The American Missionary — Volume 42, No. 01, January, 1888

by Various

"The education of girls is of the most vital importance for the uplifting of the colored people of the South. Yes, I venture to say that the whole South will depend upon their condition for its prosperity. True progress depends upon the sacredness and sanctity of the home. That a people or a nation may be happy or prosperous it must have enlightened and intelligent homes, and for this purpose the girls must be educated in virtue, industry and self-reliance.

"The colored woman in all conditions and under almost all circumstances is abused by all races and classes. There are individuals who love and respect her, but no one fears to insult her as they fear to insult other women. Let her turn wheresoever she may, she is met by all sorts of evil influences of a character too indecorous to think about, and I fear that I should never be forgiven if I should name them, yet we are compelled to look upon them everywhere we go. Now a reform must begin in the treatment of women, and it must be commenced by paying more attention to the education of girls. Only wise mothers can train champions for great causes like this. Therefore let our voices and our influence be given to the work of elevating the women who have the care of making and preserving society."

Thus it has come about that a larger and larger proportion of girls come to our schools, and it has seemed much better that they should be educated with their brothers than apart from them, for a great and grievous lack among the colored people, is a pure, safe and wholesome social life for the young people, and with all the other labors laid upon these "universe—ities" is that of fostering such a social life and, as far as may be, setting forth the pattern for it. Permit me to introduce you to one of these schools which is in many of its features doubtless like all the rest.

Tougaloo University is one of the six chartered institutions maintained by the American Missionary Association with some aid from the State in which it is located. It is but a few miles from the capital of the great but undeveloped agricultural State of Mississippi, a State in which the largest town had, at the last census, less than twelve thousand inhabitants. This is very far south, in "the great black belt," where the plantations are large, and upon the country roads you will constantly see ten or more colored faces to one white one. It contained at the last census, above two hundred thousand more colored people than at Emancipation, and above one hundred and seventy thousand more colored than white. Do you not see how rapidly Christian education and training must go forward to keep pace with such facts as these?

Stepping off the afternoon train down the Chicago and New Orleans railway at the little station of Tougaloo, we look up through a pleasant vista about three-quarters of a mile and see the Mansion, Ballard Hall, Ladies' Hall, and Strieby Hall, the latter a brick house three stories high above the basement, dedicated Thanksgiving Day of 1881 in the presence of the venerable secretary for whom it was named. The work on this building was done by colored mechanics, students of the school making the brick and the stone, a sort of concrete for the trimmings.

Strieby Hall has accommodations for nearly a hundred young men, besides a teacher's family or two. It is kept in scrupulous neatness by the young men under their matron's eye. She teaches them to nurse one another in sickness; she also instructs them in the care of their clothing and requires them to mend when the weekly wash comes in. One young man became so proud of his skill in this line that he wanted to put his darned old socks—old darned socks would sound better, perhaps—into our industrial exhibit for the New Orleans Exposition, among the chains and wheels from the blacksmith and wagon shops, the brackets, step-ladders, etc., from the carpenter shop, the cups and coffee-pots from the tinshop, and the girls' plain sewing and fancy-work.

There are regular apprentices to all the trades named, and all the boys of certain grades have lessons, one hour daily, in the several shops, to get the use of tools and simple work; there is also a course of industrial drawing running through the school grades for boys and girls alike.

The school is upon a plantation of five hundred acres, worked by the young men under the direction of the farm superintendent, a graduate of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, who gives them "talks," as he terms his lectures, upon practical themes pertaining to general farming, fruit-growing, and the care of stock.

As we walk up from the station through, first a wood of water-oak, sweet-gum and hickory, then an open glade with scattering persimmon trees upon it, and lastly, a fine park of postoaks draped with Spanish moss, we approach the old southern "Mansion," which was the only building of any account upon the ground when the Association purchased it in 1869, and which is still the handsomest one. It has a little romance of its own, having been made spacious and beautiful for a bride who never came into it; but, notwithstanding this disappointment of its builder, it has in God's providence been greatly connected with home-building.

Here live the President's family and some of the other teachers. Here are business offices, a pleasant reading-room with an open fire upon its hearth, and a small library adjoining. In this house is a guest-chamber where all friends of the school are made welcome, and here are the music-rooms, one containing a piano and one a cabinet organ.