tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50904069767018543632024-03-21T06:59:53.764-07:00The Cooper InstituteUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5090406976701854363.post-9549781261508621752012-07-27T07:52:00.004-07:002014-01-05T16:36:43.237-08:00The Cooper Institute Historical Website<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">Located at Daleville, MS.</span><br />
<i><span style="color: #660000;">This website is devoted to the Cooper Institute, an early higher learning school founded in East Central Mississippi during the years immediately following the Civil War in the area originally known as Spring Hill (derived its' name from the clean water found at a local spring). Cooper Institute at Daleville is an important historical site that is all but forgotten in Mississippi's post Civil War recovery period. Students from all around the South came here to receive a higher education. </span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: #660000;">I grew up in Lizelia, MS. (old Daleville) on the Cole Plantation and as a youngster my father would sometimes drive by the old Cooper Institute girls' dormitory and he would talk about it's place in the areas' history and its' importance to the community during the late 1800s. During the '50s and '60s you could still go inside the old girls' dormitory and see furniture and other </span></i><i><span style="color: #660000;">belongings </span></i><i style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #660000;">left behind in the upstairs area of the building. Recently, as I developed the Cole Plantation Website which was located at Lizelia in Old Daleville (see the link at top of this page), </span></i><i style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #660000;">I saw a need for more facts about The Cooper Institute. There was almost nothing available as I researched web archives for i</span></i><i style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #660000;">nformation about the old school in Daleville. Because of The Cole Plantations' connection to Lizelia, to Old Daleville and to the present Daleville and the communities around these old towns, I determined to develop this website devoted to The Cooper Institute for the purpose of increasing the awareness and recognizing the importance of the The Cooper Institute in the early history of North Lauderdale County, MS. I extend an invitation for anyone who would like to share their photos or stories about the Cooper Institute to contact me and share your information on this website as I endeavor to make a place devoted to the schools' memory on the web. </span></i><i style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #660000;"> I hope you enjoy reading about the historical Cooper Institute</span><span style="color: #990000;">.</span></i><i style="background-color: white; font-size: x-large;">.........</i><i style="background-color: white;">.Ray Vaughn </i><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cochran Hall-Cooper Institute Daleville, MS. </td></tr>
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<b style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Cooper
Institute Founded 1865</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Founded as Spring Hill Male and Female Academy by
J.L. Cooper; known as Cooper Institute after 1873; acquired by Thomas T.
McBeath in 1885 and renamed Cooper Normal College in 1886; later known as
Cooper-Huddleston College<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When Professor J. L. Cooper established
his school at Daleville a year or so after the close of the Civil War, quite a
few young men beyond the "teen"-age came from various points in our
own and adjoining states, to enroll there as pupils.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;">Educ</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.3pt;">ational
opportunities represent one of the few </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;">bright spots of the Reconstruction
period in the South after the Civil War. One of </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">the most
significant of the schools that opened just after the Civil War ended was the
Cooper </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">Institute in Daleville. Today all that remains of </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">one of the
county's first schools of higher learn</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;">ing is a dormitory for
girls on the property of Bill </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">Wright across from the Daleville United Meth</span>odist Church.<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.15in;">The school was in the heart of Daleville, two<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.15in;">miles from the Kemper-Lauderdale County line.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.25pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.15in;">In its heyday, the Cooper Institute was an inno</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.15in;">vative educational establishment, which its<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.25pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.15in;">founder, Leonard Cooper, believed would break<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.15in;">new ground in the education of rural Mississip</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.35pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.15in;">pians. The namesake and nephew of the school's<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.15in;">founder, Leonard Cooper of Lizelia, said his un</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.15in;">cle established the school after passing through<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.15in;">the area on his way home from the Civil War and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.15in;">finding a spot "ideal for his dream."</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: -0.35pt;">By 1865, the
Cooper Institute accepted its first<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.25pt;">students and soon became "an important
school with many students." Twenty years later, the college,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>catalogue shows students from
Lauderdale,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.3pt;">Kemper, Neshoba, and Winston counties, in ad</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.25pt;">dition to others from Louisiana, Texas, Alabama<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">and Florida, were attending. That catalogue<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span>boasted that the Cooper method
of education<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">was better than "long, plodding routine text</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">book curriculums and methods of slow instruc</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">tion in other schools." Subjects offered
ranged<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.3pt;">from Greek and Latin to penmanship and debat</span>ing.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cooper Institute Daleville, MS. </td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: -0.25pt;">While the
normal school may have been pro</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">gressive
for its time, the institution was a sharp<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.25pt;">contrast to higher education today. In 1886, the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;">college offered "boarding and lodging, with<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05pt;">washing included, for $10 a month." Promo</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">tional material promised concerned parents that<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">the school offered quiet seclusion far from ". . .<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">the exciting scenes of city life, so detrimental to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">close and steady application, and ten thousand<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">temptations to vice and dissipation."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">Another contrast
to modern co-ed schooling<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">can be seen in the fact that the male dormitory<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">building, which once stood just north of the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">statue of Sam Dale, was intentionally placed<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.4pt;">"way across the hollow" from the female housing<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">facility. The school catalogue explained:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Cooper Institute Commencement Program</b></td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">We consider it very abnormal to throw no restrictions
over the sexes associated in the same school. Allow them full freedom of speech
and in a short time the consequent "love sick affairs" will distract
their mind from study, waste their time and harm the school. We allow note of
this. The sexes are not permitted to desk together, visit or receive visits
during the week. The task of enforcing such policies fell to Mr. and Mrs. Abner
cooper, parents of the second Leonard Cooper.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">After several successful decades, the Cooper Institute closed in 1890. Sometime after 1900, the upper story of the main college building burned. With damage repaired, the building was then employed as a school in the Lauderdale County School System. After the school closed, the old girls' dormitory served as a boarding house for many years. Wright, the current property owner, said he hopes to restore the unique building at some point in the future.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Cooper Institute -The Old Girls Dormitory</b><br />
<b>All That Was Left Of The Cooper Institute</b><br />
<b>Circa 1980's.</b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">One factor that caused Cooper to situate his school in Daleville is an ever-flowing spring situated behind the old girls' dormitory building. When the school was born, Daleville was known as Spring Hill, as many living in the area traveled there to partake of the fresh, flowing water. state water treatment officials who have since tested the water have declared it may be "the best water in Mississippi." This fresh water supply helped spur the growth and development of the area. In fact, the spring and the Cooper Institute caused a </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">whole community to shift. Residents in the Old Daleville area where Sam Dale initially settled (now known as Lizelia) moved their families to Spring Hill in the mid-1800s, bringing the name Daleville with them. The spring water not only attracted new residents but was also promoted by Cooper Institute Officials who advertised: The location is high and sandy with an ample supply of pure well and spring water; removed from any local cause of sickness, and far enough from town and rail road to be free from their contaminating influences.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>Resource Acknowledgement</b>: Informational Content Associated with this website is credited to "Paths To The Past", An Overview History of Lauderdale County, Mississippi published 1988. This is a fine book about the history of Lauderdale County, MS. by Laura Fairley and James Dawson and contains much informationon the history of this area in East Central Mississippi. <i> For more information about this book and other publications by the Lauderdale County Dept. Of Archives & History, visit their link below. </i></span><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.15in;"><b>Reference Links:<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></b></i><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.15in;"><a href="http://www.kithandkinofthesouth.org/publication-list.html">Lauderdale County Department Of Archives and History, Meridian, MS. </a> </i></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Contact Information: email: rayvaughnpublications@publicist.com</span></div>
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