Sherman's field order 15 called for the laying aside of a vast stretch of territory exclusively for the freedmen. In the same manner in 1864 the military officers at Hilton Head laid out a village for them near the officers' camps and introduced measures of self-government. The village was called Mitchelville in honor of General Ormsby Mitchell who had been like a father to the multitude of fifteen hundred or more occupying the village. The place was regularly organized with a Mayor and Common Council, Marshal, Recorder and Treasurer, all black, and all elected by Negroes, except the Mayor and Treasurer. Among the powers of the Common Council, which concern us here, was the compulsory provision that "every child between the ages of six and fifteen years ... shall attend school daily, while they are in session, excepting only in cases of sickness ... and the parents and guardians will be held responsible that said children so attend school, under the penalty of being punished at the discretion of the Council of Administration."[94] We may or may not call this South Carolina's first compulsory school law. With a view to training teachers from among themselves the northern teachers seized every opportunity to pick out a bright student who would ultimately assume full responsibility. Accordingly, the schools were taught by persons of both races. In addition those Negroes who already had some learning were pressed into service. This arrangement had its obvious disadvantages as well as advantages. The Negro teacher understood the environment and the character and nature of the pupils to a far greater extent than the northern coworker; but, as could be expected, the native teacher was lacking in preparation. As one of the northern journals expressed the situation, the "men and women from the North carry much more than their education. They carry their race, moral training, their faculty, their character, influence of civilization, their ideas, sentiments and principles that characterize northern society."[95] Occasionally native white teachers were employed, but not always to the satisfaction of either the Yankee teachers or their pupils.