Rare Early Mississippi Broadside Commending Local Education

(MISSISSIPPI). Address to the Public. The Trustees of Jefferson College at Washington, Mississippi, have the satisfaction to announce to the public that the Institution is now prepared for the reception of students...25th April, 1839...Levin Wales, Secretary Board of Trustees. [Caption title & partial text]. 13" x 16," printed in four columns, as though on two pages. [Natchez?, Mississippi: 1839]. Printed on watermarked, laid paper. Fine. $1,500.00

Hummel 1088, (one copy), misspelling Secretary Wales' name.

With a faculty of five, including the president of the college.

The first two columns are chiefly devoted to a description of the faculty and their skills, put in place upon the reorganization of the school. In place of gymnastics a daily military drill was to be substituted; a military police "for the preservation of good order and regularity" was to be established. Provision is made for the free admission of one student from each county in the state.

The third column deals chiefly with the need to keep students in their home state: "At this very moment, a formidable contest has commenced between the North and the South, from the possible results of which the eye of the patriot instinctively revolts....it surely becomes us to preserve our children from any influence that might mislead their judgment or weaken their patriotism. To do this effectually we must keep them at home!....

"Send your sons to other States where they are released from social bonds, you not only cut off these powerful incentives to emulation but you do more and worse, you weaken or detach the growing virtues of the heart...You estrange them from their native land...."