Memphis schools were not adequate. Mary attended Antioch College Model School from 1871 to 1874, starting at the age of eight. In 1875, Mary’s parents moved her to Oberlin, Ohio to attend Oberlin public school from eight grade to the end of her high school education in 1879. Terrell remained in Oberlin throughout her college career, opting to take the four-year “gentleman’s course” instead of the expected two-year ladies’ course, earning her B.A. in 1884 and her M.A. in 1888. Mary Church Terrell's father was married three times. His first marriage, to Margaret Pico Church, began in 1857, ended in 1862, and produced one child, Laura. Robert then married Louisa Ayers in 1862. Mary Church Terrell and her brother Thomas Ayres Church (1867–1937) were both products of this marriage, which ended in divorce. Their half-siblings, Robert, Jr. (1885–1952) and Annette (1887–1975), were born to Robert Sr.'s third wife, Anna Wright. Terrell majored in Classics at Oberlin College, the first college in the United States to accept African American and female students. She was one of the first African American women to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree, rather than a 2-year ladies’ degree. The freshman class nominated her as class poet, and she was elected to two of the college's literary societies. She also served as an editor of The Oberlin Review. Terrell earned her bachelor's degree in 1884. She earned her degree in classics on the "gentleman's path", which was a full four years of study as opposed to the usual two years for women; she wrote that some of her friends tried to dissuade her from taking this degree, which included the study of Greek, on the grounds that "Greek was hard...it was unnecessary, if not positively unwomanly, for girls to study that 'old, dead language' anyhow...where...will you find a colored man who has studied Greek?". She graduated alongside notable African-American intellectuals Anna Julia Cooper and Ida Gibbs Hunt. Together, these three Oberlin graduates grew to become lifelong colleagues and highly regarded activists in the movement towards racial and gender equality in the United States. Continuing her studies at Oberlin, Terrell earned her master's degree in Education four years later, in 1888, becoming (along with Anna Julia Cooper) one of the first two black women to earn an MA. Career Terrell began her career in education in 1885, teaching modern languages at Wilberforce University, a historically black college founded