Various

“ Here is kept the supply of Christian Endeavor literature for the varied needs of the Christian Endeavor workers, helps for missionary and temperance and good citizenship meetings, with an array of programs. Among all Endeavorers, as among all missionary society workers, the hunger for programs is great indeed. Blessed be the man or woman who has the genius for preparing such stimulating outlines of study. ”

“ Right in the heart of the Midland Mountains, among our native-born American Highlanders, people who have had as great a part in forming American history as any like number of men in our country to-day, people who gave to this nation Abraham Lincoln, who also produced Jesse James—they are capable of either—who for a hundred and fifty years have been sitting in the shade of ignorance, poverty and superstition, but are now coming into the light of the school and the church as provided for them by the American Missionary Association. ”

“ When one becomes acquainted with the children after they have been at the school a year or two and considers the homes from which some of them come, he is almost inclined to wonder at the transforming power of Christian education. ”

“ Rarely do American teachers in the States receive so many little tokens of esteem and appreciation. On the other hand, the pupils are quick-tempered, with little power of self control; rather easily offended, and lack in perseverance and stability. They have little idea of attention and little power to study. They are anxious to come to school, and will sacrifice much to get clothes and pay tuition. ”

“ Expressions of pleasure and approval came constantly from alumni, from teachers in other schools, from citizens both white and black.
Not as large a graduating class was sent out as usual, there being only nine in all—three young men from the college department, and six from the normal school, all young women but one. The parents of none of these students have graduated from Talladega. All of them were slaves, though most were so young at the time of emancipation as not to remember much of slavery days. ”

“ The third young man of the college class expects to take for a year a principalship in the public schools of a neighboring city, and then enter upon the study of medicine.
The young man who finished the normal course, being a good carpenter, has been for three years head of the college repair shop. For this summer he will return to a country school where he has taught for five consecutive summers, and in the fall hopes to enter a trade-school to perfect himself in carpentry and to learn what he can of architecture and building, purposing to devote himself to that line of work. ”

“ The great problem in Porto Rico will be rural education. Probably 800,000 of its 950,000 people live in the country or in hamlets. The cities are already providing for teachers' training-schools. The field of greatest usefulness for the A. M. A. lies in giving the young men and women a fair [Pg 124] education under Christian influences, and sending them out into the country and village schools.
The people of Lares are deeply interested in the school and willing to help the work; the location is as healthful as any in the island, and Lares, as a great coffee center, promises to thrive and grow. ”

“ We are solving the negro problem in the only way possible, in the opinion of all statesmen, all publicists and all philanthropists, by the farm and the shop, and the school and the church, and over them all the Stars and Stripes. ”

“ A New Departure Program.
The attention of the whole world has been focalized on China during the past few weeks. Many hearts are deeply anxious for friends who are in the midst of this upheaval and whose lives are threatened. Beginning with mobs instigated by a secret society, apparently without preconcertion, a state bordering upon war now exists. Whether the Empress Dowager is at the head of this movement it seems impossible to decide. The conservative element of the Chinese is certainly in sympathy with the Boxers in their effort to exterminate the "foreign devils." ”

“ His sermons were always prepared with the greatest care, and, except on rare occasions, were delivered without a note and with wonderful beauty of diction and irresistible logic to the audiences of two thousand cultured people who hung on his words every Sabbath and who regarded him, not without good reason, "the greatest preacher in America." ”

“ The education most needed in Porto Rico is practical, industrial education. Santurce, near the capital, with a large, poor population about the school, dependent on their daily work for their support, furnishes an excellent location for an industrial school. The people and children do not know how to do anything. The women are "lavenderas," or washwomen, the children carry water, the men do odd jobs, and all are poorly housed, poorly clothed, poorly fed. The children need manual training, and gardening for the boys and sewing and cooking for the girls. ”

“ There are many successful teachers, editors, lawyers, doctors and ministers who are negroes. All these professions are fully and ably represented here, in conservative and aristocratic Lexington, and as regards these men and women there is no race problem. Worth, honesty, clear knowledge, self-respect and independent support lie at the foundation of any citizenship, white or black. May these young graduates carry these with them into the life conflict, and be the leaders of their race into the widest opportunities of free American citizenship."
[Pg 100] ”

“ These exercises are held at Central Church because it can accommodate a much larger audience than the university chapel, and in the evening, because this hour permits many to be present who, on account of their work, could not attend commencement during the day.
Long before the hour appointed for beginning the exercises, all the seats were filled and all the standing room in the church utilized, and the air was alive with whispers, low tones and the flutter of fans as [Pg 113] the audience waited, with the best patience it could muster, for the opening numbers of the program. ”

“ In the Christian schools, while the carefully-selected American teachers insure good schools and good teaching of the ordinary branches, there is a place for moral education, for simple religious exercises and for Bible study. ”

“ Much of the work cannot be surpassed anywhere. Leading Mississippians are proud of Tougaloo and its work, and esteem it the best school of its class.
Mention was more than once made of the fact that the new president of Alcorn College, the state institution for colored young men, which is now doing better work than for some years, and his accomplished wife, are graduates of Tougaloo. The teacher of iron and steel work there had his training in the Tougaloo shops. ”

“ How much the civilized nations are responsible for the present condition through their eager and often ill-advised efforts to absorb the territory, or to gain political and commercial advantages, is a serious problem. The need of aggressive and earnest work for the Chinese who come to our own country is emphasized by these alarming conditions. Hundreds should be sent back as missionaries to their own people. We hold the key to the solution of foreign missions in Africa, China and Japan in members of these races in our own country. ”

“ Each society would have representation during such a portion of the time as the magnitude of the work represented demanded. The general sentiment seems to be that the Sabbath should be used as a day of missionary and spiritual arousement, for the general interests of the Kingdom of God, as represented through our denomination. ”

“ This school is situated in the Highlands of North Carolina. It reaches the young people of a considerable area, and is an influence for large good among them. Among the speeches or essays presented at the closing exercises, was one entitled: "The South, Her Strength and Weakness." It is a hopeful sign that the young men of the South, who are to be the leaders in their section, are seriously considering these problems. In the "New South," a large element of strength and progress will come from the educated young men of the Highlands. ”

“ The training given is of the most practical kind. Young men have been enabled, through the industrial education received at the university, to work at the carpenter's trade during their summer vacation, and thus earn the means necessary to take them through the following year of study. At the present time one enterprising young graduate, as a result of this very training, is putting up with his own hands the building which is to shelter the school he is founding in Southern Louisiana. ”

“ Congregationalists have always believed in a Godly and educated ministry. To meet the wants of local conditions, a three years' course of study shall be provided for in the by-laws, for all who are not graduates of normal, college preparatory or college classes.... The by-laws shall provide a four years' course of conference study, leading up to the printed certificate. Any person holding a printed certificate shall be addressed as Reverend, preach without annual examination, on condition of good behavior, and may be ordained if called by a church to be its pastor.... ”

“ It will cost five dollars, and when we ask her how she is going to pay for it she tells us she has a quarter saved toward it, and she has promised the man who is building it her blankets, her only bedding beside an old comforter. But the weather is growing warm, she says, and "mebbe before it done turn cold I'll be in the hebbenly mansions." One of the saddest relics of the old slavery days is these childless, friendless, companionless old people, childless because slavery separated them from their children; husbands and wives were parted, and all family life rendered impossible. ”

“ Of the graduates, one of the young women will teach school the coming year, the young man will seek work somewhere for a year and hopes then to enter the State University at Knoxville and so fit himself for some useful calling in life. ”

“ R. M. Roark, of the Kentucky State College, at the commencement of Chandler Normal School, Lexington, Ky., bore the following testimony to the strength and value of the negroes of the South: "Forty years ago the race had nothing; now property in the hands of the negro has an assessed valuation of nearly five hundred million dollars. Not a few individuals are worth seventy-five thousand to one hundred thousand dollars. Forty years ago it was a violation of the law to teach a negro; now there are thousands of children in good schools ”

“ There was an effort to control the ignorant part of the community for private interests. The better educated young men, however, were alive to their duty and opportunity, and many of the older ones were sensible enough to put forward the younger and better informed to represent them. The consequence was that when the delegates arrived at the county seat they were found to be an intelligent and well-dressed company, who could understand what was going on. Two of them went from the county to the Fargo state convention to nominate delegates to the national presidential convention. ”

“ Next year Tougaloo will, for the first time, have a full college course. Excellent work has been done in that department during the past year. It is interesting to note that one of the graduates represents the second generation at Tougaloo, her mother having been a student in the early days of the school. There are many such second generation students in the lower grades, and they distinctly show the effects of the influences to which their parents were subjected. All the graduates were country-bred. ”

“ He has fitted himself for Christian instruction among his people, and is rapidly becoming a leader. This young man, however, is not an individual but a type of hundreds of such Highland lads and lassies who are struggling with great self-sacrifice for an education in our American Missionary Association schools. ”

“ A three-roomed cottage usually consists of a central room with one outside door, and a room at each end connecting with the central room, but having no outside door. The roof is made of rafters, upon which poles are laid crosswise, and the whole covered several inches with earth. ”

“ He himself, a very Hercules by name and in appearance, champion on the college gridiron, pleaded on the commencement stage most persuasively for "Universal Peace."
Our commencement orator was Rev. H. E. Cobb, one of the pastors in the Reformed Collegiate Church of New York City. His address upon the "Open Door" disclosed to the young graduates their possibilities of success and failure, and captivated old and young. ”

“ Fancy work is taught them after they have learned the more useful kinds of sewing.
Monday afternoon the Rev. Chas. R. Dinkins addressed the literary societies of the university, and on Monday evening one of the most interesting programs of the whole commencement season was presented—namely, the class-day program.
It was in these exercises that the love of the graduating classes for their Alma Mater, and their appreciation of her faithful and efficient [Pg 111] instruction found fullest expression. ”

“ The floor is sometimes of lumber, but more generally of bare earth, which in very wet weather is apt to be turned into mud by the rain that drips through the ground-covered roof. In the larger houses two or three families often live, sometimes with two or three grandmothers or grandfathers, or both. ”