Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1880-09-10
|mAe Mt~>ttatpt.
SRA UNION. VA.

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sra UNION. VA.
FRIDAY MORNING. SEPT. 10. 1880.
OLD TIME SCHOOLS IN STAUNTON.
In the INDICATOR of the 9th Aug.
an interesting history Of the former schools
of Augusta county methods of teaching,
and short sketch of prominent teachers.
by Superintendent Cabs. Grattan, was
published. We print below q similar
paper prepared by DR.. Roberts. Ham,
ilton, the Superintendent of the Pub
lie Schools Of Staunton, which is furn-
ished at the request Of DIR. Ruffner, State
Superintendent. The information which
has been gathered with much labor by DIR.
Hamilton is valuable and will be found
very interesting:
From the establishment of the town of
Staunton by law in 1851, up to the begin
ming Of the present century, little or moth
ing satisfactory can be gathered of its ed
ucational facilities. They were doubtless
very meagre; and as Kercheval in his ''H1s
tory of the Valley" tells Of boy, at
ten years of age, who, about 1774,
was sent from the older town of
Winchester, to Baltimore county
Maryland, to attend ''little elemental
~ school, in the Garrison Meeting
House" of that place, it is fair to infer that
at least up to the time Of the Revolution,
the means of educating the young we're
still less efficient at Staunten and In the
upper Valley.
There is some evidence of the existence
here about 1893 or q, of one or more small
schools in which, Reading and Writing and
perhaps Arithmetic were taught. But it
was not until within the first decade of the
present century that anything like an or
ganized effort seems to have been made,
looking to the establishment of good and
permanent school for sthe education of
either sex. At this time the
| sTAUNTON MALE ACADEMY
was incorporated by the legislature and
endowed out of 1.-The Glebe Fund.-" and
the most famous teacher, if not the first,
of that institution in those early days, was
Bartholomew Fuller, father of our veneer
able fellow citizen, Mr.. Geo. Fuller,l who
came here from fredericksburg, where he
had previously established an academy
Mr.. Fuller was educated in Ireland, where
he was born, and was noted especially for
his talents and requirements in mathe-
matics, He taught in the Academy from
about 1908 till 1928, the timeof his death.
and associated with him, as teachers Of
the languages, and in the order mentioned
we're VIM. Calhoun, VIM. White, VIM.
Scott, Lewis Geraldine, Rev. VIM. Boyle
| baptist minister), Rev. James Wilson,
l(Presbyterian minister), and DR.. Stephens
Episcopal minister).
The number of pupils taught here annu.
ally varied from Is to 40, of whom large
majority learned only the common English
branches; but there were few every ses-
sion who availed themselves of the oppor-
tunities afforded for studying Latin, and
pursuing Mathematics thro' Elementary
ALGEBRA, plane and spherical trigonometry
geometry and surveying.
Soon after the death of Mr.. Fuller,
MIR. LYTTLEToN wADDELL,
who had at one time been a pupil
of the former and also associated
with him in the conduct of the school
took charge of the Academy. Mr.. W..
possessed fine scholarly attainme nts
and good disciplinary qualifications; and,
under his management, aided by compe-
tent assistants and with an extended course
of study, the school possessed good facili-
ties for classical education. A larger
per centage of pupils now studied the clas-
sizes, and many of our most successful bus
mess and professional men of the elderly
class Of the present day were taught here.
| FAMILIAR NAMES.
Among Mr.. Waddell's first assistants
were Mr.. W. Cook and Mr.. Aft. Sewers.
And Col. Jno. B. Baldwin, DR.. Donaghe.
Mr.. Jos. Addison and DR.. Alex. Waddeli
were some of the s'little boys" of the school
at that day, Later assistants in the same
school were John Dabney, John L. Camp
bell (now Prof. of Chemistry in Washing
ton 6 Lee University, B. 6. McPhail,
Jno. Empie and DIR. VIM. Hamilton, now
one of the Asst Physicians in the Western
Lunatic Asylum. Also Messrs. Smith,
| Gushing and johnson severally assisted
Mr.. Waddell, but their respective terms
Of service in that capacity are not now re-
membered.
SCHOOL BOY TRICKS.
| During the service OF Prof. Campbell as
assistant in the Academy, and perhaps at
other periods, a military department, con-
sisting of drill exercises, &C., was included
in the course, and the school was quite
fourishing and popular, accommodating,
in addition to day scholars, a goodly num-
Der of boarders. The pupils named above
were now among the "big boys' of the
school, and Briscoe and James Baldwin,
E. M. Gushing, George Harper, Col. Tom
Poague, VIM. S. 81. Baylor and George
Cochran were some of the younger ones.
Some interesting incidents illustrative Of
school life at that day might be introduced
here, but the space, allotted to an imper-
feet sketch like this, prevents. Many Of
his contemporaries will remember the time,
and some Of the accompanying and follow
ing circumstances, when Ed. c., stirred
by that irrepressible spirit of mischief. of
which it is said he is not even yet wholly
bereft, undertook to pull Tom Poage's
hair through the old -auger-bole which is
we'll remembered to have existed in the
wooden partition which separated the
1 roonoc of AFoccre WoddolJ opd (yoyophoJ1