On the Slopes of Mt. Ida

PRIVATE SCHOOLS

"Genuine learning has ever been said to give polish to man; why then should it not bestow charms on women?" Pioneer Educator Emma Willard 150 years ago answered her own question with energy and decision. As farmers jeered ("They'll be educating the cows next"), she started a school for girls in her home in Middlebury, Vt. A few years later she moved her classes to a remodeled coffee house in Troy, N.Y., and set up the school as a Female Seminary, where young ladies learned such novelties as science, philosophy, literature, foreign languages and history.

By virtue of this head start, "Fern Sem," now the Emma Willard School, is the oldest academic girls' school in the U.S. It is still as progressively rigorous as in the days of its no-frills founder. "No deb balls for us," says Principal William Dietel, 37. "The parents want their children to have a superior education. They don't want it all gummed up with manners."

White Gloves & Pink Diplomas. Ungummed social graces were much in evidence last week as 90 graduates carried pink diplomas in one white-gloved hand and pink roses in the other. An organ played, and as if on signal, the girls broke into tears--for Emma Willard will be hard to leave.

The beautifully landscaped 55-acre campus, on the slopes of Mt. Ida, near Troy, centers on a quadrangle of neo-Gothic dorms and classrooms mostly donated by Alumna Mrs. Russell Sage (wife of a millionaire investor), a library with 19,000 volumes, hockey fields, riding stables, a gymnasium with swimming pool and bowling alleys. Tuition and board costs $3,000, and optional charges (piano lessons, for example) can raise the bill by another $ 1,000. Yet Emma Willard is not a rich school; the endowment per pupil is $2,500, compared to $11,400 for Miss Porter's in Connecticut. Emma Willard took in only $80,000 in gifts last year, all of which went to scholarships and loans to 62 of its 340 students. A $5,000,000 fund-raising drive aims to finance new construction, raise teachers' salaries (average: $4,000-$5,000), and widen scholarship aid.

Learning by Era. Modernizing a plan of study introduced by Emma Willard in the 19th century, the curriculum integrates its studies of art, religion, music and literature into single historical eras. A freshman studies ancient history. A sophomore learning about the Renaissance studies the medieval church, listens to Gregorian chants, designs an illuminated manuscript in her art class. The junior year concentrates on the industrial revolution, and the senior year on modern times.

About half of the girls go on to some 40 women's colleges in the East, including all the "Seven Sisters," but no particular sister more than the others: the other half--for all Emma Willard girls go to college--choose coed colleges all over the U.S. Girls from Emma Willard usually do exceptionally well, and many become lawyers, doctors and teachers.

Principal Dietel, a graduate of Exeter, Princeton and Yale, came to Emma Willard in 1961 from Amherst, where he was assistant professor of humanities. "I knew nothing about teen-age girls," he said, but his ignorance has been a blessing. While keeping academic standards as tough as ever, he has softened some of the starchiness. Young ladies may now wear pink nail polish.

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