A recent visit to the site of that venerable school enabled me to gather much valuable information about its work, and heightened my appreciation of its vast educative and spiritual influence upon the history and destiny of the Southwest. The walls of the spacious building still stand, but the merry voices that rang through its halls only live in the sweet echoes of a distant past. Borrowing a style of architecture from the Spanish of Colonial times, the structure was two and a half stories high, the first of brick, the others in frame. A fire consumed it twenty years ago, leaving only the solid masonry as a memorial of the educational ambition and spiritual consecration of Early Mississippi Methodism. Some of the grandest women of the Southwest received their well-earned diplomas within those now charred walls, and went out to preside over their own model and magnificent homes. The early catalogues contain the names of fair daughters who afterward became the accomplished matrons of historic families. For many years the Elizabeth Female Academy was the one institution of high grade in the entire South for the education of young women. All others have been followers and beneficiaries of this brave heroine of Mississippi. The grounds and buildings were donated to the Mississippi Conference by Mrs. Elizabeth Roach in 1818, and in her honor the institution was called the Elizabeth Female Academy. The year following a charter was granted by the Legislature, of which this is a copy: "_An Act. To Incorporate the Elizabeth Female Academy._ "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Mississippi in General Assembly convened, "That an Academy be, and is hereby established near the town of Washington, in the county of Adams, to be known by the name of the Elizabeth Female Academy, in honor of Mrs. Elizabeth Roach, the founder thereof, to be under the superintendence of John Menifee, Daniel Rawlings, Alexander Covington, John W. Briant, and Beverly R. Grayson, and their successors who are hereby constituted a body politic and corporate, to be known by the name and style of 'The Trustees of the Elizabeth Female Academy' and they and their successors are hereby made capable of receiving real and personal estate, either by donation or purchase, for the benefit of the institution, _not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars_, of suing and being sued, and of doing and performing all other acts, and shall possess all other powers, incident to bodies corporate. "Sec. 2.--And be it further enacted, That all vacancies that may happen in the said Board of Trustees, either by death, resignation, refusal to act, or removal from the State, shall be filled by the members of the Methodist Mississippi Annual Conference: provided however, that all such vacancies may be filled by the said Board of Trustees, to continue until the meeting of the said conference next ensuing such vacancy, or until they shall fill the same.