In a message dated 5/23/2006 3:04:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Sftrail@aol.com writes: For your aunt to have been a school principal, I'd think she would have gone to college somewhere. Not necessarily. I taught school in the 1970s in Atlanta and the principal of the school (K-8) never went to college. The requirements were stiffer by the 70s, but he was grandfathered in. So, in the 1890s it's quite possible there was no such requirement. My grandmother taught school in Indiana in the 1920s and she went to a special school for teachers in Indianapolis which was only a year or less. There were many teacher schools and Normal Colleges for teachers to prepare, with varying lengths of preparation.