The American Missionary — Volume 35, No. 7, July, 1881

by Various

The Baccalaureate sermon of President Cravath on Sunday afternoon, from Heb. xi. 27, “For he endured as seeing Him who is invisible,” was able and timely; well calculated to inspire his hearers with the faith and courage requisite for the great work which lies before them as leaders of their emancipated people through the wilderness which still surrounds and stretches out before them, after sixteen years of wanderings.

A rainy evening gave a much smaller audience to hear Dr. G. D. Pike’s missionary sermon than would otherwise have greeted him. He must be a laggard indeed who, hearing the Doctor on his favorite theme of missions, does not become inoculated with something of his divine enthusiasm.

Space cannot be given for even a full programme of the exercises, which filled to the full Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; examinations in the mornings until 1 p. m., and exhibitions in the evenings by the Normal School, the Literary Society and the College Preparatory Class; and it would be exceedingly common-place to say, what simple truth demands should be said, that they were all excellent. One of the visitors said at the close of the Normal School exhibition on Monday, that he did not expect to hear anything better even from the graduating class; but on Thursday candidly admitted his mistake, as there was just such advance as there ought to have been to mark the advanced grade of the pupils. Perhaps, instead of giving a programme of these exercises, it will prove more profitable to state impressions derived from them.

This was the first time the writer has had the privilege of attending the closing exercises of this or of any school for the education of these people. Brought up among them, and always accustomed to regard them as inferior, he shared until recently the feeling so prevalent that in their education nothing more should be attempted than a fair common school training. This is not the place in which to argue that there is urgent need that the leaders of 7,000,000 people, who are to be redeemed from ignorance and lifted into a plane where they shall command the respect of those who are now unjustly prejudiced against them, shall be thoroughly disciplined and broadly educated; but it is the time to express the opinion of the writer, and of several others who attended with great interest these exercises, with something of his prejudices, that these students showed conclusively that they are capable of taking on the same culture, and under it of reaching the same excellencies of thought and discipline, as the more favored whites attain under like training; and that an objection to their higher education must be based on other ground than their inability to receive it, or the need of their race for such leaders as this school is sending out from year to year.

A gentleman, native of Tennessee, who has recently been called from the presidency of a Southern College to the management of the educational work of the State, was present during the commencement exercises, and contrasted them with those of the graduating class of the first institution of the State for whites, in terms so complimentary to the negro students, that, out of deference to the whites, his language will be omitted.

This work is no longer tentative. Both the possibility and value of it have been fully demonstrated, and the urgent demand is that the University shall be fully equipped for it. The point has been reached, in the estimation of all who know anything of its history, needs and opportunities, when it must be enlarged or suffer irreparably. It was, therefore, with gladness of heart that a large number of its friends, white and black, from the city and from other States, gathered to lay the corner-stone of Livingstone Missionary Hall on Wednesday afternoon.

Gen. Fisk presided most felicitously, and the address of Dr. Strieby was in every way happy and inspiring. It was a regular love feast, not simply because there was so much of the Methodist element in it, as represented by the General and his excellent lady, and Dr. McFerrin—“a rebel who fought on the last ten acres left for the rebellion to stand upon,” and who overcame great obstacles to get out to the exercises, despite attractions in other directions, and made a delightful speech, full of good feeling—but because there was such a flowing together of hearts and good-will from all classes as represented on the occasion. Dr. Strieby should be requested to print his speech in full and distribute it all over the land, and with it should go the eight or ten other excellent shorter speeches which followed, one of which was by the city’s treasurer, who came to represent the Historical Society.

There was a poem written for the occasion by Prof. Spence, and read by one of the pupils, Miss Allen, who has remarkable powers as a reader.

The address from Rev. C. H. Daniels, of Cincinnati, which followed the graduating addresses of the class, was able and timely. His theme was “The dignity and value of the individual man.” It was every way a manful presentation of a manly subject, and was a fitting finale to the very able and manly addresses of the graduating class.

The diplomas were presented by Gen. Fisk in a brief address full of pathos and good sense, with happy allusions in each case to the theme of the recipient’s address. After this came the Alumni dinner, plain and substantial, and the speeches following, which were fully up to those of older and more pretentious societies.