South Carolina. General Assembly

S.C. Statute 1811(5)639 specified that every board of commissioners of free schools was to make a yearly return to the legislature. Governor Middleton recommended the passage of this act as a response to the systematic lack of education in the state. The first appropriation made possible 124 elementary schools for the state. As the system progressed, the term "free school" became embarrassingly exchangeable with pauper schools, because the 1811 act carried within it a written directive that an admittance preference be given to the poor and orphaned. This doomed the system since the poor refused to except a bounty that carried with it a stigma. The system ended in 1868 with the veto of funds appropriated for the free schools of that year (S.C. Statute 1868(14)167). The State Constitution of 1868 laid the framework for a new school system.

From the description of Free school reports 1812-1866. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122530030

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