John de la Howe School, founded in 1797 at the passing of Dr. John de la Howe, was one of the first examples of individual philanthropy for a child-caring institution in the United States and became the second oldest institution in the Carolinas. Dr. de la Howe, an emigrant from either the north of France, Holland, or perhaps Flanders, intended his gift to help dependent and neglected children. His concept grew from an article in the April 1787 Columbia Magazine, and in his will he bequeathed his real and personal estate to the President and Agriculture Society of South Carolina in trust to establish the school. The school's beneficiaries were to be twelve boys and twelve girls whose parents or who themselves had resided in Abbeville County, now McCormick County. It still stands as a place where children from throughout South Carolina come to learn basic life skills and behaviors. In 1918, on the recommendation of the Board of Trustees, the General Assembly converted Lethe into a new state agency accountable to the legislature, and the school's name was changed shortly afterward to John de la Howe Industrial School, while the old manual labor idea remained its guiding principle. Dr. de la Howe's vision began years before his death: he immigrated to Charleston in the spring of 1764, received a grant of 400 acres near the Long Cane Settlement in 1768, established residence at Lethe Farm in Long Cane in the late summer of 1774, continued acquiring land there between 1774 and 1785, returned to Lethe Farm in the late summer of 1785, and died in 1797; his tomb, placed according to directions in his will, is near the original site of the school.