A Memorial to Civil War Education in Texas

Duane's take

The way I tell it here follows the official marker, let me walk you through what it says. Now, before the Civil War ever got its hooks into Texas, Baylor University had already been running at Independence for fifteen years. And that's no small thing.

Baylor in those days included what was called the Female Department, which would later become Mary Hardin-Baylor. Two schools, really, growing side by side under one name. Then 1861 arrived, and things started coming apart at the seams.

Baylor had leadership, that much is true. Its president from 1861 to 1863 was a man named George W. Baines, and here's the kind of detail that makes you sit up straight: George W.

Baines was an ancestor of United States President Lyndon B. Johnson. That lineage was right there on the Baylor campus, steering the ship through one of the hardest stretches any Texas college ever faced.

And the loyalty of patrons? Well, Mrs. Sam Houston was among them.

Her mother too. What did they give? Dried fruit for the tables in the dining hall.

Not gold, not land. Dried fruit. You think about what it takes to keep a university going on goodwill and dried fruit, and you start to understand just how lean those years were.

Here is the part that hit hardest. In 1860, Baylor had counted two thousand, four hundred and sixteen students. By 1861, the state bounties that had been helping Texas colleges stay afloat simply stopped.

Many of those twenty-four hundred students became soldiers. And of the twenty-five Texas colleges that existed, many had to close their doors. Twenty-five colleges.

Many of them, gone. It wasn't just the universities either. Schools for younger children suffered right alongside.

The legislature in 1861 passed free school laws, which sounds promising until you hear the rest: they could give no funds to the schools. The law existed. The money did not.

So picture this. A child standing in a classroom doorway, waving to soldiers marching past. That child wasn't in a public school.

That child was in a subscription school, paid for out of the pockets of their own parents. Whatever their parents could spare. And who was doing the teaching?

Old men. Women. The disabled.

If a school wasn't available, a mother or an older sister would simply hear lessons at home. That was the phrase they used, hear lessons. Informal, quiet, stubborn.

Books were scarce. Paper, for replacing the worn-out pages, was unobtainable. Children who needed to write did it on slates.

Or they spread sand smooth on a table and wrote in that. Sand on a table. That was the classroom.

That was Texas education holding on with both hands. Some things get written down in stone so we don't forget the price of keeping knowledge alive. This marker in Bell County is one of those things.

What the marker says

Baylor University (including the "Female Department" later to become Mary Hardin-Baylor) had operated at Independence for 15 years before 1861. In the Civil War it suffered the setbacks of Texas education in general. This was despite leadership of its 1861-63 president George W. Baines (ancestor of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson) and loyalty of such patrons as Mrs. Sam Houston and her mother, who donated dried fruit for the tables in the dining hall. State bounties for education that previously had aided Texas colleges stopped in 1861. Many of the 2,416 students of 1860 became soldiers; many of the 25 Texas colleges had to close. Schools for younger children also suffered. The 1861 legislature passed free school laws, but could give no funds to schools. Children who waved from classroom doors to marching soldiers were going to subscription schools, paid for by their own parents. Old men, women and the disabled were the teachers. A mother or older sister often would "hear lessons" in the home. Books were scarce. Paper was unobtainable for replacing those that wore out. Writing was done on slates or in sand spread smooth on a table. (1964)