(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
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James Hardy Dillard was an American educator. His major concern was the vitalizing of Negro rural education and the advancement of race relations in the S.
Background
James Hardy Dillard was born on October 24, 1856, at the family home, "Farmer's Delight, " in Nansemond County, Virginia. He was the only child of James and Sarah Brownrigg (Cross) Dillard. The family was mainly of tidewater English colonial descent, with some admixture of North Carolina Scotch. His father, a Princeton graduate, was deeply interested in the humanities and had misgivings about slavery, although he was a commission merchant in Norfolk, Virginia. Dillard's mother, a woman of energy and force, began his education, laying emphasis on religious training in the Episcopal tradition.
Education
When twelve years old, after attending a local school, Dillard was sent to Norfolk, where he lived with an aunt, the wife of the city's mayor, and attended the classical school of William R. Galt, a remarkable teacher and personality who profoundly influenced his pupils. Dillard then entered Washington and Lee University, where he came under the influence of the professor of history and English literature, Colonel William Preston Johnston, a son of the Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston and afterwards president of Tulane University. He was graduated from Washington and Lee with highest honors in 1876 (M. A. ) and in the following year received a degree in law (B. L. ).
Career
During his last college year, however, James Dillard taught mathematics, and he chose a career in education rather than in law. In succeeding years he served as principal of the Rodman School, Norfolk, as joint principal of Norfolk Academy, and as a faculty member at such varied institutions as the University of Vermont, Phillips Exeter Academy, the State Normal School in Oswego, New York, and Mary Institute, the woman's department of Washington University in St. Louis. Here he made a marked reputation as an inspiring and unconventional teacher of English literature, but he was soon to change to the classics. In 1891 his old teacher Colonel Johnston called him to become professor of Latin at Tulane, where he remained until 1907 and served as dean of the academic colleges.
Dillard became an outstanding citizen of New Orleans, laying the foundation for his major lifework by his leadership in broad social and educational causes, including the Child Welfare Association and the Free Kindergarten Association. As president of the public library he was the main factor in securing a branch for Negroes. He also served on the state board of education and as trustee of several state institutions and Negro colleges. His constructive work in race relations and Negro education brought him broad recognition in 1907, when he was chosen to be the first president and director of the Negro Rural School Fund, founded and endowed by Anna T. Jeanes, a Philadelphia Quaker.
The Jeanes Fund, as it was commonly called, began its work by granting the request of Jackson Davis, superintendent of schools in Henrico County, Virginia, who had asked for a supervisor of teachers of industrial training in the small rural schools of his county. Before long, eleven counties were covered. The extension teachers, generally women, were chosen with great care; many were aided by the federally subsidized teachers of agriculture in their vicinity. Twenty years after its inception, the Jeanes Fund employed 324 supervising teachers in 14 states and 321 counties. Responsibility for their salaries was generally shared by the public school authorities and the Fund. Dillard remained as head of the Jeanes Fund until 1931. Closely related in purpose was the John F. Slater Fund, founded for "the uplifting of the lately emancipated population of the Southern States, " of which Dillard served as president of the board, 1917-1931.
Among many other educational activities, Dillard was vice-president of the Phelps-Stokes Fund and a member of the Southern Education Board, the General Education Board, the board of visitors of the College of William and Mary, the trustees of General Theological Seminary, the Phelps-Stokes Fund Educational Commission to Africa, the Near East Survey Committee, and the University Commission on Southern Race Questions.
Dillard spent the latter years of his life in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he died of congestive heart failure induced by age. He was buried in Riverview Cemetery, Charlottesville.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
Personality
A man of large stature and outgoing personality, Dillard was optimistic and sympathetic, earnest but humorous, and devoted to the responsibilities of family, church, and community.
Connections
On July 5, 1882, Dillard married Mary Harmanson, by whom he had six children. On November 18, 1899, he married Avarene Lippincott Budd, who bore him four children.