University of Mississippi - Ole Miss Yearbook (Oxford, MS)

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Sketch of Hon. S. Sexionis Lie Q The Sexton family is of Irish extraction, and Maurice Lenihan, who compiled and edited the history of Limerick. Ireland, in 1886, says of this family that it constituted one of the chief historic families of Limerick. Hon. J. S. Sexton was born in Copiah County, Miss., November 2, 1854. In speaking of his parents. he says: I remember very little about my father, who died when I was quite young, but my mother was a woman of remarkable intellect and great force of character. lYhen his father died, the family was living in Crystal Springs, Miss.. and l1is mother concluded that it would be better for the children. of whom there were five in number. all boys. to move to a small farm, which had been left them by their father. where they would be freed from the temptations of town life and have a better opportunity to make a livelihood. It was on this farm that Mr. Sexton was reared. He attended a number of old-field schools of the country when he was a child, but they were so utterly inefficient that he made but little progress in them, and but for his mother's assistance at home. he would not have accomplished anything. At that time the opportunity to obtain educational advantages in Copiah County amounted to almost nothing. but it was Mr. Sexton's rare good fortune, a little later on in life, to attend a country school taught by one George Morrison, an Irishman, who though a very peculiar and erratic individual, was by far the most scholarly man in that section of the country. He attended this school for several years, during part of which time he walked four miles to school, and it was here that he obtained his first real educational advantages. Of this teacher Mr. Sexton has written: He was a profound scholar and a prodigious worker, and I learned from him the advantages to be obtained from self-reliance and earnest effort. He was not only my teacher, but he was my companion and friend. XVhen little less than eighteen years of age. Mr. Sexton entered the University of Mississippi, but his purse and health both failed, and he was never graduated. His standing here was of the highest character, as the records of this institution show. After leaving the University he taught a country school for three years, during which time he studied law under the direction of Hon. Tim E. Cooper, then living at Hazlehurst, but now of Jackson, Miss., and was admitted to the bar of Copiah County in 1880, since which time he has been most actively and earnestly engaged in his profession, and has enjoyed almost as varied and extensive practice as any 8

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HON. J. S. SEXTON

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lawyer in the State. ranging from the Supreme Vourt of the United States to the lowest courts in the State, and covering almost every phase of law. He was elected as a delegate from the State at large to the Constitutional Convention of 1890, and though he was the youngest member of that convention on the delegation from the State at large, he was placed on the Judiciary Committee, which was headed by Hon. lViley P. Harris, who was probably the ablest lawyer whom the State ever produced, and he was associated on that committee with many others of the ablest lawyers of the State. At its session in Meridian in the year 1909, he was elected president of the Bar Association of the State of Mississippi without a dissenting vote. During his incumbency of the office he corresponded with every lawyer in the State who did not belong to the Association, calling his attention to the necessity of elevating the profession and the advantages to be gained by becoming a member of the Association, the result of which was that the membership of the Association was nearly doubled during his official connection therewith. Mr. Sexton has been actively identified with school work since his majority. He was a trustee of YVhitworth Female College and of Millsaps College for years, and has been president of the Board of Trustees of the Hazlehurst High School for the last twenty years. VVhen he learned that it was the purpose of the Governor of the State to appoint him as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Higher Educational Institutions of the State, thinking it would be impossible for him to make the sacrifice and give the time necessary to properly fill this important position, he went to the Governor and asked him not to make the nomination, but after he was nominated, notwithstanding this protest, upon reflection, considering that it was the best opportunity which had ever been presented to him to render the State a substantial service, he accepted the place. He was then unanimously elected president of the Board. Since his connection with the same he has been doing all in his power to acquaint himself with the general conditions existing at each of the institu-- tions and also the necessities of the situation. To that end, he has gotten in touch with nearly all of the leading educational institutions of the country, and especially those of the Southern States. It is my purpose, he has said, to do everything in my power to elevate the educational standards of the institutions committed to the charge of the Board of Trustees and to increase their efficiency in every possible respect. The necessity for unifying the educational interests of the State and con- tinuing the same in a comprehensive business way cannot be over-estimated by Mississippians, and to make this effort a success challenges my deepest interest, and shall have the benefit of my best endeavor. 9