Robert E. Lee and Education in the “New South”

The college president advocated a vision later adopted by educators throughout the South.

Henry Grady, editor of The Atlanta Constitution, coined the phrase, “New South” in 1874. Grady wanted to contrast the slave-based, pre-industrial economy and society of the antebellum South with a new vision for the post-war South.

He and those who followed him demanded a modernization of attitudes and society to reintegrate the South into the nation. They called for racial and sectional reconciliation and for Northern investment in the South. New South advocates wanted a diversified agricultural system, industrialization, and railroads as well as a modern education system to benefit white and black people.

Robert E. Lee was a precursor of the “New South” movement. From Appomattox until his death in 1870, he was the major figure in the South advocating for peace and reconciliation between North and South. Responding to a widow who expressed animosity toward the North, Lee said, “Madame, don't bring up your sons to detest the United States government. Recollect that we form one country now. Abandon all local animosities and make your sons Americans.”

As President of Washington College, he established a modern curriculum with such subjects as modern language, business, journalism, agriculture, engineering, and law. He envisioned a practical as well as intellectual use of education. Washington College (now Washington and Lee) became a model for other institutions of higher education in the South, and many associated with the college became leaders in the revitalization of the region.

To implement his vision, Lee sought the support of Northerners in his progressive education efforts, and many of them responded. He quickly became a fundraising juggernaut, doubling the endowment of the college within two years.

Lee also advocated for the education of black people. When testifying before Congress in 1866, he said, “Where I am . . . the people have exhibited a willingness that the blacks should be educated, and they express an opinion that would be better for the blacks and better for the whites.” He felt that African Americans should be educated in trade skills and civic responsibility.

One of those who followed Lee’s lead was William Henry Ruffner, an 1842 graduate of Washington College and progressive educator. When Ruffner became a candidate for Virginia's first Superintendent of Public Schools in 1870, Lee wrote him a letter of recommendation stressing their common views, and Ruffner was appointed to the position. As superintendent from 1870 until 1882, he established normal schools and teachers’ institutes, and he was a founding member of Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech).

Ruffner also supported the education of black Virginians and served on the original board of Hampton Institute, Virginia's black land grant college.

After serving as superintendent, he became the founding president of Longwood College, the first public teachers’ college in Virginia, and continued to support female education throughout his life. 

A perhaps surprising follower of Lee was Booker T. Washington, the great black educator and African American leader of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Washington admired Lee because of the latter's desire to move past the division of war.

In 1909, Washington wrote: “I am tempted to say that it certainly requires as high a degree of courage for men of the type of Robert E. Lee. . . to accept the results of the war in the manner and spirit in which they did, as that which Grant and Sherman displayed in fighting the physical battles which saved the Union.”

Like both Lee and Ruffner, Washington believed in basic education and vocational training for black people. Also like Lee, he sought the support of Northern philanthropists for the Tuskegee Institute.

Another acolyte of Lee was William Preston Johnston, who taught at Washington and Lee from 1867 until 1877. Like Lee, Johnston supported progressive, practical, and liberal education and causes such as industrialization and railroad development. Like Ruffner, he supported public education for both races, teacher's institutes, and female education.

In 1884, Johnston became the first president of Tulane University, where he established an educational program much like that which Lee had begun to implement at Washington College. In many ways, Tulane fulfilled Lee's vision for a comprehensive, Southern university. Johnston even carried it one step further in establishing a female division, which became Sophie Newcomb College.

Many other individuals associated with Washington and Lee promoted and implemented parts of the New South vision in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1936, The Chattanooga Times said that “Robert E. Lee, as a college president, was the real architect of the New South.” The irony is that while supporters of the Lost Cause gazed upon an idealized past exemplified by a mythological Lee, Lee himself and those whom he inspired after 1865 looked to the future with a clear vision and specific plans for implementation.