TALLADEGA COLLEGE.
BY REV. C. L. WOODWORTH, D.D.
Talladega, in Eastern Central Alabama, is a bright village of a thousand people, lying high up among the hills, away from the malaria which lurks in the valleys below. The air is soft and bracing, the water pure and sweet, and the whole region eminently beautiful. Here Talladega College was founded in 1867. The college is beautiful for situation, and in this respect would contest the palm with any institution we have, except possibly, Fisk at Nashville. Encircled on all sides by green mountain ranges, lying far up among the hills, it is one of the most inviting and salubrious spots in the State, and must have been foreordained as the site of a college.
The institution is well equipped for work. Stone Hall, Swayne Hall, Graves Hall, and Foster Hall are solid and comely, and have accommodated more than 298 students the present year. And of the campus, on which Swayne Hall sits, shaded with superb water oaks, it must be said we know of nothing finer in the South. Connected with the college is a farm of some 200 acres, mostly cultivated by the young men. Here they learn the art, as well as the science of farming, and here the supplies for the students’ table are principally raised.
It may be doubted whether any school of the A. M. A. is occupying a more needy field, or has around it a larger constituency. Alabama has a colored population of some 630,000, for whom Talladega College is the only institution in the State offering to them the advantages of the higher education. For the supply of trained teachers, of educated ministers, and of intelligent and reliable leaders—for this immense multitude Talladega must be the main reliance. The college, therefore, has a mission at its own doors, and for the present has more than it can do to meet the home demand. Its students are scattered throughout the State, as teachers and preachers, and their influence is felt in every public interest.
The Faculty of the college is able, clear-headed and intensely in earnest. President De Forest is an enthusiast in his work. Scholarly, inspiring, magnetic and full of faith in the capacity of the negro for the finest culture, and to reach the highest manhood, he does not mind the isolation of his position, nor the ostracism attending it, but finds perpetual joy in seeing the good work prosper in his hands.
It was my good fortune to be present during parts of three days in Commencement week, though not permitted to witness the exercises on Commencement day. Of the general air of the school there can be only words of praise. The quiet of the students on the campus, on the streets, in the class rooms, the self-respect in their bearing everywhere manifest, was a token both of the discipline of the school and of the spirit of the scholars. We heard creditable examinations in grammar, in Virgil, in the evidences of Christianity and in the life of Christ. But the exercise which interested us most was the reading of six or seven essays by members of the theological class. These papers, we were assured, had received scarcely any alteration in passing through the hands of the professor. They were clear, sharp, radical in thinking and independent in style and expression. Two college presidents were brought to the bar of criticism, and it really looked as if the students had the best of the argument. Yet there was no appearance of arrogance or of self-conceit; only the air of honest, thoughtful men.
The class of students as a whole seemed made up of earnest, aspiring youth, eager for an education and willing to make every possible sacrifice in order to secure it. As an instance, I saw a man in the grammar school, somewhere from thirty-five to forty years of age, who will work in the foundry six months or a year, and then will take his earnings and go to school as long as they will last. This he has been repeating for years. Another was pointed out to me who had worked on the farm a whole year, and then was using up his credits in schooling and board.
I should not give a complete idea of the college unless I spoke particularly of its religious tone. This is of the highest, and was especially satisfactory. President De Forest is a man of profound religious convictions, and has not the slightest faith in education which does not include the moral as well as the intellectual character. Hence the Bible is put underneath all the courses of instruction, and religion made the practical and ever-present duty of the daily life.
Talladega, like so many other institutions, needs endowments for its various chairs of instruction. For lack of these it is sadly limited in the good it might accomplish, and its Faculty are badly handicapped and bearing burdens which are making them old before their time. Let me whisper into the ear of men who are asking what they shall do with the wealth committed to their care: Here is an object worthy of their largest charity, and, at the same time, an object most needy and most appealing. Let them give to this thousands and tens of thousands, and they will make no mistake.