AVERY NORMAL INSTITUTE, CHARLESTON, S. C.

M. A. HOLMES, PRINCIPAL.

More than ordinary interest attaches to this institution for the education of colored youth and the training of colored teachers, located as it is in the very cradle of secession, and near the spot from which was fired the first gun in the long war waged for their perpetual enslavement; and in a city situated in the heart of the cotton and rice-fields of the Southland.

Scarcely had the smoke of the long conflict cleared away or civil authority been fully restored in this long-besieged city, when General Saxton, then Assistant Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, opened a school in the Memminger building on St. Philip Street, built for and since used for the education of white children. Here, on the first day of October, 1865, were gathered a thousand children eager for the education so long denied to their race. So great was the pressure to gain admission to this school that one hundred children were seated in the great dome that surmounts the edifice.

The studies during the first year embraced the entire range of elementary branches, from the primer to the Latin grammar. About three-fourths of those who attended this first school were children of freedmen; the others, making up the advanced classes, were born free and constituted an aristocracy of color, a distinction which, after a lapse of more than a third of a century, still exists.

The closing examinations of this first year were attended by a large audience of both white and colored. There were present ladies and gentlemen, missionaries and teachers, civil and military dignitaries, and the leading representatives of both races. It was a novel and moving sight, one that the wildest imagination could not have foreseen or deemed possible five years before.

PROF. M. A. HOLMES, PRINCIPAL.

In its second year the school, then known as the Saxton School, held its sessions in the Military Hall on Wentworth Street, where with a slightly reduced enrollment, it remained until removed to its present quarters, May 1, 1865. The large and handsome building which it now occupies was erected by the American Missionary Association through the Freedmen's Bureau. Rev. Charles Avery, of Pittsburg, Pa., had given a large sum for the education of the colored people, and ten thousand dollars of his bequest were appropriated to the institution, and in honor of this noble philanthropist the name was changed to Avery Normal Institute. Here the enrollment was necessarily reduced and the normal character of its work made more prominent, a feature that had been contemplated from the beginning.

In any survey of the work of Avery, three principals should receive special recognition for their thorough, enduring and Christian labor in this needy field. They are the Rev. F. S. Cardozo, by whom the school was first organized in the Memminger building, Prof. M. A. Warren, who succeeded him and graduated the first class in 1872, and Prof. Amos W. Farnham, now of the Oswego Normal School. Each of these men was distinguished for unusual teaching skill, for great administrative ability, and for complete consecration to the work to which he was specially called. These worthy educators are still remembered here with affection and gratitude, but the full fruition of their labors will be known only in the great day when the books shall be opened.

For over thirty years about four hundred colored students have annually gathered here for the training which was to fit them for life's work. For many years all grades, from the primary to the high school and normal course, were maintained, but in later years the primary and intermediate pupils have been excluded, their instruction being amply provided for in the public and numerous private schools of the city, thus leaving the Institute free to devote itself to higher grades and normal work, in which Avery has been from the first conspicuous and eminently successful. Its graduates now number nearly four hundred and are found in almost every department of human activity. Some are distinguished in professional life, others in trade, or in business. Among them are doctors, skilled and eminent in their chosen fields of labor, clergymen of acknowledged ability, and teachers of long and successful experience. About two-thirds of all its graduates choose teaching as their special vocation; and nearly all prove their skill and ability in the schoolroom, and have reflected great credit on their alma mater and have been a blessing to their race. There has been for the last ten years a steady and growing demand for colored teachers of ability and with special training for their work; and there is not a county in the state to which our graduates do not go as teachers, and in the lower counties and along this malarial coast nearly all the schools for colored children are taught by Avery graduates. In many places conditions are such that no one can undertake this work without jeopardizing health or risking life itself. But there are not wanting those whom zeal and devotion lead into these dangerous fields. Names might be given of those who have even given up life itself at work in these malarial districts, proving their zeal and the missionary spirit which actuated them.

Avery has cost large sums of money; to maintain such an institution by charity through a third of a century is no small undertaking, requiring faith and consecration. But it has repaid more than a hundred-fold all that has ever been expended. Here in this historic city, surrounded by lowlands of rice and cotton, the negro was found in overwhelming numbers, and after emancipation, in utter ignorance of book lore or a pure gospel. To this people the American Missionary Association, through the Avery Institute and its consecrated workers, has brought the light of knowledge and a pure gospel, and awakened aspiration and hope of a better life. The beneficial effects of this work upon such a people, and indirectly upon the city and state, are incalculable. Intelligent Christianity and Christian education has ever been the motto of Avery, and faithfully has it been realized in the lives of its graduates, and exemplified by them in all the relations that affect good citizenship and true manhood. Race conflicts in this city have been unknown since the days of reconstruction, and it is not too much to claim that this better condition of things here is largely due to the influence exerted by Avery.

NORMAL CLASS OF 1900, IN CHAPEL.

Although it is in the strictest sense a school, in which all studies in every department are prosecuted under a high pressure, which knows no relaxation, yet religious teaching has ever been a prominent feature, and the Bible is considered the best text book in the school. It has never been sectarian, but always Christian in its teaching and influence. No year passes without numerous conversions among its pupils, and every church in the city has been blessed in some measure by accessions to its membership from the students of Avery.

The blessings which this school has brought to this people, and indirectly to a far wider constituency, are not wholly a free gift to them. A monthly tuition fee has always been required and collected from all in attendance, except in special cases, in which its collection would impose great hardship or compel the withdrawal of worthy pupils from the school. But in spite of this monthly charge and the sacrifices made to meet it and keep their children in school, these people, out of their meagre earnings, which in so many cases make accumulations impossible, have kept their children in school, and to the end of a twelve years' course, in numbers that would shame many a more prosperous community in more favored sections of our land, where schools and books are entirely free. In 1895 twenty-four successfully completed its course and graduated with honor; in 1896 twenty were added to the alumni roll; in 1897 twenty-eight; in 1898 thirty-one; in 1899 twenty-four; and at this writing twenty-four are taking final examinations for graduation in June. And from these large classes there is not one that is not an honor to the community, scarcely one that has not found a position as a teacher or in some useful calling or industry, while a few are taking higher courses in other institutions. Are not these facts sufficient answer to the charge so often made, that the colored people are losing their interest in education, or that higher education does not benefit them?

Our work has been mainly academic; that is the purpose for which Avery was called into existence, to educate and train colored teachers, and to fit them for honorable positions in trade or business.

The dignity of labor has always been faithfully inculcated, and opportunities for it have not been wanting. Nearly all the normal students and many in the lower classes go from school to some useful occupation, learning trades, or engaging in other remunerative employment. Large numbers not only maintain themselves but are necessary helpers to the bread-winners of their respective families.

But in keeping with the tendencies of the times and of the newer education, and with the traditions and practice of the American Missionary Association, an industrial department has been added to Avery, and it has aroused no little enthusiasm among students and patrons. Needlework for the girls has been introduced, and under an accomplished and efficient instructor it has been from the first a great success. The girls from the lower grades as well as from the normal classes are being systematically trained to do their own sewing, and will in time be taught to make their own garments. Our purpose is to add to this, cooking and other departments of domestic science, as the resources of the Association will permit. Steps have been taken to establish a printing department.

In 1892 Avery Normal Institute was incorporated under the laws of the state, though the control of the school has been kept in the same hands as before, a majority of the trustees being in the executive committee or the administrative force of the American Missionary Association. The purpose of the incorporation was to secure for its graduates the advantages which the laws of the state confer upon graduates of all incorporated institutions.

SEWING CLASS, SIXTH GRADE.

An article of this nature would be incomplete without some reference to charges so frequently made, and in high places too, that education, and especially the higher education, does the negro more harm than good, and that the educated classes furnish the larger part of the criminals. That there are educated criminals is not doubted, but they are not confined to one race, nor do they come from the students of the American Missionary Association schools. Of the nearly four hundred living graduates of Avery, not one is a criminal nor has one ever been accused of crime, and the writer has yet to learn of more than two who have proved unworthy of the training they have received, or dishonored their alma mater by immoral lives. These fell under a stress of circumstances that would have ruined almost any young person. On the contrary, the graduates of this and other schools under the auspices of the Association are conspicuous for worthy and upright character, for thrift, for industry and good citizenship.

And this is true not only of those who complete our course and receive their diplomas, but of hundreds of others who do not go beyond the grammar grades. Such invariably make better citizens. It is a rare thing to learn that one of the students from any class of our school has become a criminal. The criminal classes are not recruited from the pupils in missionary schools.

OUR NEEDS.

We need large contributions of money or materials that will enable us to enlarge and develop our industrial department. A promising beginning has been made, but it is only a beginning, and we desire to extend it in many lines, giving the widest possible scope to individual talent or proclivities, without lowering in any degree the present standard of scholastic attainment.

We need contributions of money and books to enlarge our library and give to our students advantages which they cannot now find in the city. A good library is absolutely indispensable in all educational work. We have a few hundred well worn volumes, the merest apology for a library, but it is the only one in the city to which colored people have access.

We appeal to individuals, to Sunday-schools, to Christian Endeavor societies and to churches for the establishment of scholarships for worthy and capable pupils. We have many such, on whom the burdens press so heavily that continuance in school to the end of the course is an impossibility. We wish to help such after they have reached the normal department. A small sum expended in keeping these worthy students in the school may bring rich rewards when the harvests of life are all finally gathered.