- Rockby State Historical Marker
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Located on Ga. 16 about two miles east of Sparta
33.29105, -82.93831
(Text)
- ROCKBY
About 1 mi. from here, Richard
Malcolm Johnston, lawyer, educator, and author, operated Rockby,
a school for boys revolutionary in its day. Disgusted with the
harsh disciplinary methods of the time, Johnston instituted an
honor system whereby students were expected to report their own
misdemeanors. His system of discipline, "at once so liberal
and so exacting," worked remarkably well, and Rockby enjoyed
wide patronage. Opened in Jan., 1862, the school prospered until
after the Civil War.
Johnston left Ga. in 1867 under
the social and financial pressures of Reconstruction and reopened
his school as Pen Lucy School in Baltimore, Md. Forty Ga. boys
followed their teacher to Md. and Pen Lucy continued in the Rockby
tradition for about six years. Financial distress in Ga. later
curtailed Johnston's main supply of boarding pupils, and, finding
his honor system less effective when applied to day pupils with
whom the teacher had limited contact, he finally closed the school
Johnston's best-known literary
work, Dukesborough Tales, was inspired by his own experiences.
In his autobiography he identified Powelton, Hancock County,
Ga., as "Dukesborough."
- 070-11 GEORGIA HISTORICAL
COMMISSION 1963
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