22. WASHINGTON SEMINARY, 

1640 Peachtree St., NW., has long been Atlanta's most fashionable school for girls. Facing Peachtree Street from the crest of a broad rolling lawn is the dormitory, a white clapboard building with Corinthian columns extending all the way across the front. An unpretentious building in the rear contains classrooms, administrative offices, and an auditorium with a stage for dramatic presentations. With a faculty of 30 and a student body of 300, Washington Seminary offers courses ranging from the nursery school through high school. The high school pupils, which make up the larger part of the student body, are divided about equally between the general and the college preparatory courses. Most of the enrollment is from Atlanta, but accommodations are provided for 25 boarders, and these are always reserved well in advance by girls from various sections of the United States.

The institution was opened in 1878 by the three Misses Washington, lateral descendants of the famous George. While visiting in Atlanta these aristocratic ladies had been struck by the need of a good private school in the city, which was taking its first difficult steps toward recovery from carpetbagger domination. Having no money for a building or equipment, the sisters borrowed the use of a parlor in a Cain Street home and began with eight children to teach the usual elementary subjects. First as the Misses Washington's School for Girls, later as Washington Seminary, the school flourished through the eighties and nineties, moving several times into larger quarters and adding more advanced courses. On fair days the young ladies could be seen practicing their archery and elegant Delsarte calisthenics, which were added to the childish games of the first pupils. Administration passed from the Washingtons successively to Mrs. Emily Park, Mrs. Alice Chandler, L.D. Scott, and Miss Emma Scott.

The present dormitory building was erected in 1890 as the residence of the affluent, widely traveled General Clifford Anderson, whose wife had collected decorative ideas from Europe, Africa, and Asia before the house was built. W.T. Downing, the architect, succeeded in embodying most of Mrs. Anderson's suggestions on the inside, which belies the "Southern Colonial" exterior. The long reception hall is opulent with Pompeiian red walls and cream-colored woodwork forming a background for the bronze statuary, brass jardinieres, and heavy carved teakwood furniture. The vaulted ceiling, studded with many plaster rosettes, is centered by a goldleaf dome. This room and the adjoining dining room give views of a patio encircled by a pillared arcade in the Spanish style.

Miss Emma Scott, the present (194²) principal, speaks with amusement of a great plaster dragon, resplendent in gold and Chinese red, its claws ending in a cluster of electric bulbs, which adorned the wall of a bedroom. For years the girls delighted in the dragon room, proudly showing it off to visitors and pleading with their principal to leave it intact. Miss Scott complied until she found a Cuban student in tears, looking up at the ceiling and crying in broken English, I have great fear!" The next day the dragon was removed. 

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