MICDS

Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School
Address
101 North Warson Road Ladue, Missouri, (St. Louis County) 63124 United States
Information
Type	Private
Established	1859-Mary Institute 1917-St. Louis Country Day School 1992-MICDS
Founder	William Greenleaf Eliot
Head of school	Lisa Lyle
Faculty	158
Grades	JK–12
Enrollment	1,246 (total 2012–13 school year), 624 (9–12), 411 (5–8), 211 (JK–4)
Average class size	Approximately 16 students
Campus	Suburban, 100 acres
Color(s)	Cardinal Red, Forest Green
Mascot	Ram
Rival	John Burroughs School
Average SAT scores	1960 (Class of 2012 median score)
Average ACT scores	30 (Class of 2012 median score)
Website	http://www.micds.org

Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School or "MICDS" is a secular, co-educational, private school home to more than 1,200 students ranging from grades Junior Kindergarten (age 4) through 12, including a separate "lower school" for children in Junior Kindergarten through Grade 4 known as the Ronald Beasley or "Beasley" School, the MICDS "Middle School", spanning grades 5 through 8, and the "Upper School", consisting of grades 9 through 12. Its 100-acre (404700 m²) campus is located in the St. Louis suburb of Ladue.

William Greenleaf Eliot, founder and chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, established predecessor institutions to MICDS in the 1850s as part of the university. A boys' school, Smith Academy, was founded in 1854, and was later attended by Eliot's grandson, the future poet T. S. Eliot. A sister school for girls, Mary Institute, was founded in 1859 and was named for Eliot's late daughter Mary Rhodes Eliot, who had died at the young age of 17. In its early years, Mary Institute was located at three different locations in the City of St. Louis, the third of which was at the corner of Lake and Waterman, in the building that is now New City School.

Smith Academy closed in June 1917, in part due to the proliferation of private elementary schools and public secondary schools in the area. Three months later, St. Louis Country Day School opened in northwestern St. Louis County. Inspired by the "Country Day School movement" nationally, it was not related to Smith, although first year enrollment included a number of former Smith students. St. Louis Country Day School's campus was in a bucolic setting reached by electric streetcar, far removed from the noise and grit of the city.

Mary Institute moved to its Ladue campus in 1931 and became independent of Washington University in 1949. By the 1950s, the tranquility of the Country Day campus was disrupted by the growth of the adjacent Lambert–Saint Louis International Airport. St. Louis Country Day School relocated to a new campus next to Mary Institute in Ladue in 1958, and eventually sold its old campus to the airport. Eliot's grandson, Nobel laureate T. S. Eliot, who attended Mary Institute's kindergarten and Smith Academy, spoke at Mary Institute's centennial in 1959.

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