Of an entirely different mold from any of those already noted in these sketches was Henry Tutwiler, LL.D., Alabama’s first great and distinguished educator. Reared in Virginia, Dr. Tutwiler was among the first great graduates of the famous university of that state, bearing away the highest degree which could be conferred by that eminent institution, that of Master of Arts. Possessing a readily receptive and capacious mind, Dr. Tutwiler was the peer in point of scholarship of any man in the South when he issued from the university of Virginia. He was the first to receive the degree of Master of Arts from that eminent school.

His equipment of scholarship would have fitted him for any chair in any American school of learning, but he conceived the idea of founding a model school of his own where he might put into execution his ideas of education. This was not done at once on graduation, but toward this he was moving in the consummation of his plans.

Dr. Tutwiler became to Alabama that which Dr. Arnold of the famous Rugby school was to England. He was not only a typical gentleman of the old school of the South, but a ripe scholar, a teacher of rare ability, and a model of manhood to youth. Simple and unpretentious in manner and in life, he was a pattern in character to the young men who came under his instruction. His culture was unsurpassed, his scholarship profound and comprehensive, and his character throughout life vastly above reproach. Few men have left a profounder impression on his students than Dr. Henry Tutwiler. There was in his bearing the utter absence of the consciousness of his greatness, while there was always the demonstration of the gentleman of a pure democracy. Simple and easy of manner, affable, gentle and readily communicative, he was easily adjustable to all circles without the slightest hint of constraint, and by a contagious touch, indefinable but effectual, he made all others at ease in his presence.

After his graduation from the University of Virginia he remained for two years at the institution in the pursuit of special studies, after which he established a high school in the neighborhood of Charlottesville, where he taught for a time. He was induced to remove to Alabama by being offered the chair of ancient languages in the university of the state on the establishment of that institution in 1831. This position he occupied for six years. He was induced from this position to accept the chair of mathematics and philosophy in Marion college in Perry County, and two years later went to the chair of mathematics and chemistry in LaGrange college, where he taught for eight years more.

But a subordinate position was ill suited to one of capabilities so varied, and in 1847 he left LaGrange and founded a private school at Green Springs in this state, where he could put into execution a long cherished desire to fit young men for the rough encounters of the world, not only by training the mind, but by molding and directing the character.No one was better fitted for a position like this than Dr. Tutwiler. Himself a ripe scholar and a gentleman of superior culture, backed by a natural impressiveness, his sway of influence was both salutary and elevating. In a quiet retreat, far from the madding crowd and the din and tumult of a busy world, with nothing to detract and all to concentrate and stimulate, he was a character-builder as well as a developer of the brain.

The experience of former years as a teacher brought to his work on this independent scale served Dr. Tutwiler admirably. He had learned the defectiveness of a system in which the raw youth with total unpreparedness would often stride over much that was fundamental and leave behind him breaches never to be filled, possibly, in his eager outreach for a diploma which when gotten could not be read by the possessor. Every observant educator is impressed by the divers irregularities with which most young men enter college. Symmetry and uniformity are lacking, and often the defects in fundamental work are too far passed to be overcome and corrected in the higher departments for which the youth has been unwisely persuaded that he is prepared. Happily for these later times, this has been corrected by an admirable public school system with its trained instructors, but this was not true in the early days when Dr. Tutwiler opened his school at Green Springs.

To establish a school of logical graduation with every department under his direct supervision, in which school the student would be thoroughly grounded from the elementary upward, so as to have a more solid basis for building, and an idea of correctness and symmetry in all affairs, was the aim of this skilled educator. Schools of this particular character had dotted the South ever since the years of recuperation following the Revolution, and fortunately for the country that this was so.

In 1850 there were in eleven of the southern states at least 2,000 academies of varying grades, with more than 3,200 instructors, and more than 70,000 pupils. On the highest level of these valuable schools of learning were the Concord academy and the Hanover academy in Virginia; Caldwell’s and Bingham’s schools in North Carolina; Mount Zion and Waddell’s school in South Carolina; the academy of Richmond County and Sunbury academy in Georgia; Green Springs school in Alabama, and Elizabeth academy in Mississippi. All these had become noted in the educational system of the South by the middle of the nineteenth century. Among them none was more famous than the one presided over by Dr. Tutwiler.

A certificate from a school like this and from so skilled an expert, meant much to a youth as he entered a school of more advanced learning to prosecute his final studies. The assurance of a firm footing and familiarity with subjects which led logically to more advanced studies, gave to a student the thoroughness of equipment which would save him from the haphazard to which he would be otherwise exposed.

From the walls of the Green Springs school went forth young men by the hundreds with initial equipment which not only made the mastery of a college course more easy and pleasant, but which served to lift them into future prominence. Passing from under the tutelage of Dr. Tutwiler and bearing a certificate with his name on it, was a guarantee worth the having by any young man. From this rural retreat this skilled man of letters sent into the swelling ranks of usefulness in this and adjoining states, hundreds of young men who have helped to make their commonwealths resplendent. It was not a demonstrative work, in the sense of showiness, but it was demonstrative as it found expression in richness of result and in exalted citizenship. Thus labored for many years this sage teacher and mellow scholar, and far more than can be computed is Alabama indebted to Henry Tutwiler.