REPORTS ON THE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM, TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF SOUTH CAROLINA, AT THE REGULAR SESSION OF 1839

Columbia: A.H. Pemberton, State Printer, 1840. 88pp, disbound, with light to moderate spotting. Good+.

The Committee on Education defends South Carolina's Free School system from charges that it "is a failure," although it acknowledges "many defects; but these defects are rather in the administration of the system, than in the system itself."
Included is the "Report of Professors Elliott and Thornwell, on the free school system," which cites as a major difficulty "the carelessness of the poor about the education of their children, the selfishness which leads them to prefer their labor to their improvements, and the foolish pride, which prevents them from receiving that as a bounty, which they cannot procure in any better way."
Also printed are district-by-district reports, replete with data and suggestions on attracting students, qualified teachers, salaries, certifications, curriculum, buildings.
II Turnbull 444. AI 40-6240 [5].