Colonel Robert Bingham
The llingham* anil lln» Horner»* were out¬
standing educators of Korth Carolina.
Here's an interesting sketch concerning
the activities of the first-named family.
6ARFIELD once said that a
university consisted of Mark
Hopkins at one end of a log
and a student at the other. He
should have come to Carolina for
another illustration, for here he
would have found a succession of
headmasters of father, sons and
grandsons who conducted a famous
academy for more than 125 years
— a case believed without parallel
in the United States.
The last century was drawing
to its close before our public school
Ж
stem was worthy of the name;
ere were practically no high
schools, and preparatory education
was in privately owned academies.
By far the two most famous of
these was Bingham's at Mebane
and Horner's at Oxford. The flower
of Carolina youth was educated at
one or the other; so that if a man
told you he did not attend 1 Iorncr’s.
you knew he went to Bingham's.
Moreover, on account of financial
and economic conditions, many a
promising youth was unable to
complete a course at the Univer¬
sity. and his education at the
academy was all he got — and
thorough and deep were its founda¬
tions if he went to Bingham's or
Horner's.
Distinguished Ancestry
The Bingham ancestry was dis¬
tinguished. One was James Hogg
of Hillsboro. Secretary of the Tran¬
sylvania Company, on the commit¬
tee to select a site for the Univer¬
sity. donor of part of its campus.
Another was Judge William Nor¬
wood of Hillsboro, whose ancestral
seat “Poplar Hill" is better known
to later generations as "Oconee-
chee," country estate of General
Julian S. Carr.
Founder of the Bingham dynasty
in Carolina was Rev. William Bing¬
ham. Presbyterian preacher of
County Doon, Ireland, a graduate
of Glasgow University, who found¬
ed Bingham School in 1793. The
father was succeeded by his son
William J. Bingham in 1825. and
by his grandsons William and Rob¬
ert in 1857. the school being con¬
ducted by Robert alone after 1873.
Originally located in Pittsboro, it
THE STATE. MARCH 2. 1946
it if
к. с. 1л\ии:ш:
was later moved to Hillsboro, and
still later to Mebane where it be¬
came a fixture in the life of the
State.
Its buildings were destroyed by
fire in 1882; and again in 1890 a
disastrous fire gutted its plant and
equipment. Colonel Bingham then
went to Asheville and established
another Bingham School on a beau¬
tiful site in the environs of that
city, where he conducted it until
his death May 8, 1927 a record
of sixty-three years of service to
one institution.
Col. Robert Bingham was born
at Hillsboro. September 5, 1838;
and was an honor graduate of the
University in 1857. He saw four
years of service as a Captain in the
legions of Lee; then ho came back
home to have a large part in the
rebuilding of a wasted common¬
wealth.
A Staunch Foundation
You got education at Bingham's.
There was not much science, but
you were grounded in English. His¬
tory, Mathematics, Latin and
Greek; and when Bingham finished
with you, you were both a scholar
and a gentleman for if you had
not possessed the last named attri¬
bute, you would not have been
allowed to remain at the Bingham
School. What would the Binghams
have said to the modern day sug¬
gestion advanced by some educa¬
tors that Greek and Latin should
be abolished in the college curri¬
cula? The Binghams not only
taught Latin, they wrote Latin,
and Bingham’s "Latin Grammar"
became as standard in North Caro¬
lina os Turner's Almanac or Mrs.
Joe Pearson's remedy. I have
one of these books to this day, al¬
though I never attended Bing¬
ham's.
At Bingham’s you got not only
education, but also discipline. The
Colonel had served four years in
the ranks in Lee’s army, and he
knew both how to take and how to
give orders; and his school instilled
into its students rigid discipline
and inculcated into its students the
habit of honor. Not that its mas¬
ters were martinets, nor that their
hearts were hard. A short time ago
The State carried an article on
headmaster Quakenbush of the
Laurinburg Academy, where it was
related that William* Bingham took
the poverty-stricken youth into his
heart, and not only gave him an
education in his own school, but
saw him through the University of
Virginia. There were other simi¬
lar cases. for if the Bingham ex¬
terior was stern, the interior was
lighted with a sympathetic under¬
standing.
The services of Colonel Bingham
as an educator arc so well known,
and the achievements of his school
are so well remembered, that to
recount them would be but a twice-
told tale to Carolinians. But there
are certain phases of service and
constructive leadership which may
not be so familiar to the present
day generation, and to these I di¬
rect attention.
Educational Pioneer
When an army is called upon to
advance, the sappers and miners
the pioneer corps — are called upon
to clear the path, pull down fences,
build bridges, remove obstructions,
so that the main army may ad¬
vance. Such a pioneer was Robert
Bingham to North Carolina.
He coordinated the military with
the academic department of his
school, and as early as 1882 the
Bingham School was one of the few
to which was attached an officer
detailed from the United States
Army. Bingham School was a mini¬
ature West Point — an imperium in
imperio- and its internal life was
guided and controlled by Robert
Bingham.
Under legislation enacted during
reconstruction, the public school
term was very short, but any com¬
munity could lengthen it by voting
additional taxes upon itself local
option, so to speak. As a rule
the private schoolmasters were
against the lengthening of the pub¬
lic school term, as they felt it would
(Continued on page 19)
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