BEACH INSTITUTE.
PROF. H. H. WRIGHT, SAVANNAH, GA.
The fall term of Beach Institute has opened with a marked improvement over the opening of a year ago. The pupils of the previous year have returned with an earnestness for work, and their deportment has been marked with a degree of quiet and manliness which is very gratifying to their teachers. The new pupils who have entered have fallen in with the current without creating the least disturbance. The opening weeks of 1880 were marred by continual quarreling and even fighting upon the play-ground. This year there has been none. Quite a number of the advanced pupils were hopefully converted during the summer, and are showing the fruits of the Spirit in their lives in school. We have great hopes of a continued outpouring of the Spirit upon the school.
During the recent cyclone the school-house remained comparatively uninjured, but the “Home” was rendered roofless and floods of water poured through the building. The colored people in this vicinity suffered extremely. Hundreds who lived on the low islands or rice islands, which are scarce ever covered with tidal waters, were overwhelmed, their houses destroyed and large numbers drowned. Even yet, a month since the storm, bodies of the dead negroes are being found in out-of-the-way places. A planter told me today of two such found a few days ago by his reapers in the middle of his rice fields.
ATLANTA UNIVERSITY.
REV. C. W. FRANCIS, ATLANTA, GA.
We find on this second day of our school session a fair attendance and good prospects for a prosperous year. The number registered thus far is 125, of whom 82 are boarders, the number a little larger than that of last year at the opening.
The proportion of new pupils is also a little larger, and in most cases they come under the care and persuasion of older pupils who have been teaching them during the vacation weeks. This mode of recruiting has always been effective, and as our accommodations have been used to their utmost capacity every season, we have never ventured to employ any other means to secure attendance lest we be overwhelmed. A most hopeful feature in the case of the incoming students is the large preponderance of girls who come without any special solicitation, which indicates a greatly improved sentiment in regard to their education and position in the community, and gives it abundant material for the most effective work in behalf of the elevation of the people.