In 1920-21, our Brantley County forefathers were concerned about education. Neighborhood communities had constructed a total of 38 schools to satisfy their needs; 38 instructional facilities nestled among the breeze swept pines and southern palmettos! Sounds Good?
Another view reveals 38 schools with a one-room capacity, plotted on one acre lots in wilderness-like communities, and disbursed all over the county. Insulated buildings and central heat were scarce in the early 1920’s. All ages/grades were crowded into these single, poorly equipped rooms, which claimed the convenience of “out-house privies” located down a woodsy path about 50 yards behind the main building. Electric lighting had not reached the early community settlements of Brantley County, and certainly not in the rural areas of these one-room schools. Illumination was available through the windows; some had glass! Most others were constructed of rough-sawed lumber, similar to small doors swinging from hinges at waist high level. . More important than the quality of educational facilities was the issue of grade level standardizing, and the ability for state and local government level enforcement.
It should be pointed out that the quality of these educational facilities was not too uncommon for the time period in rural Georgia. Many of the homes were not much better than the schools. Regardless, the pioneer leaders in the early Brantley County made decisions which resulted in a proclamation; “Give Us Wisdom and Ability to Reason and We’ll be Successful People.”
Eight years after Brantley County was created, "The Atlanta Georgian" had some positive things to say about the educational achievements in Brantley County. The front page column called “People and Things” plays up the actions of Brantley County in its early days of infancy. The title of the article was “Education First” and “Brantley Places Education Ahead of Court House.” The article is re-produced below: “One of Georgia’s baby counties, and one of the poorest in this world’s goods, is “leading the way,” not only for Georgia, but for the entire South in Education. Formed just short of ten years ago, Brantley is still without a Court House and the usual county accouterments, but it has schools, six or eight of the finest in the state.”
“We put our schools first,” said Judge Ivey Dowling, who will become Ordinary of the County January 1, 1929. “We haven’t even got a Court House at Nahunta, the county seat, but next year we are going to build a court house. Our first aim, though, was to build schools. We felt we needed them and we sacrificed everything to get them. There’s not a town in Brantley County hardly bigger than a “cross roads settlement,” and yet every one of them has a consolidated junior high school, with modern equipment, beautiful in architecture, built for the peculiar needs of schools. Every school has its individual lighting plant and adequate heating arrangements.”
"The largest school of the county,” continued Judge Dowling, “is at Nahunta. Being one of the Trustees of the Hickox District, I naturally feel that we (Hickox) have the best school in the county, and I honestly believe we don’t have to look up to anybody. We have six teachers, with Miss Melville Doughty, of Augusta, as Principal. The work that has been done in this school during the past couple of years has been nothing short of remarkable.”
“We have no roads to speak of in the county. We need them, goodness knows, and we need a court house, but we needed the schools worse, so we built them first. We are going to build a court house next year, not a big towering affair, for we have plenty of land and we are going to let it spread out. It will be a one-story building, but it’s going to be good.”
The Atlanta Georgian continues, “So there you are, the thing is unbelievable, a county that builds its School House before it builds its Court House! Illiteracy has always been high in that section of the state, probably the majority of the voters in the county can no more than read and write. Many of them can’t do that. But I’ll venture to say,” went on the Judge, “that with such a shining example as Brantley County is setting, it won’t be long now before illiteracy will be just a memory.”
The Atlanta Georgian continues; “Other wealthier counties probably have more extensive school plants and systems; but after all, they are incidental. In Brantley they have come first. That’s a big thing, bigger than you can grasp at first. Think it over! Georgia needs more citizens like Judge Dowling and his associates who have blazed the way, men with vision and who can face facts and forget politics which in so many deplorable instances put schools far down the list of things 'to be built.' All Georgia should turn and bow in respect and give three loud cheers for Brantley County.”