Longwood College - Virginian Yearbook (Farmville, VA)

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Reminiscences for the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary at Farmville ONE whose memory covers the qiiartov eeuttivv nf the existence of the Faniiville Normal School can hut marvel at its ra])id growth and nn- Ijroken prosperity, for it has overtaken and ontstripped many an insti- tution that tells its age in centuries. But the school was most healthy and lively as an infant, as those present at its birth can testify. The writer recalls vividly a time in her old normal school in Connecticut when a hea ' ily built, reticent gentleman visited her classroom through se ' eral recitations. At the close of the second day he told her how Virginia had voted to establish a training school for her teachers ; that he had been appointed principal ; that he was seeking a vice-principal who could manage working details, of which he had no knowledge, while he would manage the vice- principal ; and ended by offering her the position. In this year of grace, 1909, any teacher might be proud of a position at Farmville; but in 1884 it was a different proposition. Suppose the plan went wrong ; who wanted any share in a failure ? Virginia politicians had talked much of repudiation; were salaries secure there? The late War was then less than two decades away ; would a daughter of the North be welcome to the i eople ? With such doubts, it was not strange that she dared not, then, accept the oifered honor; but she has, since, been heartily glad that it was repeated, reconsidered, and accepted. So far as professional methods were concerned, Farmville could start at the most advanced point then gained by older normal schools ; but for material equipment it could cnly, like a fiddler crab, slip into the first vacant shell. There came an October day when the principal introduced the vice-principal to the school-shell where she was to manage and he to super-manage. The memory of that old building is full of charm to her to-day, though ' just why for the life of her she could not tell. No factory or warehouse could be more frankly ugly without or artlessly jumbled within. Its bricks stood awry and its boards were rudely matched and planed. It had grown old not gracefully, but gloomily and grimly. But the old structure was soon alight with bright faces and light hearts and the more stately structure of to-day no more shames its rudeness than does York Minster shame the manger under the stars of Bethlehem.

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3n0ttuctors in 1884 W. H. RUFFXER, Prixcipal PSYCHOLOGY, ETIIK ' S, DIIJACTICS, AND LESSON ' S IX XATl ' RAL SCIENCE MISS CKLESTE E. BUSH, Vice-Principal GEOGKAPHY ' . PHYSIOLOGY, IMTEI) STATES HISTORY, MORALS AXD MANNERS MISS il. PAULINE GASH ENGLISH GRAMMAR, ENGLISH LITERATLHE, GENERAL HISTORY, RHETORIC, ELOCLTION. PENMANSHIP illSS LILLIAN A. LEE MATHEMATICS, DRAWING, BOOKKEEPING, CALISTHENICS MR. BEVERLY H. ROBERTSON ' NATURAL SCIENCE, LATIN, ALGERRA illSS CLARA M. BRIMBLECOM VOCAL MLSIC MRS. C. T. BARTKOWSKA MODEL SCHOOL MISS BELLE JOHNSON PIANO HOME DEPARTMENT MR. DANIEL. Steward JIRS. DANIEL, Housekeeper

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To our scholastic needs the old shell offered a small, primitive assembly hall and two shabby classrooms. Any overflow must go to the reception room or, — a bedroom. The dormitory was a series of cubicles, on two floors, lying off crooked, narrow, multi-levelled corridors, much as jjig iron lies at the foundry. For our subsistence department there was a dining room furnished with three long deal tables and a supply of plain wooden chairs. Beneath the dining room was a great cavernous kitchen into whose recesses a dozen (forliidden) visitors might slink into obscurity except as to eyeballs and teeth. AVhenever the missis tried to read the law as to visitors in that dark region, Aunt Ellen, its presiding genius, would divert the talk to jileasanter paths by exclaiming, ' To ' de Lord, miss, you gut on mighty sweet dress. You save dat for mp, now, when you get done wiv it. A little reception room and a wide staircase hall completes the tale of our early quarters. Had we possessed inilimited means, it would still have laken nnicli time to furnish our old shell for living and e [uip it for teaching. But we were venturing on an experiment for which it would not be safe to make more than a slender appropriation, so we bought only the niost necessary things and those of the plainest kind. The bedrooms had cheap painted furniture, and little shelves, put in by the carpenters, saved the cost of dressing tables. Twn hundred dollars had been allowed for the reception room, but when a rug and some curtains had been bought the rest of the money seeme l needed elsewhere, so we rested that case. The deal tallies in the dining room were hidden by inexpensive red cotton table cloths, lint we were rather vain (if our new forks and spoons till William, the general utility boy, took to scouring them with the scrapings of common red brick. The only library was a box of books l)elong- ing to one of the teachers ; it was most actively peri2:)atetie. Before the shavings of the workmen had been swept out or the soap- suds of the sci;ub-women dried, teachers, pu]iils, and furniture all began to arrive by the same trains. Fur simie ihiys the prngraiu was: Meet the anxious parent who stood, daughter in hand, at the dnor, with your most gracimis welcome; find chairs for them in the rcceplion imiiiii; tly ujistairs and beg that some pieces of furniture lie hurried into such and such a room; ri4urn to your guests and, ju ' esenfly, with all serenity, oft ' er to show them th ' room reserved for this ]iartieu]ar daughter. If even a bed or biireau had been placed, you could ask them to lnok n]iiin that as a guarantee that the rest would follow. The teachers, at the very first, were the principal, who lived outside and came in to conduct the opening exercises and take the Senior class in mental