The Bachelors’ Academy is the only school house that has been completely restored in Jackson County, Georgia. A Georgia Heritage grant made restoration of the building possible in 1996. The school house is part of the National Historic District at the Shields-Ethridge Heritage Farm complex and was built on a hill, a half mile down Ethridge Road.
Ira Ethridge, son-in law of Joseph Robert Shields (see “timeline” and “generations”), took charge of constructing a new county school near the old Shields home place. In 1909 he persuaded two Shields cousins, Alex and Emory, to donate land where a school could be built. The school was named “The Bachelors’ Academy” in honor of the land donors, grandsons of James Shields. A neighbor, Harvey Robert Carruth, built the two-room school house for $343.20, and installed a bell in the bell tower costing $18.00.
Grades one through seven were taught at the Bachelors’ Academy until 1950. A teacher was employed for the Bachelors’ Academy by the county, and from 1909 to 1938 the teacher lived at the Ethridge home during the school term. The School House is a reminder of the influence of the Shields and Ethridge families, which extended beyond the boundaries of the farm. Children came from surrounding areas, walking along several paths through woods and fields
Today, one first notices the mortared stacked stone pillars under the school house, then the bell tower and large windows. Inside one room there are desks and a pot-bellied stove. A “cloakroom” remains, where children hung their coats. The adjacent room is now used for displays, but until 1950 it was an assembly room for the school and the community. Plays, cakewalks, box suppers, and spelling bees were held in the large, open room equipped with a stage and a wooden partition to the second room.
There was neither water nor electricity at the Bachelors’ Academy. A well sits in front of the School House, covered by a shed with a tin roof. Children “drew” water from the well for drinking. There was no bathroom, nor was there a privy. Boys and girls used opposite sides of Ethridge Road for toilets.
One can imagine the routine of a school day. Children raised a flag every morning. A daily honor was ringing the school bell. Elders who attended Bachelors’ Academy remember being lifted off their feet by the bell rope. Sadly, the bell was stolen many years ago and the bell tower awaits the bell’s return. Children brought their lunch from home in a bucket and sat in the grass outside to eat. Slate blackboards and chalk were used for instruction, and older children helped younger ones with their lessons. On fair days, children sat in the open window sills, watching chickens play beneath the school house.
The Bachelors’ Academy is described as a “relatively rare” historic homestead school in the Historic District nomination documents. The Shields-Ethridge Heritage Farm Foundation is gathering oral histories from former students at the Academy to preserve the experience of learning in a two-room school house.