SEWING CLASS, SIXTH GRADE.
An article of this nature would be incomplete without some reference to charges so frequently made, and in high places too, that education, and especially the higher education, does the negro more harm than good, and that the educated classes furnish the larger part of the criminals. That there are educated criminals is not doubted, but they are not confined to one race, nor do they come from the students of the American Missionary Association schools. Of the nearly four hundred living graduates of Avery, not one is a criminal nor has one ever been accused of crime, and the writer has yet to learn of more than two who have proved unworthy of the training they have received, or dishonored their alma mater by immoral lives. These fell under a stress of circumstances that would have ruined almost any young person. On the contrary, the graduates of this and other schools under the auspices of the Association are conspicuous for worthy and upright character, for thrift, for industry and good citizenship.
And this is true not only of those who complete our course and receive their diplomas, but of hundreds of others who do not go beyond the grammar grades. Such invariably make better citizens. It is a rare thing to learn that one of the students from any class of our school has become a criminal. The criminal classes are not recruited from the pupils in missionary schools.
OUR NEEDS.
We need large contributions of money or materials that will enable us to enlarge and develop our industrial department. A promising beginning has been made, but it is only a beginning, and we desire to extend it in many lines, giving the widest possible scope to individual talent or proclivities, without lowering in any degree the present standard of scholastic attainment.
We need contributions of money and books to enlarge our library and give to our students advantages which they cannot now find in the city. A good library is absolutely indispensable in all educational work. We have a few hundred well worn volumes, the merest apology for a library, but it is the only one in the city to which colored people have access.
We appeal to individuals, to Sunday-schools, to Christian Endeavor societies and to churches for the establishment of scholarships for worthy and capable pupils. We have many such, on whom the burdens press so heavily that continuance in school to the end of the course is an impossibility. We wish to help such after they have reached the normal department. A small sum expended in keeping these worthy students in the school may bring rich rewards when the harvests of life are all finally gathered.