NORTH CAROLINA.
Students Want to “Batch”—Who Will Help?
REV. ALFRED CONNETT, McLEANSVILLE.
We hear almost daily of young men and young women who would come here to school if they could only get a room where they could “batch.” I can only hear of one vacant house within two miles of the school, and that is engaged by two students who have not yet returned. Small buildings, say 12×20, one story, two rooms, can be built for about $100 each, and land bought at $6 to $10 per acre, possibly $20 for small tracts. By making some provision of this kind to accommodate students, we should at once draw in ten to twenty students, and these the very ones we most need to reach: namely, those who are preparing to teach, and to preach. Thus, the school would become more widely and more permanently useful. These buildings are needed immediately, or part of them. It is difficult, if not impossible, with their limited means, for the students to obtain board, with suitable accommodations. The white people do not wish to take in boarders, unless at high figures, and the colored people have, usually, but one room in their log houses.
Cannot some church, individual, or individuals, do a work for Christ in this way? If this, or something similar is not done, we shall let an important and precious opportunity slip through our fingers.