author
William Henry Ruffner
1824–1908
Best remembered for helping build Virginia’s public school system, this nineteenth-century clergyman, educator, and geologist led a life shaped by public service and debate. His story also reflects the contradictions of his era, from church work and science to education reform in the years after the Civil War.
1 Audiobook
A Report on Washington Territory
by William Henry Ruffner
About the author
Born in Lexington, Virginia, in 1824, William Henry Ruffner studied at Washington College and went on to work as a Presbyterian minister, farmer, and later a geological surveyor. He became one of the most important education reformers in Virginia, and is widely described as the designer and first superintendent of the state’s public school system.
After Virginia’s 1869 constitution called for a system of public education, Ruffner was elected the first superintendent of public instruction in 1870. During his twelve years in that role, he helped give the new school system its basic structure and defended it through fierce political and financial opposition. He later served as principal of the State Female Normal School, the institution that became Longwood University, and also taught and wrote in his later years.
Ruffner’s life also shows the moral tensions of the nineteenth-century South. Before the Civil War, he was a slaveholder and supported gradual emancipation tied to colonization, a position that falls far short of modern standards. He died in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1908, remembered both for his lasting influence on public education and for the complexities of the world he came from.