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Page 17 text:
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Milliam Ibetir IRuffncr, %%, 2). WILLIAM HENRY RUFFNER, LL. D., was born in Lexington, Virginia, in the year 1824. His father was Dr. Henry Ruffner, the founder of the Presbyterian church at Charleston, West Virginia, and for many years the president of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University. He was a distinguished scholar, thinker, and writer, and was one of the most influential of the advocates of the gradual abolition of slavery in Virginia. The subject of this sketch graduated at Wash- ington College in 1842, and afterward studied theol- ogy at Union Theological Seminary, Hampden- Sidney, Virginia, and Princeton, New Jersey. The theological training, with its prominent psy- chological feature, seems, in the light of subsequent events, to have been an enduring force in his life. At Washington College he excelled in physical sciences, and at Princeton his best essay writing was on Genesis and Geology. From 1849 to 185 1 he w as chaplain of the University of Virginia, and from 1 85 1 to 1853 pastor of the Seventh Presby- terian Church, Philadelphia. While at the latter place he delivered a course of Wednesday evening lectures on the Relations of Science and Scripture. Broken down in health, he was compelled to resign his charge in Philadelphia, and returning to Virginia, he resided on a farm, but gave a con- stantly increasing amount of attention to field geology. In i860, in conjunction with Professor Campbell of Washington College he began a neological reconnaissance of Virginia, which was
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Page 18 text:
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continued, as other pressing work allowed, for several years. Large opportunities for this work, in connection with official duties, were opened up. when, in 1870. Virginia called upon him to guide and control her public education. The constitutional provision for public schools in the State, originating as it did amid the satur- nalia of reconstruction was unpopular ; yet the Legislature of 1870 gave it better effect than they knew by electing Dr. RufTner the first Superinten- dent of Public Instruction. The difficulties to be encountered would have paralyzed a less able or less resolute man. Two unhomogeneous races were to be provided for and public sentiment was against free schools. In their defence Dr. Ruffner wrote some of the ablest articles that have appeared in this country, seeking in this and every other available way to bring conviction to the minds of the people. Within thirty days after his election he had submitted to the Legislature an outline school system, which in a few weeks, he elaborated into a complete school law, which was passed sub- stantially as he wrote it and has never been mate- rially changed. L pon its passage he organized the schools so promptly and efficiently that at the end of the year 1870-71 one hundred and fifty thousand children were reported in attendance on them, and up to this time the growth of the school S3 ' stem has been great. He retired from office in 1882. Hon. j. L. M. Curry has thus described his official work: For whatever of success has crowned the system. Dr. Ruffner is entitled to the credit. His eleven reports are lucid discussions of all leading subjects pertaining to the organization and man- agement of schools and school systems. They are hardly surpassed in our educational literature, have often been quoted as authoritative, and were hon- ored with a diploma from the Republic of Chili. RufTner will hereafter be ranked alongside of Mann, Sears, Wickersham, and other such educa- tors. During his administration he apportioned nearly $5,000,000, and administered $12,000,000 without bond or security, and yet no item in his accounts were ever objected to, not a cent was lost, and his bitterest opponent never intimated that there was anything mysterious or dishonest in his administration. Every page of the public school liistory of Virginia is luminous with his triumphs. Industriously improving the opportunities in- cidentally arising from the official duties of this period, the Superintendent of Public Instruction continued the geological examination of Virginia. It was then that Dr. RufTner formed his fine col- lection of N ' irginia minerals, and while traveling
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