The Jefferson Seminary was one of

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

's first schools and is considered to be the direct ancestor of the

University of Louisville The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public university, public research university in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. Chartered in 1798 as the Jefferson Seminary, it became in the 19t ...

. The school was chartered by the

Kentucky General Assembly The Kentucky General Assembly, also called the Kentucky Legislature, is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It comprises the Kentucky Senate and the Kentucky House of Representatives. The General Assembly meets annually in th ...

in 1798, with the sale of 6,000 acres (24 km²) of land in rural southern Kentucky used to pay for initial construction. Eight prominent citizens of the fledgling village of Louisville (then the second largest city on the Falls of the Ohio River) met together on April 3, 1798, to seek donations for the school and to arrange for its board of trustees and faculty. "No religious connotation was implied by the term seminary."Google Books preview
/ref> The process of establishing the school was slow, with a school house finally being built at the present day intersection of 8th Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard sometime between 1813 and 1816. Its first principal was

Edward Mann Butler Edward Mann Butler (July 13, 1784 – November 1, 1855) was one of Kentucky's most prominent early educators. He is best remembered as being the first president of what would become the University of Louisville and heading the first public sch ...

, one of Kentucky's most prominent educators and a man who later became the state's most trusted

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

. The school offered both

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

and

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...

level courses in English,

geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

, French,

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

, and

trigonometry Trigonometry () is a branch of mathematics concerned with relationships between angles and side lengths of triangles. In particular, the trigonometric functions relate the angles of a right triangle with ratios of its side lengths. The fiel ...

. It had an average of 45 to 50 students, who paid $20 for a six-month term. Despite the school's early success, pressure from newly established public schools would force its closure in 1829. Criticism from what became ''

The Courier-Journal The ''Courier Journal'', also known as the ''Louisville Courier Journal'' (and informally ''The C-J'' or ''The Courier''), and called ''The Courier-Journal'' between November 8, 1868, and October 29, 2017, is a daily newspaper published in ...

'' also aided the closing, with its editor, Shadrach Penn Jr., who editorialized that the school "was elitist and didn't give Louisville's school children a practical education."

Notes

References

* {{cite encyclopedia , encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Louisville , edition=1 , year=2001 , article=Jefferson Seminary Defunct schools in Louisville, Kentucky University of Louisville Educational institutions established in 1798 1798 establishments in Kentucky Educational institutions disestablished in 1829 1829 disestablishments in Kentucky

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