VANTAGE GROUND NEEDED BY STUDENTS.
BY MISS JOSEPHINE KELLOGG, TOUGALOO, MISS.
We long for the time when these people shall obtain a little vantage-ground by industry and—still more essential—by economy and a prudent use of earnings, so that the children may begin the work of getting an education betimes and continue it until a respectable course of study is thoroughly mastered. We have some such, and we hope much from the earlier training and the favorable circumstance of their having parents interested in educating them and able to do it.
In the cases of a majority, they come to us already grown-up, something having given them an ambition for better things than they had known. They have their own way to make and can be in school only a part of each year, many of them working nights and mornings and one day of each week besides, to pay their board in whole or in part. As the time approaches when exhausted funds and worn-out clothing must compel them to go out and seek employment, thoughts will wander and there will be a relaxation in the matter of preparation and recitation of lessons in spite of themselves and the exertions of their teachers. No doubt there is a blessing connected with their struggles against adverse circumstances, and a manly and womanly self-dependence is fostered in this way, but it is not to be expected that a great number will complete the course in the face of such discouragements.
As year after year passes, and they get education enough to help them on somewhat in life and a knowledge that fits them to be useful in church, society and home, and they yet seem almost as far as ever from the goal of graduation which they once placed before themselves, they begin to be anxious to settle down to the real business of life, and they relinquish the hope of a completed normal course with, perhaps, a subsequent complete collegiate course.
While it is the few of those who enter that go on to the end of the course and the many drop out as I have described, yet we do not consider our labor in vain, but rather hope to claim the assurance “Blessed are ye who sow beside all waters.” If the teaching were only in the ordinary elementary branches we might think it of little avail unless carried on continuously to a more satisfactory issue, but much of it is more fundamental than even arithmetic. The entire mode of life is a lesson and a much needed one to most of those who come to us. The regularity of meals with the laws of the dining-room, the regularity of retiring and rising, the neatness and order of the rooms, the care of clothing, the personal habits, the sanitary regulations, the study and exercise, and the propriety of deportment required, not to speak of the regular work belonging to the industrial training, seem to new scholars to form a complete hedge, if not a bewildering labyrinth; but a very bright feature of our work is the spirit of subordination and respect for constituted authority, which greatly simplifies and lightens the enforcement of all necessary rules. This is an excellent and much-to-be commended trait in our students. I have asked some of those who go out to teach if the children in the public schools are easy to govern. Oh, yes, the answer has been, they expect to mind.
LADIES’ HALL, TOUGALOO, MISS.
It is very edifying to note how those who come without any taste or neatness in their personal appearance, with sorry attempts at finery and painfully-laced waists, improve under the tuition of the lady principal and the influence of those who have been here longer, the expression of the countenance often changing more rapidly and noticeably than even the manner of dress. But, O! the patience and the faculty required for this most important work of training the girls in womanly virtues and housewifely ways!
With all the patience and with all the faculty possible, it is a great and constant strain to have the care of such a household, and the matrons and lady principals need the uplifting prayers and sympathy of the warm Christian hearts interested in these schools, in a special degree.
And then the instruction in the Bible, as “the only and the sufficient rule both of faith and practice”—the value of this work cannot be over-estimated. The case of a young man who came into school for the first time this fall, comes to mind. Living far back from the railroad, in the country, he had had no advantages of any schooling but a few brief sessions of the public school. He was entered in the Third-reader grade and was to all appearance a most unpromising specimen, although a professed Christian, and apparently a sincere one, with a real experience of trust in God, but wofully untaught as to Christian character and duty. As the Scripture was from time to time plainly and searchingly expounded, and the vices which are sometimes permitted under the garb of religion were exposed, it was plain to see that he was listening as to a new revelation. In school-room work there was a marked improvement, especially in the expressiveness of his reading, but the great benefit that came in his term of school was in the way of moral enlightenment. A month ago he joined the temperance society. The last prayer-meeting was taken up largely with speaking of the temptations that would be met at Christmas-time to violate the pledge, and one young man said that, in view of these temptations he would rather spend Christmas at Tougaloo than anywhere else. This young man then “spoke in meeting” for the first time, I think, and said he did not feel that way. It seemed to him that the principal thing he wanted to go home for, was to tell his people he had become a temperance man. He had been a good deal of a drinker, a member of church, too, and his people were all in the same way, and didn’t know any better, but now he would tell them that he had found a better way, and that they, too, must forsake the old bad way, or they would surely go down. He said, “If I can’t keep my pledge, I may as well find it out first as last, but I do believe I can. I does feel as if temperance is grafted in here,” laying his hand upon his breast. He hopes to return and bring a sister with him, but if he cannot get the means and never comes, is there not here a little bread cast on the waters?
The evening before school closed there was a beautiful Christmas exercise, consisting of recitations, Scripture and music, lighted by a large star of evergreen filled with burning candles. No doubt many a new idea concerning the universal holiday was imbibed. This was followed by an exhibition by the temperance society.
Thanksgiving day was a blessed occasion with us. Rev. Mr. Stickel preached on Tests of Character, dwelling upon the test of faith and the test of gratitude, basing his sermon upon the story of the ten lepers. An opportunity has usually been given, in connection with the morning service, for personal testimonies, and so many had given themselves to the service of the Lord and so many had been led into a fuller Christian experience since last Thanksgiving that there was a real eagerness for this service, and a somewhat wistful look on a good many faces when the meeting was closed without it. At the end of dinner, however, President Pope rose and said such an opportunity would be given then and there; that we could not spend a portion of the afternoon more profitably nor have a pleasanter sort of after-dinner speeches than in recounting the good dealings of God with us. Notwithstanding the fact that a Thanksgiving dinner is about as well calculated to promote a spirit of thankfulness as anything that can be mentioned, it was a little harder to rise from the table and speak in the dining-room than in the chapel. Yet, after the first momentary hesitation, the testimonies came, briefly but freely, of gratitude for health, for success in work, for the privilege of being at school, for the pardon of sins, and many other things.
One young man said he had felt all the year, as never before, that all his blessings came right from the hand of God. He had felt it in his teaching, and had thanked God for all his success. He thanked God for this school, and for those friends in the North who had established it, and for all the benefits it is conferring upon the people of this State. One youth said he was thankful he had learned the true object of man’s life—what he was made for. He used to think a man could serve God or let it alone—that his time and faculties were his own, and he could do as he pleased. But now he had learned that a man’s true calling is to serve the Lord. He was glad to know that the great God has something for every one to do, and has His eye upon the way he does it, and that his reward is according to his faithfulness, and not according to the greatness of the work. It seemed to make life worth living.
Prof. Salisbury was with us three days of the last week, in the tour of the schools which he is making to get his work in hand. He gave us a helpful talk in chapel one morning, and again gave an account of the other schools he had visited, and we trust his subsequent visits will aid in promoting the symmetry and efficiency of the work of this school.