The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1913-08-24

oSiiOOio III Al1iy iSlSllUOIuOOuS-'
schools which have survived in some
instances or have grown into colleges.
Again, when seminary was estab-
lished in any locality, its trustees
naturally desired that it should have
the advantage of local support.
Accordingly, the seminary established
its preparatory department where it
received the little girls and trained
them for higher things
But one step remained to unity
the system, and that step was the
control of these preparatory schools for
girls by graduates and friends Of the
great seminaries. This was simple
AS the schools wished the best teachers
that could be had, and as these
teachers came almost invariably from
the seminaries, it soon came about that
every school could boast in it's faculty
the alumna of the seminaries. The
whole thus became unified system
with single ideal and single purpose
Splendid Teachers.
And what splendid teachers were
some of those ante-bellum men and
women Where, for example, could one
find nobler spirits than in the old Anne
Smith Academy, which drew to it's
classrooms the best blood Of Western
Virginia? Where were finer teachers
than those whose names and influences
are remembered among us-Mrs.
Meade, D. Lee Powell, Miss Mary
Pegram, Miss Williana Tazewell, Mr..
Lefevbre and the rest. But, for that
matter, did the world ever boast more
inspiring women than those who
taught boys in Richmond the Misses
Forbes, Miss Emily Harris and Miss
Bennet-or that splendid band of men
w. D. Stuart, Smith and Cone,
David Turner, Pendleton, Roger
Martin, Pinckney Burroughs and
Richard Tighe? Perhaps we have
advanced our educational standards,
and perhaps we have made that which
we call progress" but were poor boys
better taught than in the old Lancas-
terrain School, in Richmond, and did
the youth of great city ever enjoy
more splendid tuition than that given
at old Richmond Academy, under
Master William Burk?
After the War.
The war interrupted, but it did not
end the system thus wrought out
through the years. No sooner were
the men of the South able to earn
living from the neglected acres which
freedmen refused to till than they
began to send their daughters to
school again. Men and women who
suffered with the war took up their
work again and resolved that if they
could not build nation they would
maintain civilization. So they used
the same books, taught the same
standards of noble living and thinking
and kept before the eyes of their girls
the same splendid picture of useful,
rounded life Wonderful it may seem
to us to-day, but during all the years of
reconstruction our system of educat-
ing girls remained unified and directed
to the same end.
The Coming of the College.
Nor did the coming Of the college
for girls do more than cause a simple
readjustment. The seminary passed,
or became the college for young
women, and in so doing raised its
standards and demanded new tests of
scholarship. Forthwith the prepara-
tory schools for girls raised their
standards and prepared their pupils for
the work they might expect in the
college. For a generation this work
has gone on, and to-day among our
schools for girls will be found many
which are accredited by the finest
colleges Of the South. And these same
schools-we cannot overemphasize the
fact-are preserving their traditions
and doing the same noble work for
girls.
What Do They Teach?