McKenzie College, also called McKenzie's College, was a private

Private school

Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...

 college

College

A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...

 located on the plantation of Reverend John W. P. McKenzie in Clarksville

Clarksville, Texas

Clarksville is a city in Red River County, Texas, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 3,883. It is the county seat of Red River County.-Geography:Clarksville is located at ....

, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, USA. Starting in 1841, the school grew from 16 students educated in a log cabin to over 300 students occupying four large buildings in 1854. It was the largest institution of higher education in Texas during the 1850s and 1860s.

History

Suffering from poor health, Reverend John W. P. McKenzie retired from missionary work in 1841 and moved to a 421 acres (1.7 km²) plantation in Clarksville, Texas. He began offering classes for local boys in his home, which he named Itinerant's Retreat. As the school grew, a separate log cabin was built. Most of the first students were receiving primary and secondary education, although the school awarded its first bachelor's degree

Bachelor's degree

A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

 in 1844. By 1845, the school was divided into three departments: preparatory, collegiate, and female. Four buildings were built in 1853 to accommodate the school's rapid growth.

Student life

The college was home to two literary societies

College literary societies (American)

College literary societies in American higher education were a distinctive kind of social organization, distinct from literary societies generally, and they were the precursors of college fraternities and sororities. In the period from the late eighteenth century to the Civil War, collegiate...

, the Philologian Society and Dialectic Society.