OPENING OF SCHOOLS.
BEREA, KY.
The Fall term of Berea College opens with greater promise than ever before. There are more students, and they bring more money. Two-thirds are colored, if the slightest shade of black is reckoned negro; but, if divided according to predominance of color, fully half are white.
McLEANSVILLE, N.C.
On the 16th of September we closed a two months Normal school, the first ever attempted here. We enrolled 20 pupils, six of whom had taught school, and four were preparing to teach next winter. Most of the others were primary scholars.
Our pupils did good work. Since the school closed, some of our pupils have attended a Teacher’s Institute in an adjoining county, lasting a week. One of them proved to be one of the best scholars present, was commended by the county superintendent of instruction, who conducted the institute, and by him urged to attend the public examination of teachers in October.
MONTGOMERY, ALA.
Swayne School opened last year with 300 pupils, this year with 400, showing an encouraging increase of 100.
We are securing student aid from friends at the North for several students who have gone from here to the higher institutions. Most of our best students are quite young and can do as well here at present, except that it is better for them to be in an institution where they can be under proper control twenty-four hours in the day. The social and church life of these people is so bad that we advise all to leave for boarding-schools and colleges as soon as they can.
EMERSON INSTITUTE, MOBILE, ALA.
The institute opened its doors on the 3d inst. The full corps of seven teachers, including music teacher, were present. In the two lower grades the attendance of pupils somewhat exceeded that of last year; in the higher grades it was less. The total was 52. At the end of four days it has increased to 75. This dilatory entrance will probably continue until the total will run up to 300, or thereabouts. Some of our students residing at remote points wrote that many new ones would come; but the drought has delayed, perhaps prevented them. The uncommon heat of the summer has cut off the expected means of some. Poverty is keeping a considerable number of our former Normal pupils at work for the present. The outlook presents many hopeful points.
HOWARD UNIVERSITY.
REV. W. W. PATTON, D.D., WASHINGTON, D.C.
Our new year has opened at Howard University with great promise of good. A remarkably large attendance at prayers, the first day, showed an increase of punctuality in the return of the old students, and an influx of new ones. Thus far 80 new students have joined the Normal Department and about 30 the Preparatory. The incoming Freshman Class of College numbers 8. Already 13 new ones have joined the Theological Department and others are expected. Many more would have come to it, but the standard of admission is now much higher than it used to be, and will be gradually raised as better and better material will be furnished. We discourage and often reject poorly qualified applicants. The Medical and Law courses are just commencing their term, and with bright prospects. The medical faculty is one of eminence, three of its members having been connected with the illness of President Garfield; Dr. Purvis being the first to prescribe for him after the shooting; Dr. Reyburn having been one of the six physicians in regular attendance; and Dr. Lamb having performed the operation at the autopsy. Last year this department had 81 students (a majority being white), and this year the number will sum up to nearly quite a hundred. It is open to ladies as well as gentlemen. All the law graduates of last year (5 in number) have come back to take the post-graduate course. The law students this year will number twenty or more.
The University students, through poverty, are compelled to spend the vacation in earning money (for which they find many opportunities to the north of us), and have been acting as waiters at the springs and the seaside resorts, where their good behavior makes many friends and often secures benefactors. Eight of the theological students gave themselves to missionary work with great success during the summer. One received twenty converts to the church, the Sabbath before he came back to resume study. The others were in the rural district of Southern Virginia, dark with ignorance, where they established day-schools as well as Sunday-schools, aided in a very interesting Sunday-school convention of that region, visited the families and preached the Gospel. It is thought that several new churches will soon result from these efforts, and one such was organized last month. They gave special attention to encouraging young men to prepare for usefulness as teachers and ministers, but hardly any proper facilities exist there, and poverty prevents them from going elsewhere to obtain education. We are continually tried by not having the means to aid those seeking the higher education, as the number increases and their literary character improves, while the colored people must have educated leaders in church and state.
HAMPTON, VA.
MISS HELEN W. LUDLOW.
Hampton begins the year with a large influx of students. They have come in much faster and more promptly than ever before. Last year, our largest number was 385, including 70 Indians; now, on the sixth day of school, we have 385, only 40 of whom are Indians. They appear to be a good set—hopeful material—on the whole, in advance of former years. Indeed, so many more have applied than it is possible to accommodate, that it has been our duty, of course, to select the best, and examinations have been more severe. Our quarters are full to overflowing, especially the girls’. There is a larger proportion of these than ever. Seven of our returning students report that they have taught schools this vacation. A few more who will return are still out teaching. Of the few students, sixty-one reported having come through the agency of our graduate teachers, and fourteen more through that of undergraduates. One girl brought nine. Several of our graduate teachers came in person to bring their students.
Forty-seven students reported as having worked as Sunday-school teachers this summer. Some have been active in temperance work, and give interesting account of their efforts, especially among the young. They find the old people hard to touch. They are, of course, most of them too young themselves to do as effective work as our graduate teachers. A revival has been in progress through the summer in some of the colored churches of Hampton, and our students who stayed at the school to work through vacation, took part in the meetings to some extent. Our own Sunday-school organization was kept up under our resident graduates. In the course of the summer our students here also interested themselves in an effort to aid the Tuskegee Normal School, Alabama, taught by our two graduates, Mr. Booker Washington and Miss Olivia Davidson; and succeeded by their own exertions in raising by a festival and otherwise, $75 towards the payment of a small farm (already half paid for), by the purchase of which Mr. Washington is trying to put his school on a manual labor basis.
The Hampton School Mission Association, organized last year, will continue its work by helping in the Sunday-schools in the town, Bible reading in the jail and poor-house, and among the aged poor, and aiding them in other ways within their power. Our young men have taken a great pleasure in giving a day’s work now and then to patch up some poor old cabin against the severity of the winter, or to supply some poor old aunty with food and fire.
As to your inquiry for the number, condition and wants of students seeking a higher education, I suppose if the question were put to the school, how many would like to pursue a higher education, they would rise en masse, without always much appreciation of the labor or the value in it; but the Hampton School is so well-known to be established on the basis of self-help, and for the purpose of immediate helpfulness, that it draws to it chiefly the class who are glad of a chance to work their way through school, and are seeking to fit themselves as promptly as possible for the work of life. The opportunities for this, in learning trades and in Normal training, are greater this year than ever.
General Armstrong left on September 27th for Dakota, with 30 Indian students, 23 boys and 7 girls, who having been with us three years, are now returning to their homes. The morning they started, the last three of them were received into the church by baptism. We feel hopeful for all, believing in the sincerity of their purpose, as shown in their lives, to “walk the good road by the help of Jesus.” Every boy and young man took with him from $15 to $25 worth of tools of his trade, which he had earned here by his own labor. The girls had corresponding working implements. Provision has been made ahead for their regular employment as soon as they get to their homes, and Gen. Armstrong goes with them there, with two ladies to take care of the girls, to get them settled, to visit their agencies, and see their parents. He is expected back by the 15th, and has Government authority to bring back 42 new students, including both sexes, 25 boys and 17 girls.
Forty Indian students are still in the school, and looking forward with interest to having some new comrades to initiate into the mysteries of civilization they have themselves so lately acquired. They are about half of them Arizonas, some of them Apaches, bright, docile and earnest. We only wish that those of their tribe now on the war-path could join them here. After what experience we have had, we should not be afraid to try them. It has led us to the conclusion that the Indian is a human being, and susceptible of development in the right direction, as well as “our brother in black” or in white.
BEACH INSTITUTE.
PROF. H. H. WRIGHT, SAVANNAH, GA.
The fall term of Beach Institute has opened with a marked improvement over the opening of a year ago. The pupils of the previous year have returned with an earnestness for work, and their deportment has been marked with a degree of quiet and manliness which is very gratifying to their teachers. The new pupils who have entered have fallen in with the current without creating the least disturbance. The opening weeks of 1880 were marred by continual quarreling and even fighting upon the play-ground. This year there has been none. Quite a number of the advanced pupils were hopefully converted during the summer, and are showing the fruits of the Spirit in their lives in school. We have great hopes of a continued outpouring of the Spirit upon the school.
During the recent cyclone the school-house remained comparatively uninjured, but the “Home” was rendered roofless and floods of water poured through the building. The colored people in this vicinity suffered extremely. Hundreds who lived on the low islands or rice islands, which are scarce ever covered with tidal waters, were overwhelmed, their houses destroyed and large numbers drowned. Even yet, a month since the storm, bodies of the dead negroes are being found in out-of-the-way places. A planter told me today of two such found a few days ago by his reapers in the middle of his rice fields.
ATLANTA UNIVERSITY.
REV. C. W. FRANCIS, ATLANTA, GA.
We find on this second day of our school session a fair attendance and good prospects for a prosperous year. The number registered thus far is 125, of whom 82 are boarders, the number a little larger than that of last year at the opening.
The proportion of new pupils is also a little larger, and in most cases they come under the care and persuasion of older pupils who have been teaching them during the vacation weeks. This mode of recruiting has always been effective, and as our accommodations have been used to their utmost capacity every season, we have never ventured to employ any other means to secure attendance lest we be overwhelmed. A most hopeful feature in the case of the incoming students is the large preponderance of girls who come without any special solicitation, which indicates a greatly improved sentiment in regard to their education and position in the community, and gives it abundant material for the most effective work in behalf of the elevation of the people.
There has been little opportunity thus far to learn save from letters as to the character of the missionary work done by the pupils during their vacation, but we have good reason to know that it has been more abundant and effective than in any season before. A larger share of the pupils went out as followers of Christ than heretofore, and a larger supply of temperance literature was put into their hands, and the sentiment of the people toward them and their work is increasingly favorable. It seems probable that the appeals for assistance on the part of worthy pupils will be greater than usual on account of the smaller returns their best endeavors to help themselves have secured.
A severe and protracted drought has affected all this region, so that the cotton crop was small and required early attention, and pupils were taken out of school and attendance and pay were rendered small. We meet under the shadow of sorrow, having lost five students by death during the vacation, one of them a beloved member of the senior class. We hope that the tender and thoughtful feeling which manifestly prevails thus far may lead ere long to great and blessed results.
LEWIS HIGH SCHOOL.
REV. S. E. LATHROP, MACON, GA.
Our school opened on the 3d of October with 64 scholars present. This number was increased to nearly 90 during the first week, and there will be constant additions until Christmas. Many of the poorest pupils are busily picking cotton, to earn something for school expenses, and will arrive within a month. Ten or twelve of the older scholars of last year have now gone to Atlanta University, so that there are not yet as many grown pupils as there will be after cotton picking is over. Among the new students is a young Methodist preacher, in charge of a circuit in an adjoining county. He seems quite in earnest to learn. Another of our excellent young men was converted while teaching during the summer, and has done good work in Sunday-school, temperance and revival meetings. Another taught school in the same county, and both labored earnestly in the temperance cause. A bill was passed by the legislature this summer, allowing the people of that county to vote on the question of prohibiting the sale of liquor within their own limits. These two young teachers, aided by another former pupil teaching in an adjoining county, who has considerable talent for public speaking, worked hard for prohibition. The result is seen in the news that comes this morning, that prohibition carried the day by a majority of nineteen votes.
Several new scholars have come into our school, and a larger number will yet come through the efforts of these young teachers. The attendance at opening is larger than for several preceding years, and indications point toward a steady increase. Atlanta University being within one hundred miles, draws off many of the older students, but what is our loss is their gain. The dark and ignorant communities of our common-wealth are being enlightened slowly but surely, by the earnest young teachers from this and other schools, and their influence is not small on the side of morality, religion and progress.
The school opens more favorably than for several years before, with an increase in the corps of teachers, and general prospects for extended usefulness. There is a growing number of those who desire advanced education, whose purpose it is to fit themselves to enter some of the higher institutions. Their greatest hindrance is their poverty; but the pay for school teaching is improving somewhat, although most have to wait six or eight months before receiving what they earn. There is, however, general progress in most localities, and we are glad to believe that the Lewis High School is doing its share, reaching out to uplift this whole region of country.
BURRELL SCHOOL.
MR. E. C. SILSBY, SELMA, ALA.
We had feared that the effect of a prolonged season of drought, occasioning small crops and high prices, would be to lessen the attendance considerably. In this, however, an agreeable disappointment was in store, as the number present upon the opening day was four larger than the preceding year, and nearly twice that for 1879. We opened with an attendance of 153, 19 of which number are members of the advanced grammar and high school departments. A number of last year’s advanced pupils have indicated their intention to re-enter shortly. As yet, last year’s scholars who have been employed in teaching have not returned. From a number of these we have received word with reference to their work, and learned of their expectations to be with us again.
One young man wrote of establishing a temperance society, and laboring in a revival in the local church. He had a good Sunday-school which he had supplied with “Quarterlies” containing notes on the lessons, and he seemed to be accomplishing much good. His location is one where for many years he has taught school. He writes that he expects to return to Burrell.
Another young man, who says that he will re-enter, was last year in school here for the first time, and was brought through the agency of the former. He has written intelligently of his Sunday-school, and has also sent on funds to me to be expended in papers.
Twin brothers from a town in an adjoining county, and last year’s pupils, were converted at a special revival season in the Congregational church here during the winter. To one of the teachers, one brother wrote that he was “doing the best he could teaching in the Sunday-school.” The other said that “the people out there did not know much about managing a Sunday-school properly, but he was working in it, and lent his “Quarterly” around among others, showing them how to study their lessons from it.” These brothers are about 15 years old.
We learn of the expected return of a pupil of ’79 who has been laboring very acceptably for some time in Louisiana in Sunday-school, church and temperance work. He brings a recruit for Burrell also. Another last year’s pupil of ours, from the High school grade, leaves the scholar’s seat to occupy a position behind the teacher’s desk, in the building where for years she has been a studious learner. She is a teacher in the A. M. E. Sunday-school of this place, and a member of the choir. Two other young ladies, former classmates of hers in Burrell, are, for the second year, teaching with us also.
The nature of our school being, as it is, a city school, we have not tried to crowd our work upon the attention of non-residents. We have had, however, pupils from the country and adjoining counties, every year for some time, with rare exceptions. New pupils from elsewhere, brought through the agency of others, have been referred to above. A very promising young man entered this year from a county adjoining this one on the east, who had heard of the school from former pupils. Three persons from a northern county are, I am informed, to come in company with a last year’s pupil. The condition of the cotton crop is such, that some are probably remaining away to assist in gathering and storing the same. This is often the case with country scholars.
The second day of the present session, one came to us as a pupil who has sat in the legislative hall of this State as one of our county’s representatives. He has been a teacher since then, and realizing his deficiency, comes to learn along with children. We think he shows a commendable spirit, and judging from his persistency, predict his success.
TOUGALOO, MISS.
MISS K. K. KOONS.
The year opens full of promise to us. The school is not only much larger than at the same time last year, but larger than at the same time in any previous year except the first few, before the zeal of this people on the subject of education had had time to abate. Though Strieby Hall is not yet finished, the lower floor, chapel and recitation rooms lack but the finishing touches and furniture, the first of which it is rapidly receiving, the last of which we look for daily.
We held our opening exercises in the chapel, fitted up with temporary seats. Our overcrowded Girl’s Hall and dining-room of last year prepared us thoroughly to enjoy the room which the enlargement to the building affords. Though neither building is completed, the work is being rapidly pushed forward. A number of our students, who came expecting to enter school at once, were glad of the opportunity to help themselves, and are putting in a month of work upon the buildings before entering, thus somewhat lessening the number enrolled at the opening.
Reports of the summer’s work given by our student teachers at our weekly prayer meeting were very encouraging indeed. It has been an unusually hard summer for many of them. Delay in finding vacant schools, the failure of people to keep engagements made with teachers, and hard fare, were very common. But though these things came to us in our letters from them during the summer, they were scarcely referred to in their reports. Interest in their work and the people with whom they labored entirely overshadowed the hardships. The disposition to take a cheerful view of things, and cheerfully and earnestly to meet and work against difficulties and discouragements, is becoming more manifest. Perhaps this is one of the good results to be wrought in them by the sacrifice and self-denial so bravely made after the burning of our chapel last spring.
The interest in the Sabbath-school work is greater. Fewer signers to the pledge are reported than in previous years. The temperance work is the “pons asinorum” of our young people. And well may it be, in view of the almost universal habit of drinking and using snuff and tobacco. In this work they do grow greatly “disencouraged.” But the number of signers to the pledge is, after all, no criterion by which to measure the quiet work done in the line of temperance.
The number enrolled at the opening last year was 46, this year 74. The number of day scholars taught by our twenty student teachers was 1,539; Sabbath-school scholars, 795; signers to pledge, 160; conversions, 32.
FISK UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENN.
BY REV. H. S. BENNETT.
Fisk University has opened this year with unusual prosperity. There are at this early date in the year 285 pupils in the entire school. There are in Jubilee Hall 121 boarders, which is within 30 as many as have ever boarded in the hall. Judging from applications which have been made, there will be by the middle of January next 75 more. Last night, at the faculty meeting, the question was earnestly discussed, “What shall we do with those who apply, when the hall is full?” as it is likely to be within a very few weeks. It is felt by all of the faculty that if the crops had not been cut short by the drought we should have had a rush of students altogether unprecedented in the history of the University.
It is felt by those who have known the students for a number of years that those of this year are a superior class. The quality of the students improves with every year, showing that others are at work elsewhere. We have received already this year several students of advanced grade, who have come prepared to enter the college classes. At this time we are negotiating with one who desires to enter the senior college class and graduate next commencement. We expect him in a few days.
The past years of schooling are beginning to tell upon the higher training of the colored youth, and those who come to Fisk for the first time take much higher grades than new students were wont to do a few years ago. Most of the old students have been engaged in teaching during the summer vacation. It is estimated that of 85 in the collegiate department, 60 or 65 taught school during the summer. Wherever these teachers go, they secure a good name for industry, conscientiousness, ability and energy. We are constantly getting good words from white people, directors, superintendents and private citizens in regard to the faithfulness and acceptance with which our students discharge their duties. Almost all those who teach are Christians and engage in Christian work, as a matter of course, when they begin their day schools. As a general thing, they enter at once into the Sabbath-school if there is one, and start one if there is not, and generally get the entire neighborhood enlisted.
There are two interesting features in relation to the students, the like of which we have never had before. During the past few years the trustees of the Peabody fund have sustained a Normal school for white pupils. The effort has been made to secure an appropriation from the State for this school in the years that are past. At the last session of the Legislature an appropriation of $10,000 was made for Normal schools, $2,500 for the colored children of the State, that being their relative share. The Board of Education for the State, to whom the disbursement of this fund was left, decided that the fund for the colored students should be divided among 50 pupils, and that they should have the privilege of choosing between five schools to which they should go. Each pupil would thus be entitled to $50, and each school would receive on an average 10 students. Up to the present time Fisk has received 18 out of the 50, and it is well known that many of the Senators who had the power of appointment had not taken action. We have no doubt that others will come as the year passes by.
The other feature is this. Several colored men were elected to the last Legislature, and as members had the right to appoint cadets to the East Tennessee University, of course they all appointed colored cadets. Some other republican members also appointed colored cadets. This threw the trustees of the East Tennessee University into great perplexity. It is against the law of the State to educate white and colored pupils in the same institution: it is also very much against the traditional prejudices not only of the trustees of the University, but also of the people of the State. The trustees met, and after a thorough discussion determined to make arrangements with Fisk University if possible, to take their colored cadets at $30 apiece. Fisk University was not averse to the arrangement, and so the question was settled. We have now in the University seven cadets, students of the East Tennessee University.
It is accepted by all here as an important truth, that the longer we can keep a student the better it will be for him and the institution and the work. The students in the collegiate department give tone to the whole institution. Every department is lifted to a higher standard by the high standard of the college department. As the college graduates go out into the world, they have, without an exception, taken advanced positions as teachers or other professional men.
Livingstone Hall is now having its roof put on, and all are watching its progress with the greatest interest, as promising a time when the facilities of the institution will be almost doubled. What we shall next need will be an ample endowment. Who will provide this for us?