Talladega College

“ Their work in the future for the Master's kingdom will depend very much upon us Christians of the North.
Talladega College is exceedingly prosperous. The day-school is very large; the Sunday-school packs the chapel, and the Sunday congregation is much too crowded for health or comfort in a room seating but two hundred and fifty. The college is working all the time, for a church, earning many small sums. The result, with some gifts, amounts to about $400. Where is the man or the woman to aid in this godly enterprise? ”

“ Talladega College, in Talladega, Ala., has had 427 students in all departments. Its year's work has shown most satisfactory results. Talladega is closely connected with the church work of the State. All the pastors in the Congregational State Association but four are from its theological department and several other States have found pastors there. The last [pg 307] State Association, with its fine body of young men, educated, dignified and earnest, was a most emphatic demonstration of the good work done in this institution. ”

“ TALLADEGA, a city and the capital of Talladega co., Alabama, on the Selma, Rome, and Dalton railroad, 78 m. N. by E. of Montgomery; pop. in 1870, 1,933, of whom 1,013 were colored; in 1875, about 3,000. It is the seat of the state institution for the deaf and dumb and the blind, of a Presbyterian female seminary, and of Talladega college. The college was incorporated in 1869, and is sustained by the American missionary society. It admits both sexes and colors, and has in operation preparatory, theological, and normal courses, and grammar, intermediate, and primary departments. ”

“ Overlooking the rich, populous, and somewhat unwholesome low-lands, breathing the pure mountain air, is situated Talladega, seeming to have been Providentially placed as a city of refuge for the colored people of Alabama. The beauty of the surrounding landscape is a perpetual inspiration to teachers and students. The location [109] of the college, in a quiet country village of two thousand inhabitants, invites the young people from the cities, and less favored localities, to an atmosphere as pure and healthful morally as it is physically. ”

“ Talladega is by far the prettiest site for a college that I have seen in the South. Nature has done her part in fitting up the place for purposes of instruction. There is every incentive to mental improvement that nature can afford. If man will do his part, we may expect to find here one of the most important of those springs which are sending forth streams of moral and mental influence through all the wastes of this south country. ”

“ The late Thomas Lafon, a colored man, left at death $5,800 to this excellent institution; to Talladega College, Talladega, Ala., with 519 students, $2,500; to Tougaloo University, Tougaloo, Miss., with 392 students, $3,000. This institute, under the charge of the American Missionary Association, began twenty-five years ago with one small building surrounded by negro cabins. Now there are ten buildings in the midst of five hundred acres. Most of these institutions for colored people have small libraries, which would be greatly helped by the gift of good books. ”

“ Naturally this incident started a train of serious reflections touching the facts and hopes of human life. About the year 1864 or 1865 he was converted to Christianity and some time after was baptized into the Talladega Church (white) by his friend, Dr. Renfroe. At the close of the war Mr. McAlpine first worked at the carpenters’ trade, which he left for school teaching. In the winter of 1866 he entered the Talladega College, supporting himself by laboring during the morning and evening hours—before the opening and after the close of the school. ”

“ The friends and patrons of Talladega College have great occasion for encouragement and congratulation, in view of the present condition and future prospects of that Institution, as evinced by the examinations and exercises connected with its Tenth Annual Commencement. ”

“ We would sleep a few hours and get up and begin picking again. In the swamps at night the owls and frogs made plenty of music for us. Such was my life for several years.
During all these years the one thing uppermost in my mind was the desire to attend some school, but I could not see how I would ever be able to do so. I had heard much of Talladega College, the school at Normal and the state school at Montgomery, but board at these schools was from seven to eight dollars per month and this had to be paid in cash. ”

“ As a result of this program, the principal institutions established were Hampton Institute, Atlanta University, Fisk University, Straight University, Talladega College, Tougaloo University, and Tillston College. ”

“ They own several thousand acres of land, and are in every way ahead of their white neighbors. The school house of the latter was a poor tumble-down affair and the children were untidy, while the school house of the former was a neat, painted and well-kept building, crowded in school hours with bright, enthusiastic children—clean and polite. The teacher was from Talladega College and has taught here for five years. His school is pronounced the best in the region for white or colored. The pastor of this church has charge also of the Congregational Church at Goliad. ”

“ The remainder of the afternoon was spent in examining three candidates from the Theological Department of Talladega College for licensure. As it was not my privilege to hear the examination, I noted the words of a very competent judge who said that their careful and correct answers showed the thoroughness of their theological training. The harvest is plenteous and the laborers are multiplying. ”

“ A grand future is apparent for the Tillotson in this Empire of a Commonwealth. The only question is whether it can keep up with its opportunity and its demand. It gives us no time to rest. No sooner is it opened than it calls for more room. The growing brain makes room for itself, and so must this educational enterprise.
ALABAMA. TEACHERS’ INSTITUTE AT TALLADEGA. President, Henry S. DeForest.
Of late it has been the custom to end the spring term at Talladega College with a teachers’ institute, giving special training to those who are so soon to go out and teach. ”

“ The fever for learning is contagious. Men who work hard all day in the field or at their trade are so eager for knowledge that, to meet the demand, classes have just been organized for a night school.
Meanwhile our little church is keeping on the even tenor of its way. There have been several hopeful conversions, and four are about to unite by profession. No falling off in attendance on Sabbath or evening meetings. Four of our young people are this year at Talladega College, and two promising young men have the ministry in view. Nineteen were present at our teachers’ meeting last week. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They at last picked out the cotton and found that they had two bales, worth $120. One bale they sent to the colored folks’ Industrial Fair, on the grounds of Talladega College. This church is now also engaged in building a house of worship, having the frame erected, intending, with the aid of $100 from the A.M.A., to go on this season with the finishing, and hoping that a revival will be its process of dedication.
NORTH CAROLINA.
Our School. REV. ALFRED CONNET, MCLEANSVILLE.
Our school is put down as a common school. That is correct. Yet we are laboring to make it more than a common school. ”

“ We doubt if anywhere else in the South the Church and School are both so strong and so closely united as here. The Congregational Church of Talladega was organized in 1868. There are at present one hundred and forty-nine members, with a Sabbath-school of three hundred. Of course the larger part are students, but a goodly number are citizens, heads of families, having good homes, and being comparatively prosperous. Not only the members of this church, but of the other churches in the village, are thoroughly interested in whatever affects the college. ”

“ Its first industrial school was founded at Talladega, Ala., in 1867, where it now works about 300 acres of land. Modern farming in its most important branches is taught here. In connection with the school are popular lectures, which are listened to, and scattered by the students throughout the country. White and black farmers are being improved by them. The instructor in farming, a graduate of the Amherst Agricultural College, is both scientific and practical. In the same school, at Talladega, young men and women are taught various other branches of industry. ”

“ Talladega College sustains twenty-five Sabbath-schools; Montgomery and Selma, four each; and others are not behind, according to their means and opportunities. It is certainly a suggestive and encouraging fact that, in the very heart of Alabama, a body of men could come together so full of enthusiasm for Puritan ideas, and should, without exception, report that their hold upon the communities in which they labor is manifestly strengthening.
The Sunday-school Convention opened Monday night, with an address on “The Object of Sunday-school Effort, Winning Souls,” by Rev. ”

“ They are all white, and represent every section of the Union and the Dominion of Canada. Talladega may congratulate itself on its “negro college,” for probably no institution in the State represents more thoroughly the best modern ideas of education.”
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THE STRONG AND THE WEAK. BY PROF. G. N. MARDEN, COLORADO SPRINGS, COL.
Injustice seems never more flagrant than when committed by the prosperous and powerful against the poor and weak. ”

“ Two young business men in Illinois put each $25 into this Christian investment.
Talladega, Ala.—The students are doing good service during vacation, teaching in day and Sabbath Schools, and keeping up with their studies so as not to fall behind if unable to return at the beginning of the term. One who is teaching for the third season at Hackneyville, Ala., has his sister, also a pupil from this college, associated with him. At a recent picnic on the school grounds, held for the purpose of creating an interest in education, leading citizens, both white and black, made addresses. ”

“ Also, it should be noted as a hopeful sign that the preachers and many of the pastors are greatly desirous of a more complete literary and theological education. Those who seek such an education are numerous. We sometimes have at Talladega applications from fifty such in a single year. It is often pitiful to hear their appeals to be admitted to school, when denial is forced upon them, since there is neither room nor money. Still, there are many who secure books, seek help, and blindly plod on.
Let no one suppose the work in the Black Belt or the State is finished. It is only gloriously begun. ”

“ Prof. A. J. Steele, of the Le Moyne Institute, Memphis, Tenn., was present, bearing a large part in its instruction, [141] and giving it the choicest fruits of his own training and experience. The Hon. H. Clay Armstrong, State Superintendent of Education, had a place on the programme, and Rev. Daniel Duncan, the County Superintendent, was present at every session from beginning to end. Three years ago, at the beginning of the series, he said, that was “the first institute ever held in Talladega County, from the creation of the world.” ”

“ We are only a private school, more than half of us little kids in knickerbockers, but we have the inside track in Harvard, and we’re on the top socially. They don’t like that.”
“It’s the little kids and getting into college so early that spoils our athletics,” remarked Talbot. “Newbury is a public endowed school with lots of big fellows who don’t go to college, and Trowbridge is a boarding-school in the country where the fellows have nothing to do but play games all day. We aren’t anything but a school building in town and a playground in Brookline.” ”

“ THERE are few subjects of broad interest in America that have shown more radical changes of view-point during the last half-century than those pertaining to the aims and influence of college education. When Thoreau entered Harvard the older conviction prevailed, that college must be a stepping-stone to some one of "the gentlemanly professions." The broader sentiment of to-day, that college is preparation for life in any vocation,—profession, trade, society, philanthropy, statescraft,—was then but an embryonic and feeble vision of a few minds. ”

“ At Harvard College there is, of course, none of that old-fashioned, time-honoured, delicious, mediæval life which lends so much grace and beauty to our colleges. There are no gates, no porter's lodges, no butteries, no halls, no battels, and no common rooms. ”

“ We have not all of a university when we have men and buildings, money, students, brains. Back of a university there lies its foundation-idea, that of academic control.
What is academic rule? It is rule over the pride of man. A college is a place whose chief power is to inculcate humility by the means of true learning; to establish intellectual honor and integrity by searching out the ways of God in nature, science, and philosophy, and in letters and in art.
It is the primary work of a university to make men humble. The Freshman is not teachable. The Sophomore is an intellectual upstart. ”