Tillotson Institute is presided over by the Rev. W. E. Brooks, a gentleman of evident Christian piety, an accomplished scholar, and a man thoroughly impressed with the dignity and importance of his trust. Professor Brooks is ably assisted in the educational part of his work by Miss Hunt, an experienced and successful teacher of the young, as her class examinations, conducted at the Institute on the 9th inst., fully demonstrated; the boys and girls, in the careful and prolonged examinations to which they were subjected by their teachers and the visitors present, displaying an accuracy of information and a fullness of understanding highly commendable to themselves, and a just source of pride to their faithful and efficient teachers. The examination in English grammar, including analysis and parsing, was excellent, as was that also in geography. The result of the examination in arithmetic, algebra and Latin showed an uncommon proficiency on the part of the students, considering the fact that they have been at this school and under this training scarcely more than six months.
President Brooks has the real welfare of his pupils at heart, and is educating them in a practical as well as theoretical way. He is teaching them how to become useful and honorable men and women, and his labors have the cordial approval of all our best citizens. President Brooks is so much gratified with his success thus far that he visits the North shortly, hoping to get further aid in establishing this school, and proposes, if his expectations are realized, to add a mechanical and agricultural department to his present course of instruction. The school closed with an attendance of one hundred and seven pupils. This under-taking is a very praiseworthy one, and will, we doubt not, meet with the encouragement it most certainly deserves. In Virginia, Tennessee and Louisiana these schools for the colored youth are attracting the attention and securing the liberal approval of the legislatures and public men of those states, and so it will be here.
We noticed among the many visitors present at the examination, Gov. Pease, Rev. Mr. Wright, Judge Fulmore, Mr. A. P. Wooldridge, Profs. Winn and Johnson, all of whom expressed themselves highly gratified with the success of the school.
We recommend to our people who take an interest in education to visit this Institution. They can be assured of a polite and hospitable welcome, and most of them will be surprised and pleased to see what a superior school and school building we have in our midst.
AVERY INSTITUTE, CHARLESTON.
The school year at Avery Institute closed Thursday, June 30, the last three days being given to public exercises. Tuesday was “examination day.” I wish you all could see the school as it looked that morning from the rostrum. The bright eager eyes, the earnest faces, the neat appropriate style of dress, and the respectful scholar-like behavior of the students, even the tiniest ones, are a strong contrast to the appearance of the street children. You suppose our scholars belong to a better class than the street children? To be sure they do; but these same lower classes may become respectable, and have much more to encourage them to rise, than those had who have already struggled up. The visitors were, of course, friends of the school and of the scholars, and they said many kind and appreciative things about the school and the recitations they heard. We tried to make the examinations strictly honest. Every scholar was given a chance, as far as possible, to show what he had done in every study he had pursued; and to take the words of those who visited the different classes, the result was satisfactory.
Wednesday was “children’s day,” when the little ones in the lower rooms gave the entertainment, and the older scholars attended as guests, with other friends of the small entertainers. The affair was very child-like and pretty. The recitations and dialogues were such as the children could appreciate; the songs bright, airy little things; and the singing a half-shy dainty rippling of very sweet music. Through all there was no appearance of the “Now-all-are-looking-at-me” feeling that sometimes makes children’s exhibitions such pitiful things.
On Thursday was the Anniversary. The course of study having been extended one year, there was no graduating class. The exercises consisted of essays by members of the upper classes, the recitation of a few poems, one or two dialogues, and music. The music was very good, the dialogues natural, the recitations well chosen and well spoken, that entitled “Mona’s Water” being very strongly rendered; but the most interesting part of this entertainment was the essays. Three prizes had been offered, and three gentlemen of the city acted as judges, to decide on the merits of the different essays. All were called good, and with reason. Those of the youngest class in essay writing were delightfully child-like, natural and original. That on “Intemperance,” to which the prize was awarded, had besides a strong-hearted earnestness and depth of thought that were surprising. The essays of the middle class showed more mature thought, or, perhaps, a reaching out towards mature thought—a calm looking forward and trying to prepare for earnest living. The prize in this class came to the essay entitled, “We Learn not for School, but for Life.” The essays of the upper class seemed to have for a key-note a sentiment we always find among the best of our people here, when we get at their hearts and hopes and aspirations—the elevation of their race. Do not think there was any sameness in these essays. Each reached this thought in a different way. It gleamed out in “Everything was Made to be Happy;” it made itself felt as one of the foundations of “Progress;” and it formed the crown of the prize essay, “Nothing Great is Lightly Won,” when, after brave words calling to action, it closed with the quotation from Longfellow’s “Psalm of Life:”
“Lives of great men all remind us,
We may make our lives sublime,” etc.,