Letter from a Tougaloo Student—Vacation Work—Needy Recruits.
My public school closed last week, and I commenced teaching an independent school this morning, with thirty pupils. They pay one dollar per month, in advance. I think I shall have a very good school.
There are nine or ten promising young men here who want to go to Tougaloo, to school next year. Some of them are quite young, sixteen or seventeen years of age, and a great deal of good can be done with and through such boys. Very few of them will be able to pay anything for their board. They often come to my room in great numbers to talk of Tougaloo.
In speaking with young people about this University, I try to impress them with the knowledge that young men who are willing to work hard and study diligently are those for whom the school is open. I show them my five pound boots, etc. I think those who go there from here will not find it harder than they expected. I go into the country occasionally and meet young men who say: “Please talk to my father in my behalf, and try to induce him to send me to school.” A young man and his sister (who live eight or ten miles in the country) board here and go to school to me. The young man went to school in Selma, when he was quite a small boy. He also went to school at Tougaloo a few months. He is very anxious to be in school there next year, and his parents are very anxious to have both him and his sister go, but he thinks it is very doubtful unless he can get some work to do, and he is willing to do any kind of work. From what I have seen of him, I think him the most promising of any I have met. He is not a Christian.
There are two young women here who are also anxious to go to Tougaloo to school. Both are willing to work all they can. I want to explain their condition to you, and have you let me know whether anything can be done for them. One of them has been bound out for some time to a white family, and is now living with an old lady, and washing, ironing, cooking, etc., for her living. She was raised by those white people, and has every appearance of a lady, so far as I can see. She is about sixteen or seventeen years of age. She went to school to Miss V., who can tell you of her.
I have not come to the point yet. I want to know if you cannot give the people here an opportunity to work in preference to strangers from other places. If you can form an idea how much work you can furnish, I wish you would give me some information in regard to it, so that I can answer the many questions that are asked me.
At the closing exercises of my school, there were people present from ten or twelve miles in several directions. They were all pleased with the exercises, both the white and the colored people. The whites have been assisting me in getting up my independent school. A white man sends one child and pays for it himself. Some of the whites suggested that it would be a good idea to have a high school here for the colored people.
The editor of the paper sent to my room for me Saturday, and I had a long talk with him. He said he had not known very much about Tougaloo University.
There was such a gathering at the church on Wednesday evening that they could not all get into the house. I extended an invitation to all the people in the county to be present: it was well represented. I invited the people to sign the temperance pledge after a temperance concert. The invitation was responded to by a great number. A still greater number have stopped chewing tobacco, but have not signed the pledge, because they prefer giving themselves a trial before doing so. There will be quite a number of others who will sign the pledge soon, I think.
W. H. L.