Maidens in Uniform

Last fortnight, on a lush campus in the swank Rydal section north of Philadelphia, a battalion of 150 uniformed girls, toting wooden rifles, marched in precise military review. It was Ogontz School's commencement day. Military drill has been a feature of Ogontz training since 1890. The late General Thomas D. Landon, commander of neighboring Bordentown (N. J.) Military Institute, who inaugurated military training at Ogontz and drilled the girls until 1935, held the view that you never knew when Amazons would come in handy.

In the opinion of the girls' Bostonian Principal Abby Sutherland, 64, the drill is given to "cultivate poise, grace, better posture," to inculcate "cooperation, coordination, leadership, and loss of self-consciousness ... a very democratic thing, you know." Calculated to cultivate a more essential poise is Ogontz' popular course on babies, held in "Lares," a completely furnished model home. Each fall, the girls study, coddle and raise a two-month-old foundling until Easter, when it goes back to its mother or foster parent. Last year's baby was Betty Jones, whom the girls dubbed "Betty Jogontz."

Oldest of Ogontz prizes is the "Whisk-Broom Neatness" award. To girls whose rooms are spick-&-span go silver brooms engraved: "Order is Heaven's first law." This year's 16 whisk-broom winners were applauded by many a broom-winner mother and grandma (80% of the students are related to graduates) in the audience.

Six granddaughters of Ogontz' chief benefactor, Philadelphia's Civil War Banker Jay Cooke, attended the school. It was when the Chestnut Street Female Seminary moved to Cooke's suburban estate, in 1883, that Ogontz came into being. The estate was named Ogontz after a celebrated Indian Chief from Putin Bay, Ohio, who often visited Cooke on his way to negotiate with the Government. The school took over the name, kept it when it moved again, in 1916, to its present quarters. Principal Sutherland explains: "He was a very good Indian."

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