For Mary Baldwin

by Antony Frame

For latest paragraph, see end of this page.

Prelude

Staunton Virginia is a small town of some twenty five thousand residents and rolls with the hills at a key intersection of roads in the once frontier that founded Augusta County. Among its hilltops lies a school founded by a Presbyterian Mission to educate women in the wilderness. That success led to the heights of teaching the arts or histories with Mary Julia Baldwin. How she accomplished this feat will engage the reader who resides near the modern campus and will follow her lead. Women's role in Virginia were once regarded as essential for the Home, exemplified by the Governor and his Wife, while today Rev Bailey's admonition to regard a woman as a reasoning individual proves in her analytical capacity. For reading the past is essential in practicing good government and a school dedicated to the interdisciplinary studies draws attention. Virginia took to the sciences with the calling for STEM education, while a government needs look to the Arts and Histories and English Language to promote future leaders. The notion that Virginia was informed by Great Britain will not surprise many.

"It is a proverbial saying that the people of the United States are a nation of dyspeptics, based on the statement that they neglect everything else in a mad rush for the "almighty dollar"--bolting their food, denying themselves the necessary relaxations and recreations of life, so important to the development of a healthy mind. Happily this cannot be said of Staunton nor people of Virginia. We enjoy ourselves rationally, and are the better for it. Staunton is a city of workers.....They "make haste slowly."

from a newspaper cliping dated 1890s, found at Trinity Episcopal Church, Staunton; link.

Testament

Mary Julia was of a New England family that had planted in Virginia. She lived when the transcendentalists distilled the pure air and looked for the right placement of things or ideas; it was an outlook that embraced and encompassed life and religion was regarded as an individual's responsibility. That focus produced writers like Margaret Fuller and Herman Melville who was aided by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Established religion, though, as in Yale or Harvard was the foundation of higher education which Virginia followed in her oldest college at Williamsburg; so did Mary Baldwin. To a new arrival, who attended a Quaker high school that compass makes sense now and is vital, if only the young mind can be persuaded--a realization that comes too late in one's career can be a burden. Nevertheless, the Mary Baldwin experience in the early years from Seminary to College as narrated by the competence of Mary Watters, Ph.D. offers good and hopeful lessons. The books that inadvertently helped me approach the history of Mary Baldwin were New Englanders but the arrival of the Wilson Family, Presbyterians, contribute to the story by the incredible writing skills of young Woodrow on education who I would not dismiss. So fortunate is the town that places knowledge in high regards, as the cause of happiness.

If Mary Julia is an elusive personality whose presence was felt and recounted and difficult to reach today, I would relate to her by great writings of her period when she attended school, based on her contemporaries. The few letters I have seen in her writing reveal an articulate and temperate person when leading the English Department as well. 

The books that help understand the period when she grew up:

The Memoir of Margaret Fuller in pdf link
Where her analytics dominates, the leadership skill to record personal portraits by an executive is implied in Margaret's ability to describe the inner person. Letters by her closest friends at Cambridge help to see the student at Cambridge.

The Whale or Destructive Patterns in pdf link
by Herman Melville
Abbreviated to showcase the personalities in a ship of state as written by a shipmate, a Presbyterian, whose objective is steeped in American history.

Woodrow Wilson: Essential Writings
Found at the Staunton Public Library when I first arrived; it revealed a young man and later president who was raised in a Clergy family home and after Staunton witnessed the destruction of Atlanta as a young man. His bike trip to England, a maternal inheritance who was from the border region of Britain, and detailed knowledge of how England was united made a prfound impression. He would oversea America's rise as a global power, give the Philippines its independence by law, and work closely with the United Kingdom to begin the post-colonial period; link. His Archives is at Staunton in a private and independent foundation; link.

First Impressions

A present reader will by Mary Watters' retelling recognize graduates at the turn of the 20th century who are versed and ready to take responsibility in Public positions or Public interest today in 2026. Their opportunies were limited then and one wishes to see the same rigour that was assigned and expected then to wonder how they may fare today. A country like America lead by the Episcopelian imprint and individuals always looks for talent based on competence, in my observations. It is easy to forget how talented the religion was in  founding a continental scale while new talent follows opportunities at first in Business and Industry. Whenever Pioneers emerge to take responsibilities in government, the competence for  the Arts and Histories and Literature will prove paramount as the same Episcopalians learned early on with Shakespeare and the Common Prayer. Lacking that agility for memory and language, it's difficult to see how the young will acquire the patterns and temperament to make good decisions in a constitutional framework. While Science predominates in the space age, the Arts in Virginia are highly esteemed. They depend on intense reading and writing skills. At Mary Baldwin, Virginia Lester reintroduced the polish that was strained after the Bacchus of the 1960s, as I read the yearbooks; Cynthis Halden by Tyson raised a university, and with Pamela Fox her successor practiced the inclusive to bring new students to campus. It's also difficult to contemplate the void of religion in a school dedicated to the study of the Arts, as the First Presbyterian Architecture looks across the road towards the campus. It's a challenge America will look and answer based on her experiences as valid as Catholic Schools. At Mary Baldwin, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eisenhower are represented by their once presence to give a speech; Ike visited the Staunton Military Academy which is a close and cherished neighbor that let go its all-male criteria to gift its inheritance to a woman's institute; one of her graduates is listed as a pilot for Marine One. That SMA discipline and confidence, I think, can be see on the town roads in the Police Force. 

The image of a Mary Baldwin graduate who enters Public Service in the near future at home captured my thinking as I dwelt in British Literature with one of her Educators and realized in classroom discussions that a complete story must be told as America evolved from first landing with Great Britain mentorship to a global power as like-minded friend and how it measures competence. In the spirit of the Marshall Plan, the Episcopalian Elite in the global period gifts the newly given freedom and awaits. 

What their expectations are we may ask.

Setting

In the words of Mrs. Grafton as shown in a yearbook, Mary Baldwin is "small and intimate" and in my reasoning fits and relates with the vocational practices in the city. That city also upholds a school for the deaf and blind, widely recognized and may one day provide pioneers to the colleges at Baldwin; the traditional boarding schools that instilled character for the Ivy Leagues, pre-eminent in the Humanities for leadership reasons may be noticed at Stuart Hall; The Blackfriars turns one's attention towards Queen Elizabeth and her court as a worthy model for young women's education when we realize how well read her Court was. The same confidences that maintained England's independence will be noted as good skills in the History or English Departments by interdisciplinary approach which I discovered at Hopkins while working full time. How a city named after Lady Rebecca Staunton, a Governor's wife who with her husband was instilled to develop a new geography that was the Royal Dominion will also prove to be the residents' cause today as part of a Commonwealth. That knowledge for leading a city is based on science and the arts and far more demanding at the higher levels. If the purpose of university education is to learn content, then the student will apply his or her skills to research and web navigation. But if PUBLIC Service requires analytics of untold dilemmas that may arise and leadership skills to self-govern or others, she or he will depend on Character developed consistent with earlier years, at best, or to remedy difficult beginnings--a demanding endeavor--all of which are decisions for Women Educators and Presidents, with Master's or Philosophy Doctorate degrees. We well remember highschool teachers who influenced us, while my portrait of Educators with Ph.D. renders an impressive presence as I observe them. Mary Julia's character derived from English and German inheritances while her constant focus on talent may have been her means to justify the curriculum. A man walking the main street and looking towards Mary Baldwin or see her students working part time at local shops will relay the same confidence on display at its founding.

Lessons 

A scene from The School of Humanities, where young women are read and discuss  these lines in a British Dialect:

"Say, why are beauties prais'd and honour'd most,

The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast?

Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford,

Why angels call'd, and angel-like ador'd?

Why round our coaches crowd the white-glov'd beaux,

Why bows the side-box from its inmost rows?

How vain are all these glories, all our pains,

Unless good sense preserve what beauty gains:

That men may say, when we the front-box grace:

'Behold the first in virtue, as in face!'

Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day,

Charm'd the smallpox, or chas'd old age away;

Who would not scorn what housewife's cares produce,

Or who would learn one earthly thing of use?

To patch, nay ogle, might become a saint,

Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint.

But since, alas! frail beauty must decay,

Curl'd or uncurl'd, since locks will turn to grey,

Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade,

And she who scorns a man, must die a maid;

What then remains but well our pow'r to use,

And keep good humour still whate'er we lose?

And trust me, dear! good humour can prevail,

When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."

Underline is my edit; Wednesday, April 2026.

The words that came to me as I tried to introduce myself to the campus on the highland of Virginia:

I discovered Mary Baldwin University when visiting Staunton (named after Lady Rebecca, wife of the British Governor) and read the sign across the First Presbyterian Church, as the oldest Women focused seminary. I had by then discovered CV Wedgwood, begun reading Margaret Fuller and continued my personal reading of Shakespeare. All of which led me to read the Histories by Mary Watters and set aside Kemp’s for later. The focus on the English language is based on falling in love with the language in my 20s and a belief in continuing education as essential.

My formative experience were at Friends’ Central Highschool while living in Philadelphia’s Penns Landing and Bryn Mawr, Pa. The years I earned an undergraduate degree at Hopkins while working full time in Washington DC in the Tax Division of a newspaper introduced me to the American Civil War. I married a Greek wife and lived for a time in Kat and historic Aegina. On my return to the US, I have traveled the Commonwealth of Virginia to explore her history while working full time. I look forward to deepen my knowledge with Mary Baldwin while attending Trinity Episcopal Church.

“Everyman is a valuable member of society who by his observations, researches and experiments procures knowledge for men.” Written by James Smithson, founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution, of Great Britain who never visited the American Continent.

Staunton, Virginia is a small town where President Grant, FDR, and Eisenhower visited, all within walking distance from Mary Baldwin University and where Woodrow Wilson was born to a Clergy family whose father held a degree (as Presbyterians who lead a congregation seem to acquire--now known as First Presbyterian Church led by a Pastor Jeff Ph.D. (link)). In The Trinity Episcopal Church where I attend, Father AJ articulates the habits of the graces (so evident in public officials when I notice them)  and from where we can learn from a Woman Anglican Archbishop who leads the Anglican Communion from Britain, a woman Bishop of Southwest Virginia and Rev. Cara's concrete and wide scope of readings in her sermons (link).

On expectations: Arnold Toynbee's name appears on a list of visiting scholars to Mary Baldwin, as described by Menk on page 317 in a footnote and reveals the intense desire to learn of the world inherited. In the post-cold-war period, that intellectual bent turned towards an inclusive policy, as I read the history and will measure its competence by its accomplishments. An American grown up in the Global period will experiment and innovate as before and expects to do better than predecessors or ask why, if not.