TENNESSEE.
Fisk University.
REV. E. M. CRAVATH, NASHVILLE.
The sixteenth scholastic year of Fisk University has begun under very favorable conditions and with very encouraging prospects.
1. The number of pupils in attendance for the first two months of this year is greatly increased over that of last, although that of last year was larger than any previous year since the occupancy of Jubilee Hall. The number from outside the city of Nashville is thirty per cent. greater than at the same time one year ago.
The result is that the limit of our boarding accommodations has been already nearly reached, and the anxious inquiry is forcing itself upon us, What shall we do with the large number of students who desire, and are planning, to come during the next three months?
2. The grade of scholarship in the case of new students is considerably advanced over that of former years. There have been no additions to the regular college classes, but four have entered the senior, three the middle, and six the junior college preparatory classes. As advanced students are the ones desired in such an institution as this, it is a source of great encouragement that the number of such is steadily increasing year by year.
3. There is on the part of the students a growing comprehension of the value and of the necessity of a thorough education, and consequently a very much stronger desire and purpose to take long courses of study. This is one of the most hopeful facts connected with our work. It required a wonderful amount of determination and patience on the part of both professors and students to engineer the first classes through a college course of study. There was no public sentiment in the community, and no sentiment among parents or friends of the students, to encourage and stimulate to long courses of study. But a great change for the better has been wrought. The steady, persistent work of the past fifteen years, which has resulted in the graduation of five small classes from the college department, has created an atmosphere and established conditions which stimulate the desire for a liberal education, and foster the purpose of those who undertake to secure it.
The educating power of a considerable body of advanced, carefully disciplined and well-read students, is marked upon all the lower grades, and especially upon those who come to Fisk University for the first time. The present senior preparatory class promises to enter college in May twenty strong. This is double the number of the largest class that has ever before been entered.
4. The influence and power of the work done by our students while absent from the University during vacation or after completing their studies, become more and more manifest. The reports brought back by the students themselves, the testimony of Trustees and County Superintendents, the new students brought here through their influence, all reveal to us as we have not realized it before, the greatness of the service the University is rendering to the cause of education, morality, religion and social life throughout the great Southwest. Our students are our epistles; and becoming known and being read by the people wherever they go, are turning the thoughts and hearts of others to the University. It is largely because of the faithfulness and loyalty of our students that the steady growth in numbers continues from year to year.
We have, therefore, abundant reason to thank God and take courage. The great concern we have about the future is that our friends in the North will not be ready to meet the growing demands of this great work of uplifting the millions of recently emancipated people in the South, by a sufficiently large and constant giving. With the experience of the last fifteen years in mind, we can say with the full assurance of conviction that the call for the enlargement and strengthening of the University is in some vital respects more imperative now than ever before. Endowments are needed to adequately sustain the departments of study already established, and to found professional schools to meet the growing demands of a struggling and rising people.
These must come, or the best results of the labor already done, and the money already expended, will not be attained.
Mother and Daughter Gone.—Memorial Services at Fisk University.
The Sabbath services at this Institution, Oct. 24th, were hallowed by the touching and appropriate tributes to the memory of Mrs. Elizabeth Spence, mother of Prof. A. K. Spence, and of her daughter, Mrs. Julia Spence Chase, wife of Prof. F. A. Chase. Mrs. Spence had been boarding in the Institution four years, spending her last days with her children. She possessed a mind of unusual strength and vigor, and was somewhat distinguished as an author. Only a few days before her death, when eighty-three years of age, she composed a poem on the occasion of the Nashville Centennial Exposition, which was published. This mother of missionaries was born in Scotland, and in her girlhood was made familiar with the missionary endeavors of the London Missionary Society through an auxiliary which held its regular meetings at her mother’s house. She was a woman of much prayer, great faith and a sweet and beautiful charity.
Just eleven weeks from the day Mrs. Spence died, writes Miss Henrietta Matson, of Fisk University, Mrs. Chase followed her mother to the fairer country above. Her death was sudden, and a heavy blow to her sorely stricken family. She died on Kelley’s Island, Lake Erie, where the family had gone for summer rest. Mrs. Chase, with her husband, had been in Fisk University eight years; a part of the time in the earlier years had been an instructor, particularly in music, in which she was especially gifted and accomplished.
Her death was peaceful and beautiful. She sent loving messages to all her friends, to the teachers and especially to the students, whom she loved and for whom she had labored. With perfect calmness she bade each of her dear ones good-bye, and then passed from their sight, leaning upon the strong arm, and catching glimpses of the glory beyond, even while treading the dark valley.
At her own request, her remains were brought to Nashville, her heart seeming to turn to the very last to those with whom she had been associated, and to the people for whom she had labored. So we laid her to rest till the resurrection morn on the beautiful hillside, with southern skies bending above her, and not far from the earthly home of her own dear ones.
The message brought to us who remain, in the death of those who have been of us is, “The night cometh, when no man can work.”