NO DEBTS AND PLAIN CLOTHES.
The following Resolutions were entered into by the Trustees of the above Institution at a late meeting of the Board, and directed to be published:
Resolutions to prevent the Students of the Raleigh Academy from incurring improper expences.
Resolved, That no Student shall be permitted to purchase on a credit any articles, at any store or of any person, without first obtaining a permit in writing to do so from their Parents or Guardians, or from the Principal of the Academy, or the Principal of the Female Department, or from such Person as shall by their Parents or Guardians be authorised to have charge of their conduct and expences—which permit shall specify the articles to be purchased.
Resolved, That this Board do not consider Parents or Guardians bound either in honor or by duty, to pay any debts contracted by their Children or Wards, not being authorized as above to do so—On the contrary, that the welfare of the Students and the interests of the Institution forbid it. And this Board requests that such debts may not be paid.
Resolved, That any violation of these regulations shall be punished by a public admonition, or in such other manner as the Trustees shall direct.
To promote a laudable practice of economy; to encourage domestic manufactures, to lessen the expences of education, to repress an improper fondness for dress and ornament and to make the adornment of the mind the chief object of the students ambition and care, it is, by the Trustees of the Raleigh Academy,
Resolved, That it be most earnestly recommended to Parents and Guardians and to the Students of the Academy, that the utmost plainness, neatness and simplicity of dress be observed by the latter; that home manufactures be worn by them, if procurable, in preference to any other: That ornaments or expensive dress be not worn except on extraordinary public occasions, and then as little as circumstances will permit.
Resolved further, That so far as it depends on the Students themselves, those who dress with the most neatness and simplicity on all occasions and particularly in home manufactures, will be entitled to the particular approbation and praise of the Trustees.
—Raleigh Register, June 9, 1808.
(Source: North Carolina Schools and Academies, 1790-1840, By Charles L. Coon 1914)
