But the Charleston commissioners, especially C. G. Memminger, A. G. Magrath, and W. Jefferson Bennett, roused from their lethargy, and in the face of bitter prejudice revolutionized the system. They worked on a totally different plan. Their aim was to provide schools for all, and not for pauper pupils only. In 1855 they built a house on St. Philip's street at a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars, to accommodate eight hundred pupils. Three years later they erected another on Friend street at a cost of thirty thousand dollars. A kind of normal school for teachers was formed to meet every Saturday under the direction of the superintendent of public.schools. They also built a high school for girls at a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars, of which the State paid ten thousand dollars and the citizens of Charleston the remainder. The expenses of its maintenance were ten thousand dollars annually, of which the city paid hälf and the State guaranteed the other half on cordition of being permitted to send ninety pupils. A normal department was attached to this.

The whole system was inaugurated with appropriate ceremonies on July 4, 1856, when Dr. S. H. Dickson delivered an address. It was modelled on the "New York" plan, and the heads of the schools were brought from the North, so that teachers thoroughly acquainted with the system would direct the management.

In a short time the number of children in attendance was one thousand four hundred, and there were more applications than could be granted. In 1860 the attendance was four thousand.

This was done in the face of strong opposition. "Fair Play" openly charged that the change had been made in order that the new board might get the benefit of the "spoils," and claimed that they had overstepped their limits in setting up common schools, when the act only called for free schools. He also called attention to the resolutions of the last session of the Legislature, which had "re-announced the fact that the free schools are for the poor." He concluded by confidently venturing the prediction “that the new system, unsupported as it is by law, will not succeed." But it did succeed, and, according to a writer in Barnard's Journal, “revolutionized public sentiment in that city, and was fast doing it for the whole State when the mad passions of war consummated another revolution."

The public schools of Charleston are handsome structures, admirably adapted to the purpose for which they were designed, and well equipped with all the necessary appliances for instruction from the kindergarten to the high school, from which the youth of either sex may go with

much better educations than some receive from institutions of more pretentious claims. The buildings bear the names of those who have been most deeply interested in their construction and in the blessings they bestow upon the community in which they are so well maintained.

The Bennett school for Mr. Wm. Jefferson Bennett; the Memminger school perpetuates the name of the one whose history I am writing; the Crafts school in honor of Hon. William Crafts; the Courtenay school for Ion. Wm. A. Courtenay, while others quite as well equipped bear the names of the streets on which they are located-as the Meeting-street or Mary-street schools. Mr. Memminger did not confine his interest in public education to the city of Charleston alone. No one of our public men did more towards aiding the institutions of the State designed to furnish to its citizens the advantages and benefits of an educational system that would reach all classes and conditions. As early as 1841 we find from an examination of the Journal of the House of Representatives that as a member of that body he introduced the following resolution:

Mr. Memminger submitted a resolution, which, after a few remarks from him, was unanimously agreed to and ordered to the Senate, directing the commissioners to provide for the education of the deaf and dumb children of this State, and to appropriate one-half of the amount for the education of the deaf and dumb to the education of the blind of this State at institutions specially to be provided for the education of the blind.

Thus was commenced the noble charity of the State which gives to those unfortunates who have been deprived of sight, who have no sense of hearing, and are dumb, the means of acquiring an education of other faculties, by which means many are now enabled to make comfortable livings.

CHAPTER IV.

The Lawyer and the Law-giver.

HE ability displayed by Mr. Memminger at the Bar of Charleston, the earnest and faithful manner in which he discharged the duties imposed upon him as an alderman, added to his popularity. So much So, that at the fall elections of 1836 he was chosen one of the members of the House of Representatives from the parishes of St. Philips and St. Michaels, in which was situated the city of Charleston. His election may be also considered as a triumph of the Conservative or Union State Rights Party, which from the reaction that followed the excitement and alarm engendered by the discussions of the Nullification measure, became stronger at this time than it had been before, or has since been, in the goodly city by the

sea.

While the earnest spirit and logical mind of Mr. Memminger had been made manifest in the debating society, the court-room, and in his public addresses; and while these all gave great promise of a future career of distinction and of usefulness, he was yet to evidence those wonderful powers of analysis, and that remarkable sagacity which made him so prominent as a statesman and ranked him among the ablest lawyers of the country. The great political economist and wise legislator, the jurist and the advocate, was yet to become a demonstration, and take his place among the representative men of his time.

Mr. Memminger's introduction into public life was at a most opportune time for the display of his natural endowments, and furnished many occasions for the exercise of the ( 115 )

talents committed to his keeping by the Creator of all men. We do not fail to achieve success in life for the want of opportunities. These come to all men, and are just such as their abilities enable them to perceive, and their energies enable them to properly improve. It is indeed true that "there is a tide in the affairs of men," and it is also true that this tide must be taken at its flow. It will not take you forward or backward against your will or your wish, but you must take it. It will not rise to some height, where your vanity may have taken you to wait in listless apathy and dream away life in the seductive shades of inaction, where you have allowed yourself to become fixed above the highest water-mark of all opportunity, but it surely comes to "lead on to fortune" those who are willing and active in the judicious improvement of every occasion, however small, to meet its "flood." Such an one never fails to find an occasion, and is sure to meet with an opportunity. Mr. Memminger well understood this, and no one more fully appreciated than he did the value of time and the necessity for decision. and prompt action. His remark to a gentleman with whom he was once conversing, that "one often lost more time in deciding what to do, than was required to do it in," is but an expression of his active nature.

In order that the reader may have a clear conception of ' the general condition of the country at the time that Mr. Memminger entered upon public life as a legislator, I will endeavor here to outline this, and measure, if possible, the "tide" that bore him and others on to fame and fortune.

The great McDuffie was then Governor of the State; ho whose prescience was but the intuition of a great mind, and whose record remains with us to-day among the glories of the past--a splendid chapter in the history of South Carolina-whose name and face, with that of the great Ïayne, is carved upon our State House as the synonym of patriot.