Thomas S. Grimke Address

Thomas S. Grimke, 1786-1834, was born in Charleston, South Carolina. Being raised in a Puritan background, Grimke was deeply religious and desired to be an Episcopal minister. Instead, he followed in his father's footsteps and practiced law. He served as a South Carolina state senator from 1826 to 1830. Grimke took an unpopular pro-Union stand, though the sectional issue was not as emotional then, as it was to become. A champion of temperance and world peace, he wrote several pamphlets on these topics. He also wrote several pamphlets on education, which he thought should be utilitarian and religious. Grimke thought science promoted the improvement of the people and therefore supported its teaching. He believed in higher education for women, modern history and modern literature as important parts of the curricula as well as manual training and that the Bible was basic to education from the primary grades through university education. The pamphlet in this collection explains Grimke's position on the place of the Bible in education.