It was named after Mr. Ralph Emerson, a resident of Rockford, Ill., whose timely gift enabled the Association to purchase “Blue College,” a commodious building, with beautiful grounds, in the western part of the city, two miles from the post-office. It was originally built for the education of the white youth. In the transpositions of the times “after the surrender,” as the close of the war is here styled, it became the resort of three hundred Freedmen. In April of our Centennial year it crumbled in the flames. The school went on in unfavorable quarters until, in May, 1878, it entered its new and elegant building, which was designed for two hundred and fifty pupils. Last year the yellow fever delayed the opening of school and crippled many of its friends. But adverse influences are now disappearing, and the ten thousand colored people of the city are looking to it again as the hope of their youth.
Last year, two-thirds of our whole number in attendance entered after the Christmas holidays. This year the second month closes with fifty names more than the highest number of last year. The rooms are furnished with the best of modern desks; but their present capacity is exceeded by more than forty names. If another room and sufficient teaching force be added by the friends of the Association after New Year’s, our present number of two hundred and forty will, in every probability, run up to three hundred. To meet the wants of these, we should have six teachers besides the superintendent, including one that should give half an hour each day to instruction in vocal music and some time to instrumental music. We now have one that is competent for this work, but she has no time for it. Our overworked force is to be somewhat relieved by the expected arrival of a fifth teacher this week.
At present we are obliged to receive many primary scholars, not only to relieve the public want, but also with the view of raising up normal scholars, for whom the Institute has been specially designed. We regret the seeming necessity that is laid upon the colored parents of taking their children from the public schools. We do not advise their action. The feverish desire for education which seized the body of colored people immediately after emancipation has subsided. Their best men are now obliged to urge upon them the duty of educating their children. In this they have come down to the level of the whites. An organization has been formed to promote this interest. The largest church has established a school of more than fifty members. The pastor of the most influential church, in point of intelligence, has opened one, with an attendance of more than forty, and teaches it himself, in addition to preaching three sermons every Lord’s day and performing the other usual duties of a minister. These schools are intended to awaken their people in the matter, and to raise up candidates for the work of teaching, that may get their fuller preparation in our Normal department.
The friends of Christian education could not ask for a more needy and promising outlook than lies before us. Will they put into the hands of the Association the necessary means?
The Church—1876-1879.
Organized with forty-seven members, it now has sixty-one. It owes its origin and existence to the presence of the Institute. Its members are very poor in this world’s goods, but delightfully rich in grace.
It was natural that the spirit of independence which found full scope among the Freedmen should seek for a church organization and connection with an ecclesiastical body whose history was not tainted with oppression. This disposition, however, has sometimes asked for more license for fleshly indulgences than pure Congregationalism permits. In this city it is impossible for your Superintendent to find a provision store having any considerable variety of goods that does not include among its principal commodities wines and liquors. Members and officers of churches are engaged in the trade, and scruple not to advertise conspicuously that branch of their business, which we regard as exceedingly immoral. Yet there are some churches, both white and colored, whose rules and discipline would delight the heart of a Puritan. Congregationalism is an exotic in this soil; and its Northern friends have reason to be pleased if it grows even slowly. Among the adverse circumstances against which our church has had to struggle may be mentioned a frequent change of pastors. In its three and one-half years it has suffered the perturbations incident to two summer supplies, and now the fourth pastor. These changes have tended to prevent some from making their church home with us. More permanence is a necessity. We have no such opportunity for reaching those under our educational care as is offered by a boarding-school. The parents of most of our pupils are connected with some church, and the children themselves with Sunday-schools. The kind of instruction they receive is one of the necessities of our continuance. The growing intelligence of the colored preachers, and the attractiveness of the large congregations which gather about them, make our beginning less attractive to the young, who otherwise might prefer our place of worship.
Your missionary has preached to the largest colored church in a revival meeting, and exchanged pulpits with the other leading pastor; but we cannot expect any special help from other churches in building up a new denomination in the midst of them. J. H. Roberts, now in the Senior Theological Class at Talladega, supplied the church very acceptably through the summer, and just before his departure witnessed the reception of four persons to fellowship. Since then the attendance has increased some. The interest in the Sunday-school has likewise received the impetus given it by the return of our schoolteachers; yet our hopes of an increase in members have not thus far been realized. As accessory helps we need Sunday school papers and a library. Our problem is that of reaching the young with Christian influences in the form of direct religious instruction. For this purpose we have some advantages, and hope for more. We wish to keep this missionary work upon the prayerful hearts of our Northern friends.