Evidences of Progress Among Colored People

by G. F. Richings

The school has a total teaching force of sixteen persons. Six of these are graduates of the best Northern Universities. Others are teachers of excellent education and wide experience.

The young ladies are under the close and affectionate watchcare of a New England lady, whose treatment of them is noted for its conscientiousness, its piety and its motherliness.

A number of the male teachers live in the building with the young men and thus become to them constant advisers, counsellors and friends.

The religious influences of the school are pure, constant and strong.

The University is grandly located for accessibility, healthfulness, and beauty. It is near enough to the city of Nashville to give it all the advantages of city life. Yet it is so far removed from the crowded city with its slums, saloons and other evils, that it is virtually in the country.

The property of the school is valued at $80,000. It has a small endowment fund of less than $1,000. Several Indian youths from the Indian Territory have been students in this institution. The graduates are widely scattered throughout the South, occupying positions of influence and usefulness.

VIRGINIA UNION UNIVERSITY.

Virginia Union University has been formed out of two very excellent schools, where a great work has been done for the education and advancement of the colored people, namely, Wayland College, which was located at Washington, D. C., and Richmond Theological Seminary, at Richmond, Va. Both of these schools have a very interesting history. Wayland Seminary, as it was called, was founded at Washington, D. C., in 1865. Rev. G. M. P. King was president of it for twenty-seven years. The work began in 1865, was vigorously followed up by the purchase of property on "I" street at a cost of $1,500 from monies contributed by women of the North. The school was named in honor of President Francis Wayland, of Brown University. In 1871 a new site, 150 feet square, on Meridian Hill, in the northern part of the city, was purchased at a cost of $3,375. The erection of a new building was begun in 1873. It was a fine four-story building, with basement and accommodations for seventy-five students, with recitation rooms and rooms for the faculty. It cost about $20,000. The walls, from the foundation to the crowning, were constructed by colored bricklayers under the supervision of a master workman, an ex-slave from Virginia, who purchased his freedom before the war. Wayland Seminary has turned out some very able men, among them Rev. Harvey Johnson, D. D., of Baltimore, Md., who is one of the most noted colored preachers in the country. He has held charge of one of the largest Colored Baptist churches in the United States for nearly thirty years.

The Richmond Theological Seminary, at Richmond, Va., has a very remarkable history. It was first commenced in 1868, and started its work in Lumpkin's Slave Jail, and was first known as Colver Institute. In 1876 it was incorporated as the Richmond Institute. Subsequently the trustees and officers of the American Baptist Home Missionary Society decided to make it a school for ministers only, and in 1886 the name was changed to the Richmond Theological Seminary. Rev. Charles Corey, A. M., D. D., was elected president in 1868, and remained in charge until 1899, when the school went into the Union University. In speaking of the work, Rev. Corey said: "Of students there have been in attendance nearly 1,100; total preparing for the ministry, 540; graduates with diplomas from Richmond Institute, 73; total graduates with degree of B. D. from Richmond Theological Seminary, 27. Some of these graduates are now in charge of institutions of learning, others are professors in seminaries and universities. Six entered the foreign mission field. The former students of the Richmond Theological Seminary are to be found from Canada to Texas, and in the lands far beyond the sea." The school has had among its teachers such men as Prof. J. E. Jones, D. D., and Prof. D. N. Vassar, D. D. Both of these men are well educated and represent a high type of true manhood, and they have done much to advance the race they are identified with. Now Wayland College and Seminary and Richmond Theological Seminary are united under one board of trustees. They have at present the Theological Department, the College Department, the Academic Department and the Preparatory Department. An industrial plant will, it is hoped, be built. They already teach the students in a practical way the art of printing and of managing the steam and electrical plant. This last gives them quite a knowledge of engineering. The new buildings number eight—a fine library building, including a chapel and library, a lecture hall, a dining hall, a dormitory, a power plant, two residences and a stable. They are constructed of the finest granite, and could not be duplicated for $300,000. They are situated on a hill about fifty feet above the valley—a beautiful location in the centre of thirty acres. The buildings contain every modern improvement—steam heat in all the rooms and halls, electric lighting and a complete telephone system for the different buildings and floors, and most approved toilet and bath arrangements. It is said to be the finest group of buildings in the whole South.