Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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' « » « « ' 7 - t J-i-cit » ? w 0- tsr rsi a. xt t S n . s 5C y 53 t ' r ■ f OJ ky,t,ff A Partial I.isi of Subscriptions For The Main Building— 1843 tinned to live in the vicinity for some time. Later he went to Texas, where he died as president of Austin College. He had projected and organized the school. It was the work of the Board for the next thirteen years to keep it nourishing. And no one who reads Waddell ' s record of this period can doubt that it was hard going, or that the present college owes them a great deal. In the first place, it was hard to obtain a Principal who was at once satisfactory and satisfied. There were five regularly appointed ones between 1849 and 1863 — Matthews, Campbell, Browne, Marquiss, and Tinsley. One made it a condition of his staying That the Board secure to the Seminary the privacy becoming a female boarding school. (He objected to members of the con- gregation walking through the yard!) In addition to this list of principals, there was one supervisor for a short while in 1856 whose name interests us. Dr. Wilson, member of the Board and minister at Presby- terian church, where his son, Thomas Woodrow was baptized the next year. Even more vexing than the problem of securing leadership was that of financing a growing child. The first building unit had proved al- most immediately inadequate, and two wings had been added. But paying for them was difficult; in fact, this had to be managed finally by the personal notes of several of the Board members. The settling of this debt was a long and troublesome process. The faithful fifteen met often and transacted much, all of it important, although the appointing of a committee to inquire into the exped- iency of raising a fund to procure a chemical and philosophical apparatus may sound a trifle mysterious to us. Times grew more, not less crucial. Above all else during the later fifties loomed the coming cataclysm though there are no references to it in the Board min- utes. If one may say so, the Civil War certainly came at a had time for Augusta Female Seminary, in 1862 it looked to be one of the first war casualties. Mr. Tinsley, whose success for a number f years was apparently satisfactory to him, he having a number of boarders, and many da) scholars, in 1863 faced a situation that to him seemed insur- mountable. The number of pupils was reduced, the places of boarders being filled by refugees from places in the vi- cinity of the contending armies. Vir- ginia Female Institute and Wesleyan Female Institute had both been suspend- ed and their buildings turned into hos- pitals. Across the street from the broad green Yard stood the arsenal, where ammunition and sev- eral cannon were kept, guarded by soldiers. The Sem- inary building was almost unfurnished, and it was impossible to secure furniture. All the schools in Staunton and in fact many schools in Virginia and the far South had been closed. War left little money for education, and travel was both difficult and dangerous. What was going to become of Mr. Bailey ' s experi- ment ? ■ a a • ■ ST a w r male Vminirv. o

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iSi ' fumlou ■ A ? x . AaHfiwJ ' . Jafie, kcwinff voj t itetect cuui it jser tfle Sxcffninaiionj. in hr zP r-ri n vU Course gf •Muc ry 0 this ■ Js j-af tt ' t on. i,r hereby declared a Ofatinat? of r u- ■ ■fuqw.rta J-f mUc Jeminary . cJ i testimony w tetea ' . tnu Jia-s been- (Urmc ed mr. ■Jitzic J It i lfi6 ' 6 ' Diploma M 6 stands today — around which all the rest was to grow. There were sixty young ladies, among them one named Mary Julia Baldwin, to whom such a Plan pro- posed by such men was attractive. (Or, at least, to their parents.) The first catalogue, printed in 1844, and appended to a sermon of one of the Trustees to give a wide gratuitous circulation, shows that fact. For a solid and useful Education plus whatever or- nament might be required, they paid $1(X)-$130 a year, including board. They studied in school from 8 A. M. to 12 noon, from 2 to 4. and in Boarding houses from 7 to 9. Their books were The Bible, Porter ' s Rhetorical Reader, Brown ' s English Gram- mar, Colburn ' s Mental Arithmetic, Davies ' Algebra. And they followed this schedule for two sessions of live months each with no vacation between! Every student had a daily fare of Reading, Writ- ing, Spelling, Arithmetic, English Grammar, Geog- raphy. Then she might choose further from Rhetoric, Botany, Chemistry, Astronomy, Algebra, History, Natural Philosophy. Solid and useful enough, you say, but did girls of the 1840 ' s thrive on such heavy fare — no sweets, no stimulants, no cokes, no jukes? The lightest mental pabulum in the catalogue are Piano Forte, Guitar, French, Drawing and Painting; but the description of the Ladies in charge of these makes their sphere seem anything but frivolous. The seriousness of educators at this period seems to 11s at times both pompous and puritanical. The gen- eral tone is perhaps best indicated by referring to the dedicatory speech of Rev. B. M. Smith at the laying of the cornerstone on June 15, 1844. He scoffs at the acquisition of accomplishments, so-called, German Waltzes, French dances, and Italian music and paint- ing. He felt that female education had gone too far in making woman a mere toy, that efforts to teach them to play had gone to ridiculous extremes. Now, he says, we want no Calisthenics, no measured plays, no scientific jumping — no running by rules or laughing by squares. But it is wrong to suppose that such pro- nouncements or stricter codes of public deportment than girls today know could obtain an unlaughing, un- mischievous student body. Furthermore, the picture that Mr. Smith presents of education as a whole is an appealing one, these strictures aside. He cites Milton ' s definition of edu- cation — to permit one to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously the duties of life, and then goes on to speak of the spiritual, mental, and physical as- pect. If he had no use for the lascivious waltz. or the impure imaginations of the French theatre, he still relished a happy and vigorous group of students. Surpassingly beautiful for situation is this location. We reckon among its great advantages this broad green yard; we long to see it the scene of those healthy sports which invigorate without fatigue, amuse without corruption ; excite unaffected goodnature, and even aid in cementing those early friendships which, in after veais, will be remembered as Pilgrims remember Fountains and groves in the vast desert. Well, the cornerstone was laid and sealed, contain- ing among other items the Holy Bible enclosed in oil silk, with the superscription — The only rule of Faith, and First text-book of the Augusta Female Seminary. The Virginia Legislature passed an act incorporating the school on January 30, 1845. The Board met reg- ularly to express satisfaction with the progress of things, to deal with financial and other matters, and to adopt rules. In 1849 Mr. Bailey resigned. As an aeent of the American colonization Society, lie con- v —.. Certificati 1846

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ADMINISTRATION and FACULTY