At Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., Livingstone Missionary Hall is nearly inclosed. It is two hundred and four feet long, sixty-two feet wide in the centre, and has four stories and a basement. The foundation is of stone and the walls are of pressed brick. A mansard roof with brick gables and ornamented chimneys crowns the edifice. It will contain chapel, lecture-rooms, recitation-rooms, teachers’ apartments and dormitories for 120 boys. Although planned with a strict regard for economy, it will be a grand and stately companion for Jubilee Hall. Several months will be required for its completion.
At Atlanta, a new wing has been added to the girl’s dormitory, and plans for a school building between the two dormitories have been completed and some materials purchased. It is expected that the building will be finished and ready for occupancy in a year from this time. In planning these various buildings, it has been the aim to provide the best facilities possible, but the claims of architecture have not been wholly ignored. Some of the best architects in the country have been consulted, and all the plans have been examined carefully by your Executive Committee.
It will be seen by this review that each of our eight chartered institutions has received permanent and substantial aid either in funds or in buildings, and that never before were they so fully equipped for the great work thrown upon them. The prayer of the last half score of years for room has been wonderfully answered, and the blessing of Heaven is crowning the labors of workers with rich rewards.
Our other schools, 46 in all, normal and common, have met with favor on every hand, and have experienced uninterrupted progress throughout the year. At some of them the industrial work has been pushed forward with gratifying success. Attention has been given to household industries in two or three places. A class of girls at Memphis, Tenn., has been carefully instructed with actual practice in an experimental kitchen, on the nature, relative values, and healthful methods, of cooking food. Classes in needle work, knitting, and in the use of sewing machines, have had daily lessons and practice.
We have had in all 230 teachers in the field, a gain of 30 over last year. Of these, 14 have performed the duties of matrons and 15 have been engaged in the business departments.
The total number of students has been 9,108, a gain of 1,056 over the previous year. They were classed as follows: theological, 104; law, 20; collegiate, 91; collegiate preparatory, 131; normal, 2,342; grammar, 473; intermediate, 2,722; primary, 3,361; studying in two grades, 136.
Our normal and common schools, like our chartered institutions, are constantly sending up the call for more room. Permanent accommodations have been provided at some points and temporary ones at others. At Wilmington, N.C., by the gift of Hon. J. J. H. Gregory, the school building has been remodeled for the accommodation of a large number of students. A new mission home has also been built by the munificence of the same gentleman. At Athens, Ala., the colored people have done nobly toward furnishing material for the school-house now under process of construction. They have already made two hundred thousand bricks with their own hands, and are placing them in the walls to represent their interest in the property. It is hoped that the work will be completed by January 1st, and that Miss Wells, who has been Principal of the school for fifteen years, will be rewarded for her labor and patient waiting by ample accommodation for all the students who may seek the advantages of her excellent normal school.
During the year we have inaugurated work at Topeka, Kan., the chief rendezvous of the refugees, where a lot has been purchased and a building suitable for both church and school purposes erected. Divine services are held on the Sabbath. A Sabbath-school with an average attendance of 170 has been gathered, and a prosperous night-school sustained. Much good has been done by our missionary and others at this point in the distribution of supplies to the destitute, and by speeding them on their way to homes among the farmers and mechanics of the State. We have also resumed our church work at Lawrence, Kan., with good results.
Commencement days, or the closing exercises at our different institutions, are becoming more and more eventful as the years go on. One feature of especial interest at Hampton was the delivery of orations and the reading of papers by the alumni of the school. These displayed an amount of character and culture on the part of those who had been several years in the field since their graduation which was very gratifying.
Commencement day at Berea College is unlike any other in the South or elsewhere in the country. Hours before the exercises begin, the streets are thronged with hundreds of people, black and white, old and young, properly dressed or dressed in rags, some riding on the finest steeds produced in Kentucky, some on plough horses, mules and ponies, riding single, riding double, with a child or two between. The exercises are held in a large open tabernacle seating about three thousand persons. The building is usually decorated with mottoes and banners, with plants and flowers and miniature fountains. The college band furnishes the music. Not the least interesting is the basket dinner on the college campus. The fame of these days spreads far and wide for hundreds of miles, awakening an enthusiasm on the part of the young for an education, and winning words of praise and tokens of cheer from the very best people throughout the State.