M.C.S. Noble, dean of the University’s school of education, is back from a trip to Asheville to attend the celebration of the 85th birthday of Colonel Robert Bingham, native of Orange County, graduate of the University in the class of 1857, captain in the Confederate Army, and one of the most distinguished schoolmasters in the country.
“I found the Colonel the same delightful companion as ever,” said Mr. Noble yesterday, “feeble in body but with his mind as clear and alert as it was when I was at school under him 50 years ago. His children and grandchildren were gathered about him, and with them a number of his former pupils. They came from all over the South. One man there was Nelson Phillips, until recently chief justice of the supreme court of Texas. Others were Rev. John Tillinghast of South Carolina, who was here at the University with the Colonel and became a chaplain in Lee’s army; and ‘Old Sawney’ Webb, the celebrated head of the school at Bell Buckle, Tennessee; and T.F. McDow of South Carolina.
“Colonel Bingham was wheeled into the room where we had the party, in his invalid’s chair, smiling and happy. Before him they laid out his birthcake, with 85 candles on it, an he and his granddaughter cut it. We sat around for two or three hours, talking over old times and new. He stayed with us the whole time. It was amazing how youthful his face looked—hardly a wrinkle in it. There were 50 or 60 present. We all came away feeling that we had spent one of the most agreeable evenings of our lives.”
A day or two after the party the Asheville Citizen, commenting editorially upon it, said: “Dean Noble summed up the sentiment of the Tar Heels who know the man and his life work when he said that the history of North Carolina education will have brighter luster in its pages because of the sturdy manhood, the sound knowledge, and the qualities of leadership which mark the career of Colonel Bingham.”
The Bingham school was founded in 1793. It was at Hillsboro and afterward at Oaks. In the Civil War period it moved to Mebane, and 33 years ago to Asheville. Robert Bingham succeeded to the headship in 1773 and continued in active control until 1920.
From page 4 of the Chapel Hill Weekly, Sept. 13, 1923
No comments:
Post a Comment