The seeds that would lead to Ferrum College were sown in the early 1900s. In 1909, the Virginia Conference Woman’s Home Missionary Society (VCWHMS) of the United Methodist Church wrote Dr. Benjamin Beckham to report the VCWHMS had $1,200 for starting “a school for mountain boys and girls, in a remote place, yet accessible, where the need seemed the greatest.” Many young people in the Blue Ridge had no practical access to public education, and even where rural schools did exist, attendance was often poor. In 1929—16 years after Ferrum’s founding— an estimated 17,000 school-age children were still not attending school in the five-county area around Ferrum. By the end of 1913, Ferrum Training School’s Board of Trustees was in place, and 80 acres of George Goode’s tomato farm had been purchased. Construction began on the Principal’s House (now Stratton House), the White Cottage (now Spilman-Daniel House), and the first phase of John Wesley Hall. Hired as Ferrum Training School’s principal, Dr. Beckham moved onto campus in June 1914. School was set to begin in September. One of Ferrum’s initial stated purposes was “the training of young people for country life.” Students received standard high school instruction in math, science, English, and history. Boys also took agricultural science, and girls studied domestic science (later referred to as “home economics”). Most students had an eye toward careers in business, the ministry, church mission work, or teaching. The school’s first graduate—Berta Thompson, Class of 1917—went on to teach in Virginia public schools for years. Christianity was certainly a key part of the curriculum, but Ferrum Training School did not push the views of any particular Christian denomination. Students took daily Bible study, and “the Bible [was] taught in some way in every trade.”