The Bishop Payne Divinity School at Petersburg, Va., incorporated in 1884, “had its origin in the necessities of the case,” as its catalogue announces. It grew out of the theological department of Major Cooke’s St. Stephen’s Normal School. Doctor Spencer, the first teacher, was appointed and supported by the Trustees of the Virginia Seminary. The school is finely located and has five good buildings, including a beautiful chapel recently completed, and maintains the same standard that other such schools have attained. The late Rev. C. Braxton Bryan, D. D., member of an old and distinguished Virginia family, was its Dean from the beginning. Examining chaplains find the graduates fully up to those from any of our Seminaries. The happy combination of able white professors with the splendidly trained and equipped negro warden, the Rev. Samuel W. Grice, and the close association between the faculty and the students, make an ideal atmosphere for the highest and holiest results. The students have further training in life-work through their missionary activities in and around Petersburg.
Statistics of the school show that 92 students prepared there have been ordained to our Ministry; 16 of these have died in Orders; 76 of the Alumni are now in Orders. If you will add the two latter figures, you will find that every one of the ninety-two men prepared at Payne Divinity is honorably accounted for. Not one has, so far, put his hand to the plow and turned backward. These statistics do not take account of a considerable number who studied at the school, but for one reason or another were not ordained. The ten students this year in attendance are from ten Dioceses. Of these “three students served in France during the war, two of them were lieutenants in the Army, one was in the Navy.... Two of our Alumni have been elected to the Episcopate, the Rev. James S. Russell, D. D., of St. Paul’s School, Lawrenceville, and the Rev. Samuel W. Grice, B. D., Warden. Both declined the honor in order to continue their work in these important schools.” Who will undertake to measure the value of the investment in human life represented in the Bishop Payne Divinity School?
By 1910, the strong, wise direction of the Rev. Mr. Bishop had so impressed the Church and made friends for the great cause which he advocated, that the American Church Institute felt itself strong enough to add three other schools to those under its patronage. Concerning them, Mr. Bishop wrote as follows in announcing their acceptance: “They are located in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, where the need of effective work by our Church is greatest; and, notwithstanding pitifully small resources, they have done work of which the Church may well be proud.” We review them briefly.
St. Athanasius’, Brunswick, Ga., began its existence as a parochial school in 1884. In 1889, it was made a diocesan school. In 1910 a charter was obtained, and St. Athanasius’ became a Church Institute School. Mr. William Augustus Perry, son of the rector of St. Mark’s Church, Tarboro, N. C., and a teacher in his father’s school, was called to be Principal. Mr. Perry is a graduate of St. Augustine’s, Raleigh, and a B. A. of Yale University. His purpose for the school was unconsciously expressed in this extract from a letter to Mr. Bishop: “I find myself arriving nearer and nearer to the conclusion that all unhappiness, all failures, all sins, are the result of ignorance somewhere—ignorance of self, ignorance of other people, ignorance of nature, ignorance of God. My people are accused of general incompetency, lack of skill, lack of finish; and to a certain degree, justly so. The cause of it all is that we do not get the thoroughness of preparation which we ought to have, and too much is expected of us with such poor fundamental training.... The standards are not too high nor the pace too great per se. What we want, what we need, and what we must have, is more system, more definiteness, and greater thoroughness in our early training.... If we get, in our youth, the thoroughness of training which the Church can give, we will shake off the stigma of inefficiency and superficiality.” This has been his consistent effort throughout his eleven years of administration, and with marked success, as a visit to the school reveals.
The growth has been steady; and the attendance here, as in every one of our schools, fully taxes the capacity of the buildings. Industries are taught to both boys and girls, which minister to the needs of the community. The daily chapel, with instruction and lectures, make the spirit of the school-family.
St. Mark’s School, Birmingham, Ala., was opened about twenty-six years ago in a rented room, with eight pupils. A lay-reader, C. V. Augustine, was teacher, and the mission was directed by the Rev. J. A. Van Hoose, of Alabama, a perpetual deacon whose enthusiasm and earnestness and great business ability have been the chief assets of the growing enterprise. A handsome building, now very valuable, is the present home of the school. During these years, the Negroes have contributed over $25,000 in fees and otherwise to its operation. In its curriculum, the school correlates literary, industrial, and religious education. The story of its graduates, too long to tell here, forms an interesting exhibit of splendid influence traveling to remotest country neighborhoods as well as to city homes and shops and offices. Plans for the enlargement of the scope of the work are in the making. The Rev. C. W. Brooks, a native of Baltimore and, for twenty-two years, Principal, is a graduate of Howard University and King Hall. He has devoted his entire life to this splendid school.
The Vicksburg Industrial School, Miss., began as a parochial school during Bishop Thompson’s later years, under the two Middletons, father and son, who were successively rectors of St. Mary’s, Vicksburg. A suitable property was bought in 1907, when the St. Mary’s School became twice as large. Upon reorganization, its name was changed, and industries suited to community life were introduced. Archdeacon R. T. Middleton, a rare soul, gentle and strong and modest, was the pervading spirit whose influence, to the day of his death in August, 1921, was powerful over the two hundred and more young pupils who annually attended. Here, as everywhere, the school has won the confidence of both races, and its graduates are generally making good everywhere from the Gulf to the Lakes. The School has its own Principal, but the rector of St. Mary’s, now the Rev. S. A. Morgan, is also rector of the school, and in charge of religious instruction.
The Fort Valley High and Industrial School, Georgia, accepted by Bishop Nelson of Atlanta, and helped by the Institute in 1912, was finally incorporated as an Institute School in 1919. It had its beginnings some thirty years ago. Its new life upon its present broad foundations is the result of the consecrated wisdom of a Negro layman and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. H. A. Hunt. They are both thoroughly practical and constructive teachers, who know how to relate the theory of books to the practice of industry. Fort Valley is the strategic negro school of Georgia, both because of its central location and because of its good plant and its unexcelled history of success. The Principal is an authority on the sort of education which Fort Valley illustrates as no other can in that neighborhood. His work is of high value in community and State, as through institutes and conferences he disseminates his tested and approved methods. It would be invidious to select any one avenue of excellence to illustrate the work of Fort Valley, where all attain so high an average. Thus guarded, it may be proper to say that the contribution to the rural schools made through graduates equipped to meet rural problems, alone justifies every dollar of annual expenditures.
In 1914, the Rev. Samuel H. Bishop, General Agent of the Institute, died. His genius as a constructive critic had worked wonders in the improved standard of all the schools. The Rev. Robert W. Patton, D. D., succeeded him, bringing to the task other and equally valuable gifts, and the Institute has gone steadily forward in building upon the now well-established foundations.