Читать книгу: «The American Missionary. Volume 42, No. 08, August, 1888», страница 3
*ATLANTA UNIVERSITY.*
BY MISS E.B. EMERY
This is a marvelous institution. It is a reproduction of New England, and that the finest; therein lies its supremacy and its offense. The Glenn Bill, designed to ruin the institution, has had the usual effect of such devices; it has improved decidedly the fortunes of the school. Nothing advances a cause like persecution; the peculiar advantage and irresistible power of the University are more manifest than ever, and in the space of a few months it has gained a reputation over the country, and won a place in the hearts of all good people, which twenty years of ordinary work could hardly have done; still, we must not be blind to the fact that this is really due to the twenty years of hard work, prayer and self-sacrifice.
When the books of Heaven are opened, it will then be seen how much of silent self-sacrifice, how much of grand living and grand doing, is set down to these Southern missionaries. Much called inglorious now, will be glorious then, and "the last shall be first."
The anniversary exercises of the University commenced on May 24, by oral examinations, which continued two days. They were in all departments, classical, normal, preparatory and industrial. The classical department, though small, as in all these institutions, has always been very high in Atlanta; the chief advance, however, the past few years, has been in the normal and industrial divisions, and this appeared in the fact that all the graduates this year, numbering thirteen girls, were in the normal department. The work is done by teachers from the North, experienced in the best normal methods, and nothing on the Southern field can be more vital and important. Three-quarters of the students going out from these higher institutions devote themselves to teaching, and when the North has some realization of the dense ignorance of the Southern black population, the need of this will readily appear. In the State of Alabama are 80,000 colored voters who cannot read, and though the children of a small proportion of these voters do learn to read, the greater number do not, and cannot till the Northern churches open their eyes to facts, and do more to remedy this monster evil. And this ignorance of the blacks means not only ignorance, but grossest immorality. Alabama in this respect is an average State; Georgia is a little better, others much worse.
The industrial work of Atlanta consists, first, in farm-work. The farm of sixty acres, which is the most beautiful spot in the State of Georgia, and under the superintendence of a Massachusetts farmer, speaks for itself. The young men learn, also, wood-work, draughting and forging; they exhibit some exquisite specimens of lathe and chisel-work, and the young carpenters readily find employment in the city at the highest wages. The girls not only do much of the work of the boarding-houses, but have special and daily lessons in cooking and sewing; and I can testify to their practical skill.
The baccalaureate sermon was preached on Sunday, May 27, by Rev. C.W. Francis, the pastor of the University church, and, the past year, Acting President, also. It was a notable occasion. The commodious chapel of Stone Hall was packed, the many students of course filling a large space, while their friends and former students filled in the background. Colored people are by nature ardent and magnetic, and when education and religion have developed their characters and toned down their absurdities, they are a very interesting and attractive people.
Forward on the platform and side seats were Dr. Strieby and Dr. Beard, of New York, the honored Secretaries of the American Missionary Association, Dr. Woodworth, of Massachusetts, Dr. Pentecost, of Brooklyn, N.Y., with Mr. Stebbins, his sweet singer, now holding revival meetings in Atlanta, and the faculty and workers generally of the University.
The sermon was preached without notes, as is usual with Prof. Francis, and with his usual quiet earnestness. The discourse was as tender as it was able and wise, and ever to be remembered by the thirteen girls sitting just before him.
Of the singing on such an occasion, no Northern audience can have any conception. The closing hymn was that grand one, "Guide me, O thou Great Jehovah!" It is almost an anthem, and when it is known that the voice of the colored man or woman is three-fold more powerful, richer and sweeter than that of the white, one may try to imagine the effect of nearly a thousand voices.
Commencement was held May 28, in the Friendship Baptist church. The house was filled, many standing for the nearly three hours. The singing was by a large chorus of students, trained most faithfully and successfully by the music teacher of the University, Miss Rebecca Massey. One Jubilee Song was given, "March On"; other selections were classical; the chorus from Mendelssohn's Elijah, "Thanks be to God," being especially fine. The exercises were closed by a spirited rendering of the Anvil Chorus.
Miss Massey is a native of Ohio, and a graduate of Oberlin Musical Conservatory, and is one of the most thoroughly educated musicians in the South. Recently she bought a reserved seat to Gilmore's concert in Atlanta, and in the Imperial City of the Empire State of the South, in the noble city of the reconstructed Henry W. Grady, she was marched out of the hall by a policeman, simply and solely because her blood is one-quarter colored!
The commencement essays of the thirteen young ladies would have done credit to any Northern institution; they were in good taste, thoughtful and high-toned, indicative of culture and a missionary spirit. These girls may never be famous, but they will be useful and successful, which is infinitely better.
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*COMMENCEMENT AT FISK UNIVERSITY.*
PRES. E.H. CRAVATH, D.D
Fisk University held, on the 13th of June, its twenty-third anniversary, reckoning from the founding of the Fisk School. The weather was perfect, and all the exercises of the day were highly satisfactory. Five were graduated from College. One member of the class had been called away during the year by the death of his father. The commencement address was delivered by Rev. C.H. Richards, D.D., of Madison, Wis. Subject, "Making Life Beautiful." The address was admirable in thought, style and delivery, and greatly delighted the vast audience of citizens and students. Dr. Richards paid a high compliment to the graduates, and those who had furnished the music for the occasion. The commencement dinner called forth very pleasant reminiscences of the early days, and many confident predictions concerning; the growth of the University in the future.
One noticeable and hopeful feature of this anniversary was the large increase in the attendance of alumni. Heretofore, anniversary week has come before the close of the schools in which the larger part of our alumni are employed. This year it came three weeks later than formerly. This change was made to better accommodate the little army of student-teachers, which is sent out annually to the country public schools. It was found that by far the larger number of these schools do not begin until the first of July.
Fisk is fortunate in having alumni who are everywhere noted for their love and loyalty, and the University points to them and their work with great pride and rejoicing. The anniversary exercises of the Alumni Association this year were excellent. Mr. Crosthwait spoke of "Nehemiah's Plan," and most beautifully and forcibly applied it to the work to be done by the colored people to build up the walls of their city. Prof. L.C. Anderson, Principal of Prairie View Normal School of Texas, spoke of our "Public School System," in a very instructive way. Mr. Anderson is doing a noble work at Prairie View, and has made the school the pride of the State which supports it. Nearly $300 was contributed toward the alumni endowment fund, as the result of the movement to persuade each graduate to contribute annually one per cent. of his earnings to help his alma mater.
The number of students in the past year has been the largest in the history of the University. The catalogue shows an enrollment of 475. There has been marked growth in the numbers in the Department of Music. Students begin to seek the University for instruction in this department alone. During the year the Mozart Society rendered the oratorio of "Elijah," both in the city and at the University, with marked success.
The address at the graduating exercises of the Normal Department was delivered by Rev. C.S. Smith of Nashville, Secretary of the Sunday-school Union of the A.M.E. Church. It was an earnest and forcible appeal to the colored people of the South to respond to the efforts made in their behalf by Northern friends, by doing the utmost possible for themselves. Many readers of the MISSIONARY will remember Mr. Smith as the delegate of the A.M.E. Church to the Triennial Council in Chicago. The Sunday-school Union has just purchased a handsome building on the public square in Nashville as a publishing house, and under Mr. Smith's management has been eminently successful.
The missionary sermon on Sunday morning, June 10th, was preached by Dr. Warren A. Candler, who has just been honored by being elected President of Emory College, Oxford, Ga. All will remember that this place was vacated some two or three years ago by Dr. Atticus G. Haygood, that he might devote himself entirely to the work connected with the administration of the John F. Slater Fund. Dr. Candler is a strong, liberal and earnest man, who will wield a great power wherever he labors.
The President of the University preached the baccalaureate sermon from the words, "My kingdom is not of this world." The anniversary of the Literary Societies was held Friday night, June 8th, and the Senior Preparatory class had its exhibition on Thursday night, the 7th, at which time eleven were admitted to College, having passed satisfactory examinations. Necessarily the growth of numbers in the higher departments of education must be slow in the case of institutions founded for a race so recently emancipated and laboring under great poverty and unusual disadvantages. This, however, should serve to strengthen purpose and intensify effort, for it shows the vital necessity of well-trained leaders from among the people themselves. Professional training without previous course of liberal education cannot provide the men that are required for this day and generation among the colored people of the United States or for missionaries on the Dark Continent.
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*AN HOUR AT STRAIGHT UNIVERSITY.*
BY MRS. A.B. SHATTUCK
Two Congregational pilgrims found themselves on the first day of March in New Orleans, prepared to do all the sight-seeing which the daylight of forty-eight consecutive hours permitted.
On our way in the horse-cars to one of the beautiful cemeteries, we approached a group of large buildings on the left, and some one said, "That is the university of the colored people," and then we saw "Straight University" in bold letters upon the front of the central building. Now "Straight" was down upon our list of "points," but we had not looked up its location and supposed it farther from the center, so we were glad to stop on our return and save an extra trip. Three plain substantial structures occupy a handsome corner lot, leaving space for the additions already so much needed. The location is very fine, so near the heart of the city, upon that broad, beautiful avenue, whose name is suggestive of anything but breadth and beauty to New York or Chicago people—Canal street. Windows and doors were open, and, seeking entrance at the nearest, we found ourselves in the dining-hall, and were ushered across the yard to the central building and up a flight of stairs, at the head of which, in a small, crowded office, was President Hitchcock.
The sight of a tourist at that season, when the city is overrun with them, could hardly have been more welcome than a book agent to that busy man, but there was not a trace of annoyance in his greeting. He sent away his companions and devoted himself to the duties of a cicerone as cheerfully as though that were the chief end of the president of a university. We went the rounds of class-rooms, halls and dormitories, our interest and our leader's enthusiasm continually increasing.
The primaries are in two long, narrow rooms, lighted only on one side and not nearly large enough. But how the little throats did roll out the music and what time they kept, when called upon for a song! Another treat was a song from a young lady who was practicing in the music room. The modest grace with which she complied when asked to sing for us, is almost as pleasant a memory as her beautiful voice.
Up close to the roof, in a low attic, we found the industrial departments, a printing press and a cabinet shop. Creditable work of both kinds was shown. A paper is edited and printed by the students, and the housekeeper of the party shut her eyes and said the tenth commandment over a certain little table in one corner. Industrial training is not a specialty at Straight. What is done in that line is more a recreation than a branch of study. We were told, with evident pride in the fact, that all the outfit we saw was purchased by the students themselves. Not a dollar of the funds of the Association had gone toward it. Every class-room seemed crowded. The statement that applicants had to be turned away every week needed no confirmation.
Coming so recently from Tougaloo it was interesting to note the difference between the two institutions. A comparison cannot be invidious, because they belong to different states in every sense of the word. Since the aim of the American Missionary Association is the elevation of the colored people, there is room for a diversity of institutions and methods. Tougaloo is admirably situated for industrial departments. Straight has neither room nor time for them, but meets the demand for a higher grade of scholarship, and draws its students from a wider range and from a class who have more home training, more money, and, therefore, more leisure for a full course of study. They come from the whole circumference of the Gulf, from Cuba and from Central America. Many more could be drawn from abroad if there were room to receive them. The most inveterate hatred of puns can hardly keep one from spelling Straight without the gh. Many of the students are largely of Creole blood and have the traits of Gallic ancestry well defined.
"In two respects," said our host, "I have been greatly disappointed. I was told before I came here that I would have trouble in teaching the pupils habits of neatness, and that they were naturally lazy. I find them just the opposite. They are exceptionally neat and tidy about their persons and their rooms. As for being lazy, we could not ask for more diligent students as a rule, and they are up in the morning earlier than we want them to be."
No notes were taken of the many interesting statements made, for there was no thought of this article then. But the recollection of the talk as we passed through rooms and halls toward our exit, always brings regret that the audience had not been two thousand Congregationalists instead of the two who went their way with a firm conviction that Straight University is a place where the investment of a few thousand dollars of the Lord's money would bring speedy and large returns. It is fortunate that in this case, as in the famous one of the deacon's wife, all have not the same taste and judgment. The advocates of industrial training need not hoard their money because Straight has so little manual labor. Tougaloo will gladly and wisely use all they have to give. And those who hold that the moral and intellectual training of teachers and pastors is the only proper work of such schools, need not look askant at the workshops of Tougaloo, lest some of their benefactions should be spent for saws or anvils or solder, while Straight is crying out for room to hold those who want exactly that kind of training.
