David Bancroft Johnson, Jr. was the founder and first president of Winthrop University. Besides that, he organized graded schools at Newbern, North Carolina, and so marked was their success as to attract the attention of educators in that and adjoining states.
Background
Johnson was born on January 10, 1856, in La Grange, Tennessee, of both Puritan and Cavalier ancestry. His first American ancestor was a fellow-pioneer of John Winthrop. His father, David Bancroft Johnson, was born at Dresden, Maine. After graduating at Bowdoin College he went south to teach and there met and married Margaret Emily White, a daughter of Col. John D. White, of Memphis, Tennessee. He was called as president to La Grange College, Tennessee, but he died a year after the son David was born, and the mother returned to Memphis.
Education
As a boy, Johnson pursued his studies in the public schools of Memphis and of Nashville before entering at fifteen the preparatory department of the state university at Knoxville. Here he remained by self-help until he received in 1877 the degree of B. A.
Career
Johnson's appointment as assistant professor of mathematics, 1879-1880, enabled him to complete his work for the master's degree. For the next two years (1880-1882) he was superintendent of schools in Abbeville, South Carolina, and for one year in New Bern, North Carolina. In 1883 he returned to South Carolina to become the first superintendent of the schools of Columbia. Here he developed an organization which served as a model for other cities and towns of the state. Impressed with the need of well-trained teachers, and desiring to establish a training school for his own teachers, he went to Boston during the summer of 1886 and there through Robert C. Winthrop, chairman of the Peabody Board of Education, was granted for scholarships an annual appropriation of $1500, increased in 1888 to $2000. With this aid Johnson was able to open the Winthrop Training School in November 1886. Its first home was the chapel of the Columbia Theological Seminary, and its first enrolment was nineteen students taught by one teacher. The school grew rapidly and state scholarships were awarded it even before it was launched as a state institution.
In 1891 Johnson aroused the interest of Benjamin R. Tillman, then governor of the state, with whose aid the legislature was induced to make an appropriation for buildings and maintenance. Accordingly, in 1894, the corner-stone of the main building was laid at Rock Hill. In the fall of 1895 Winthrop College opened with twenty instructors and three hundred students. At the time of Johnson's death, which occured on December 26, 1928, the plant had buildings and grounds worth considerably more than two million dollars, and a corps of a hundred and fifty officers and instructors ministering to nearly two thousand full-term students. The achievement itself is ample testimony of Johnson's abilities.
Achievements
Johnson is best remembered as president of Winthrop University, whose rare talent as an organizer was recognized, and by his masterful application of the true principles of teaching, he infused new life into the system of public instruction, and a spirit and enthusiasm among the teachers, which prepared the way for his remarkable success.
Membership
Johnson organized, in 1889, the State Association of School Superintendents, of which he was president for some years. He organized the Columbia, South Carolina, branch of the Young Men's Christian association, and was its president for years, and he was also chairman of the State Executive committee of the organization. In 1915-1916 he was president of the National Education Association.
Connections
In 1902, Johnson married Mai Rutledge Smith, of Charleston, South Carolina, who with two sons and a daughter survived him.
