The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1870-11-04
CORRESPONDENCE.
LETTERS FROM VIRGINIA.
A PARTING WORD IN ADVOCACY OF
EDUCATION.


evening to promise you that you shall not be
worried again with my almost unintelli-
gible manuscript for great while, but for
fear might not have the moral courage to
keep the promise inviolate. will not make
it square out, tho will promise not to in
trude upon you as often as heretofore.
With this good and wholesome, and per-
haps | might say pious resolve, am unwil-
ling to abandon the field withouta parting
word in the interest of intellectual culture
in advocacy of the erection of a Female
College at Bel Air.
In adverting to the subject sometime ago,
l gave you brief and hurried history of
Emory & Henry College-its origin, prog
ress and success. now propose for your
encouragement-if you agree with me that
you need such an institution, and that it
would be an advantage to your town and q
blessing to your county-to give you his
tory, in some sort, of Martha Washington,
one of the Female Colleges in this town.
| can do this with some degree ofaccuracy,
from the fact that have been more or less
connected with it as Secretary of the Board
of Trustees, from its inception through all
its struggles to the present hour Of its sue
cessful career.
The idea of its erection originated in the
Odd Fellows Lodge, in the mind of an
individual member, himself without pa
tronage, influence or means, and perhaps
the humblest and obscurest member of the
fraternity. However, believing himself to
be right and the object plausible, like Tom
Benton on the specie currency question,
SOLITARY and alone he put the ball in mo-
tion." The magnitude of the enterprise,
to be undertaken by a body Of not more
than so men, most of them diving from
hand to mouth" was regarded by the
masses as visionary, ifnot absolutely pre-
posterous. He who submitted the wild
proposition as it was called, like the "Saint-
ed Martyr" kept "pegging away" not
withstanding the ridicule and animad-
versions of wiser heads, until at length, to
test the matter, and to see if there was any
thing feasible in it, committee was ap-
pointed by the Lodge to consider and re-
port upon the oposition-wit the pur-
pose, no doubt, by the majority, to put the
question to rest forever-but the report of
the committee brought up discussion, dis
cussion begat inquiry, inquiry resulted in
effort, and effort eventually struggled to
success. A subscription was started in
the Lodge, when three members-Messrs.
ID. r. Johnston, d. G. Dunn and T. G. Nc
Connell--neither of them wealthy, each
subscribed 5000, and some Is or 20 others
from 100 up to $500 each. This was a
promising beginning, when the Lodge be-
came solicitors, and the aggregate amount
soon ran up to $4,000.
Plans were now entered into, 10 acres of
land purchased at 500 per acre, contracts
concluded, and the walls of an immense
brick building erected and covered with
tin. Here the fund became exhausted, the
work suspended, and before an effort was
made to resume, the walls became sprung
and cracked, and the whole edifce, after an
expenditure of 100000, was discovered to
be Il failure and abandoned. The spirit,
however, had gone abroad to have a Col
lege, and "agitate, agltate, agitate," became
the motto. The lodge, finding itself hope
lessly scotched and unable to proceed, final
ly determined to shift the labor and respon-
sibility to other shoulders, and prepared to
turn the job over to the Holston Conference
of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
After a vast amount of discussion, consid-
Grafton and casting acknowledging the
chances of success and estimating the adj
vantages to be derived-that body took
charge of it, assumed the payment of a
debt of $4,000, relinquished the half
finished edifce, disposed of the materials
for about $4,000, and purchased the splen-
did property of Col. T. L. Preston in the
suburbs of the village, at $4,000, payable
in five equal annual instalments. All these
transactions occurred from 1850 to 80, and
in 1860 the school was started under the
Presidency of Rev. VIM. A. Harris, A. M,
at present in charge of Wesleyan Female
Institute at Staunton, the only Female Col
lege, [ believe, under the patronage of the
Baltimore Conference.
The school opened promisngly, matri-
culating, the second session, $50 young
ladies, 80 of whom were boarders. The
war coming on, the patronage become pre-
carious and fluctuating, and rumors of
raids frequently scattered the pupils like a
flock of partridges on the mountain. Mr..
Harris, by unfagging energy and skill kept
the machinery in motion, paiChby his Ia
bors, with the assistance of an agent, por-
ton of the debt-which now amounted to
thirty-odd thousand dollars-and gave
Martha Washington q reputation, at home
and abroad, equal to any school in the
South or the Union. He remained five years
and was succeeded by Rev. B. Arbogast, A.
NJ, under whose Presidency the College has
continued onward and upward, and is at
this moment very nearly without a rival.
The debt has been reduced to about $12,-
600, trifle in comparison with the adj
vantages accruing- and the property is now
valued at$40,000. The College is now in a
very fourishing condition, and will proba-
bly, be out of debt in a year or two. The
establishment of Martha Washington has
been the incentive for starting two other
Female Colleges in our village-one under
the patronage of the Presbyterian and the
other under that of the Catholic Church
all progressing prosperously, and bringing
to our town a floating population half as
great as the permanent population Of
Bel Air.
have given you the foregoing dry and
perhaps irksome statements to illustrate
what may be done under adverse and
almost prohibitory circumstances, by 0
comparatively ruined and PROSTATE people
but urged forward by the noble impulse
of doing their whole duty towards the de
velopment and cultivation of the minds
and hearts of their daughters 1t was 0
gigantic undertaking, but perseverance and
sacrifice carried it through, and we now
have not only three of the most beautiful, bu
among the best and most popular Colleges
in the South, which are doing an incalcula