The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1910-05-26
miss SOPHIE THoRNBURY
A TRAINER OF DUcHEssEs
Miss Sophie Thornbury, Who Con-
ducts School in Paris for the
Manufacture of Duchesses.

I'm the most fashionable house of a
fashionable street, in an exclusive
quarter of the most fashionable city
in the world stands a mill for the
manufacture of duchesses," is the way
in which j. Conway Of the Wiedner
Agency begins an article in the Gin
cinnati Eduirer relative to the work
which Miss Sophie H Thornbury, a
former welllknown Atlanta woman, is
now doing in Paris.
Miss Thornbury is well remember
ed in Atlanta by hundreds of pupils
who attended the fashionable school
over which she once presided on
Peachtree street. Not few we'll
known young Atlanta matrons delight
to talk today of the times" they had
when they attended Miss Thornbury's
school,
$1,000 for Each Term.
But none of them paid her such tut
ton as she is now receiving from her
present pupils, who come from the
richest Of American girls with lofty
social aspirations, and to whom her
charge is said to be, with extras in
cluded, $4,000 for each term.
Her school is located on the Champs
Elysees and her material is said to be
gathered from girls of both northern
and southern states.
1t is said Miss Thornbury's curricu-
lum fits her students to become the
wives of the very oldest nobility. The
curriculum inclues German, Italian,
Spanish, French, literature, music and
painting and aims at supplying cul-
ture of the highest type. They are
even taught riding and fencing, which
are sometimes almost requirements
for wives of the nobility.
Women are all queens" said Miss
when asked by Mr.. Con-
way how she manufactured duehesses,
and she continued:
Before / commenced my work OF
qualifying American girls to be Ouch
esses, / must know that they come
from representative families. They
need not necessarily be the daughters
of society people For instance, the
Roosevelts, are society people; the
Tafts are not. Yet a daughter of the
Tafts would, Of course, be received
here. In all sections Of our country
there are people VINO have made their
mark by some honorable calling.
American ladies who have married
Suffolks and Curzons and Essexes and
Wolsleys and Heskeths and other
great names in England have not
been from society families, but from
representative ones"
Assuming that you have the raw
material, what then?'
"The raw material is what the phi
losophers call materia prima," con-
tinued Miss Thornbury, WHO is bub-
ling over with knowledge. Training
does more than heredity or environ
ment. The innate refinement of life
must be developed. A young lady can
not make a brilliant match without
personal development. The faculties
and reflnements of a duchess should
be so highly evolved that she finds
within herself all the mental resources
she needs. The faculties should be
so drawn out that she will be WON.
an of light and leading to all within
the sphere she ought to irradiate."
Regular Society Functions.
Among other things, regular society
functions are given by Miss Thorn
bury's school, to which prominent so.
ciety people are invited There are
receptions and O'Clock teas and 9th
er things, during which the conversa-
ton is carefully directed to the bene-
fit and advantage of the pupils. Miss
Thornbury says she notes improve
ments in her pupils after each such
social function which they attend
AT Christmas time travel becomes
part Of the curriculum. Other coun-
tries are visited, always with an eye
to broadened culture Mild tiirtations
sometimes arise at the afternoon re-
4 =