A passion for education - and lectures
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch January 17, 1862:
Lectures.
The Hon. J. L. M. Curry, and other members of congress, are preparing a series of lectures on various subjects of interest, which will soon be delivered for the benefit of Hampton’s legion, and other troops in ready circumstances. We are informed that they are nearly greatly [ready?] to enter upon the patriotic work.
Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry had a long and varied career. His roots were in Georgia and Alabama; while studying at Harvard Law School he “was inspired by the lectures of Horace Mann and became an advocate of free universal education.” During the Civil War he did serve in the Confederate Congress and was a staff aide to two generals named Joe – Johnston and Wheeler.
After the war he studied for the ministry and became a preacher, but the focus of his work was free education in the South. He traveled and lectured in support of state normal schools, adequate rural schools, and a system of graded public schools. He was president of Howard College, Alabama, and a professor at Richmond College, Virginia. From 1881 until his death he was agent for the Peabody and Slater Funds to aide schools in the South and was instrumental in the founding of the Southern Education Board. The Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia is named for him.
One of Curry’s books is his 1895 Difficulties, complications, and limitations connected with the education of the negro. Thirty-three years earlier Frederick Douglass made his case for how to deal with freed slaves in general. You can read his editorial at Seven Score and Ten.
The J. L. M. Curry House near Talladega, Alabama is a National Historic Landmark.
Horace Mann - an inspiration for Curry
Wade Hampton's legion a targeted audience
