Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 26.djvu/365

 I In,, .! M  and all ages beyond childhood," which is pn-tixrd to the lectures, a> illustrating Mr. < iarm-tt's humor and the quaint manners of the time.

These lectures were followed by a volume of lectures on various topics of morals, manners, conduct, and intellectual improvement, addressed to Mrs. Garnett's pupils at Elmwood, Essex county, Va., 1825-6, whose object is shown by their title.

Moral and religious education was carried on in this school pari- passu with mental training, and resulted in a threat success.

The scholars, without exception as far as is known, became per- sonally attached to the family, and one (the late Charles F. M. Gar- nett, son of James M. Garnett, a distinguished civil engineer, to whose reminiscences of his father this address is much indebted), who knew them all well, and met with many in after life, testifies that he never saw or heard of one of these scholars who did not be- come a religious and useful woman and an ornament to society. Notwithstanding the scant means of communication in that day the school was attended by pupils from other States and often reached fifty in number.

The school for young ladies was kept up for eight years, when, owing to Mrs. Garnett's ill-health, it was closed, and a school for boys was opened, one object of which was the education of Mr. Garnett's grandson, Muscoe R. H. Garnett, the only child of Mr. Garnett's eldest son, James Mercer Garnett, Jr., who married, in 1820, his first cousin, Maria Hunter, sister of the late Hon. Robert M. T. Hunter, distinguished as a statesman in the U. S. House of Representatives and Senate, and in the C. S. Senate, and who served for a time as Secretary of State of the Confederate States.

Muscoe R. H. Garnett was born on July 25, 1821, was a member of .the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850, of the State Leg- islature, of the Virginia Convention of 1861, of the U. S. Congress from 1857 to 1861, and of the C. S. Congress from 1861 until his death in February, 1864. His pamphlet on "The Union, past and future; how it works and how to save it; by a citizen of Virginia," written in 1850, created great interest, and took a prominent place in the political controversies of that day. He was cut off in the prime of life and usefulness.

Teachers were employed to conduct this boys' school at Elmwood, and Mr. Garnett took the same part in it that he had taken in the girls' school. In 1830 he delivered to the boys a series of four lec- tures, containing, as he writes in the dedication, "the result of my