I am new to Virginia history, having moved back to Virginia 
in January after
several years back in the Carolinas and elsewhere, gaining 
historical
knowledge as well as an M.A. in History from Clemson 
University in
South Carolina. (I lived in Northern Virginia in the 
mid-1980s, during
which time I was just getting acquainted with family history 
research.)

While working towards my M.A., I came across Christie Ann
Farnham's _The Education of the Southern Belle: Higher Education
and Student Socialization in the Antebellum South_. Farnham
states that many of these antebellum schools were more 
challenging
than their contemporary counterparts in the North, and supports
this with comparisons of curricula.

In general, most of these students were from wealthy 
families, but
these were leavened by girls from middle class, sometimes urban,
families. Most of the middle class students apparently 
entered with
the aim of becoming teachers.

My antecedents were mainly upcountry yeoman farmers who
started sending children, sometimes themselves, to further 
education
late in the 19th century. I do have two members of the Southern
Methodist lay clergy in antebellum upcountry South Carolina
who gained their credentials before 1860: this involved 
passing some
sort of examination process by members of the "regular" clergy
at the annual meeting (conference). (My expertise is
primarily in the post-1877 South.)

Elizabeth Whitaker
Alexandria, Virginia

Jim Watkinson wrote:
>      
>  
>  
> The comments regarding southern colleges in the antebellum era  certain have 
> a basis in fact, as do the comments about their  denizens.  The literacy rate 
> in the South was quite small compared to  that of the North.  The number of 
> southerners who acquired enough  preparatory education to think realistically 
> about college was even  smaller.  
> 
> And while there were schools that were free, or the tuition was  limited, 
> potential scholars and their parents still faced the opportunity  costs of 
> attending -- something that kept almost ALL schooling the  province of the "elites" 
> in both sections.  The exceptions seem to  have been those "mechanics" of the 
> South who "made good," and were  determined that their sons would "work with 
> their heads" rather than their  hands.  The fathers often had the money -- and 
> occasionally the  slaves -- to match the planter elite, but they lacked the 
> education.   They determined their sons should have it.  "Scholarships," as we  
> tend to think of them, were few and far between. 

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