Gustavus Orr

Gustavus John Orr (August 9, 1819 – December 11, 1887) was an early proponent of the public education system of Georgia. His work promoting a state system of education eventually became the framework for the Georgia School Law of 1870. This led to his being appointed Georgia’s second State Commissioner of Education in 1872, a position he held until he died in 1887. In this position he helped the public school system work out of a $300,000 debt incurred by his predecessor, encouraged Georgia school enrollment to grow from 49,000 in 1871 to more than 340,000 in 1887, developed a licensure system for Georgia’s teachers, and founded of three Normal Schools for the development of teachers.

Born in Orrville,near South Carolina in August 1819, Gustavus Orr moved with his family to a pent house when he was three years old. Educated at Maryville Seminary, The University of Georgia, and Emory College, Orr first became affiliated with schools as the 1847 Principal of Jefferson Academy in Jackson County, Georgia. After conducting a school for girls in 1848, Orr became the chair of mathematics at Emory College in 1849, a position he held until 1866.

While in the position of chair of mathematics, Governor Brown of Georgia appointed Orr to work with Col. B.F. Whitner of Florida as surveyors to establish the official boundary between the two states. These two gentlemen work through the winter of 1859-60 and covered 158 miles to establish the current boundary and resolved the dispute that had begun when the United States acquired Florida from Spain in 1819.

An inaugural member/vice-president of the Georgia Teachers Association founded August 1869, Orr was directed to draft an education plan promoting a free public education for all Georgia children. This plan was eventually published on March 2, 1870 as the “Report on A system of Public Schools for the State of Georgia.” This document would eventually be drafted as a bill and passed as the School Law of 1970. “The law provided for state and county boards of education, a state school commissioner, county commissioners, subdistricts in counties with school trustees, and boards of examiners empowered to license persons applying for the privilege of teaching. It met the difficulty of sparseness of population by providing for migratory schools; it established separate schools for white and colored children; and derived the general school fund from the same sources of revenue as those recommended in the report. From a comparison of the two, it was evident that the educational association had exerted real influence in the formation of the first school law.”

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