The American Missionary | Page 4

the most ignorant and the most hopeful class. Within seven miles of Jackson, the State capital, on the Illinois Central road, easily accessible, not only from Mississippi, but from large regions of Louisiana and Arkansas, it draws pupils from a wide area and sends its trained teachers and graduates to a region still wider. Its location is healthful and one of beauty, and, removed from town distractions and temptations, it is admirably situated for efficient work. The school was established in the autumn of 1869, and the early reports show a surrounding region which in its drunkenness, fighting and iniquity, is quite in contrast with the present condition of affairs. Five hundred acres of land were purchased and with them a fine mansion (page 125), then not many years old, intended for the finest plantation house of the State and built for a bride who came not. As the illustration shows, it is a handsome structure--the only one with any decided architectural pretensions in the place. It served at first for school rooms and dormitory purposes, and has been thus used during most of the life of the school. Now it contains the offices of president and treasurer, the main library--which greatly needs more books--music rooms, the doctor's office, teachers' rooms, and the president's home. There are now nine large buildings for school use, with several smaller ones. The next oldest of the large buildings is the girls' dormitory, just south of the mansion, where is the common dining room, with the necessary kitchen, laundry and bake house appliances, and dormitory room for several teachers and eighty to ninety girls.
[Illustration: BALLARD HALL.]
[Illustration: BOYS' DORMITORY, STRIEBY HALL.]
[Illustration: THE PLANTATION BARN.]
[Illustration: BIBLE HALL.]
Washington Hall, built just north of the mansion about the time of the girls' dormitory, was burned some years ago, and now on its site stands the Ballard Building, containing the study and recitation rooms of the grammar and intermediate departments, which lead up to the normal and the chapel, where all general exercises and Sabbath services are held. One of the greatest needs of the school is a church building, that can be specially devoted to religious purposes. There is a grand chance for a memorial building. A little northeast of Ballard is the boys' dormitory, Strieby Hall, erected in 1882, a brick structure 112 x 40 feet, and three stories high, with a basement which has a laundry and bathrooms. In this building the normal and higher work is carried on, with a fairly good physical and chemical laboratory and reference library, but needing great enlargement and additional facilities. The normal work is of chief importance, for the future of the race lies largely with the trained teachers of the common schools. Those who have gone from Tougaloo have won golden opinions from both races and do a work which in its scope and missionary character multiplies greatly the influence of the supporters of the school. Strieby has, by crowding, dormitory room for seventy to eighty boys. A separate building for normal work is greatly needed, one having a library, reading room, recitation room, museums and laboratories. Just northwest of Strieby is the large barn, which, with the picture of the cattle, will suggest the large agricultural department of the school with its stock, garden, fruit raising, etc. Here, too, a building is greatly needed for the farm boys and a foreman, where a special course of instruction can be given in fitting out good farmers. Not a few graduates and former students have been successful in the conduct of farms and market gardens, some of them in connection with teaching. Back of the mansion is a little and not at all beautiful building that has been a slave pen, day nursery for slave children; then, under the American Missionary Association, a dormitory known as Boston Hall, then a carpentry class room, then girls' "Industrial Cottage" and is now dignified as Bible Hall, and houses the theological department, which was established two years ago. This department has the beginning of a library, but needs books and maps very greatly, and has two courses based on the English Bible, one of two and one of four years. Though having this year but few pupils in the regular course, it is doing very thorough work. The evening class for outside preachers has been for some years a power for good. A glance at the picture will convince anyone that theology should have better quarters. Who will give them? Berkshire Cottage, of which a picture is given, accommodates the industrial training work of the girls. Here are classrooms for needlework and cookery, with courses extending over four years, and which all girls in the grammar grades are as much obliged to take as they are the English branches. To the normal