Pennsylvania, 16; New Jersey, 12; Georgia, 6; South Carolina, 4; Cuba, 4; Costa Rica, 3; New York, 3; Virginia, 2; Maryland, 1; Mississippi, 1. Less stress was laid upon Latin and Greek than upon the sciences and courses preparatory to a commercial life. The catalogue of 1860 announces that "unless at the request of parents and guardians they (Latin and Greek) are not insisted upon generally. Particular and especial care is taken to impart a sound English education, and all means are employed to qualify students as thoroughly and in as short time as possible for entering the counting house and undertaking the usual pursuits of a mercantile life. Mathematics, bookkeeping, English literature, elocution, penmanship, geography and history, and the modern languages are always made the particular objects of constant and careful attention." Music was so popular that a college band was organized.

Students were forbidden to leave the collegiate bounds unaccompanied by one of the prefects. But opportunity for "healthful relaxation and amusement" was afforded by a convenient playground, two ball alleys, two ten-pin alleys, a field for cricket, shinny, and foot ball, and a gymnasium, "with all the latest, most interesting, and safest improvements." The close proximity to the famous Brandywine afforded the students "bathing in summer, skating in winter, and pleasant walking at all seasons." The use of tobacco was prohibited. "No inveterate smoker or tobacco-chewer will be permitted to enter the college as a student." The charge for board and room in the college dormitory, tuition, etc., was $150 per annum. The scholastic year began about September 1 and closed about the last of June.

Students were encouraged to study by a lavish distribution of prizes. In 1860 premiums were distributed for excellence in rhetoric, drawing, French, German, Spanish, Latin, Greek, natural philosophy, geometry, algebra, history, Christian doctrine, music, and the primary studies.

The Civil War cut off southern patronage so that there were in 1868 but 40 students in attendance. The same year the college was closed, the building was sold to a syndicate, and in 1875 demolished. Thus ends the history of the first and only Roman Catholic college in Dela

ware.

WESLEYAN FEMALE COLLEGE.2

The Wesleyan Female College, one of the earliest institutions in the land for the higher education of women, was established in 1837. Rev. Solomon Prettyman, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, had for several years been conducting at Seaford a flourishing female seminary, which, in 1837, he was induced to remove to Wilmington. The Wesleyan Female Seminary was opened on Market street with thirty pupils in

1 Barnard's Journal of Education, Vol. xvIII, 1869, p. 205.

The writer is indebted to Miss Ruthanna Day, Dover, Del., a graduate of the college, for many of the facts contained in this sketch.

attendance. In 1838 it was removed to a larger building at Ninth and Market streets, and in the following year a large building, especially adapted to school purposes, was erected on French street above Sixth.

In 1841 the school was chartered under the name of the Wesleyan Female Collegiate Institute and started in its new quarters with 125 pupils. The students published the Female Student and Young Ladies' Advocate from 1844 to 1847. During the next three years the institute did not prosper, and in 1851 the control passed from the Rev. Solomon Prettyman into the hands of a board of trustees, representing the Methodist Episcopal Church. January 17, 1855, a new charter was obtained, granting to the Wesleyan Female College the power to confer degrees upon graduates and securing to the Philadelphia conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church a representation of six members in the board of trustees. The college then took a new lease of life, and before the close of the year 257 students were enrolled. The majority of these came from Delaware and Maryland, but a large number also came from Pennsylvania, Virginia, District of Columbia, and more distant States. Two courses of study were provided, the English and the classical, each extending over a period of three years, and divided into three classes-sophomore, junior, and senior. The degree of B. A. was conferred upon those who completed both courses, while those who completed the English course alone received the degree of mistress of English literature.

A building was erected on Sixth street under the direction of William Bright, one of the trustees, at a cost of $13,000. The college was fairly successful for many years, but about eighteen years ago began to to suffer a loss of patronage. In 1882 the property was purchased by William Bright and a new charter was obtained under the name of the Wesleyan College. An effort was made to resuscitate it free from sectarian control, under the presidency of the Rev. John Wilson, but in vain, and the doors were finally closed in 1885. The building is now used as a hotel.

The following is a complete list of the presidents: Rev. Solomon Prettyman, A. M., 1837-1851; T. E. Sudler, A. M., 1851-1852; Rev. George Loomis, D. D., 1852-1857; Rev. Lafayette C. Loomis, A. M., M. D., 1857-1858; Rev. John Wilson, A. M., 1858-1878; Rev. James M. Williams, A. M., 1878-1882; Rev. John Wilson, A. M., 1882–1885.

Literary societies.-Three literary societies were in operation during a considerable period of the history of the institution; the I. R. I. S. organized in 1854, the Minerva in 1868, and the Browning in 1872. All of them had pleasant, well-furnished rooms, and libraries, and were a valuable and interesting feature of the college life.

Alumna.-The list of alumnæ is both long and honorable. They are scattered over the globe. Many of them have done excellent work as missionaries. The Misses Waugh, the one a graduate of 1855, the other of 1858, were among the early missionaries to China and established the first girls' school-Waugh Seminary-at Foochow, China.

WILMINGTON COMMERCIAL COLLEGE.

The only business college in the State was opened by the present principal, H. S. Goldey, in 1887, since which time it has grown rapidly. In 1888-89, 207 students were enrolled. Mr. Goldey is an experienced accountant and has long been familiar with the work. He is assisted by nine instructors. The college is favorably situated in Institute building, northwest corner Eighth and Market streets, Wilmington. The full commercial course embraces bookkeeping, business forms, business customs, business practice, banking, expert accounting, correspondence, commercial law, business ethics, political economy, business penmanship, lettering and box-marking, business arithmetic, practical grammar, rapid calculations, practical spelling, and commercial terms. In addition special courses are offered in phonography and typewriting. The instruction is mainly individual and the time required to complete the course depends therefore upon the student. "The shortest time yet made in completing the full course was six months." The college is open from the 1st of September until the last of June and furnishes a day session of ten months and an evening session of six months. For the full course of ten months a tuition fee of $80 is required, but students who attend a shorter period are charged pro rata. The school has already won a good name in the State.

CHAPTER IX.

DELAWARE COLLEGE.

THE BACKGROUND OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN DELAWARE.

The background of higher education in Delaware is deeply tinted with Presbyterianism. The mind reverts to that meeting of the Lewes Presbytery in 1738 at which the memorial to the Philadelphia synod was formulated. Then it leaves the State to seek at New London, Pa., four years later, the famous school of Francis Alison, the staunch ScotchIrish Presbyterian to whom school seemed as necessary to the church as the anvil to the blacksmith. Thence it follows the current of higher education in its slow and sinuous winding towards Newark, until, breaking its academic banks, it seeks a broader channel in Delaware College.

The immeasurable influence of Dr. Alison was supplemented and encouraged by the statesmen of that day who could not endure that their State, which had been the first to adopt the Constitution, and among the first to learn the art of self-government, should lag behind her sisters in that which is both "the chief ornament and the safeguard of a nationeducation." The statesmen of Delaware during the early part of the present century were usually men of scholarly instincts, many of them of great scholastic attainments, and graduates of Yale, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania, were by no means rare. Classical scholarship was in such good repute that but few of the shining legal lights were strangers at once to the Greek and the Latin tongues.

Whatever may be said concerning the future of classical scholarship among lawyers it can not be denied that the division of labor, which is rapidly encroaching upon the domain of law, is accompanied by a decadence of classical scholarship among lawyers. Whether the so-called practical training, which has been substituted for it, possesses all the virtues of its predecessor is a question presented for solution to the present generation. It is even now difficult to decide whether the man whose life is spent in the mere routine of raising a sledge hammer and letting it fall is in greater danger of mental atrophy than he who cranes his neck and strains his eyes for eight or ten hours daily, year in and year out, in examining musty records-to such an extent has the division