The collegiate exercises of the school were creditable to the students and their instructors. The examination exhibited the usual enthusiasm of these students in their studies. The day is past when we need to parade proofs that the negro has a brain capable of improvement. We can now quietly assume that the color of a man’s skin does not necessarily affect his mental calibre, and there we may leave it. I must say, however, that I have not attended a closer and more satisfactory theological examination in many a day than that of the nine theological students who will graduate from Talladega next year. I have attended examinations in seminaries and associations and councils, and been through several such trials myself, but I never was present at one that gave me better satisfaction than this. If all our theological teachers will pass over to us men as thoroughly posted in the fundamental doctrines of the Bible as these young men appeared to be, we will gladly put them into the ministry. Prof. Andrews has solved the question of the practicability of a theological department in this school. We have henceforth no excuse for putting men into the ministry who cannot answer the questions usually propounded to candidates for the sacred office.
The public appointments of this week embraced literary exercises by the Soronian Society on Monday evening, public exercises of the Model School on Tuesday afternoon, and College Address in the evening: Wednesday, graduating exercises of the theological department at 2.30 P. M., and at 8 o’clock, prize declamations and essays, closing with a spelling match: on Thursday, 10 A. M., the graduating exercises of the higher Normal department; at 2 P. M., an exhibition of the agricultural department; and at 8 P. M. a concert by the Musical Union closed the week. I was not able to remain through all the exercises of Thursday. Those that I attended were of a high order, and compared favorably with similar exercises of the same grade in other schools.
The attendance of the citizens from the town through all the public exercises was a very pleasant feature. Talladega has made a deep and lasting impression on the white people. They acknowledge the good work that it has done and is doing, and believe in the possibilities that are before it.
Last fall, arrangements were made for an Industrial Fair, which called together some of the best specimens of work done by colored men and women in this State and a part of Georgia. This, probably, gave more impetus to the industrial enterprise of the people than anything that has been done since freedom. May the good work go on. That is just what we want to see—the people waking up to do their level best.
BEREA COLLEGE.
A Commencement Crowd—A Mixed School—Free Speech—Self-Support.
PRESIDENT E. H. FAIRCHILD, BEREA, KY.
Wednesday, June 25th, was a beautiful day. The dust had been laid by a grand shower the evening before, and the whole day was cool and bright.
At half-past seven in the morning the neighboring people began to enter the college campus, a beautiful grove of forty-five acres. At half-past nine, when the exercises commenced, they were bringing extra seats into the tabernacle, a rough but very substantial and commodious building, which accommodates two thousand people.