Evening star., 1946-05-12
Fifty ears Of I eaching
BY George Kennedy

~ SSSA &c 44CAAACOy
v N 1896 Lucy Madeira was graduated
from Vassar. returned to WASH
ington and began teaching in pri-
vate schools because she lacked
political advancement to public
school position. Soon she was teaching
prominent in the Capital today remem-
ber the force of that spirited young
woman in a white leg-of-mutton shirt
waist, chalk in hand, before the class
room blackboard.
Next Sunday Miss Madeira will cele-
brate her 50th anniversary as a teacher.
1t will be her 73d birthday. She is
headmistress Of the Madeira School for
Girls, now 40 years old, which shares,
with few other boarding schools in the
East, top place in college entrance ex-
animation marks and in social register
attendance.
Sprightly is the word for Miss Ma
deira. There is humor in her conver-
sation and gayety in her correspond
ence. Among other things her girls
love her for the laughs she gives them
at assembly, sometimes poking fun at
herself.
When she started her school on New
Hampshire avenue, near Dupont Circle,
her first gym classes could not walk
across Dupont Circle in sneakers. 1t
wasn't done. In 1881 the school moved
to a wooded site on the Virginia heights,
above the Great Falls of the Potomac.
Now one of her favorite sights, more
beautiful to her than April dogwood,
is the bare legs of nearly 200 girls rum
ming on the green of her sylvan theater
ut the end of an outdoor assembly.
We've loosened up too much in many
things" she says. but it's better than
1t used to be-"
Sees Private Schools
Replaced in Future
To Miss Madeira the future will be
wonderful. She wishes she could live
another 10 years to see the implement
tation of beginnings she has lived
through - not only chronological, but
social.
The extensive Georgian buildings Of
ivy-clad brick at the Madeira School
are laid out so the State can take them
over to advantage any time, she says.
Social reconstruction, she feels, some
day may make unnecessary institutions
which attempt to provide the best in
education for those whose parents can
afford it.
When I started teaching" she says,
"there were less than 400, 900 boys and
girls in high school. Today there are
more than 100000. That's one of the
great facts in our history
One thing she views with some mis-
giving-the coming intellectualism of
our higher education. Il would rather
teach a good C-plus with character
that is with some sense, the beginnings
of what we call wisdom-than bril-
liant student" she says. But soon we
will not be able to get such a student
into the entrance board colleges. Let
me give you some more statistics. Be-
fore Pearl Harbor 10000 students went
up to take college entrance examina-
tions each year. Through the war years
the number has increased 1000 year
and this year there will be 10000. Soon
only A and B students will be accepted"
Miss Madeira is Emersonian She sub
scribes completely to the sage Of Con-
cords dictum, ."Character is higher
than the intellect. Thinking is the func-
ton. Living is the functionary."
Duty Not Reward
Is School Watchword
She credits "a great teacher, Lucy
Salmon" professor of history at Vassar.
with "any good there may be in this
school in it's 40 years Of existence" And
she credits two incidents in her senior
year for inspiration. One was when
Miss Salmon gave her class, as her ideal,
thought from Robert Louis Stevenson,
who had just died and whom we all
In my day, loved with deep devotion"
The thought was: The world must re-
turn some day to the word duty and
be done with the word reward"
Miss Madeira gives her girls an ex-
preston from goth century writing that
sums up her ideal. 1t is Lord Moulton's
obedience to the unenforceable," the
good manners in the broad sense that
caused men on the Titanic to be gentle
men to the edge of death and to obey
something beyond the domain Of law
Ladies first in the lifeboats"
The other inspiring incident of her
senior year was lecture by an English
journalist on the Fabian Club, the
organization of Socialists in England,
including George Bernard Shaw and
Sidney Webb which sired the Labor
party.
Duty not reward-in the Madeira
school there is no honor roll and no
posting of marks There is no compe-
tition here except in athletics" Miss
Madeira says. The girl who is at
present my most brilliant pupil doesn't
know it-and she never will"
Her girls are conditioned for the ar
duous role that is the lot of the dutiful
in the upper stratum of society. A
tight schedule of vigorous work and
play has them busy until bedtime.
Madeira School Has
Few Career Girls
Miss Madeira's girls 60 to college but
they do not become career girls. They
marry. One exception occurs to her,
Charlotte Carr, who became secretary Of
labor and industry of Pennsylvania and,
on the death of Jane Addams, took over
as head of Hull house.
Duty not reward-Miss Madeira sets
the example. She became q citizen Of