Besides the three graduates—one from the classical, and two from the scientific course—fourteen other students from the higher classes presented orations or essays. All were listened to by the great audience with interest, and some with enthusiasm. In the afternoon nearly as many gathered again to hear a most suggestive and interesting address from Rev. R. T. Hall, of Mount Vernon, Ohio, on “The Abuse of Liberty.” Short addresses followed from Rev. Mr. Simmons of the (colored Baptist) Bible Institute of Louisville, and Rev. Mr. Barnett, a Methodist minister from College Hill.
It suggests the interest of our neighbors in the work of Berea that the Kentucky Register, published at the county seat and a representative paper of the Kentucky aristocracy, gave nearly a column the next day to a strongly commendatory notice of the exercises. A gentleman of a well-known old Kentucky family passing this way toward the mountains turned aside to see what the Commencement was like, and spent the day in such unexpected approval of what he saw and heard that he declared at night that he might be set down hereafter as for Berea every time. This is the more noticeable as the appearance of blacks and whites in about equal numbers and with entirely equal respect on the same platform must at first have given a great shock to his Southern prejudices.
A Northern visitor, remarking on the perfect pronunciation of the speakers, said, “A blind man could not tell to which race the several speakers belong.” The “color blindness” which still keeps the students of Berea about equally divided between the two races is one of the most important elements in its work for reducing the illiteracy of Kentucky (28 per cent. of the voters and almost as much of it white as black), and settling the problems the nation has inherited from slavery.
ATLANTA UNIVERSITY.
PROF. THOS. N. CHASE.
Our annual examinations are made interesting and exciting by the presence of visitors appointed by the Governor, who this year, as usual, attended the three days of examination and one day of literary exercises.
The grades were examined in South Hall and the normal preparatory and college classes in the new Stone Hall. Some of the visitors evidently thought the interior of Stone Hall most too fine for poor students, and so we often felt moved to call attention to the simplicity of its construction, and the fact that good Boston desks do not cost much more than the very cheapest kind.
On each day quite a large number of spectators was present.
While numerous complimentary remarks were made we do not think that some features of the school were fully appreciated. Latin, Greek, higher mathematics and metaphysics still possess a charm for scholars, both South and North, while modern methods in the lower grades attract the attention and win the admiration of only an appreciative few.
The specimens of map drawing and of original designs in industrial drawing were considered good by competent judges.