Thurmont’s Seminary gave students an advanced education

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At the beginning of July 1875, the parents and family members of 38 students of the Mechanicstown Male and Female Seminary gathered in Mechanics’ Hall for the first graduation from the school.

“The stage was beautifully decorated and ornamented with flowers and evergreens, and everything looked charming as the children and young ladies, all dressed in white, were pyramidically situated upon it,” the Catoctin Clarion reported.

The seminary had opened the year before by the Middle Conference of the Lutheran Synod of Maryland. It was located in the Stoner House on East Main Street. The Rev. Victor Miller was principal.

The school’s prospectus said that “Its aim is to impart a better education, intellectual and moral, than is afforded by public schools—an education thorough in character and practical as possible.”

The school taught three grades, though they don’t correspond to the same grades used today. It roughly matches grades 1-6 in elementary schools today. Students were instructed in math, bookkeeping, sciences, Latin and Greek. Students could also receive instruction in music, drawing and painting for an extra charge. Each school day was also opened and closed with scripture reading and prayer so that “The moral welfare of pupils will be faithfully regarded,” according to the prospectus.

The seminary also enforced a discipline policy on students that it said was without “undue severity, yet insisted upon industry, order, prompt obedience, allowing no profane or reproachful language,” according to the prospectus.

The Mechanicstown Male and Female Seminary had two terms; one 15 weeks long and the other 12 weeks long. Tuition for the year cost $14 to $22, depending on the grade the student was in. Students could also board at the school for an additional $90 a year.

The prospectus pitched the school as a boarding with “the advantages of town, combined with the quiet of country.”

After final exams, the closing exercises in Mechanics’ Hall showed off what the students had learned during the year.

During the final exercises in July 1875, after the opening, the students sang, “Come to the mountains,” was followed by speeches, essays, &c., interspersed by excellent music. Had we space sufficient, it would afford much pleasure to give a synopsis of each…,” reported the Catoctin Clarion.

Some of the ones the newspaper did mention were the solo version of “A Street Face at the Window,” sung by Belle Anders and Annie Webster’s reading from Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers.

“The most brilliant and natural oratorial (sic) powers, however, we think were centered in Master Luke McHenry, a lad of 12 or 14 years of age. His jestures, (sic) articulation, and natural case and grace of deliverance may well be the envy of many older and greater experienced speakers,” the Catoctin Clarion noted.

Though the students were young, the Clarion praised their abilities and presentations that ended the Mechanicstown Male and Female Seminary’s first year.

Mechanicstown would eventually get its first four-room school in 1880 and its first high school in 1892. And even after the seminary closed, the building would go on to house several private schools over the years.

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