A Romance Of The Old Seminary

by Mrs. Clara Bodine Stavely

The first public school in Paris was taught in 1867 and its first principal was the late R.N. Bodine.  His first assistant was Mrs. Weedon, who afterwards became Mrs. Marcus Blakey, and who was the mother of Messrs. Angus and Harry Blakey.  Before the bonding of Monroe county for a public school there were two very famous institutions of learning in our early town.  They were known respectively as "The Paris Male Academy" and "The Paris Female Seminary."  The first public school was taught in the old academy building, which is standing today in excellent condition, and is the home of Lou Smizer.  Over the destinies of the presidential timber of this male academy our dear old friend, S.S. Bassett, presided and a famous old pedagogue he was, it is said.  Today at the advanced age of 82 he is still a convenient and willing "pony" to struggling young seniors and juniors over difficult passages in Tacitus, Cicero and Virgil. 

The female seminary, perhaps even more widely celebrated than its male contemporary was in its early day under the superintendency of Prof. Jesse Carter.  How his assistant came is best told in the words of Miss Laura Bower in her graduation chronicles.  "How it came to pass in the year 1855, in the reign of Franklin Pierce, who executed justice among the people, that great lamentations were heard among the Parishioners of the goodly city of Paris--parents wailing and lifting up their voices for no one could be found to assist the good man Jesse in training the youth:  fir he found the burden too great to be borne by one man.  And he issued a proclamation which was heard in the far East:  and James of the House of Campbell, skilled in all learning of the times hearkened unto it and came to the assistance of the good man Jesse."  And no doubt assistance was needed for 100 girls were enrolled.  Then it seems the two professors uniting their voices sent out another cry for help, this one reaching in this attempt so far as distant Germany, and answered by one certain Augustus Buchel.  It seemed the young ladies desired instruction in voice culture and on the "piano forte," and to quote Miss Bower again, "And lo!  people came from distant counties to hear August of the tribe of Buchel perform his wonders on the musical instruments and none heard him but to noise abroad his great art to the surrounding country.  And they said of him, "behold, not one half of his greatness has been told."  I am speaking of the music master at such length for he it was who was destined to play opposite, in life's drama, the subject of this little sketch. 

From all we can learn of this school it can be said with certainty that its musical advantages far outranked its purely academic features.  It was not, however, for the reason that its curriculum was not long and broad and comprehensive; nor was it of Horatio's brand that Hamlet speaks of so lightly, for in it was embraced all that Heaven and Earth held.  As for science, they studied every science extant one might say--every science known to one man with, of course, the exception of Christian and domestic--they had not been discovered then. 

In view of the particular insistence that they placed upon this branch of learning it seems singular that the school for the young gentlemen and not this one was nicknamed "The Hill of Science." 

The old building stood on the site now occupied by the Less dry property and I remember it only as a tall, gaunt, abandoned old ruin.  Far from being an institution of learning in my remembrance of it, it had "bats in its belfry," if my readers will pardon my slang.  You know what Victor Hugo says of it and so I dare.  On the presumption, I take it , that "much learning had made it mad."  It had doves too, cooing in dolorous note and I remember deciding as I looked at it when a child that if ever I should believe in ghosts it would be with that old dismantled seminary as a background.  With that old ruin of a music room where the merry voices of girls of forty years ago had been heard and where they had practiced and sung and gossiped.  And one of those ghosts that would arise before me would be the wraith of sweet, fair-headed, sentimental Wealthy Applegate, valedictorian of the class of 1857, whose graduation essay is before me as I write, and a letter written in 1861 to her "Dearest Luta," in the fine Italian hand of that day.  I am ashamed as I write to remember the looseness of our own style today, and the illegibility of our own chirography, which in some cases is the despair not only of those who set our "copy" but of our most frequent correspondents. 

Of all the charming and talented young women who sought instruction from the far-famed Prof. Buchel  perhaps there was not one so pretty and gifted as Wealthy Applegate.  She it was with whom he fell in love and soon after her graduation married.  Family and close kindred from that day looked upon her as dead to them.  She had doubly offended by her alliance with a foreigner and a music master.  Her name was never mentioned by them nor her few communications opened and there is no ordinary sadness in the lines of her old letter from New York City, which I quote verbatim:

"At this, the twilight hour, comes a thought of old friends and home.  I suppose you wonder what I call home--such a wandered as I.  (She had traveled extensively in Europe after her marriage.)  But there are still several places I call home--one my dear mother-in-law's in far-off Berlin; another is the place where Mr. Buchel is, but the place the heart calls home is the place where I was born, where my father and mother lived and died--dear beloved little Paris!"

Of her reception into the Buchel home glowing accounts filled the Berlin newspapers and there were tales of roses and flowers of all kinds having been strewn on their pathway up the steps of the handsome old German home:  for the Buchels were people of affluence.  When at one blow their tidy little fortune was swept away it left barren the hopes of the younger folks for a comfortable and restful old age.  But Wealthy Buchel was never destined for old age, for at forty-three she died.  She and her husband, a pair of impecunious teachers--she of the languages and he of the same art that had been heralded among Parisians.  Such was the sad history of her who with more prescience than she dreamed, wrote (Or maybe she did know and her valedictory was no ordinary trite school girl farewell)  "The thought comes sadly over my heart that the beautiful chain of feeling and love which we have been forging link by link, is tonight forever broken."

Poor Wealthy!  Paradoxical as the expression itself, was your lot in life.  "Wealthy" in name, in talents and in capacity for living life in its fullness to you never comes that realization of your dreams which your little girl essay voices.  Except in the love of a good man, you were poor indeed in life's fulfillment of your hopes.  But with it all, a cultured, lovely woman.