The School Makers

by Glenn N. Holliman


Several years ago Terry Barkley, librarian, archivist, musician and enthusiast of The Webb School, a boarding and day school in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, contacted me by telephone. He was writing a long over due book on John M. Webb, co-founder of the school that has turned out more Rhodes Scholar than any similar institution in the South.  I was happy to share my own memories and insights on the School.  From 1971-1981, I had been a teacher and administrator of the institution and had the opportunity to research the rich history of the school.

Mr. Barkley's call stirred memories of my wonderful years in rural Bell Buckle, still a population of less than 400, nestled against some outcroppings of the Highland Rim. This independent school for junior high and high school students was founded in 1870 in Culleoka, Maury County, Tennessee, and in 1886, re-located in Bedford County, approximately 20 miles south of Murfreesboro and 12 or so miles north east of Shelbyville. 

 
The Webb School was a founding combination of a charismatic administrator and orator, William R. 'Sawney' Webb and his more gentle, scholarly younger brother, John.  Together they worked together for four decades and left an educational legacy that continues to this day.  Terry Barkley has done a magnificent job, creating a narrative - part biography, part history and part analysis of the influence of the school and its alumni.  The Gentle Scholar can be purchased from the school or Braybree Publishing, Dickson, Tennessee.

The late Vermont Royster, a Pulitzer Prize editor of the Wall Street Journal and graduate of the school wrote once that the school in Bell Buckle was an anachronism even in his day (early 1930s).  During the years I was at Webb, a time of both economic recession and inflation, numerous boarding schools, especially military schools, closed.  Parents were demanding more comfortable facilities, additional amenities and enlarged curriculum.  Because of financial stress,  the continued growth in excellence of public schools and the development of local religious academies,  many schools succumbed to a dearth of students and shut their doors.

Decisions were made at Webb in the 1970s to once again open the school to female students and to reach out to the day student population of the rapidly expanding population in Murfreesboro.  Led by dynamic school heads, strong boards, faithful alumni and committed parents, the school has thrived.  Modern, expansive facilities grace an ever enlarging campus, and a robust endowment insures a scholarship base for deserving students.

Mr. Barkley's book is an excellent partner volume of Lawrence McMillin's 1971 biography of "Old Sawney", The Schoolmaker.  My well worn copy of the book is shown.  It is frayed at the edges because I used it in some of my history classes those decades ago.  

Published by the University of North Carolina Press, McMillin weaves the story of a North Carolina Civil War veteran, seriously wounded at Malvern Hill in 1862, his survival and his trial and tribulation in creating a mecca for learning in a recovering South.  

An outspoken, plain spoken and confrontational educator, William R. Webb, later gained notoriety as a public speaker, and was the last U.S. Senator elected by the Tennessee State Senate (1913).  In the early 1970s, my wife, Lynn, the school librarian, and I supervised 'Sawney House', the dormitory for the younger boys.  Sadly, the house constructed in the 1880s, burned in the late 1970s, fortunately vacant as more modern boarding facilities had become available.

         

 My own modest contribution to the historical record was an article in  The Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Fall 1977.  Generally I focused on the William R. Webb's son, William R. Webb, Jr. who administered the school from the retirement of his father in the 1910s until his own retirement in the late 1950s.

So, thank you Terry for your fine exploration of what contributions a person of the humanities can make to society.  John M. Webb, may we have more of his kind who sought to know facts and subject them to thoughtful, critical analysis.