Some of the graduates, both male and female, are intelligent looking young people, and really exhibited powers of original thought in their essays and speeches that would have done no discredit to any institution in the country. Their manner and demeanor, too, was uniformly courteous and unexceptionable, and we confess to a very deep interest in their future welfare and career.
It is just as well that our people should at once fully grasp and comprehend the problem of the negro’s future. He is a citizen both of the United States and of the Commonwealth of Georgia, and possessed of equal rights and privileges with the most favored of the Anglo Saxon race. No law can be enacted which does not include and apply to him, and the freedman is now an essential and integral portion of the community. Hence, it should ever be the mission and duty of the superior race to treat him kindly, and to spare no pains to elevate this new element to its proper place in the body politic. They, equally with ourselves, help to make the law-givers and rulers of the country, and how can they act intelligently in the premises unless educated and duly qualified for the responsible trust, which, doubtless, was prematurely and unadvisedly thrust upon them by the gift of the ballot.
We must deal with circumstances as we find them, and not look backward, but forward and upwards. The negro race is a fixture in the South and will never die out, either by emigration to Liberia or from natural causes. It is susceptible of great improvement, and can be made largely conducive to the welfare and prosperity of the country.
The exercises over, President Ware, after a short, but singularly appropriate address, delivered the diplomas and certificates of scholarship to the fifteen graduates, remarking, that as they were printed in English they would not be in the predicament of some bachelors of arts who could not translate their own Latin diplomas. Thus ended the examinations and commencement of the Atlanta University.
We cannot, in all candor, pass on without again commending this institution to the good will and sympathy of the white people of Georgia. It is conducted upon proper and conservative principles. Its president and corps of instructors are honest, faithful and capable. Its pupils well behaved and exemplary. Its influence, we fully believe, will be for good to the African race, and it is to be hoped that the State will ever continue to bestow her patronage upon a foundation which is doing more than any other to elevate and bless the African race, which is destined to form an important element in the future politics and government of the country.
Lewis High School at Macon. Examinations and Entertainments.
MISS ANNETTE LYNCH.
It has been my happy privilege to visit this institution, after an absence of two years, and note the progress made by the pupils, as shown in the recent examinations and closing exercises of the school-year of 1878.
As a former teacher in the school, I was better able to judge of that progress than a stranger; and truly, looking back to those who were promising pupils then, but in lower classes, and seeing so many of them now in the highest class, and doing credit to themselves and teachers, is not only gratifying, but an encouragement to all who have taken an interest in the work here through all its vicissitudes. The school is now under the very able management of Rev. M. O. Harrington and wife, with Miss L. A. Abbott as assistant, and has ninety-three pupils enrolled. It is answering well the purpose of its establishment, viz.: To provide for colored pupils at Macon and surrounding places a higher education than the common-school, without the expense of going elsewhere.