approbation, and, in a moment after, filled with tears, as the teacher laid down his rod and said:  “William, you are a noble boy, and, for your sake, I will excuse Mary.”  Ten years after, Mary was the wife—­the dutiful, loving, happy wife of William; and William, twenty years after, was a member of the Legislature, and then a representative in Congress, (when it was an honor to a gentleman to be such,) and afterwards was for years a Senator in the same body—­one of Georgia’s noblest, proudest, and best men.