The Summer School of the South was proposed at a meeting (Conference for Education in the South) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1901. At the meeting, or shortly thereafter, President Dabney received a $5,000 guarantee for expenses of a summer school. Philander P. Claxton, appointed by Dabney to head the summer school, coined the term Summer School of the South.
In 1902 the school expected 300–400 students; 2,019 students enrolled. Each student paid a registration fee of $5. The normal stipend for teaching in the Summer School of the South was $200, but John Dewey received $800 in 1904 for his summer at the school. A special “pavilion,” named Jefferson Hall, which seated more than one thousand persons, was built. Faculty also included William Jennings Bryan, Jane Addams, Edward Thorndike, Nicholas Murray Butler, Ellen Swallow Richards, and many other national figures, as well as future UT President Brown Ayres, in 1902.
Beginning in 1905, special concerts became a regular part of the school, bringing to the campus such performers as Maude Powell (violin), Giuseppe Campanari (opera baritone) and concert pianist Charles Searle. Organizations such as the Southern Kindergarten Association, Southern Association of Collegiate Alumnae, American School Peace League, National Story League, and the National Guild of Play were all organized and held sessions at the Summer School. In 1905 UT extended the contract to allow its buildings and grounds to be used by the school for three more years. In 1908 the board of trustees renewed the contract but required that the school pay for utilities. Perhaps the principal achievement of the school, according to Dr. Andrew D. Holt, was its inspirational programs that prepared the way for later educational campaigns for school improvement.
In 1911 the summer school, which had operated as a separate entity with permission to use the UT campus (and even build its buildings upon the campus) was merged into the university (for the 1912 session), following the departure of P. P. Claxton to be US Commissioner of Education and the strong dissatisfaction of President Ayres with the school’s operation on the campus.
Other universities had begun to operate summer schools, and funding became less available—the General Education Board declined Ayres’s application for funding in 1911. Tuition rose to $10. As World War I approached, attendance declined. In 1916 attendance fell below 1,500, and in 1918 the summer school enrolled only 902 and posted a large deficit, causing the board of trustees to follow Ayres’s recommendation that it be terminated.