THE FREEDMEN.
TOUGALOO UNIVERSITY, MISSISSIPPI.
REV. G. STANLEY POPE.
General View.
This is one of the youngest of the A. M. A. schools. Some of our sister institutions have the advantage of us by four or five years. None have had such frequent changes in managers and instructors. At the commencement of the present year, there was almost an entire change in the workers. In the face of many discouragements, there is a remarkable degree of confidence on the part of the pupils. This is manifest in the increased attendance, which, in the Normal and Intermediate Departments, is sixty per cent. larger than last year, and this without special effort on our part. The ladies’ hall is full, and some are compelled to occupy a room in the mansion. The young men’s dormitories have been more than full, so that we have been obliged to put up some rough barracks, for the accommodation of twenty young men. Before the building could be finished, half the rooms were taken. Recitations are heard in Professor Miner’s office and private sitting-room, as well as in the public sitting-room at the ladies’ hall. Letters are continually coming in, asking for work with which to pay board. It seems more like the first two or three years after the surrender than anything I have since seen. One young man walked fifty miles, carrying his trunk on his back, to get here. There ought to be means furnished us to help all such “tramps.”
The school will accomplish the work intended by its founders, when it shall send out each year a class of well-trained teachers, who will build up good schools and churches. It is not proposed, at present, to enter upon a higher course of training than is given in our best Normal schools.
Our location could not well be bettered, being almost in the very centre of the State, and upon the great through line from New Orleans to Chicago. The place is both beautiful and healthful. The ground is high and rolling, and the great oaks, with their heavy hanging moss, lend a grandeur and charm to the place. There are only two schools of similar grade in the State open to colored people—Alcorn, in the extreme south-west, and Shaw University, in the extreme north. The field is before us. Mississippi, with her 350,000 souls, over sixteen years of age, who cannot read and write, is calling for our teachers. Chicago and New Orleans are ready to consume our berries and hay just as soon as we can produce them in sufficient quantity to ship. The farming community around us is calling for shoes and harnesses. But our buildings are entirely inadequate. The immediate need is a plain, substantial three-story brick building, that will cost $12,000, the first floor for recitation rooms, and the second and third for dormitories for young men. We ought to have it before our opening next year. The ladies’ hall must also be enlarged, for we cannot put the young women into barracks as we have the young men. There is every indication of greatly increased attendance another year. We must not close our doors. Will the readers of the Missionary give us the means to open them wide? The demand is for a forward movement. Shall the demand be met?