Contents of this Article:

• Washington College — Page 1
• Greenville College — Page 2
• Tusculum College — Page 3
• Vaughn Memorial Academy, Swift Memorial Seminary, Rittenhouse Academy, Grassy Cove Academy, Beech Academy, Huntsville Academy — Page 4
• New Market Academy, Davies Academy, The Home Industrial School for Girls, The Jeroldstown Academy — Page 5

New Market Academy

Is a chartered institution under the care of Union Presbytery, which also elects the Trustees. It was opened in September, 1885, with two teachers. Its Principals have been Profs. C. E. Ensign, G. S. Roberts and J. G. Newman. It now has four teachers and an attendance of 120 (1888-89). Both male and female scholars are received. It has and English course for those who desire only a first-class English education, and an Academic course for preparing students to enter the Freshman class in our best colleges, including higher algebra, three years in Latin and two years in Greek.

About thirty pupils are in Academic studies. “Able and experienced teachers alone have been employed, and no backward step is to be taken.” Arrangements have been made for the erection of a new Academy building during the year 1889, and the prospect for permanence and prosperity is full of encouragement.

Davies Academy

Is located at Elizabethton, the county seat of Carter county, Tenn., a place peculiarly favorable for present and prospective educational work by our Church. There is a large and increasing population in the town and vicinity needing such an institution, and a railroad connects it with the heart of the Unaka mountains and their large and illiterate population. The institution was named in honor of the Rev. John M. Davies, D. D., through whose instrumentality mainly it was established. It was incorporated July 2, 1887, with twelve Trustees, two-thirds of whom and the Principal must be members of the Presbyterian Church. The Principal must also accept the Westminster Confession of Faith, as containing the system of doctrines contained in the Scriptures.

The school was opened with the Rev. E. B. Waller as Principal, and Mrs. Gibson as assistant, with twenty-nine scholars, which number soon increased to seventy, and required a third teacher.

Mr. Waller is also pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton. Twenty pupils have been received on confession of faith in Christ, and one is a candidate for the ministry. The school so far (January, 1889) has been self-sustaining.

The Home Industrial School for Girls

This institution is located on an eligible site of about thirty acres, and on the crest of a hill one mile south of Asheville, North Carolina. It was founded and for some years successfully conducted by the Rev. L. M. Pease, with the benevolent purpose of giving a good practical education to white girls of the mountain population at a very moderate cost. Through the agency and aid of the Rev. and Mrs. D. Stuart Dodge, of New York city, Mr. Pease generously conveyed the whole property, worth $40,000, to the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, subject only to a charge of $1800 per annum to the donor and his wife during the lives of both and of $1200 to either after the death of the other.

In this school prominence is given to the elementary branches connected with training in the arts and duties of house-keeping, the domestic labor of the Home being performed by the pupils on the plan of Mount Holioke Female Seminary. There is also a Normal Department for training of those who desire to engage in teaching. In 1887, eighty boarders were accommodated, but an addition has since been made affording accommodations for 120 boarders. The cost per scholar per annum is only $80. But as very many of those for whom this institution was mainly designed can pay but little, supplements are provided through the beneficence of Mr. Pease and the Executive Committee of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society.

Nearby, the Southern Presbyterian Church has erected a chapel on ground donated by Mr. Pease, furnishing to the pupils religious instruction on the sabbath, and in the basement a parochial schoolroom, where day scholars can be taught with greater advantage than with the boarders in the Industrial School. Thus both branches of the Presbyterian Church are harmoniously cooperating in this good work of sending the blessings of a Christian education into the homes of a very destitute population.

The Jeroldstown (Jearoldstown) Academy

Located near the northern corner of Greene County, Tenn., is yet in the first stage of its existence. In the midst of a good agricultural region, and having around it a wide field unoccupied by any similar institution, it will doubtless become a flourishing school. It is under the care and control of the Holston Presbytery. Two-thirds of its Board of Trustees are Presbyterians. For several years the Presbytery has had a small Presbyterian Church organization and a comfortable house of worship at Jeroldstown. They now have also a new Academy building, 75 x 30 feet and two stories high, which has cost about $2000.

The aim of the Presbytery is to make the school and church at that point mutually sustaining by placing a minister there who shall be at the same time Principal of the Academy and pastor of the church.

With aid from the Women’s Executive Committee of Home Missions, the school was opened with encouraging success in September, 1889, with Miss Rozee Rankin as teacher.