The year has been a prosperous one. The school-rooms have been crowded to their utmost capacity. 312 different pupils have attended during some part of the year, and average daily attendance has been 230. [pg 206] Excellent progress has been made. Another teacher is needed. More and more are the colored people awakening to their real need—deliverance from the bonds of ignorance. You older people in the North gave your sons to free the slave from human task-masters. We who have arisen since the war look upon that as the noblest sacrifice which the history of our country presents. But there still remains the great problem of freeing the black man from the slavery of ignorance, superstition and sin. The work increases upon our hands. The South is struggling to rise. It has this problem of illiteracy to settle. We who have grown since the war could not carry a musket in '62, but we are willing to carry the Speller and the Bible now, and we do not consider this work one whit less honorable or necessary than the art of war. Do you?
Wilmington is a city with a population of 25,000. It is estimated that 14,000 of this is colored. Business is increasing fast and population is gaining proportionately. How what is the import of all this? Large numbers of colored people will be attracted here. It will be an objective point for educational work among them. If we already have 300 pupils, the opportunity will then be enlarged many fold. But even now we need more help. Cannot the friends at home enter upon a course of self-denial to extend us a little aid?
G.S.R.
A DAY AT TOUGALOO.
Special Correspondence of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
Jackson, Miss., May 26.—While the white Mississippians were laying the corner stone of a Confederate monument at Jackson, the black Mississippians were holding the closing exercises of their university at Tougaloo, only seven miles away.
TOUGALOO TO-DAY.
For a wonder the war spared Tougaloo. Less pretentious houses within sight of it were fired and destroyed by roving squads. But the mansion, in the midst of a grand grove of oaks, stood intact. When the war was over, the American Missionary Association acquired 500 acres of the estate, including the mansion.
At the beginning the building afforded accommodations for both teachers and students. But at present the mansion is used for the offices of the institution and for class rooms. Tougaloo has developed into one of the largest institutions for colored youth in the South. The mansion, which was the nucleus, is now only one of half a dozen large structures. To the north of it is Strieby Hall, a long three-story brick structure. The clay was dug, the brick made, and the walls laid, chiefly by student labor. To the south is another three-story dormitory. Another notable [pg 207 ] structure in the group is the Ballard School Building, every nail in which was driven by the students. About these larger buildings are grouped the Ballard Industrial shops and cottages.