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Records concerning the books and the curriculum of the student body at Davidson Academy are far from complete. However, it is known that in 1792, forty-eight volumes were used. It is not clear whether these volumes were considered library books or textbooks.
A list follows:
Aesop (Esop), Fables
Ainsworth, Dictionary (language not known)
Algebra
Astronomy (one volume Ferguson's Astronomy )
Cicero, two volumes
Conic Sections (mathematics)
Dilworth, Assistants . Dilworth's arithmetic delivered to Mr. Craighead on July 3, 1792.
Differential and Integral Calculus
Desidarius(or Desiderius)
Evidence of the Christian Religion
Erasmus, two volumes (or three)
Geometry (Descriptions and Analytical)
Homer, one volume
Holy Scriptures
Hutchison, Xenophon , one volume
Harvey, one volume 2 [ sic ] volume
Horace, one volume, second part
Hutton, Logarithms , one volume
Lexicons, three volumes (Lucious [ sic ])
Maire [ sic ], Introduction to Surveying , seven volumes
Mensuration (?); Mechanics (?)
Natural Philosophy (Theology)
Navigation
Napos, Cornelius, three volumes
Ovid, two volumes (or three)
Plane and Spherical Trigonometry
Roman and Greek Antiquities
Samson, Euclid , one volume
Sallust, three volumes
Terence, one volume (Dawson's, two volumes (?)), perhaps three
Virgil, Delphini, two volumes
Willingham, five grammars, Latin or Greek (?), composition
Three works are illegible, but a rough total of forty-eight volumes may be safely counted on. By putting these fragments together, the investigator of the early years of Davidson Academy may certainly say that Latin, Greek, and mathematics made up the major part of the curriculum Handmade in 1781, John Buchanan's Book of Arithmetic (June 20, 1782) is the oldest surviving symbol of education and book publishing in Nashville. Perhaps this text was used at Davidson Academy. Two facts seem obvious: Almost all the students studied Latin grammar and all received the rudiments of reading and writing. It seems safe to assume also, that the boys were at least exposed to the areas of logic, moral philosophy, and rhetoric and belle-lettres.
While it is not possible from the information now available to make a curriculum for Davidson Academy, one from the Harvard (Meriwether, Our Colonial Curriculum ) may serve as an example of content and purpose. Those classes marked with an asterisk would fit the list of books in Davidson Academy.
First Year
Monday and Tuesday: Logic, Physics, Disputes
Wednesday: Greek Etymology, Syntax, Precepts of Grammar in such authors as have variety of words*
Thursday: Hebrew Grammar, Bible Practice*, Eastern Tongues
Friday: Rhetoric*, Declamations once monthly*
Saturday: Divinity*, The Catechetical History, Nature of Plants
Second Year
Monday and Tuesday: Ethics*, Politics*, Disputes
Wednesday: Greek prosodia and Dialects*, Poesy*
Thursday: Choldee
Friday and Saturday: See above
Third Year
Monday and Tuesday: Arithmetic*, Geometry*, Astronomy*, Disputes
Wednesday: Composition, Imitation, Epitome, both in prose and in verse*. "Perfect their theory of writing and exercise style."
Thursday: Syriac, Trostius, New Testaments*
Friday and Saturday: See above. Add commonplaces.
While there remains no detailed account of the daily routine in the Davidson Academy under the principalship of Thomas B. Craighead, gleanings preserved from the history of the school allow the present-day reader to view its operation. Let the reader imagine an excerpt from the diary of Felix Robertson, son of James Robertson, Founders of Nashville. It seems likely that Dr. Felix Robertson, Nashville's most influential physician of the early nineteenth century, attended Davidson Academy because of his Father's part in the creation of the school (Crabb, Personality 90). Perhaps he remembered its opening. Besides, it was the only school in the community offering training that would prepare him for the medical college of the University of Pennsylvania. He began his medical practice in 1806.
The first white child born in Nashville (1781), as a doctor in 1829-1830, Felix Robertson introduced the use of quinine into the city (Kelly, 25-26). He was mayor of Nashville in 1827.
A Day at Davidson Academy
I, Felix Robertson, son of James Robertson and Charlotte Robertson, attended Davidson Academy. I remember well a rustic, one-room building, a little, rough stone church twenty-four by thirty feet, six miles east of Nashville, Tennessee, at Haysborough. But most visibly do I recall the Reverend Thomas B. Craighead, our principal, a man of learning and of devotion to learning.
At the time I thought it nothing uncommon to get up before daylight, put on my "homespuns," cross on the ferry over the Cumberland River, and walk six miles to the Spring Hill meeting House, our combination school and church. I was a healthy youngster and walked with pleasure through spring rains and winter snows, engaging in races going and coming.
During the week, I pursued my academic studies; on the Lord's Day, along with my parents, children, and servants of the community, I listened to moral strictures of the Reverend Craighead, our Presbyterian minister. A graduate of Princeton University, he was a finished scholar and a great theologian. Much of this profound theology passed over my young head, but I listened to his two-hour sermons with the respect due to "a man of the cloth." My eight schoolmates and I did not think it an imposition that we had to listen to the one professor and minister all week long. We marveled at his learning and following his precepts.
Each morning I spent with the Latin classics, the basis of education in the early nineteenth century. All of us studied Latin grammar and Roman and Greek antiquities. I had learned the rudiments of reading and writing in my own home, where I used a goose-quill pen and pokeberry ink to practice my letters and numbers; so I was ready for education, primarily the Latin classics.
A typical day might be spent as follows:
- A review of the subjunctive mood: 30 minutes
- Sentences written in Latin (these largely from Caesar's Gallic Wars ): 30 minutes
- Translation from Cicero's orations (delivered in Latin and loosely rendered into English): two hours
- Vergil's Aeneid: Translation and metrics: two hours
- Lunch
- Afternoon: Greek and Mathematics
- Composition
- Translation from Homer: two hours
- Arithmetic: one hour
For more than twenty years, the Reverend Craighead taught his students as though he meant each boy to do well at Princeton, though most of us would never leave the Western wilderness. And I, bound for medical school, profited enormously. I spent long hours six days a week in the classroom, but my interest remained intense. The Reverend Craighead brought the world of high thinking into that small schoolroom. I learned how to enter into the thinking of Cicero, Abraham - all the great men of old. As I listened to him in the classroom and on Sunday, I came to love the beauty and the power of the spoken word. Watching my mentor eat our simple food with great relish and capacity, I became more aware of the correlation between mental and physical well-being, The good life which he lived in all his ways became the ideal upon which I later based my life as a physician.
I learned from the Reverend Craighead another valuable lesson. I grew up with an attitude of disregard for the value of "things." When I attended Davidson Academy, I went barefoot when the weather allowed, wearing moccasins only when they were necessary because of extreme cold. I wore linsey pants and a hunting shirt, but if the weather demanded, another shirt of tow-linen (a very scratchy material) under that.
I never felt that I was deprived or had cause to regret that I spent my early years in the backwoods of Tennessee. The men of old teach their lessons as well at a scarred wooden desk as at a desk in a marble hall.
Random Tidbits About the Early Davidson Academy
An example of Mr. Craighead's methodology: The boys studied the versification of "Tityre, tu patiebas recubans sub tegmine fugi." Their preceptor remarked, "Boys, your fathers never deserted their country, and you will never say, 'patriam fugimus or linquimus.'" Such a follow up from the quotation of Vergil was natural, simple and effective.
An example of Davidson Academy's earliest discipline:
We were barefooted and moccasined, with linsey pants and hunting shirts, and if we had another shirt under that, it was of tow-linen, with shives enough all through it to justify our exemption from any worse form of hackling; though it did not always avail us. ... I have seen lots of broken limbs and stumps of switches in my day. When we used to go through "scuff" and "on the road to Buchanan's Mill," up to "the Academy,' we talked of college, of Professions and politics, and the girls, and wrote poetry on paper, and carved names on trees. One thing we did, we took good care of our books, and drove the cows home after we were dismissed from school.
- Conversations
Hardships of Attending Davidson Academy
The school was ordered to be taught in the Spring Hill meeting House, the church in which Mr. Craighead preached. It was located at the edge of the town of Haysborough. Because of this location, for those who attended the school from Nashville, early departure was important; it was six miles from the town square to the academy. The pupils of the first Davidson Academy could not be lazy! The daily travels alone called for stamina.
From the Few Remaining Records of Davidson Academy
An invoice dated April 11, 1795:
... sundry books belonging to the Academy of Davidson County left in the care of Bennett Sercy, Esq. by Lardner Clark subject to the order of the Trustees of said Academy.
("Some Old Papers" 212)
A Description from the Early Frontier Schools
The first schools were usually in log cabins. They were called old field schools because they were built in worn fields no longer used for farming. They had one room and one teacher; pupils of all ages being taught in the same room. Different classes sat in their own section of the room, where teachers would instruct each of them in turn. Students were taught to read aloud, just as they were in ancient Rome.
The seats were benches cut from logs. The pupils sat side by side on them. There was no lighting and only a few small windows. The rooms was heated from a fireplace from which the students cut the wood.
School terms were short. The studies were generally in the classics and in the Scriptures. For recreation there were spelling bees, reciting of poems, and foot races.
School was not compulsory. There, as in the rest of life on the frontier, voluntarism held sway.
The oldest surviving symbol of education in Nashville is John Buchanan's Book of Arithmetic (1781-1782).
1772. James Robertson was born.
1767. Andrew Jackson was born.
1775. Thomas Benton Craighead, patron of learning, was graduated from Princeton University.
1779. Nashville, first called "The Bluffs," was founded.
1780. Thomas B. Craighead was ordained as a Presbyterian minister.
1784. The settlement called the Bluffs, then Nashborough, became Nashville.
1785.* Davidson Academy was born, with Thomas B. Craighead as President. Boyd McNairy was born.
1786. The trustees of Davidson Academy held their first formal meeting. School opened in the Spring Hill Meeting House.
1778. Davidson Academy was granted the right to operate a ferry.
1789. Davidson Academy was endowed with two salt licks.
1791. Upon the resignation of William Polk, Andrew Jackson became a trustee of Davidson Academy.
1792. Davidson Academy used or studied forty-eight volumes.
1795. An invoice from Davidson Academy has been found for this year. George Peabody was born.
1796. The territorial legislature placed the building's of Davidson Academy near Buchanan's Mill.
1797. Boyd McNairy entered Davidson Academy.
1799. Federal Seminary merged with Davidson Academy.
1802. Davidson Academy had only seven or eight students. John McNairy and David Shelby were elected as trustees.
1803. Only seven acres of Davidson's 240 remained. Sumner County, tried unsuccessfully, to move Davidson Academy to Montpelier in that county. Boyd McNairy finished his schooling at Davidson Academy.
1805. Colonel Robertson and Andrew Jackson resigned as trustees of Davidson Academy.
1806. Thomas B. Craighead resigned as president of Davidson Academy, becoming president of Cumberland College, now merged with Davidson Academy.
1808. A new building for Davidson Academy was completed.
1809. Thomas B. Craighead left Cumberland College to be replaced by James Priestly.
1826. Davidson Academy and Cumberland College became the University of Nashville. Andrew Jackson was a trustee.
1979-1980. A group of persons in Madison, Tennessee, began to discuss among themselves the need for another private Christian school to serve the area.
1980. Madison Christian School, the forerunner of Davidson Academy, opened with sixty-two students and four teachers, grades one through four.
1981. The Tennessee Department of Education granted approval. Davidson Academy came to being.
1983. Enrollment grows from 62 to more than 300. "Satellite" kindergartens are established at Grace Baptist Church and Inglewood Baptist Church. Construction of the first phase of the new Old Hickory Boulevard campus is completed.
1983. Facilities of the new Old Hickory Boulevard campus are occupied in the fall.
1983-1989. Enrollment grows to more than 1,300. Lower and Upper School buildings are constructed.
1989. First class of 48 students is graduated.
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