|
School Days and Dear Old Golden Rule Days
The Marstons: A California Family - Part 20
By Robin Lakin
September/October 2025
 The three-story Southwest Institute building at Third and Elm Streets, completed in 1887, housed what was considered San Diego’s choice school. It closed in 1890, and became a family hotel, the Albatross Inn.) |
 Mary Marston (in the first row of standing people, she is sixth from left, wearing her school pinafore; to her left is a teacher in a black dress) and her brother, Arthur (seated, right front, in a white shirt), among their teachers and fellow pupils at the staircase leading to the front veranda of the Southwest Institute, c. 1890. |
 Class photo c. 1899 with Harriet (first row, seated on left) and Helen Marston (first row, seated on right), taken at the school’s side yard. |
 Southwest Institute students and staff gathered for a class outing or field trip, possibly to Coronado. Elizabeth Marston, in her pinafore, can be seen leaning out the bus window (second from right). |
 Miss Emma Way was proprietress of the Southwest Institute in San Diego, a school the Marston children attended, from 1887-1890. She’s seen here c. 1940, after serving as the preceptress for the San Diego State Normal School. Way would later work with Mary Marston, her former pupil, at the Neighborhood House Association and the Community Welfare Council of San Diego. All photos courtesy San Diego History Center |
San Diego’s earliest educational system significantly benefited from the city’s economic boom in the mid-1880s and offered parents more options for their children’s education through an increasing number of local public and private schools.
With their little ones tucked snuggly in their beds, George and Anna Lee Marston’s evening fireside chats regarding their progeny’s education were well underway when they began building their first home, at 1210 Ash Street, in November 1886.
Siblings Mary, Arthur, and Elizabeth, soon to be followed by Harriet and Helen, were fortunate to have for a mother a teacher who had operated the San Diego Academy before it closed. The children would soon require a formal education.
The opportunity arrived with the Southwest Institute, a co-educational, college preparatory private school at Third and Elm Streets (a three-block walk from the Marstons’ new home at Third and Ash Streets). Designed by San Diego architects Comstock and Trotsche, the three-story school cost about $8,000 to build.
Established on August 1, 1886 by Mrs. Emma C. Derby, the school officially opened its doors in early 1887 when Mary and Arthur Marston were seven and five years old, respectively. Offering a liberal education with a wider variety of specialized subjects than those taught in the public schools, the institute provided courses in architecture, art, calisthenics, elocution, English, history, natural sciences, languages (German, Greek, French and Latin), music, piano and organ, and higher mathematics. Classes, organized into primary, intermediary, collegiate, and post-graduate departments, filled five-month semesters.
Despite the departure of the founder Mrs. Derby and the entire staff within the first year of operations, the institute thrived under the new stewardship of Miss Emma Way, who took charge by the end of 1887. Mrs. Derby went on to own and operate the Brown Bear Cafe in La Jolla.
Miss Way, an Ohio native, was educated at what was then known as the Grand River Institute, Oberlin College, and the University of California. She hired her sister, Miss Mary Kinney, and a fresh new staff. They elevated the art courses to include crayon portraiture, perspective training, sketching from nature, landscape and flower painting, and decorative art, and incorporated a drama and vocal culture department. San Diegans desirous of supporting the school and underprivileged children could purchase $100 scholarships.
Within one year under Miss Way’s leadership, the institute enrolled over 100 students, including the Marston children and likely their Hamilton cousins. The latter’s father, Charles S. Hamilton (George Marston’s first business partner) sold the popular Waverly School Shoe at his Hamilton & Company store, so that was probably popular footwear at the institute.
After more than a decade leading the school, in 1899, Miss Way accepted the prestigious position of preceptress for the newly opened San Diego State Normal School in University Heights, and sought her replacement, a new steward for the institute. To her great dismay, she found no one to take over the school, so she made the difficult decision to close it. Her sister, Miss Kinney, moved to Oakland, to continue teaching there.
The Southwest Institute building became the Albatross Inn after the San Diego College at Pacific Beach purchased most of the furniture and fixtures. The institute’s kindergarten fittings, were purchased through a fundraiser, then donated to the Industrial School, which was founded in 1894.
According to Miss Kinney, the Southwest Institute instilled in students a love for books and lessons for life. Based solely upon the later good works of the grown-up Marston children that benefitted their community, the Southwest Institute experiment was a great success.
BACK to table of contents
Read the rest of the ongoing The Marstons: A California Story History Series.
|
2026
2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
|
