Locust Grove Academy
In this May 1, 1859, broadside, Gessner Harrison announces the establishment of Locust Grove Academy, a boarding school for boys fifteen miles west of Charlottesville. Harrison left his position as a professor of ancient languages at the University of Virginia to start the school. In his announcement, Harrison promised that the location "is perfectly healthy, in a moral community, remote from temptations to vice, and convenient of access." In addition to a rigorous curriculum, he stressed the development of each boy's character:
The discipline will be parental, blending gentleness with firmness, as the character and disposition of the pupil may require. The object will be to form … habits of attention, of regularity and diligence in study, of upright and gentlemanly conduct, and of sound morals based on christian principles. A boy of incorrigible bad habits will not be retained in the School.
Tuition and boarding for a ten-month school term cost $280.
Citation: Locust Grove Academy. Principal, Gessner Harrison, M.D., L.L.D. Broadside 1859 .H37. Special Collections, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA