[Illustration: City Hall, in which are Mayor's Office, Council Chamber, etc., and where a ball was given in honor of Gen. Lafayette on his visit here in 1824. (See page 144)] THE SCHOOLS OF FREDERICKSBURG. Fredericksburg, from its earliest days, possessed educational advantages, greatly in advance of many larger towns of the colonies. Soon after its establishment by the House of Burgesses, schools of a high order were established here by the best of educators and it is highly probable that the leading men of the State--those who conducted public affairs in colonial times, and who were the first to oppose and resist British tyranny and who inaugurated and conducted the movement for separation and independence--were educated in those schools. And it can be safely said that from that time to the present Fredericksburg has not been without schools that would be creditable to any town. In 1796 a lottery scheme--which was a popular method of raising money in those days for such purposes--was chartered by the Legislature of the State for the purpose of raising money to erect a school building on what was known as the "old poor-house grounds," at present the property of Alexander Lang's estate near Gunnery Spring. Whether or not this scheme was successful is not known, but it is a fact that a male academy was established by some French refugees, gentlemen of education and refinement, who, having lost their fortunes, adopted teaching as a means of support. Many distinguished Statesmen and jurists, in after years, were educated at this school, among them was Judge John Tayloe Lomax, who, in his old age, when president of the Young Men's Christian Association of Fredericksburg, referred to his connection with this school by contrasting the teaching of the school of French philosophy of that day with the instruction of Christian teachers of a later period, showing the advantages of the latter. In a letter from Dr. John Brockenburg to Rev. Philip Slaughter, D. D., in 1846, about another matter, he said: "I had been entered as a student at the Fredericksburg Academy, then (1790) in high repute, under the Rev. Mr. Ryan, an eminent classical scholar and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin." Dr. Brockenburg finished his education in this school, preparatory to entering a medical college in Edinburg, and speaks highly of it.[67] It is also claimed that Washington, Madison, Monroe, and others who made their mark as soldiers, statesmen, and in the various professions, were educated in the schools of Fredericksburg. The establishment of a female college at "Federal Hill," in the year 1789, and which was kept up by different teachers for half a century or more, was an important event in the history of the town, and, in connection with the male academy, gave to Fredericksburg great distinction as an educational center.