Berea College

“ Each day brings to us fresh grounds of hope, and enlarged prospects for usefulness. At no other time since its organization has Berea College had so hopeful a prospect as now. Once or twice we have had as many pupils, but at no other time so many of high moral worth and social influence. Daily, the prejudice against a school of colored and white pupils is subsiding; and young men and young women of good habits and character are coming in, and such as appreciate an education, in connection with just and righteous sentiments. ”

“ The citizens of Cabin Creek, Ky., our old ante-bellum battle ground, are just now erecting an Academy with the money subscribed upon the condition of no caste. The influence of Berea College is felt up in all the mountain country. White youth come down there to get stores of knowledge to carry back. The Professors have gone through that region lecturing on education, holding teachers’ institutes and preaching. At Clover Bottom, 20 miles out, they have gotten up such a mixed school, which is a success, and is now under the patronage of this Association. ”

“ What a change has the President of the Board of Trustees of Berea College lived to behold—the man who was robbed and driven out, but who now sees white men and black in nearly equal numbers graduating together, and audiences of three or four thousand gathered to hear them. ”

“ The previous evening was taken up with a stirring address in the chapel by a Kentucky gentleman of prominent position, the son of a former slave-holder. It was in hearty sympathy with the work in Berea College, and concluded with some very timely and practical advice to the colored people, which they heartily applauded.
Berea College is doing, as may be seen, a peculiar work. No institution in the nation approaches it in uniting the two races in the same school. As a pioneer in the breaking down of caste prejudice, it has no rival ”

“ It is seldom that men live to see with their own eyes so great a revolution as that which Berea witnessed in the contrast of this Commencement day with the dark days of persecution, banishment and danger. Tales were told me at quiet tea-tables, of times of trial and deliverance, that moved the heart over scenes that occurred not in old historic times, but on spots within eye-glance, and participated in by the narrators.
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Berea College is well equipped with buildings and a good corps of teachers. The Ladies’ Hall is modeled after, and about the size of, the similar building in Oberlin. ”

“ Certainly there will arise in your minds no suspicion of waning interest in the colored people or sympathy with caste on the part of those who have heretofore been closely connected with this mountain work at Berea College and the surrounding regions. It is their unanimous conviction that work undertaken for these mountain people with firm faith in Christian brotherhood and unswerving courage will assist in unfurling upon a higher masthead the broad motto borne on the seal of Berea College for twenty-five years past: “God hath made of one blood all nations of men.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Fall term of Berea College opens with greater promise than ever before. There are more students, and they bring more money. Two-thirds are colored, if the slightest shade of black is reckoned negro; but, if divided according to predominance of color, fully half are white.
McLEANSVILLE, N.C.
On the 16th of September we closed a two months Normal school, the first ever attempted here. We enrolled 20 pupils, six of whom had taught school, and four were preparing to teach next winter. Most of the others were primary scholars. ”

“ Lay the axe to the root of the tree, and the work of reformation, though necessarily slow, will prove substantial and enduring. Berea College, in Kentucky, has successfully demonstrated that the co-education of the two races is both possible and practicable, and what it has done all other institutions of learning in the South can and should do. ”

“ The school is managed by trustees, one of whom is a professor of Berea College, and the present pastor of Walnut Chapel Church, to which he preaches once a month, in the school-house. There is no other school in the county fit to qualify young people for teachers. ”

“ Berea, a beautiful spot by nature, is growing more and more beautiful every year. It is a charming place for a college, and nothing but poverty prevents a thousand youth from flocking here for education. Expenses are very low: Tuition, $9 a year; board, $1.50 a week; free tuition for ninety pupils; yet many students must leave, unless they can contrive a cheaper way to live, and find work to meet their small expenses.
SOUTH CAROLINA. School Closing—Religious Life. ”

“ Not always welcomed by the ruling class, the pioneers in this work persevered, and many of them have lived long enough to receive the thanks of those who at first despised and scorned them. Millions of dollars have gone from New England for the founding and support of such institutions as Berea College, Kentucky ”

“ He is more anxious to lift his own end of a problem than to quarrel with the colored boy who is tugging at the other end. Indeed, at Berea one seems to be in that ideal university where an overpowering desire for study lifts the entire body of students above a whole class of questions that even yet convulse politicians and people, schoolmen and churches, South and North. They live together; the girls, of course, under careful supervision; study, work, recite, play and worship together; students and teachers, children and grown men and women, in one family. ”

“ The primary school-room contains twenty stout fellows ranging from eighteen to twenty-five years of age; but it is not uncommon for one of these boys to go forth as a tolerable school-master among the colored people after two years’ hard work at Berea. Indeed, if one were to look for signs of mental power, he need not go outside the beautiful campus of this school. We positively never witnessed such progress in learning as is the common talk among these teachers. These stalwart young men and resolute maidens from the mountains buckle to their books with a will that knows no discouragement. ”

“ Out from this interesting region come the majority of the white students of Berea. Few of them are able even to meet the yearly sum of seventy-five dollars, for which their education is given them. Many of them, even the girls, walk from their homes, and come in with nothing but a stout suit of clothes, a good head and a brave heart, paying their way as they go by such work as turns up, and the small wages of mountain school-keeping in the long summer vacations. ”

“ Nearly every student is a member of the church and the temperance society, and the carrying of arms is cause of expulsion. All classes of the Southern people are good listeners. We never addressed an audience of three hundred people that put us more decisively on our mettle than the crowd of students and villagers that did us the favor to crowd the chapel on four unpleasant nights to listen to our talks on education.
We do not propose to defend Berea against any objector. A school with such tough Kentucky roots as Fee, Hanson, and their compeers ”

“ He never spared himself. He forgot himself, but he never forgot the college. His works do follow him. These works which remain with us are the strong and united faculty which he organized, and which he inspired with his own high ideals, the noble standard of scholarship to which he elevated the curriculum, the beautiful campus, which is a wonder of improvement when we contrast it with what it was when his hands first touched it, and the example of industry and energy which his life has furnished. ”

“ So, in the best sense the College grew. Not in outward prosperity alone, in teaching power, in class rooms; but within. The invisible fabric of mind, and will, and heart, co-ordinated by one great idea, was slowly being raised. The ‘aborigines,’ as those who were girls of the Cambray House time call themselves, even insist that at no time of her career was Miss Beale’s personal influence so direct as then, when teaching so many subjects herself, and in small classes, she came personally in contact with nearly all the older pupils. ”

“ About this time many questions arose that had to be settled once and for all. One was whether the College was to be simply a local day school, or an institution for the furthering of women’s higher education generally: another was the government of the College and the defining of the Principal’s powers: a third was whether the boarding-houses should become an intrinsic part of the College. Around all these questions storms arose and the Principal began to feel that in leaving Cambray House she had left behind her peace and happiness. ”

“ Bea says so and you know it!” exclaimed 67 Robbie Belle indignantly; “there isn’t any question about your being granted another scholarship when you apply for it next spring. They weigh everything—intellect, personality, character, conduct. Never you fear. If they give only one scholarship in the whole college, it shall be to you. You are superstitious: you fancy that if you do your best to expect the worst, the best will happen, because it is always the unexpected that happens. Only of course, that isn’t true at all.”
Berta was smiling mistily around into the fair face. ”

“ For thirty years I have been Warden; and in that charge has been all my pride. I have had no thought but for this great College, its honour and prosperity. More than once lately have I asked myself whether my eyes were growing dim, my hand less steady. ‘No’ was my answer, and again ‘No.’ And thus it is that I have lingered on to let Judas be struck down from its high eminence, shamed in the eyes of England—a College for ever tainted, and of evil omen.” He raised his head. “The disgrace to myself is nothing. ”

“ It may be marked also that she could never feel full sympathy for free education. From this time she again limited herself to training secondary teachers. Conditions which made elementary training the one serious work which Miss Beale took up only to abandon it, are indeed to be regretted. The magnificent plant, the fine opportunities for learning and practising, such as the Ladies’ College could supply, above all the large-minded teaching, the sense of real education which the Lady Principal would give, were thus lost to a cause which affects the wellbeing of the whole nation. ”

“ When we were in Monrovia, we were asked more than once whether it was best to remove Liberia College into the interior. It is the opinion of many that such removal should take place. The answer to the question depends entirely upon what is conceived to be the proper function of Liberia College. If it is to be an institution of higher education, if it is to aim at academic instruction and the development of able men for the filling of public positions, for professional life, for leadership, it would be a great mistake to move it. ”

“ The foundation of a school of over one hundred pupils, and of houses containing the same number of boarders, would be a respectable life’s work for many a woman. This work appears to have been only one of the many occupations Miss Beale found for the little leisure left her by the cares of the great College and its ever-multiplying interests. ”

“ You are doubly rewarded, for not merely is Cambridge a perfect specimen of a colonial village, but in Harvard there breathes the true spirit of humane letters. Nor is the college a creation of yesterday. It is not far short of three centuries ago that John Harvard, once of Emmanuel College in England, endowed the university which bears his honoured name. The bequest was a poor £780, with 260 books, but it was sufficient to ensure an amiable immortality, and to bestow a just cause of pride upon the mother-college. ”

“ It makes one homesick to hear the cheers. With the exception of an occasional “meet” with some mission school, like those at Jerusalem and Sidon, there is no opportunity to compete with rival institutions. [52] Indeed, there is no other college in the Near East which would have any chance of winning in competition with the “S. P. C.” So the enthusiasm finds a vent in cheering for the various schools of the university and for the class champions. Three of the departments—the preparatory, academic and medical—are each as large as many an American college. ”

“ It may be safely said that never, even in moments of worst annoyance, did Miss Beale ever propose to ‘wash her hands’ of the boarding-houses. She felt they should be ‘organically related’ to the College life, a part of it which she could not do without, one which had in it great possibilities for extending and strengthening the influence of the College teaching, one which, neglected, must be an infinite source of difficulty, by which the [173] standard of the corporate life might be lowered, and its best work hindered. ”

“ As the College grew, Miss Beale felt more and more the need of a house where those who were trying to train themselves to be teachers could board inexpensively, and in 1876 was made that beginning which, as she said, was ‘full of blessing to the College, and of much use beyond its bounds.’ This was before the Maria Grey Training College was opened, and when there was no institution at all in which women could receive definite preparation for becoming teachers in secondary schools. ”