New Jersey Women's Heritage Trail
|
Plainfield’s Opheleton Seminary was one of several private secondary schools around the state that catered to the daughters of well-to-do families. Opheleton’s curriculum aimed "not only at the acquisition of knowledge and thorough mental discipline, but also at the cultivation of the heart and the inculcation of correct moral and religious principles." The school offered its students year-round instruction in reading, writing, and literature, as well as the history of the United States, England and Greece, arithmetic, algebra and geometry, chemistry, botany, geology, political economy, and several other subjects. Punctuality and regular attendance was urged. Though New Jersey had no higher education for women at the time, some privileged young women received the equivalent of a high school education at such schools as Opheleton. A particular advantage of Opheleton was its location near the New Jersey Central Railroad which could bring young women from New York, Philadelphia, and places in between, in all seasons of the year. The school advertised Plainfield’s good climate, excellent water and pleasant scenery, attributes which would have been particularly attractive to city parents who were eager to have their daughters leave the city in warmer months disease was a special problem. This engraving of Opheleton’s buildings and grounds projects an image of safe and gracious surroundings. |
