Queen's Academy
Queen's Academy in Charlottetown is the institution that marks the culmination of Anne Shirley's early academic ambitions and the site of her greatest triumph and most painful sacrifice. It is here that Anne, having passed the rigorous Entrance examinations at the head of the Island list, undertakes the First Class teacher's license program in a single year, wins the prestigious Avery scholarship for English literature, and then, upon learning of Marilla's impending blindness and the Cuthberts' financial ruin, makes the wrenching decision to decline the scholarship and remain at Green Gables. The Academy thus functions as both a gateway to a broader world and the place where Anne's deepest values—loyalty, love of home, and the courage to reshape ambition—are tested and confirmed.
Location and Academic Structure
Queen's Academy is located in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and serves as the advanced training ground for students who have passed the provincial Entrance examinations. The building itself is a formal academic setting with an assembly hall where commencement exercises are held, classrooms assigned by subject and level, and a bulletin board where examination results are posted. The Academy offers a graded curriculum: the Second Year work leads to a Second Class teacher's license, while the more demanding First Year program—comprising Latin, geometry, French, and algebra—prepares candidates for a First Class license in a single year. Anne, advised by Miss Stacy, elects the accelerated First Class course, as does Gilbert Blythe, while Jane Andrews, Ruby Gillis, Josie Pye, Charlie Sloane, and Moody Spurgeon MacPherson content themselves with the Second Class work. The Academy also administers the Avery scholarship, a competitive award of two hundred and fifty dollars a year for four years at Redmond College, granted to the graduate who achieves the highest mark in English and English Literature.
Anne's Experience at Queen's
Anne arrives at Queen's in September, after a tearful parting from Diana and a practical farewell from Marilla. She boards in a quiet neighborhood near the Academy, in a house kept by a reduced gentlewoman whose husband had been a British officer; Miss Josephine Barry had secured the lodging after determining that Beechwood was too far from the school. Anne's first night is marked by acute homesickness: she finds herself alone in a narrow, pictureless room with a small iron bedstead and an empty bookcase, and she fights back tears by counting them, only to be interrupted by Josie Pye's unwelcome visit. Gradually, however, Anne forms a circle of kindred spirits—Stella Maynard, a vivid black-eyed girl with a heart full of wistful dreams, and Priscilla Grant, a pale, spiritual-looking maiden who proves full of mischief and fun. She spends many spare hours at Beechwood with Miss Barry, eating Sunday dinners there and attending church with the old lady, who declares that Anne "has as many shades as a rainbow and every shade is the prettiest while it lasts." The winter term is one of hard, steady work; Anne's rivalry with Gilbert Blythe continues as intensely as ever, though the bitterness has drained out of it, replaced by the desire for a well-won victory over a worthy foeman. When the final results are posted, Gilbert wins the medal, but Anne wins the Avery scholarship—a moment of shared triumph that leaves her whispering to Jane Andrews, "Oh, won't Matthew and Marilla be pleased!"
Commencement and the Decision to Stay
Commencement exercises are held in the big assembly hall of the Academy. Anne, dressed in pale green, reads the best essay and is pointed out and whispered about as the Avery winner. Matthew and Marilla attend, with Matthew speaking for the first time since entering the hall to whisper, "Reckon you're glad we kept her, Marilla?" and Miss Barry leaning forward to poke Marilla with her parasol and declare her pride. But the triumph is shadowed by Matthew's death from a heart attack brought on by the news of the Abbey Bank's failure, which leaves the Cuthberts penniless. When Marilla learns that she will go blind if she continues reading, sewing, or any work that strains her eyes, she decides to sell Green Gables. Anne, without hesitation, announces that she will not take the Avery scholarship or go to Redmond. "I'm not going to take the scholarship," she tells Marilla. "I decided so the night after you came home from town." She has already applied for the Avonlea school—though she believes it has been promised to Gilbert Blythe—and secured the Carmody school as a fallback. She plans to board at home, drive herself to Carmody and back in warm weather, and come home on Fridays in winter. "I'm just as ambitious as ever," she insists. "Only, I've changed the object of my ambitions. I'm going to be a good teacher—and I'm going to save your eyesight." Gilbert, learning of her application, withdraws his own and takes the White Sands school instead, a gesture that finally dissolves the long-standing enmity between them and leads to their reconciliation on the hill below the Blythe homestead.
Narrative Significance
Queen's Academy is the institution that crystallizes Anne's transition from a dreamy, imaginative child into a purposeful young woman capable of making profound moral choices. It is where she proves her intellectual mettle by winning the Avery scholarship, but more importantly, it is where she demonstrates that her ambitions are not rigid but responsive to love and duty. The Academy represents the broader world of learning and professional achievement that Anne has yearned for since her first days at Green Gables, yet her decision to turn away from it—to stay home and teach, to study Latin and Greek on her own in the long winter evenings—is not a rejection of ambition but its redefinition. As she tells Marilla, "When I left Queen's my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does." Queen's Academy thus stands as the place where Anne's straight road bends, and where she discovers that the best may lie not in the distant horizon but in the familiar fields and orchards of Green Gables.
