A history of public education in Rhode Island, from 1636 to 1876 ... Comp. by authority of the Board of education, and ed. by Thomas B. Stockwell ...

MOUNT PLEASANT ACADEMY.
ESTABLISHED 1865. PRINCIPALS: JENCKS MOWRY, JOSEPH E. MOWRY, A. M.
THIS school had its origin in the opening, by the senior principal, of
the Mount Pleasant Select School,'for affording a more thorough and
extended course of study in the English branches than was at the time
pursued in the public schools in the immediate vicinity. It was soon
found that the school met a requirement of a class of scholars whose
age or diversity of attainments in different branches, prevented from
following the routine of the public schools, and that such a school was
needed to supplement those schools. Scholars also from the small
ungraded schools in our rural districts found opportunities for studying
branches not taught at their schools. There was no fixed schedule of
studies, but the studies pursued were the common English branches,
and sometimes algebra, and the elements of geometry and physics.
Especial attention was given to the explanation of the principles of
arithmetic and to their practical application.
The number of scholars increased and there arose a demand for a
more extensive course of study. In 1872, a new school building was
erected, and the course of study was so extended as to include the
higher mathematics and French, and the college preparatory classics,
and it became the aim of the principals to afford a thorough, disciplinary, and complete preparation for ordinary business pursuits or for
admission to our colleges.
The views which suggested its establishment are still *adhered to:
That all scholars can not with advantage pursue exactly the same
course of study, nor should their progress in all branches be made