ITEMS FROM THE SCHOOLS.
Savannah, Ga.—The Beach Institute in this city was destroyed by fire on the morning of Feb. 20th. The fire began in a barn on the premises in some mysterious way, and was speedily communicated to the Institute building. The Teachers’ Home adjoining was saved, the wall toward it standing. Part of the school furniture was also saved. The building had, for a few years past, been rented to the city school-board for a colored school. Notice had been given them that the Association would require the building for its own use next fall. The insurance money will replace the building, and a school under the Association’s care will be opened as previously planned.
Marietta, Ga.—“Our school opened for the first time Oct. 15th, 1877. The local prejudice was so great that only four scholars attended. A change in the feeling has taken place, and the school has, up to this time, enrolled 88 pupils. The colored people are becoming eager to embrace their privileges. The children are improving in knowledge and in care for themselves. The prospect is full of encouragement.”
Forsyth, Ga.—On February 1st, the school building of the colored people of Forsyth was dedicated and set apart for the work for which it was intended. For months these people have been struggling to raise money to build the house. They had, as a fund to start with, about two hundred dollars, which the colored Baptist Church had collected. Subscription lists were opened and the colored people and their white friends contributed as they could. Contrary to the expectation of many, their success was such that the building was framed and rapidly pushed forward. It is not yet complete, lacking plastering, but is quite comfortable nevertheless. The teacher, W. F. Jackson, a graduate of the Atlanta University, has been indefatigable and untiring in his efforts to press this enterprise to completion. Rev. E. A. Ware, President of the Atlanta University, made the dedicatory address.
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
—A Southern man, a member of the Presbyterian Church, and a book agent for many years, reports that in the last two years he has taken 280 orders from the colored people of Charleston for valuable books, in many cases trusting them when cash payments could not be made, and has not lost fifteen dollars.
—A gentleman in Augusta, Ga., tells us he has sold over two hundred house lots to colored people, who have paid for them in small instalments, since the war.
—The African Methodists have been holding an educational convention in Georgia, Bishop Campbell presiding. From the statements made by the Bishop and by Presiding Elder Brown, we learn that wonderful progress in education has been made during the last ten years. Ten years ago, in the Atlantic District, there was but one man capable of keeping a minute of the transactions, “and then it had to be read while it was hot, for if it ever cooled down it could never be read again.” Now there is scarcely a preacher who, besides reading and writing, has not pursued to some extent the course of studies prescribed to candidates for the ministry.
—It is pleasant to note how the freedmen are rising to the dignity of self-support in their religious, as well as their material interests. A missionary of the American Sunday-school Union, in North Carolina, having recently organized three new Sunday-schools among freedmen, writes, that at the close of one of his meetings “an aged negro, of nearly seventy years, came forward with his pennies to buy a primer for his grandson. His example was followed until about two hundred pennies were piled upon the desk—the first contribution of these poor but willing self-helpers.”