STRAIGHT UNIVERSITY.
Why No Graduating Class—Threatened Suspension of Public Schools.
REV. W. S. ALEXANDER, NEW ORLEANS.
The anniversary of Straight University was observed at Central Church. The audience, both in numbers and intelligent appreciation, was one of the best ever gathered for such a purpose in the city. The literary exercises were exceptionally fine. The original orations, one on “Charles Sumner” and the other on “Our Glorious Union,” were, both in composition and delivery, worthy of high praise. All who heard them were proud of the young and promising orators. A cultivated lady in the audience said to me, at the close of the evening, “You don’t tell me that those orations were written by the young men?” “Certainly; why not?” “Why,” she replied, “I have never heard better.”
There was no graduating class this year. Those who in order would this year have finished their course, were persuaded to remain another year that their graduation might signify a higher grade of scholarship.
The year has been crowned with the Divine favor. Three hundred students have been in attendance, real progress has been made in all departments of study, and the Institution stands higher today in the estimation and affection of the New Orleans public than in any previous year.
Unless all signs fail, the ensuing year will bring to our doors a greatly increased throng of eager and earnest students. The public schools of New Orleans, and of Louisiana, are threatened with the evils of indefinite suspension. The doors will be closed June 30th, and the wisest friends of education cannot predict the time of their re-opening.
So far as adequate support is concerned, the public school system in this State has been an uncertain quantity for many months. Its fate trembles in the balance today. A subscription list is now in circulation among the merchants and bankers to raise money to pay the public school teachers the monthly salaries long since due. The most plaintive appeals are made to public sympathy in their behalf. It is a time to press forward our work.
Applicable to the impoverished State of Louisiana, so far as her public schools are concerned, are the words: “The fields are white already to the harvest,” and “The laborers are few.”