Saturday morning, I rode twenty miles before dinner to Harriman, made several calls, led the Sunday-school teachers' meeting at night, and a business meeting afterwards. I had charge of the Sunday-school the next morning, heard a sermon by a Methodist brother in the afternoon, after which I completed the organization of our "Pilgrim Congregational Church of Harriman." We organized with fifteen members. At night I led a praise service, the room being packed full. Monday morning, I was in the saddle again, calling at the new town of Cardiff, and getting home, after riding twenty-two miles, in time for a late dinner. This kind of work does not give me much time to enjoy (?) blue Monday!
Encouraged And Thankful
(From a Lady Teacher in the Mountains.)
We have been greatly encouraged in our work. A marked earnestness has been expressed by our scholars. The industrial building has afforded work for a number. Our boys enjoy their work much and are so thankful they "can git to go to school." Many of the older scholars who enter our school have never had any advantages, or, as they express it "pow'ful bad chance of gittin book-larnin."
They are willing to take their places with the small children. It is really pitiful to see the embarrassment of a young man of nearly thirty [pg 155] years, when he cannot read a single sentence in the Second Reader. Two years ago, a young man entered my department who had not attended school in fourteen years. He actually knew nothing; one week he did nothing but listen. He was ashamed; he thought he could not stand it. He was a Christian young man, and asked God to help him. His progress has been a wonder. To-day, he stands at the head of his grade and conducts one of our out-station Sunday-schools every Sabbath. He has an excellent influence among his people, seeing their needs, and his great desire is to carry the blessed news of the gospel among his own people. The possibilities of our girls and boys God only knows.
During our vacation a number of our scholars went home. One girl visited her home, a distance of about fifteen miles. Her brother, a rough mountain boy, came for her with his "wag." She was a happy girl, for her love for her mother is great. She did not return, and we thought she had left us. To-day she appeared, bounding in and crying for joy. 'I just struck out and walked, and I'm nigh plumb giv out.' The change in these girls is often very encouraging. We feel greatly our cramped room, but we have strong faith in God, and look for more room, better buildings and greater success in our work.
Tougaloo University
Tougaloo University, established in 1869, located at Tougaloo, Miss., on the Illinois Central Railroad, is one of the chartered schools of the American Missionary Association. Its enrollment is now over four hundred, with seventeen teachers. Accessible from all parts of Mississippi and adjacent States, no school of the American Missionary Association is better located for effective work among the Negroes. In the four nearest counties, the colored population which was, in 1880, a little over 87,000, is now probably more than 100,000, none of it more than thirty-five miles from Tougaloo. Within a radius of seventy-five miles there are not far from 450,000 Negroes. By the last census, Mississippi's colored population was 650,291. The lowest estimate of the present number is 800,000. At least seventy per cent. of this population is illiterate. Tougaloo is thus in the very midst of America's Africa. Just at hand, also, is the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, into which Negroes are pouring from other States. Here they are gaining homes and establishing communities. Their numbers are expected continually to increase. It will probably be as prosperous and influential a Negro section as any in the land. Tougaloo is the nearest school of high grade to this Delta region. From lower Arkansas, central and upper Louisiana, Tougaloo is drawing increasing numbers of pupils each year. With such a location the only limit to the growth of Tougaloo in numbers and influence will be that set by the means which Christian beneficence provides for its support. Tougaloo aims to give a thoroughly practical [pg 156] education to colored youth of both sexes. A colored minister well expressed it when he said: "It is the aim of the teachers of Tougaloo to enable the Negro to have the grace of God in his heart, knowledge in his head, and money in his pocket."