Part 3

During the recent cyclone the school-house remained comparatively uninjured, but the “Home” was rendered roofless and floods of water poured through the building. The colored people in this vicinity suffered extremely. Hundreds who lived on the low islands or rice islands, which are scarce ever covered with tidal waters, were overwhelmed, their houses destroyed and large numbers drowned. Even yet, a month since the storm, bodies of the dead negroes are being found in out-of-the-way places. A planter told me today of two such found a few days ago by his reapers in the middle of his rice fields.

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ATLANTA UNIVERSITY.

REV. C. W. FRANCIS, ATLANTA, GA.

We find on this second day of our school session a fair attendance and good prospects for a prosperous year. The number registered thus far is 125, of whom 82 are boarders, the number a little larger than that of last year at the opening.

The proportion of new pupils is also a little larger, and in most cases they come under the care and persuasion of older pupils who have been teaching them during the vacation weeks. This mode of recruiting has always been effective, and as our accommodations have been used to their utmost capacity every season, we have never ventured to employ any other means to secure attendance lest we be overwhelmed. A most hopeful feature in the case of the incoming students is the large preponderance of girls who come without any special solicitation, which indicates a greatly improved sentiment in regard to their education and position in the community, and gives it abundant material for the most effective work in behalf of the elevation of the people.

There has been little opportunity thus far to learn save from letters as to the character of the missionary work done by the pupils during their vacation, but we have good reason to know that it has been more abundant and effective than in any season before. A larger share of the pupils went out as followers of Christ than heretofore, and a larger supply of temperance literature was put into their hands, and the sentiment of the people toward them and their work is increasingly favorable. It seems probable that the appeals for assistance on the part of worthy pupils will be greater than usual on account of the smaller returns their best endeavors to help themselves have secured.

A severe and protracted drought has affected all this region, so that the cotton crop was small and required early attention, and pupils were taken out of school and attendance and pay were rendered small. We meet under the shadow of sorrow, having lost five students by death during the vacation, one of them a beloved member of the senior class. We hope that the tender and thoughtful feeling which manifestly prevails thus far may lead ere long to great and blessed results.

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LEWIS HIGH SCHOOL.

REV. S. E. LATHROP, MACON, GA.

Our school opened on the 3d of October with 64 scholars present. This number was increased to nearly 90 during the first week, and there will be constant additions until Christmas. Many of the poorest pupils are busily picking cotton, to earn something for school expenses, and will arrive within a month. Ten or twelve of the older scholars of last year have now gone to Atlanta University, so that there are not yet as many grown pupils as there will be after cotton picking is over. Among the new students is a young Methodist preacher, in charge of a circuit in an adjoining county. He seems quite in earnest to learn. Another of our excellent young men was converted while teaching during the summer, and has done good work in Sunday-school, temperance and revival meetings. Another taught school in the same county, and both labored earnestly in the temperance cause. A bill was passed by the legislature this summer, allowing the people of that county to vote on the question of prohibiting the sale of liquor within their own limits. These two young teachers, aided by another former pupil teaching in an adjoining county, who has considerable talent for public speaking, worked hard for prohibition. The result is seen in the news that comes this morning, that prohibition carried the day by a majority of nineteen votes.

Several new scholars have come into our school, and a larger number will yet come through the efforts of these young teachers. The attendance at opening is larger than for several preceding years, and indications point toward a steady increase. Atlanta University being within one hundred miles, draws off many of the older students, but what is our loss is their gain. The dark and ignorant communities of our common-wealth are being enlightened slowly but surely, by the earnest young teachers from this and other schools, and their influence is not small on the side of morality, religion and progress.

The school opens more favorably than for several years before, with an increase in the corps of teachers, and general prospects for extended usefulness. There is a growing number of those who desire advanced education, whose purpose it is to fit themselves to enter some of the higher institutions. Their greatest hindrance is their poverty; but the pay for school teaching is improving somewhat, although most have to wait six or eight months before receiving what they earn. There is, however, general progress in most localities, and we are glad to believe that the Lewis High School is doing its share, reaching out to uplift this whole region of country.

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BURRELL SCHOOL.

MR. E. C. SILSBY, SELMA, ALA.

We had feared that the effect of a prolonged season of drought, occasioning small crops and high prices, would be to lessen the attendance considerably. In this, however, an agreeable disappointment was in store, as the number present upon the opening day was four larger than the preceding year, and nearly twice that for 1879. We opened with an attendance of 153, 19 of which number are members of the advanced grammar and high school departments. A number of last year’s advanced pupils have indicated their intention to re-enter shortly. As yet, last year’s scholars who have been employed in teaching have not returned. From a number of these we have received word with reference to their work, and learned of their expectations to be with us again.

One young man wrote of establishing a temperance society, and laboring in a revival in the local church. He had a good Sunday-school which he had supplied with “Quarterlies” containing notes on the lessons, and he seemed to be accomplishing much good. His location is one where for many years he has taught school. He writes that he expects to return to Burrell.

Another young man, who says that he will re-enter, was last year in school here for the first time, and was brought through the agency of the former. He has written intelligently of his Sunday-school, and has also sent on funds to me to be expended in papers.

Twin brothers from a town in an adjoining county, and last year’s pupils, were converted at a special revival season in the Congregational church here during the winter. To one of the teachers, one brother wrote that he was “doing the best he could teaching in the Sunday-school.” The other said that “the people out there did not know much about managing a Sunday-school properly, but he was working in it, and lent his “Quarterly” around among others, showing them how to study their lessons from it.” These brothers are about 15 years old.

We learn of the expected return of a pupil of ’79 who has been laboring very acceptably for some time in Louisiana in Sunday-school, church and temperance work. He brings a recruit for Burrell also. Another last year’s pupil of ours, from the High school grade, leaves the scholar’s seat to occupy a position behind the teacher’s desk, in the building where for years she has been a studious learner. She is a teacher in the A. M. E. Sunday-school of this place, and a member of the choir. Two other young ladies, former classmates of hers in Burrell, are, for the second year, teaching with us also.

The nature of our school being, as it is, a city school, we have not tried to crowd our work upon the attention of non-residents. We have had, however, pupils from the country and adjoining counties, every year for some time, with rare exceptions. New pupils from elsewhere, brought through the agency of others, have been referred to above. A very promising young man entered this year from a county adjoining this one on the east, who had heard of the school from former pupils. Three persons from a northern county are, I am informed, to come in company with a last year’s pupil. The condition of the cotton crop is such, that some are probably remaining away to assist in gathering and storing the same. This is often the case with country scholars.

The second day of the present session, one came to us as a pupil who has sat in the legislative hall of this State as one of our county’s representatives. He has been a teacher since then, and realizing his deficiency, comes to learn along with children. We think he shows a commendable spirit, and judging from his persistency, predict his success.

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TOUGALOO, MISS.

MISS K. K. KOONS.

The year opens full of promise to us. The school is not only much larger than at the same time last year, but larger than at the same time in any previous year except the first few, before the zeal of this people on the subject of education had had time to abate. Though Strieby Hall is not yet finished, the lower floor, chapel and recitation rooms lack but the finishing touches and furniture, the first of which it is rapidly receiving, the last of which we look for daily.

We held our opening exercises in the chapel, fitted up with temporary seats. Our overcrowded Girl’s Hall and dining-room of last year prepared us thoroughly to enjoy the room which the enlargement to the building affords. Though neither building is completed, the work is being rapidly pushed forward. A number of our students, who came expecting to enter school at once, were glad of the opportunity to help themselves, and are putting in a month of work upon the buildings before entering, thus somewhat lessening the number enrolled at the opening.

Reports of the summer’s work given by our student teachers at our weekly prayer meeting were very encouraging indeed. It has been an unusually hard summer for many of them. Delay in finding vacant schools, the failure of people to keep engagements made with teachers, and hard fare, were very common. But though these things came to us in our letters from them during the summer, they were scarcely referred to in their reports. Interest in their work and the people with whom they labored entirely overshadowed the hardships. The disposition to take a cheerful view of things, and cheerfully and earnestly to meet and work against difficulties and discouragements, is becoming more manifest. Perhaps this is _one_ of the good results to be wrought in them by the sacrifice and self-denial so bravely made after the burning of our chapel last spring.

The interest in the Sabbath-school work is greater. Fewer signers to the pledge are reported than in previous years. The temperance work is the “pons asinorum” of our young people. And well may it be, in view of the almost universal habit of drinking and using snuff and tobacco. In this work they do grow greatly “disencouraged.” But the number of signers to the pledge is, after all, no criterion by which to measure the quiet work done in the line of temperance.

The number enrolled at the opening last year was 46, this year 74. The number of day scholars taught by our twenty student teachers was 1,539; Sabbath-school scholars, 795; signers to pledge, 160; conversions, 32.

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FISK UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENN.

BY REV. H. S. BENNETT.

Fisk University has opened this year with unusual prosperity. There are at this early date in the year 285 pupils in the entire school. There are in Jubilee Hall 121 boarders, which is within 30 as many as have ever boarded in the hall. Judging from applications which have been made, there will be by the middle of January next 75 more. Last night, at the faculty meeting, the question was earnestly discussed, “What shall we do with those who apply, when the hall is full?” as it is likely to be within a very few weeks. It is felt by all of the faculty that if the crops had not been cut short by the drought we should have had a rush of students altogether unprecedented in the history of the University.

It is felt by those who have known the students for a number of years that those of this year are a superior class. The quality of the students improves with every year, showing that others are at work elsewhere. We have received already this year several students of advanced grade, who have come prepared to enter the college classes. At this time we are negotiating with one who desires to enter the senior college class and graduate next commencement. We expect him in a few days.

The past years of schooling are beginning to tell upon the higher training of the colored youth, and those who come to Fisk for the first time take much higher grades than new students were wont to do a few years ago. Most of the old students have been engaged in teaching during the summer vacation. It is estimated that of 85 in the collegiate department, 60 or 65 taught school during the summer. Wherever these teachers go, they secure a good name for industry, conscientiousness, ability and energy. We are constantly getting good words from white people, directors, superintendents and private citizens in regard to the faithfulness and acceptance with which our students discharge their duties. Almost all those who teach are Christians and engage in Christian work, as a matter of course, when they begin their day schools. As a general thing, they enter at once into the Sabbath-school if there is one, and start one if there is not, and generally get the entire neighborhood enlisted.

There are two interesting features in relation to the students, the like of which we have never had before. During the past few years the trustees of the Peabody fund have sustained a Normal school for white pupils. The effort has been made to secure an appropriation from the State for this school in the years that are past. At the last session of the Legislature an appropriation of $10,000 was made for Normal schools, $2,500 for the colored children of the State, that being their relative share. The Board of Education for the State, to whom the disbursement of this fund was left, decided that the fund for the colored students should be divided among 50 pupils, and that they should have the privilege of choosing between five schools to which they should go. Each pupil would thus be entitled to $50, and each school would receive on an average 10 students. Up to the present time Fisk has received 18 out of the 50, and it is well known that many of the Senators who had the power of appointment had not taken action. We have no doubt that others will come as the year passes by.

The other feature is this. Several colored men were elected to the last Legislature, and as members had the right to appoint cadets to the East Tennessee University, of course they all appointed colored cadets. Some other republican members also appointed colored cadets. This threw the trustees of the East Tennessee University into great perplexity. It is against the law of the State to educate white and colored pupils in the same institution: it is also very much against the traditional prejudices not only of the trustees of the University, but also of the people of the State. The trustees met, and after a thorough discussion determined to make arrangements with Fisk University if possible, to take their colored cadets at $30 apiece. Fisk University was not averse to the arrangement, and so the question was settled. We have now in the University seven cadets, students of the East Tennessee University.

It is accepted by all here as an important truth, that the longer we can keep a student the better it will be for him and the institution and the work. The students in the collegiate department give tone to the whole institution. Every department is lifted to a higher standard by the high standard of the college department. As the college graduates go out into the world, they have, without an exception, taken advanced positions as teachers or other professional men.

Livingstone Hall is now having its roof put on, and all are watching its progress with the greatest interest, as promising a time when the facilities of the institution will be almost doubled. What we shall next need will be an ample endowment. Who will provide this for us?

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OBITUARY.

DEATH OF MRS. T. C. STEWARD.

On the 3d of July last Mrs. T. C. Palmer Steward passed away to her rest, leaving behind a devoted husband and three young children. She was born in Windham, Portage Co., Ohio, August 10th, 1839. She commenced teaching school when fourteen years of age and was graduated from Lake Erie Female Seminary, Painesville, Ohio, July, 1862, having secured her education largely through her own efforts. In October, 1866, she was commissioned by the A. M. A. as a teacher among the Freedmen, and for ten years continued to labor in the South under its direction, being at Chattanooga two years, at Marion four years and at Fisk University four years. In 1868 she was married to Hon. T. C. Steward, who was stationed at Marion, Ala., in charge of the work of the Association. Mr. Steward took an active part in the work of reconstruction in Alabama, and in the most trying and dangerous period in the political history of the State, after the war, represented his district in the legislature. In those times of imminent peril Mrs. Steward stood unflinchingly by her husband’s side and manifested the highest qualities of true Christian heroism. In 1876 Mr. and Mrs. Steward retired from the service of the A. M. A. and moved to Chattanooga, Tenn., where Mrs. Steward’s death occurred in their new and pleasant home on the crest of Missionary Ridge.

Mrs. Steward was a remarkably efficient and successful teacher, and a most devoted and earnest Christian worker.

DEATH OF REV. G. W. WALKER.

DIED.—At Centreville, Pa., August 23, 1881, Rev. G. W. Walker, formerly a teacher at Atlanta University, aged 46 years. He was a graduate of Oberlin College and Theological Seminary. Of Mr. Walker it may be said, without biographical exaggeration, “A good man has fallen in Israel.” As a man, he was quiet, modest, unostentatious, affable and gentlemanly. Sustaining to him the close relation of class-mate for three years, the writer cannot remember a harsh or unkind word as ever having fallen from his lips. As a Christian, he was always calm, serene, happy. His piety seemed like the flow of some sweet, peaceful river. The same traits of character he carried into the ministry. As a preacher, he was Scriptural, earnest and impressive. He was true and faithful to his trust, no flatterer, but outspoken. As a pastor, he endeared himself to all by his gentle manner and lively sympathy. He labored very successfully for a few years in the service of the American Missionary Association. In lowliness and self-abnegation he toiled faithfully, earnestly, for souls wherever the Master placed him, and his memory will not soon be forgotten by his intimate friends, and especially by those who were hopefully saved through his instrumentality. He bore his sickness with a sweet, Christian patience, his greatest trial being that he was deprived of working in the service of Him whom he loved. Through a long and tedious decline, covering nearly two years of painful struggle for life, he found the God he served able to comfort and sustain him and give him at last the victory. He leaves a fond wife and son, who have met with a loss that cannot be measured, and who share the sympathies of a multitude of friends.

May the precious Saviour, whom he served, remember the widow and the fatherless.

EXTRACTS FROM MINUTES OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

SEPTEMBER 13TH, 1881.

Rev. Henry M. Ladd and Dr. E. E. Snow, who were about to proceed up the Nile for locating the Arthington Mission, were brought before the Committee and instructed as follows:

The Executive Committee of the American Missionary Association, which has commissioned you to explore the basin of the Upper Nile in Africa, with reference to the locating and the working of the Arthington Mission, would give you these few words of God-speed and of instruction.

We furnish you a letter from the U.S. Secretary of State, which in response to a request from this office, assures you that upon arriving at Cairo, you will find the U.S. Consul General stationed there, Mr. Simon Wolf, instructed to facilitate the labors of your expedition and to protect your rights as American citizens in such ways as are consistent with his duties and with due regard to local laws. With his assistance and your English endorsement you will seek from the Khedive of Egypt the essential protection of his authority.

It is our impression that near the mouth of the Sobat, where the Nile comes in from its great western bend, within the Arthington district, and perhaps upon the very spot where Sir Samuel Baker had his camp, you will locate the headquarters of the mission, whose stations in time will be extended into the country beyond; but we leave this matter of location to your discretion. In determining it you will consider the navigability of the river, the elevation and healthfulness of the site, and the friendliness and condition of the people. You will negotiate with the heads of the people, among whom you locate, for the use of land needed by the mission. You will investigate the feasibility of our owning and running a small steamer between Berber and Sobat.

Upon all these matters you will report as frequently as possible to this office. A journal, kept and furnished us, such as that reported by Sup’t Ladd, in regard to the visit to the Mendi Mission, will be greatly helpful.

Returning, Dr. Snow will stop in England to superintend the construction of a steamer for the Nile service, provided your reports shall warrant the Committee in ordering such an expenditure, and Sup’t Ladd will come back to this country to report in person and to secure colored missionaries to go back with you in the early autumn of 1882.

If the way shall not appear closed up, the plan for the second expedition will be that, with your recruits, you take along your steamer as freight to Berber, where you will put it together and launch it to carry your party and materials for building and for subsistence to the chosen site, upon which you will set up the house of the mission.

While the Superintendent, like the Apostle Paul, will have his “beloved physician” to travel with him as associate missionary, in our prayerful solicitude for your health and safety, we wish to enjoin upon you the utmost diligence in seeking to preserve yourselves from sickness, and in keeping yourselves in that enervating climate from overstrain in travel and work.

We bless God that he has given you a heart to assume this great undertaking in the name of His dear Son. We commend you now to the Divine care, and shall ever pray that you may be preserved in health and in life, and prospered in your mission, until you shall see that heathen people coming to the standard of the Cross which you shall have set up in equatorial Africa.

WOMAN’S HOME MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

Room 20, Congregational House, Beacon St., Boston.

MISS NATHALIE LORD, _Secretary_. MISS ABBY W. PEARSON, _Treasurer_.

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MONTHLY REPORT.