Our eight Chartered Institutions, including Berea College and
Hampton Institute, which were founded by this Association, have
experienced a year of unusual prosperity. The number pursuing
a higher grade of study has been continually on the increase,
and the quality of the work done, as testified to by many who
have witnessed it, indicates that the grade of teachers has been
improved, not only by self-culture on the part of those who have
been long in service, but also by accessions from among the best
educators in the country. Three of our teachers have received
honorary degrees from important colleges at the North, and others
have been encouraged by many tokens of appreciation and esteem.
During the year, the Tillotson Institute at Austin, Tex., took
possession of its new building, a brick structure one hundred and
four feet long, forty-two feet wide and five stories high. From the
first this school has met with the hearty approval and sympathy of
a large number of the best citizens of Austin. The new building
was opened in January, and before the close of the spring term 107
students had availed themselves of its advantages.
The college at Berea has added $50,000 to its permanent endowment
fund; the Fisk University has received $4,000 endowment for student
aid. At Hampton, two new buildings, one for Indian and one for
Negro girls, have been provided by the friends of the Institution,
and a new Academic Hall, in place of one that was burned, has been
dedicated. At Tougaloo, Miss., a boy’s dormitory of brick, with
accommodations for about 75 students, has been completed. This
building was made especially necessary by the ravages of fire,
which destroyed the wooden structure that had served in a very
inadequate way both for school rooms and boarding purposes.
Other buildings at Straight University, New Orleans; Fisk
University, Nashville, Tenn.; Talladega College, and Atlanta
University, provided by the gift of $150,000 by Mrs. Valeria G.
Stone, have either been completed, or are in a good state of
progress. At New Orleans, there was added to the half square of
land on Canal street, before owned by the A. M. A., the remaining
half. Upon this site has been erected a neat three-story building,
ninety-two feet on Canal street and ninety-one feet on Roche Blave
street, containing dining-room, kitchen and laundry for the whole
school, parlor, bath-room, apartments for teachers and dormitories
for about 60 girls.
At Talladega, Stone Hall, for boys, has been completed. It is
three stories high, with a basement, and contains printing office,
reading-room, bath-room and dormitories for 76 students. With a
portion of Mrs. Stone’s gift, supplemented by $1,000 from Mr.
Gregory, of Marblehead, $100 from Gen. Swayne and a few smaller
sums from others, Swayne Hall has been remodeled and thoroughly
repaired from pavement to bell-tower, including roofing, flooring,
blackboarding, etc. A house for the accommodation of the President
will soon be completed. With these improvements the college will be
ready for a great work.
At Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., Livingstone Missionary Hall
is nearly inclosed. It is two hundred and four feet long, sixty-two
feet wide in the centre, and has four stories and a basement.
The foundation is of stone and the walls are of pressed brick. A
mansard roof with brick gables and ornamented chimneys crowns the
edifice. It will contain chapel, lecture-rooms, recitation-rooms,
teachers’ apartments and dormitories for 120 boys. Although planned
with a strict regard for economy, it will be a grand and stately
companion for Jubilee Hall. Several months will be required for its
completion.
At Atlanta, a new wing has been added to the girl’s dormitory,
and plans for a school building between the two dormitories have
been completed and some materials purchased. It is expected that
the building will be finished and ready for occupancy in a year
from this time. In planning these various buildings, it has been
the aim to provide the best facilities possible, but the claims
of architecture have not been wholly ignored. Some of the best
architects in the country have been consulted, and all the plans
have been examined carefully by your Executive Committee.
It will be seen by this review that each of our eight chartered
institutions has received permanent and substantial aid either in
funds or in buildings, and that never before were they so fully
equipped for the great work thrown upon them. The prayer of the
last half score of years for room has been wonderfully answered,
and the blessing of Heaven is crowning the labors of workers with
rich rewards.
Our other schools, 46 in all, normal and common, have met with
favor on every hand, and have experienced uninterrupted progress
throughout the year. At some of them the industrial work has been
pushed forward with gratifying success. Attention has been given to
household industries in two or three places. A class of girls at
Memphis, Tenn., has been carefully instructed with actual practice
in an experimental kitchen, on the nature, relative values, and
healthful methods, of cooking food. Classes in needle work,
knitting, and in the use of sewing machines, have had daily lessons
and practice.
We have had in all 230 teachers in the field, a gain of 30 over
last year. Of these, 14 have performed the duties of matrons and 15
have been engaged in the business departments.
The total number of students has been 9,108, a gain of 1,056 over
the previous year. They were classed as follows: theological, 104;
law, 20; collegiate, 91; collegiate preparatory, 131; normal,
2,342; grammar, 473; intermediate, 2,722; primary, 3,361; studying
in two grades, 136.
Our normal and common schools, like our chartered institutions,
are constantly sending up the call for more room. Permanent
accommodations have been provided at some points and temporary
ones at others. At Wilmington, N.C., by the gift of Hon. J.
J. H. Gregory, the school building has been remodeled for the
accommodation of a large number of students. A new mission home
has also been built by the munificence of the same gentleman. At
Athens, Ala., the colored people have done nobly toward furnishing
material for the school-house now under process of construction.
They have already made two hundred thousand bricks with their
own hands, and are placing them in the walls to represent their
interest in the property. It is hoped that the work will be
completed by January 1st, and that Miss Wells, who has been
Principal of the school for fifteen years, will be rewarded for
her labor and patient waiting by ample accommodation for all the
students who may seek the advantages of her excellent normal school.
During the year we have inaugurated work at Topeka, Kan., the chief
rendezvous of the refugees, where a lot has been purchased and a
building suitable for both church and school purposes erected.
Divine services are held on the Sabbath. A Sabbath-school with
an average attendance of 170 has been gathered, and a prosperous
night-school sustained. Much good has been done by our missionary
and others at this point in the distribution of supplies to the
destitute, and by speeding them on their way to homes among the
farmers and mechanics of the State. We have also resumed our church
work at Lawrence, Kan., with good results.
Commencement days, or the closing exercises at our different
institutions, are becoming more and more eventful as the years go
on. One feature of especial interest at Hampton was the delivery
of orations and the reading of papers by the alumni of the school.
These displayed an amount of character and culture on the part
of those who had been several years in the field since their
graduation which was very gratifying.
Commencement day at Berea College is unlike any other in the South
or elsewhere in the country. Hours before the exercises begin, the
streets are thronged with hundreds of people, black and white,
old and young, properly dressed or dressed in rags, some riding
on the finest steeds produced in Kentucky, some on plough horses,
mules and ponies, riding single, riding double, with a child or two
between. The exercises are held in a large open tabernacle seating
about three thousand persons. The building is usually decorated
with mottoes and banners, with plants and flowers and miniature
fountains. The college band furnishes the music. Not the least
interesting is the basket dinner on the college campus. The fame of
these days spreads far and wide for hundreds of miles, awakening an
enthusiasm on the part of the young for an education, and winning
words of praise and tokens of cheer from the very best people
throughout the State.
At the Emerson Institute, Mobile, Ala., eight hundred people
crowded into the Third Baptist Church to see and to hear of the
work for themselves; while, at Montgomery, on the theory that
what is good for a part is good for all, every scholar, from the
least to the greatest, was given a speech. As there were more than
three hundred to take part, the authorities decided that all the
exercises should not be crowded into a single day. Consequently, in
order that a good thing might last a good while, it was arranged to
devote three evenings to the speaking.
The growing interest in these anniversary occasions all along the
line of our work, the attendance of leading white citizens, and
their readiness to occupy seats on the platform with our teachers
and workers, the enthusiasm of the colored folks to throng in and
catch every word that is uttered, all combine to lift up the work
from the low place it has occupied among those at the South who
have looked unfavorably upon it, and to magnify in the minds of the
colored people, who have struggled so hard to send their children
to school, the dignity and importance of Christian education. With
a few more years of progress like the past, our educational work
will outrun and leave behind the obstacles and the enemies which
have stood in its way during the past years, and God is speeding
the day.
* * * * *