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Clergymen and the Origins of the Kentucky Public School System

It took until 1850 and Kentucky’s third state constitution for the Commonwealth to guarantee public education for its citizens. The 1891 constitution[1] is still in effect which mandates the legislature to provide a common fund to pay for a state-wide school system that does not discriminate by race or color. The constitution does not permit the fund to be used to support sectarian or denominational schools.

Initially, the Kentucky legislators were apathetic to the idea of a state public school system and resistant to the thought that anyone should have to pay for the education of someone else’s child. For decades the legislature prioritized roads, bridges and railways over education. These have been characterized as “short-term” goals by historian, Frank Mathies, that were more certain to be rewarded with votes[2]. It took the combined lobbying of the Kentucky Education Society founded in 1827, the Kentucky Common School Society, founded in 1834, and the Kentucky Association of Professional Teachers, founded in 1833, to achieve the first legislation in 1838 to create a state-wide common school system which only served white students. The legislature did not fund a state-wide common school system for African American students until 1874[3].

The first Kentucky State Superintendent of Schools was Princeton educated, Joseph J. Bullock, a Presbyterian minister who pastored the First Presbyterian Church of Frankfort. He held both roles in 1838. He organized the state school system well with good policies for accountability which were largely ignored. Speaking of the Commonwealth he said:

                “Let it never be forgotten that all her prosperity is suspended on the virtue and intelligence of                   her children; that these are her strongest bulwarks”[4]

Bullock was followed as superintendent by five clergymen: Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists. It took ten years for the superintendent appointed by Governor Owsley, Rev. Thomas Jefferson Breckinridge, to succeed in getting the legislature to fund and mandate a state-wide school system in Kentucky.

Just two years later, at the 1849 Constitutional Convention in Frankfort, then Governor Hardin argued against the inclusion of education in the constitution. He argued against Superintendent Breckinridge’s campaigns for John J. Crittenden’s 1848 gubernatorial candidacy, alleging that his speeches would incite enslaved African Americans against their white owners[5]. Crittenden won the election. A state-wide system of common schools was funded and established.

The significant leadership that Kentucky Christian ministers provided was vital to the establishment of a public school system in this state. The Kentucky Faith and Public History Education Project considers both Rev. Joseph J. Bullock and Rev. Thomas Jefferson Breckinridge to have been famous Kentucky Christians.

By Lesley Barker PhD ©2020


[1] Constitution of Kentucky. Kentucky General Assembly website. ONLINE at https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/constitution#:~:text=In%20its%20over%20two%20hundred,third%20adopted%20in%201850%2C%20and. ACCESSED 12/8/2020.

[2] Frank F. Mathies. “Kentucky’s Struggle for Common Schools 1820-1850”. The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. Vol. 82, No. 3 (Summer 1984). pp. 214-232. Kentucky Historical Society.

[3] Rachel Kennedy and Cynthia Johnson. Kentucky Historic Schools Survey. Education Arts and Humanities Cabinet. 2002.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Mathies 1984.

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