Educating a Gentleman: The Evolution of the Classical Education of the Antebellum Southern Male Planter Elite at South Carolina College, 1800-1860
Abstract:
Classical education was a fundamental part of an Antebellum Southern male planter elite’s concept of Southern manhood, status, power, and success in high society and government. South Carolina College was one of the most prestigious collegiate institutions in the South and instilled elitist values through an arduous classical education, which was intended to create the quintessential traditional Southern gentleman. The classical curriculum at South Carolina College was reorganized in 1835 through the implementation of different classical texts and a new teaching method designed to instill transformed Southern planter elites with pro-slavery and sectionalism sentiments needed to defend Southern honor and tradition against the market economy, emerging middle class, and Northern abolitionists. These modifications to the classical curriculum at South Carolina College epitomized the pivotal role a classical education played in the South during the tumultuous political era leading up to the Civil War.