The general health of the school has kept up well. There were only two serious cases of sickness, and no deaths, for which we are very thankful to our protecting Father. None were even obliged to leave school on this account.
The attendance from abroad has been much larger than usual, and those attending have uniformly been anxious to remain during the whole session.
We graduated our first class this year, and there has been quite a class spirit developed, so that there is a strong desire on the part of the pupils to remain in school and graduate in the classes that they are now in.
The religious work has not been marked by as many conversions as we had hoped to see; but there has been great progress made in Christian activity in certain directions, especially in Sunday-school Work and Temperance Reform.
The Sabbath before Commencement we spent in Sunday-school Convention. Steps were taken to organize a Sunday-school Union, which promises to greatly enlarge our usefulness to those in the surrounding country. No such work has ever before been undertaken.
In our temperance work we were opposed at the outset by the leading students. For some time it looked as though we were not going to bring them to the point of taking a stand, even after they were brought to see that the people were being ruined by strong drink. But the victory was most complete. Students who had to leave before the year closed, sent back for pledges. They were hard at work in the temperance reform. When school closed, every one who was going out to teach, and many others, took pledges, and went out enthusiastic to their new field of labor. This seems to us the peculiar feature of our work this year outside the school-room.
The work in the school-room has been marked by thoroughness. Gen. J. A. Smith, State Superintendent of Education, writes me: “Only having attended your exercises one day, I am hardly prepared to give anything more than impressions hastily formed. I will say, however, those were all favorable. The examinations of the classes, so far as I heard them, especially in mathematics, surpassed my expectations * * * Judging from the order and system exhibited, I was led to believe that the discipline of the institution was excellent.”
Nothing could more fitly have followed the instructions of the year than Rev. W. S. Alexander’s address, on Commencement Day, on “Natural and Acquired Right.” It was full of interest and wise application.