Memphis University School

Memphis University School (MUS) is an all-male private school for grades 7–12, located in Memphis, Tennessee.

History

MUS was founded in 1893 by Edwin Sidney Werts and James White Sheffey Rhea. MUS is a college-preparatory school. The school's colors, red and blue, were chosen by the founders to represent the high academic standards of two elite universities, Yale and Harvard. MUS soon developed such a strong reputation among universities that many exempted graduating students from college entrance examinations. MUS prospered and the school moved from the old Bethel Building to the Clara Conway Institute at 297 Poplar until a new campus was built near the corner of Madison and Manassas in downtown Memphis. The campus remained at this site until 1936 when financial difficulties associated with the Great Depression forced the school to close.

However, as the post-war economic boom of the late 1940s and early 1950s saw an increasing need for private education, plans were put into place to re-start MUS. Anthony Dick, the pastor of Second Presbyterian Church, had successfully launched Presbyterian Day School in 1947 as a boys' kindergarten through eighth grade institution. A new MUS was planned as a continuation high school for the PDS boys. Realizing that there was not enough space at Second Presbyterian Church to host a first-class prep school, alternative sites were studied. In 1950, the current site was acquired from two families with boys at PDS. Plans were made...
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