Farmer and Fisherman, June 8, 1893
Margaret Academy.
Infrastructure -- Public : TownsInfrastructure -- Public : SchoolsMoral -- Alcohol
As unusual interest has been developed in the location of this time-honored institution, I have concluded to bore your reader on the subject.
Men are accustomed to laugh and make fun of women when in convention, on their unbusiness-like methods, etc. I think, however, the time has come for men to hush. I believe that the same number of women as trustees of that fund would have settled the question of location at one sitting. The results, so far, of the meetings at Keller, only serve to prove the old adage, "men are but children of a larger growth." It seems to me, for those who are interested and have children of their own to be educated, the first question to ask ourself is this: If I have to send my boys from home to school in what town on Eastern Shore of Virginia would I prefer them to be? Any father who has his child's best interest at heart will at once conclude that town whose social, moral and religious environments are the best. If there is any doubt in the minds of the trustees as to which town is entitled to this distinction they can easily visit them and see. There is no town of equal size in the state of Virginia or anywhere that I know where the people take more interest in education than in Onancock. The citizens are in rapport with the scholars; and this is a great advantage to begin with. The citizens take an interest in the scholars. They are invited and welcomed to their Sunday schools, churches and homes. The moral and social surroundings of the scholars cannot be equaled in any other town on Eastern Shore of Virginia. Located at Onancock, with a competent corps of teachers, there cannot be a failure. It is bound to succeed.
Onancock has spent more money for education than all the other towns on Eastern Shore of Virginia combined. She is just now beginning to reap something from the seed sown. Onancock is at least 20 years ahead of Cape Charles in all that would tend to invite a school, save bar-rooms. Cape Charles has the advantage there, and I dare say will keep it to the end.
In Eastville the society is good, but there are too many gentlemen who dram and dream of the days that are no more.
Franktown is a neat little village with a great deal of self respect, but it is too near Frogtown.
Belle Haven has the advantage of a big mud-puddle and an excellent hotel with a jolly good landlord whom they say keeps good liquors.
Keller is central and has a bar-room and the best livery on the Shore, but few inhabitants.
Parksley is a young, ambitious town, full of brag. It has the advantage of a bottling establishment for beer, etc., and has a few inhabitants.
Onancock is incorporated, has a mayor and council, from 1,000 to 1,200 inhabitants and I suppose but one little bar-room. In Cape Charles saloons seem to be the principal business. I heard a gentleman who lives there call it the "Bar-room City."
Now let us women speak: If there is anything upon the face of God's earth we have a right to hate and teach our boys to shun, it is bar-rooms.
Shall we then, in their tender years when most susceptible to influence that make or ruin, send them where the temptations are the greatest? Let the question come home to your own heart. Why, woman's intuition in this matter is worth all the wisdom and speeches that have been made on the subject. The advantages which Onancock has is worth more to the old academy than $20,000. How like, I won't say women, but how like children it looks for men to say, "If you won't let me have it, you shan't. I'll break it up, turn it into some other channel." If I knew the number of inhabitants, I would give statistics showing in each town that wants the Academy the number of saloons to each inhabitant. In such a race Bobtown would rank first, Bridgetown, possibly, next and Cape Charles bringing up the rear. Men may laugh at these suggestions and say they don't count that these bar-rooms have anything to do with the question of location. They may not, but if you hope for success after locating, you had better take them into account. If I had to send my boys to a town where the yellow fever or small pox or leprosy was, I would sooner send them to one where there was only one case than to a town where there were a dozen cases. I would sooner have him scarred up for life by these, than to have imprinted upon his fair cheeks the fatal marks of alcoholism. Saloons are sores, ulcerated and contaminating sores, upon the social, moral and religious community in which they exist. There is no getting around it. The community that is without them is blest, the one that has them is cursed to the extent of the damage they do.
Shakespeare says that "Liquor steals away the mind." It does not only steal it, but rots it.
If these things be true, is it not the part of wisdom, the very best step to success and usefulness to locate such an institution in the town which has the most inhabitants and the fewest bar-rooms? If there is another town of importance on the Eastern Shore of Virginia that can make a better showing than Onancock in physical, moral and religious surroundings, I say by all means locate it there, for then you are following out one of God's great laws, which exists in the educational, moral and religious world. "To him who hath shall be given; to him who hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."
No town can enjoy the luxury of eight or ten bar-rooms without paying dearly for it in cash as well as other things.
The age in which we live is a fast age in judgement, as well as in other things. A man's work to-day is soon tested. A school's work to-day is soon tested. There is such a thing as rapid transit in judgement. If you want things to last and be a blessing forever, and your name carried down to posterity as wise thinkers and wiser builders, you cannot do better than locate the Margaret Academy at Onancock, Accomac county, Va. Asking pardon for any offense, if I have given any, I am,
Yours truly, Mrs. Armistead.