In industrial work, such as may be undertaken in a day-school, we have met with every encouragement and success. The sewing classes, two each day, have done much in learning to cut garments and in the various branches of needle-work, knitting, etc. The class of older girls in nursing and care of the sick has been a feature of interest. A prominent physician said of the examination which the class passed, “If your class answered those questions they ought not only to make safe nurses, but also fair physicians.” We hope another year to have better facilities for this work, meeting as it does a sad need in colored homes, and at the same time the most hearty approbation of both colored and white people.
Our closing exercises were of the usual nature, the Junior classes having their exhibition for the benefit of the library, and netting $50 for that purpose. Then followed the public session of the Literary Society, under the management of its members, and the graduating exerciser, at which three young men received diplomas. The address given on this occasion by Judge Pierce was heartily appreciated and enjoyed by a large audience of both colored and white people. He also presented the diplomas in a manly, earnest address to the graduates.
The final, and perhaps most significant, meeting of commencement week was the Alumni, at which about a dozen of the graduates of the school—nearly all who have been sent out—gathered, with teachers and a few friends, for a pleasant evening. The refreshments were followed with the usual orations and speeches, and did much to gain for the school an earnest working constituency.
We are rejoiced that Mr. B. A. Imes, of Oberlin, accepts the call of the church here, and hopes to enter upon his work in October. Mr. Williams, of Talladega, who has supplied the pulpit this year, has done faithful, earnest work, but his health will not allow him to serve the church longer than till a regular pastor can be found to relieve him.
Everything, the interest of our students, the appreciation of the colored people, and the growing sympathy of the best class of the white people, as indicated in the lecture course given by prominent gentlemen to the school during the year, and by their aid to the school in other ways, points to a successful and growing work for the future.
Flower Mission and Care for the Sick.
MISS HATTIE A. MILTON, MEMPHIS.
[The training school for nursing, at Le Moyne Institute, is doing good work, not simply in giving instruction that will fit the pupils to become intelligent and efficient nurses when they have gone to their homes, but in visiting and caring for the sick now. Under instruction from their teachers, they have done much for the sick among the poor of the city. Miss Milton tells below of the Flower Mission she started in the City Hospital.—Ed. Missionary.]
Yesterday I asked the girls in the sewing class to bring me flowers for the sick at the City Hospital. They were very glad of the opportunity and brought sixty bouquets of our lovely roses and some honey-suckles, I took them to the Hospital, where I met, by previous appointment, the lady-missionary among the whites, and assisted her in conducting the services in the white ward. Then we went to the colored ward, which she had not been in the habit of visiting, gave each patient a bouquet, which was very gratefully received, after which we had a short service consisting of Bible-reading, prayer and singing. We then passed through all the white wards, giving each inmate a bouquet. We came away leaving many happy hearts and smiling faces. One old colored man, who was dying when I gave him the flowers, and passed away shortly after I left, said to the nurse with his last breath, “Take these three spring-chickens” (sent to him by a friend from the country) “and give them to the teacher who gave me the flowers.” The chickens came, and I shall have an opportunity of making some of the sick ones happy with them. The girls are very much interested in working for the comfort of the poor and sick, and have asked permission to go with me on my visits. They have been making some garments for orphans, in the sewing class, and have enjoyed the work. They ask me to tell them about the poor and sick while they are sewing. I trust the Holy Spirit has touched their hearts.