The first twelve years of Juliette’s education took place at home, or in the home of another wealthy, well-educated woman. According to biographer Stacy Cordery, Lucille Blois, a local high school teacher who taught out of her home, likely came to the Gordon household to give instruction to Juliette and her siblings. When she was twelve, Juliette joined her older sister, Eleanor, at a school run by two sisters, the Misses Emmells, in Morristown, New Jersey. According to an advertisement for the school from 1872, the ten boarding students were educated in the “various English branches, in the Ancient and Modern Languages, as well as in music, Drawing and Painting.”
After only one year at Misses Emmells’, Juliette and her sister transferred to the Virginia Female Institute (VFI) in Staunton, Virginia – the same school Robert E. Lee’s daughters attended. The curriculum at VFI focused on traditional subjects like mathematics, history, natural sciences, French, English grammar, spelling, religion, piano, drawing, and elocution. Juliette excelled in her drawing classes but often struggled with spelling. Her letters home often included postscripts, like “please excuse the spelling” probably anticipating correction in her mother’s response. VFI was an Episcopal school, and moral philosophy and religious education was a part of every course of study to prepare the young ladies to take their roles in society.