OPEN UP ... to elementary mrain up a child in the way he 1should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it." It was under this premise that Harding's founders began the Harding Training School. These early leaders of the Christian education movement knew that habits and attitudes lasting a lifet~me are formed in childhood and therefore felt a need for complete Christian education. In the 1950's, Harding Academy was born when the training school was moved from Gooden Hall to a building of its own on the corner of Blakeney and Center streets. The new building, now the site of the Mabee Business Center, was divided into separate wings for the elementary and high school. In the new building the elementary developed its own traditions such as daily Bible classes and a weekly chapel assembly led musically by Mrs. Florence Henry. In December of 1980 elementary students carried their books home from the old Academy building for the last time; the next semester would begin in the new building on Park Avenue. The building on the corner of Blakeney and Center is gone forever, but we have a new Academy only as much as we have a different building, because to this new building we brought not only books, but a commitment to Christian education. a Homework! Homework! Give me a break! Jim Mark puts his time to wise use in the library. - photo by Mark England . School days. Bobbye Sandlin 's sixth grade class gets back into the feel of school in August. - photo by Danny Meeks. Elementary. 349
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