CHAPTER XLIII.
ST. AUGUSTINE SCHGOU, RALEIGH, N. C.
ST. AUGUSTINE SCHOOL, RALEIGH, N.C.
schools for the Christian training of young men and women. It embraces Preparatory, Normal, Collegiate and Theological departments. At the present time instruction is also given in carpentry, in tinsmithing, in shoemaking, in bricklaying for the young men, and in sewing, cooking and the care of the household for the girls. It is hoped that industrial instruction may be extended in other directions very soon.
The girls and young men are together in the recitation-room, at their meals and in occasional social reunions, but otherwise the girls' department is managed separately and in a different building. Each girl is provided with her own dressing-room, furnished with a bureau-closet, each provided with a separate lock and key. Trunks are all kept in a trunk-room. Beds stand in the dormitory just outside of each girl's dressing-room. The grounds of the school are situated on an eminence just outside the city of Raleigh and particularly well situated with regard to health and beauty. Especial care is taken of the health of the students. In order to discourage extravagant dressing and cultivate taste for neat and tasteful dress the girls wear uniform dress of dark blue.
While every effort is made by those in charge of the school to make the students happy and contented, there is yet, an earnest belief in such strictness of discipline, compliance with regular duty, vigorous work with mind and body as shall train the character and fit the students for the important work that is before them in actual life.Several hundred students have already been trained as teachers and a number of young men have been prepared for the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
The grounds of the school, embracing some forty-two acres, are devoted to a campus, surrounding the various school buildings, and to a garden in which supplies of fresh vegetables are raised for the school table. The whole property is situated on the outskirts of Raleigh, near enough for convenience and far enough out to be away from the distractions of city life.
While every effort is made to inculcate a respect for manual labor, yet nothing is allowed to interfere with progress in the various studies of the school. The faculty is an able one of ten teachers. Three of them are college graduates, four are graduates of the school, one of another normal school, and the author of this book is lecturer on physiology and the laws of health.
The invested funds of the school at present amount to something over $30,000, the income of which, along with the aid received from the Church, is used in carrying on the school. Total value of funds and school grounds, with buildings, is $65,000. The school charges $7 a month for board and tuition. All of the students are able to reduce this to about $5 per month or somewhat more, in needy cases, by manual work on the school grounds.
Progress is now a watchword of the school, but it is a progress that is conservative of the past as well as hopeful of the future. No progress is of any avail which does not lay its foundations in the moulding of Christian character, in teaching young men and young women to help themselves rather than depend on others, to be gentle men and women in word and manner, to hate sham and respect truth.
The present principal is the Rev. A. K. Hunter.