| Summary |
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the early life and career of James Yadkin Joyner from his birth in 1862 through his service as State Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1902 to 1907. Although he continued to serve as superintendent until his retirement in 1919, his five years of service to the state that included the year 1907 represented a significant period of progress and reform for the public schools of North Carolina. Joyner was born in Davidson County in 1862, where his family temporarily resided as refugees during the Civil War. Joyner's parents died in his infancy, and his grandfather, Council Wooten, a prominent state senator and planter from Lenoir County prior to the Civil War, reared Joyner. When Joyner was only ten years old his grandfather died and his uncle Shadrach Wooten then cared for him on his farm near La Grange . He attended La Grange Academy and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1878-1881). At the University Joyner became a close friend of Charles Duncan McIver, a friendship that lasted until Mclver's death in 1906 . At Chapel Hill Joyner also developed close friendships with Charles Brantley Aycock and Edwin Anderson Alderman, men who later had a profound influence on public education in North Carolina, as well as the South. After graduating from the University of North Carolina, Joyner for three years served as headmaster and teacher at La Grange Academy, and also as superintendent of Lenoir County Schools. In 1884 due to the influence of his close friend Mclver who taught at the Winston graded schools, Joyner left La Grange and began teaching with Mclver at the graded school in Winston in piedmont North Carolina, now Winston-Salem. He also spent the summer of 1885 as a normal institute conductor in Washington, North Carolina. In the fall of 1885, Joyner gave up his teaching career in order to study law in the Dick and Dillard Law School in Greensboro. In February 1886 he passed the North Carolina Bar and for three years practiced law in the law firm of Allen, Faircloth and Joyner in Goldsboro. While practicing law, he renewed his friendship with Aycock who had been his classmate at the university. At that time Aycock also had a law practice in Goldsboro and on some occasions they jointly prepared cases for court. During the summer months when his legal practice was slow, Joyner resumed his teaching duties as an institute conductor for the State Department of Public Instruction. He gave up his law practice in the spring of 1889 and returned to the field of education by being elected superintendent of the Goldsboro graded schools, a position vacated by Alderman, his former classmate at the university. As superintendent of the Goldsboro graded schools, he took pride in securing the best teachers for his schools. During the summer months he helped to supplement the work of Alderman and Mclver by conducting summer institutes on a weekly basis in order to certify teachers for the state's public schools. After four years as a successful superintendent of the Goldsboro graded schools, he resigned and accepted Mclver's appointment to the faculty of the Normal and Industrial School at Greensboro. There, he served for nine years as professor of English and dean of the faculty. During that tenure he also served on the Board of Trustees of the Baptist Female University, now Meredith College and the Agricultural and Mechanical Institute for blacks, now North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro. In 1896, he was elected president of the North Carolina Teacher's Assembly, an emerging professional association. In 1902, Joyner reluctantly accepted Governor Aycock's appointment to become State Superintendent of Public As superintendent, he promoted educational Instruction . rallies for the purpose of stimulating public sentiment for local taxation in order to build public schools, consolidating school districts, enforcing compulsory attendance laws, lengthening the school term; increasing state aid for public schools, and training and certifying more teachers for the public schools. His most outstanding accomplishment during this period was to write and secure passage of the State Public High School Act of 1907. Before that time there had been no statewide system of public high schools in North Carolina. His service to the state as superintendent continued after 1907, and in 1910 he was the first North Carolinian to ever be elected president of the National Education Association. He retired as superintendent in 1919 at the age of fifty-six and returned to his farm in La Grange. His retirement, however, was very brief. For many years he remained active in civic, agricultural, and educational affairs until his death in 1954. |
