Nashville’s University School Has Avoided ‘Ancestor Worship’ But Focuses On History During 100th Year

Vince Durnan is the director of University School of Nashville. The school was previously known as the Peabody Demonstration School, a name that’s been added to the new school seal used on the entrance doors of a recent expansion. Credit: Blake Farmer / WPLN

University School of Nashville is turning 100 years old. And to mark its centennial, the private K-12 academy is trying to reconnect with its past as Peabody College’s demonstration school.

USN director Vince Durnan says the school doesn’t typically “tilt toward ancestor worship,” but maybe a little more so this year – from high schoolers meeting the first African American graduate to elementary students creating a children’s book that tells USN’s 100-year history.

“There really wasn’t time to look back over our shoulders to understand what was happening here before our time at the wheel.” Durnan says. “That Rockefeller money built a school to be a center of excellence in Nashville, Tennessee, is a story that everyone who is at University School should know.”

Durnan recently published a thesis on what remains of demonstration schools that were established in tandem with major research universities like Yale, Columbia and the University of Chicago.

The Peabody Demonstration School came about at the tail end of what’s become known as the Progressive Era, which ran from 1890 to 1920. It was a time when states were beginning to make education compulsory.

USN has some remnants from the period, like an indoor swimming pool on the first floor. It’s considered the oldest indoor pool in Nashville.

“It’s a throw back to swim tests and swim requirements that go back all the way to the Progressive Era, when to travel meant to spend time on ocean-going vessels,” Durnan says.

USN no longer has formal ties to Peabody, which chose to close the school in 1974 for financial reasons. Parents raised the money to stay open and operate independently.