The Monroe County Female Seminary

The Monroe County Female Seminary

Bloomington, Indiana

Utilizing materials from the IU Archives, Wylie House, and the Monroe County History Center, this exhibit commemorates one of the first publicly funded efforts to provide females in Bloomington with an education. Over 100 academies were incorporated in Ohio and Illinois by the 1840s, many of them private or semi-private. Indiana and Iowa, however, “established ‘County Seminaries’ built on land granted by the state.” [1] This exhibit tells the story of one such entity, the Monroe County Female Seminary (MCFS).

The state legislature passed the “County Seminary Law” in early 1818 – the same year Monroe County was incorporated with Bloomington as the county seat. It authorized the governor to appoint a county “seminary trustee” who could marshal the income from public fines and fees and put it towards the construction of a public seminary. [2] As early as 1822, the citizens of Monroe County officially expressed their interest in establishing a “female seminary.” It would be more than another decade, however, before the seminary fund reached $2,000, the mandated minimum needed to petition the legislature for a seminary charter. The MCFS Board of Trustees received their charter from the legislature in 1833; the seminary funds were used to purchase two contiguous tracts of land, a two-story timber structure was erected on the corner of 7th and College Ave, and the MCFS opened its doors in the spring of 1835 with Cornelius Pering as its first principal. Between 1835 and approximately 1863, the MCFS had three different administrators and purportedly graduated between 600-900 students. Like Indiana University, tuition fees were always necessary to keep the seminary afloat. A number of MCFS graduates went on to become teachers, including Margaret McCalla, Indiana’s first female school superintendent.[3]

We sometimes forget that during the 19th century, the case for educating girls and women had to be made eloquently and often! What follows is a sample of Cornelius Pering’s persuasiveness.

It is becoming more and more evident from the nature of our social relations, that the surest way to effect a universal diffusion of general intelligence is liberally to educate our females, to make ample provision and spare no pains for giving them a thorough, solid and useful education. The tone of moral sentiment in the land depends upon the women of the land. It will bear the character which they consent to have it bear. The amount and importance of the influence which they exercise over manners, opinions and customs cannot be overrated, and if the age is to be purified, elevated and adorned, it must be by female encouragement and example.[4]

[1] See Kim Tolley’s “The Rise of the Academies: Continuity or Change?” in History of Education Quarterly; Vol. 41, No.2 (Summer 2001), pg. 229.

[2] See Richard G. Boone’s A History of Education in Indiana, 1892, D. Appleton & Co., New York, pg. 43.

[3] McCalla School, located between 9th and 10th on Indiana Ave, was named in honor of Margaret McCalla. The Monroe County school corporation sold the building to Indiana University; it is used as studio space for Fine Arts students. .

[4] See the Bloomington Post, November 6, 1840.