SECRETARY A. F. BEARD.
Among places of greatest interest which I visited in my late Southern tour one was Tougaloo University. Its location is unique, and its work is also. In the very heart of the black belt of Mississippi, it is sending out its light among thousands who are in darkness. It would quite repay one who would study the problem of saving these children of the rural districts of the black belt to go far out of his way to visit Tougaloo. He should take time for it, to ride over its broad acres of cultivated land, its cotton fields, its fields of sugar cane and corn, its hay fields, all under the care of those who are being educated. They should see its shops for iron working, for wood working, and its varied other industries. They should see those who work by day, diligent students at the books all the long evenings until late. They should see the self help of all. They should go through the grades and notice the quality of the work done and its character, its classes in mathematics and in languages, and its work in the physical sciences. It is a great school—Tougaloo—and if people could see it, they would quote it more for its economy and efficiency. Not always are efficiency and economy found pulling equally in the same harness.
A little incident in Tougaloo interested me. A discussion of the topic, "How can we improve our homes," called from one student these words: "I find the negro lacks race pride. He despises his own makeup. Who of you ever heard any negro say that he thought the general characteristics of his race were as becoming as those of other races? Nor are they. The Anglo-Saxon is proud of his race characteristics. The Indian is, also, but the negro despises himself and would be anything else than what God has made him. But how can we escape hell if we hate ourselves because we are negroes, when this is the divine wisdom of a just God? We may talk about improving our homes by getting an education as much as we please, but we will never be anything until we have a race pride and try to carry out the great plan of God who made us and knew what is best for us. Let us be genuine negroes, pure and good, and not desire a drop of other blood in our veins."
This seems to be the spirit of Tougaloo. Its graduates whom I have met are manly and womanly, self-respecting and self-helping.
TOUGALOO UNIVERSITY, MISSISSIPPI.
BY PRES. F. G. WOODWORTH, D.D.
MANSION.