The American Missionary | Page 7

easy matter to speak so as to be
heard by such a crowd in the open air, but every girl as well as boy
succeeded admirably, and all showed most careful training and drill.
The themes chosen were very practical and fitted to the occasion.
Tobacco got rough and fearless handling, and liquor-drinking was
rebuked in almost every conceivable way and rubbed in repeatedly. The
old and the modern ways of teaching were compared and illustrated;
indeed, every recitation was evidently selected with reference to its
moral effect.
Certainly these huge commencement gatherings are themselves
educators for the fathers and mothers and kinsfolk of these young
people, whom they are proud to see doing so well. The words of all the
songs were thoroughly learned, so they will do service in many another
gathering wherever these students may be. It was the writer's privilege
to give the commencement address on "Making the best use of life as
God's plan for our highest good."
Thursday night we held a parting communion service with the
Congregational Church, which is mainly composed of students. The
maps shown me and many of their examination papers were
exceptionally good. Last winter mumps and measles successively
swept through the school, and at one time made the home almost a
hospital, but the brave teachers went through all, kept up recitations
with the well ones, and nursed the sick and brought them all safely
through without the expense of a doctor. Now all were well and
evidently thriving on good food, though it is marvel to me how good

board can be afforded with tuition, and all expenses covered for $4.50
per month, and yet work be furnished to most of them for one-third of
that, bringing the cash outlay to _ten cents a day!_ but they do it, and a
happier household I have never seen than those who gather at Lincoln
Academy.
A white man with whom I was talking at the station said, "Those lady
teachers are doing a great work for this whole region."
So the leaven works.
* * * * *
ALLEN NORMAL SCHOOL, THOMASVILLE, GA.
By Miss Amelia Merriam.
The fact that with the graduation of the class of '96 our school would
complete its first decade, added interest to the occasion.
One member of the class has been in the school from its organization.
In the class history she gave quite a vivid description of those trying
days when the building at Quitman, Ga., where the school was first
gathered, was burned to the ground, as the result of hostile feeling on
the part of the citizens of the place. Certainly there has been progress
toward a just appreciation of the work of the American Missionary
Association in the communities where its work has been done, as seen
in the kindly feeling toward the school manifested in various ways by
the people of Thomasville.
Of the six graduates, five are young women; three of these begin their
work of teaching in country schools immediately. One, the
valedictorian of the class, has already written something in regard to
her surroundings. At the place, which is the best in the neighborhood,
where she was to board--if the word may be used in connection with
such a state of things--she writes that there is almost nothing in the way
of necessities for decent living. There is not a lamp in the house; not
even a tallow candle, the room in which the family eat and sleep being

lighted only by building a fire upon the hearth. Of such an article as a
towel they apparently do not know the use; and the one basin in which
she washed her hands serves for various other domestic purposes.
Almost the only household appliances are two ovens, as they are
called--two flat-bottomed, shallow iron kettles, with iron covers, and
legs a few inches long. Under these kettles, out of doors, the fire is
made, and coals put upon the flat covers. In this way the hoe-cake is
baked in one, while the bacon is fried in the other. These two viands,
with an occasional mess of greens or potatoes, constitute the bill of fare
month in and month out. No wonder the poor girl lost her appetite. She
was supplied from the Home with what she needed to make herself
comfortable in the one very small room which she is fortunate enough
to have to herself.
It is from country places like these that we wish to bring scholars into
the school. The truth is that the young people in these communities are
too ignorant to have any desire for anything different from what they
now have. Here is an almost limitless home missionary field, to be
worked by the graduates of our schools. These teachers are