It was dusk when we reached The Oaks. The family was at supper. Mr. Bingham came out to receive us. He told Baccus’ friend to take him to his own old quarters, and, turning to me, said, “I have made arrangements for you to board with Mr. C., and to room with Mr. K., the assistant teacher, till my house is finished, when you are to live with us. But we are at supper now. You must be hungry after your long ride. Come in and eat with us.” After supper, Mr. Bingham went with me to my boarding-house, and introduced me to my hosts and to my chum, David Kerr. He welcomed me, and said he thought we should get along finely together. We not only did that, but he became a warm friend to whom I owed much. So I was in the great Bingham School, overwhelmed with a succession of unexpected kindnesses from so many quarters! What did it all mean?
WILLIAM J. BINGHAM
My highest anticipations of the school were realized. If there ever was a born teacher, William J. Bingham was one. Latin and Greek were taught then by a method very different from the modern one. Before a sentence was read or translated, the invariable direction was—master your grammar. In grammar-drill Mr. Bingham could have no superior. Bullion’s Grammars and Readers were the text-books. The principal definitions were learned practically verbatim. The coarse print was required of all in the class. The older pupils were advised to learn notes, exceptions, and all. I never became so familiar with any other books as with that series of grammars. We were expected to decline every noun and adjective, alone or combined, from nominative singular to ablative plural, backwards or forwards, and to give, at a nod, voice, mood, tense, number, and person of any verb in the lesson. These exercises became at last so easy that they were great fun. Even now, sixty years later, I often put myself to sleep by repeating the old paradigms.
It may seem that my estimate of Mr. Bingham is prejudiced by my sense of personal obligation to him for his kindness. Yet I doubt not that the universal verdict of every one who went there to study would be that he should be rated as one of the world’s greatest teachers. The South owes much to him for the dignity he gave to the profession of teaching. No man ever left a deeper impress on me. Thousands of times I have thanked the Lord for the opportunity to attend his school.
I was graduated from the school in May, 1849, a few days before I was twenty-one years old. On leaving my kind friends at The Oaks, I was again at sea. It will be remembered that, by my original agreement, I was booked for teaching—but I had no idea where. Once more the unexpected happened. In the midst of negotiations for a school in the southern part of the state, I was greatly surprised at receiving an offer from one of the prominent business men of my own town, Pittsboro, to assist me in organizing a new school of my own there. With much doubt and hesitation on my part—for there were already two preparatory schools in the place—the venture was made, and I began with ten pupils taught in a little business office. The number was considerably increased during the year. But when the second year opened, I was put in charge of the Academy, whose Principal had resigned. Here, in work both pleasant and fairly profitable, I remained until the four years for which I had agreed to stay were up.
I had by no means reached my ideal. But, as my friends had predicted, it had been a success. Some of my warmest supporters were sure that I was giving up a certainty for an uncertainty, in not making teaching my life-work. It had evidently been the hope of my friends from the first that I would make Pittsboro my home, and build up a large and permanent school there. But my purpose of studying for the ministry had never wavered, and that made it easier for me to break off.
During these four years my relations with the newly organized Presbyterian church had been most pleasant and profitable. There was no resisting the appeal that I should become ruling elder. The superintendency of the Sunday School also fell naturally to me, and opened up another field of usefulness. The friendship formed with the pastor, the Rev. J. H. McNeill, is one of the pleasant memories of my life.
One feature of the church connection must not be passed over. Neither of the other elders was so circumstanced as to be able to attend the meetings of the Orange Presbytery. Three of the leading professors in the University were members of the Presbytery, and all the leading schools within its bounds were taught by Presbyterian ministers or elders. To accommodate this large group of teachers, the meetings were held in midsummer and midwinter. Thus it fell to my lot to represent the Pittsboro church at the Presbytery during nearly the whole of the four years of my stay in Pittsboro. As it was then constituted, its meetings were almost equal to a course in church government. The Rev. J. Doll, one of the best of parliamentarians, was stated clerk. A group of members such as the two Drs. Phillips, father and son, Dr. Elisha Mitchell, of the University, and many others that could be named, would have made any assembly noted. Professor Charles Phillips, as chairman of the committee on candidates for the ministry, came into closer touch with me than most of the others. He afterwards followed my course in the Seminary with an interest ripening into a friendship which continued throughout his life.
The meetings of the Presbytery were not then merely formal business meetings. They began on Wednesday and closed on Monday. They were looked forward to by the church in which they were to be held as spiritual and intellectual feasts. To the members themselves they were seasons of reunion, where friendships were cemented, and where wits were sharpened by intellectual conflicts, often before crowded congregations.