When Paris Was a College Town |
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By
E. P. Blanton 24
March 1916 Yes,
Paris had her colleges, too, in fact there were two of them, The Paris
Academy and The Paris Female Seminary. That was before public schools
abounded in the country. Almost three hundred students, coming from five
states, attended these institutions before the Civil War and over half
of the enrollment was from outside this town and county. It
was in 1855 that J. C. McBride opened the Paris Boy’s Academy, using
the Ashcraft building over on the Fair Grounds Hill. Then, it was a four
room structure and the best in this vicinity. Only a few months later J.
C. Carter started the Female Seminary in a building on the lot where Les
Dry’s home on Locust street is now located. The buildings and lots of
these two institutions were valued at about $10,000, a large amount for
those days. S.
S. Bassett finished his course in Bethany College, in Virginia about
1856 and a year later took over the control of the boy’s school. Just before the war he headed a faculty of four instructors
and had for students some of the best-known teachers, ministers, and
business men of today. Among
them were:
beside
many others in this vicinity whose name we were unable to get. Quite a
few of these prominent people have passed away but their names are still
fresh in our minds. William Drake, a son of General Drake, who founded
Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, was also a student, his father
brining him all the way to Paris, having heard of the Academy’s
reputation as a school of learning. The
same year Mr. Bassett returned from Bethany, James Campbell, a
schoolmate at the same college, was added to the faculty of the Female
Seminary. Students in the two schools ranged from little tots learning
their alphabet, to mature men and women who were in search of higher
branches of learning, intending to teach school elsewhere. These
two schools divided the Public School Fund allowed this district from
the state. The buildings and furnishings were paid for by public
subscription. The Seminary was the larger of the two, having at one
time, about 175 students while the Academy boasted of only 135. Coming
from all over the Union, the breaking out of war was sure to affect the
relations among the students. Mr. Bassett recalls a pitched battle among
his boys one day that almost broke up the school. After this affair many
withdrew and as the war progressed the enrollment dwindled down until
the Academy was hardly on a paying basis. It was then that Mr. Bassett
resigned, but the school was kept running until 1869 when Paris had her
first public school. The Seminary suffered the same fate and was forced
to close its study halls. But just the same, Paris has been a College town, with all the spirit and enthusiasm that goes to make up the present day college life. And anyone who once attended either the Academy or Seminary can still look back with pride and think, “I once attended the best school in all the land.” |
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