Page:Frances Wood Shimer 1826-1901.djvu/15

 a superior instructor, and particularly qualified to drill prospective teachers in Normal methods. Later, Mrs. Hazzen, by building up the music department, and Miss Joy, by developing the broader policy of modern education, were valuable coadjutors.

When the school opened, and for years afterward, there were few if any high schools or normal schools to train teachers. Not only was there strenuous opposition, of a degree difficult to imagine in this age of co-education, to the admission of women to colleges and professional schools, but the pioneer population had little money to spend for artistic culture and higher education; hence, for the majority, the intermittent, ungraded district school was the only source for an education. The Seminary, by providing a “home school” affording opportunities for advancement and artistic culture, and in providing a way for those of limited means to secure these advantages, created and increasing demand for its line of work by answering a demand. The established reputation for thoroughness in academic work, the reflex influence of the success of graduates and undergraduates in practical life, fostered by judicious advertising, drew to it a patronage from many states, the territory widening with the lapse of years.

From 1869 to 1872 might be called the “transition period” of the Seminary, brought about by circumstances and demands. Mrs. Shimer was broad-minded enough to give reins to those who showed special fitness to hold them. Different departments took shape under the direction of teachers prepared for special lines of work; thus by “specializing,” a desire to reach higher standards and higher ideals was engendered and realized. A teacher said, after she left the school: “It is not so much what they do at Mount Carroll Seminary, as the high ideals they try to create.” The course of study has always been in advance of the demand, even in special and technical departments, dating from the time when Mrs. Shimer brought the first piano into the county.

The mere acquisition of knowledge was by no means the extent of its curriculum. Its underlying principle was that the training of intellect should be paralleled by the training of character. With love of books, music, and art should be instilled ideals of sincerity, thoroughness, direct purpose, and self-reliance. A