Last year it expended $20,000 in its operations. It has about 400 students, 200 of them being boarding students. The following trades are taught: Farming, carpentry, wheelwrighting, blacksmithing, painting, brickmaking, printing, sewing, cooking, housekeeping. About twenty teachers and instructors are employed, nearly all graduates or former students of Tuskegee. Snow Hill has sent out twenty-five graduates. All are required to pass the State teachers' examination before graduating. Six of them are teachers in the Institute. The school not only has the support and the sympathy of Mr. R. O. Simpson, but of all the best white people in the county.
A little more than a year ago one of our graduates, Mr. Charles P. Adams, established a small school at Ruston, Louisiana. At present the school owns twenty-five acres of land, on which a schoolhouse costing $1,200 has been built and paid for. The school term has been extended from three to eight months, with three teachers—all Tuskegee graduates—and 110 pupils. In connection with the class-room work the students are taught agriculture and housekeeping. All this has been done in a little more than one year with money and labour contributed by the people of both races in the community. In regard to Mr. Adams's work, Honourable B. F. Thompson, the Mayor of Ruston, says, "Professor Adams deserves credit for what he has accomplished." Honourable S. D. Pearce, the representative of the parish in the State Legislature, says, "The school is doing fine work for the education of the coloured youth of this section of the State, and Professor Adams is making a vigorous struggle for its advancement." Mr. W. E. Redwine, Superintendent of Public Instruction for the parish, says, "Professor Adams is doing work in the right direction for the betterment of his race." Mr. A. J. Bell, the editor of the local newspaper, says, "His work in this section has been productive of incalculable good."
As to the work of the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute, Utica, Mississippi, I will let Mr. W. H. Holtzclaw, the principal, tell in his own words:
A SEWING-CLASS AT SNOW HILL
"I came here from Snow Hill, Alabama, last October, without a cent (I left my wife behind because of lack of means to bring her, and I walked part of the way through a wild and unfrequented part of this State), and started this work under a tree. Now we have two horses, forty acres of land, one cow and a calf, a farm planted and growing, more than 200 students, seven teachers, and a building going up. In all my efforts I have had the wise counsel and constant assistance of Mrs. Holtzclaw, without which I could not have made much progress."
Harriman Industrial Institute, Harriman, Tennessee, was established five years ago by J. W. Oveltrea, of the class of 1893. The school has thirty acres of land in the suburbs of Harriman. Mr. Oveltrea and his wife are both graduates of Tuskegee, and they have been aided in their work by Tuskegee graduates and students. The school has four buildings and about one hundred students. Several trades are taught.
The Robert Hungerford Institute, in Eatonville, Florida, was founded by R. C. Calhoun, of the class of 1896. Eatonville is about six miles from Orlando. Mr. Calhoun had nothing to begin with but the little public school. He has secured 200 acres of land, clear of debt, and a year ago dedicated Booker T. Washington Hall, a dormitory and class-room building, with chapel. This building, the plans of which were drawn by a Tuskegee graduate, cost $3,000. The trades taught are farming, wheelwrighting, painting, carpentry, sewing, cooking and laundering.
Miss Nathalie Lord, one of my early teachers at Hampton, is a trustee of this school. The school is now in its fourth year. It has forty boarding students and nearly one hundred day students. Mrs. Calhoun, who is her husband's assistant, was a student at Tuskegee, as was also the man who has charge of the blacksmith and wheelwright shops.