4-18 A SKETCH OF FDIT'ATIOK IN f-f;T'TH CAROLINA. 



His great zeal in behalf of education is thus chronicled b}' Hewitt: "As 

 no public school had yet been instituted for the instruction of youth in 

 the principles of virtue and religion, the Governor urged, also, the use- 

 fulness and necessity of such provincial establishments. It was alleged 

 that the want of early instruction was one of the chief sources of impiety 

 and immorality ; and if they continued any longer to neglect the rising 

 generation, piety and Christianity would insensibly decay, and the}' 

 would soon have a race of white people in the country equally ignorant 

 as the brown Indian. Animated by the example, and assisted by the 

 generosity of the Governor, the colonists, therefore, in good earnest en- 

 gaged in providing seminaries for the religious .education of youth." 



PRIVATE BENEFACTIONS. 



Particular legacies swelled the educational fund. Mr. Whitmarsh left 

 £500 to St. Paul's Parish ; Mr. Ludlam, £2,000 to Goose Creek ; and 

 Richard Beresford, £6,500 to St. Thomas ; James Childs bequeathed £600, 

 and other })arishioners added £2,200 more to an institution in St. John's 

 Parish, established in 1733 ; Francis Williams donated £200 for the in- 

 struction of the poor. 



In 1734, a free school was opened in Dorchester, a town that had been 

 settled in 1696 by a colony of Congregationalists from Massachusetts, 

 under the Rev. Joseph Lord. The preamble of the act of incorporation 

 mentions that the school at Charlestown is insufficient to meet the wants 

 of the people. The teacher was required to give instruction in the 

 learned languages and the principles of the Christian religion. 



After this time, as we are informed by Ramsay, the youth of the 

 Province were always able to secure instruction in the classics and in 

 elements of mathematics. 



With increasing wealth came increasing love of learning. Opulent 

 planters maintained private tutors, or sent their sons abroad. " None of 

 the British Provinces, in proportion to their numbers, sent so many of 

 their sons to Europe for education os South Carolina." 



EDUCATIONAL AND CHARITABLE ASSOCIATIONS 



continued to be formed during colonial times. The South Carolina So- 

 ciety, organized in 1737, and incorporated about fifteen years later, em- 

 ployed teacliers and taught and clothed poor children; besides extending 

 !)Ounty to indigent members and their sons and daughters. The Winyah 

 Indigo Society of Georgetown was incorporated in 1757, and the Fellow- 

 shi}) Society of Charleston _ in 1730, for a similar purpose. In this last 



