s hosts were so pleased that two prizes were established to
commemorate his visit. One was for an essay by Harrow boys on the
subject: "The Drawing Together of America and Great Britain by Common
Devotion to a Great Cause." A similar prize on the same subject was
offered to the boys of some American school, and Page was asked to
select the recipient. He promptly named his old Bingham School in North
Carolina.

It was at Bingham that Page gained his first knowledge of Greek, Latin,
and mathematics, and he was an outstanding student in all three
subjects. He had no particular liking for mathematics, but he could
never understand why any one should find this branch of learning
difficult; he mastered it with the utmost ease and always stood high. In
two or three years he had absorbed everything that Bingham could offer
and was ready for the next step. But political conditions in North
Carolina now had their influence upon Page's educational plans. Under
ordinary conditions he would have entered the State University at Chapel
Hill; it had been a great headquarters in ante-bellum days for the
prosperous families of the South. But by the time that Page was ready to
go to college the University had fallen upon evil days. The forces which
then ruled the state, acting in accordance with the new principles of
racial equality, had opened the doors of this, one of the most
aristocratic of Southern institutions, to Negroes. The consequences may
be easily imagined. The newly enfranchised blacks showed no inclination
for the groves of Academe, and not a single representative of the race
applied for matriculation. The outraged white population turned its back
upon this new type of coeducation; in the autumn of 1872 not a solitary
white boy made his appearance. The old university therefore closed its
doors for lack of students and for the next few years it became a
pitiable victim to the worst vices of the reconstruction era.
Politicians were awarded the presidency and the professorships as
political pap, and the resources of the place, in money and books, were
scattered to the wind. Page had therefore to find his education
elsewhere. The deep religious feelings of his family quickly settled
this point. The young man promptly betook himself to the backwoods of
North Carolina and knocked at the doors of Trinity College, a Methodist
Institution then located in Randolph County. Trinity has since changed
its abiding place to Durham and has b