The American Missionary — Volume 37, No. 3, March, 1883

by Various

While it is the few of those who enter that go on to the end of the course and the many drop out as I have described, yet we do not consider our labor in vain, but rather hope to claim the assurance “Blessed are ye who sow beside all waters.” If the teaching were only in the ordinary elementary branches we might think it of little avail unless carried on continuously to a more satisfactory issue, but much of it is more fundamental than even arithmetic. The entire mode of life is a lesson and a much needed one to most of those who come to us. The regularity of meals with the laws of the dining-room, the regularity of retiring and rising, the neatness and order of the rooms, the care of clothing, the personal habits, the sanitary regulations, the study and exercise, and the propriety of deportment required, not to speak of the regular work belonging to the industrial training, seem to new scholars to form a complete hedge, if not a bewildering labyrinth; but a very bright feature of our work is the spirit of subordination and respect for constituted authority, which greatly simplifies and lightens the enforcement of all necessary rules. This is an excellent and much-to-be commended trait in our students. I have asked some of those who go out to teach if the children in the public schools are easy to govern. Oh, yes, the answer has been, they expect to mind.

LADIES’ HALL, TOUGALOO, MISS.

It is very edifying to note how those who come without any taste or neatness in their personal appearance, with sorry attempts at finery and painfully-laced waists, improve under the tuition of the lady principal and the influence of those who have been here longer, the expression of the countenance often changing more rapidly and noticeably than even the manner of dress. But, O! the patience and the faculty required for this most important work of training the girls in womanly virtues and housewifely ways!

With all the patience and with all the faculty possible, it is a great and constant strain to have the care of such a household, and the matrons and lady principals need the uplifting prayers and sympathy of the warm Christian hearts interested in these schools, in a special degree.

And then the instruction in the Bible, as “the only and the sufficient rule both of faith and practice”—the value of this work cannot be over-estimated. The case of a young man who came into school for the first time this fall, comes to mind. Living far back from the railroad, in the country, he had had no advantages of any schooling but a few brief sessions of the public school. He was entered in the Third-reader grade and was to all appearance a most unpromising specimen, although a professed Christian, and apparently a sincere one, with a real experience of trust in God, but wofully untaught as to Christian character and duty. As the Scripture was from time to time plainly and searchingly expounded, and the vices which are sometimes permitted under the garb of religion were exposed, it was plain to see that he was listening as to a new revelation. In school-room work there was a marked improvement, especially in the expressiveness of his reading, but the great benefit that came in his term of school was in the way of moral enlightenment. A month ago he joined the temperance society. The last prayer-meeting was taken up largely with speaking of the temptations that would be met at Christmas-time to violate the pledge, and one young man said that, in view of these temptations he would rather spend Christmas at Tougaloo than anywhere else. This young man then “spoke in meeting” for the first time, I think, and said he did not feel that way. It seemed to him that the principal thing he wanted to go home for, was to tell his people he had become a temperance man. He had been a good deal of a drinker, a member of church, too, and his people were all in the same way, and didn’t know any better, but now he would tell them that he had found a better way, and that they, too, must forsake the old bad way, or they would surely go down. He said, “If I can’t keep my pledge, I may as well find it out first as last, but I do believe I can. I does feel as if temperance is grafted in here,” laying his hand upon his breast. He hopes to return and bring a sister with him, but if he cannot get the means and never comes, is there not here a little bread cast on the waters?

The evening before school closed there was a beautiful Christmas exercise, consisting of recitations, Scripture and music, lighted by a large star of evergreen filled with burning candles. No doubt many a new idea concerning the universal holiday was imbibed. This was followed by an exhibition by the temperance society.

Thanksgiving day was a blessed occasion with us. Rev. Mr. Stickel preached on Tests of Character, dwelling upon the test of faith and the test of gratitude, basing his sermon upon the story of the ten lepers. An opportunity has usually been given, in connection with the morning service, for personal testimonies, and so many had given themselves to the service of the Lord and so many had been led into a fuller Christian experience since last Thanksgiving that there was a real eagerness for this service, and a somewhat wistful look on a good many faces when the meeting was closed without it. At the end of dinner, however, President Pope rose and said such an opportunity would be given then and there; that we could not spend a portion of the afternoon more profitably nor have a pleasanter sort of after-dinner speeches than in recounting the good dealings of God with us. Notwithstanding the fact that a Thanksgiving dinner is about as well calculated to promote a spirit of thankfulness as anything that can be mentioned, it was a little harder to rise from the table and speak in the dining-room than in the chapel. Yet, after the first momentary hesitation, the testimonies came, briefly but freely, of gratitude for health, for success in work, for the privilege of being at school, for the pardon of sins, and many other things.