AMONG THE INDIANS.
CLOSING EXERCISES AT SANTEE NORMAL SCHOOL.
By Miss Edith Leonard.
The last busy days of the school year are over. We have gathered the first fruits of our work; we hope there will be a greater harvest in years to come.
At the communion service, on June 7, three of our pupils were received into the church. The next Thursday came the evening of declamations, recitations, and music, for which the pupils had been preparing. During the last four weeks it was a common thing to find a boy declaiming to an imaginary audience in the schoolroom, or to find a girl reciting in some secluded spot in the yard, or on the hills in the pasture. In most schools that is nothing worthy of remark, but to us it shows that the young people are beginning to feel that their success depends on their own efforts.
When the evening came we had an enjoyable entertainment. The house was decorated with the tall, graceful stems of the Solomon's Seal, and the platform had a rug and potted plants upon it, and our two beautiful flags draped behind it.
Among the recitations, "Betty, the Bound Girl," and "The Peril of a Passenger Train," were well rendered. Lowell's "A Day in June" was given with a pleasant voice and manner that fitted the poem. There was an organ solo, an organ duet, and a sprightly little song by a quartet, "All Among the Barley." Among the best things were part of an address by Channing on "Distinction of Mind and Material Forms," and one by Mitchell on "The First View of the Heavens." The thoughts were noble and nobly expressed, and the young men delivered them with thoughtfulness and appreciation, which made us glad, especially as these addresses were their own choice.
Immediately after these exercises we all adjourned to the dining room to see what the girls had done in their little missionary society. Here was a table gay with pretty articles they had made. Among them were a nice comfortable, some embroidered doilies, chair pillows, handkerchief cases, and other things. Most of them were quickly sold. There was also ice-cream and cake for sale. The girls took about seventeen dollars by their fair, and the proceeds are to go to the A.M.A.
The next day was the last. We planned to have an exhibition of school and industrial work during the forenoon, and parade of cadets in the afternoon. And, in order to give the pupils a little uplift of enthusiasm in a good cause, we arranged to have a Christian Endeavor rally of societies from five neighboring towns, and also to invite the members of two Sunday-schools that are bravely "lifting the gospel banner," each in a scattered community near by, where there is no church.
The people began to arrive about half-past ten. One party came in a large farm wagon made gay with flags.