During the summer, sixteen local institutes were held in Tennessee and North Alabama, with a total attendance of five hundred teachers. These institutes continued two or three days each and varied in attendance from fifteen to seventy-five each day. Two sessions were held in the day time, and one at night. The day sessions were for the professional instruction of teachers of schools. This was done by lectures, class drills and the like, adapting those exercises to circumstances and persons, aiming always at practical benefit to the teachers present. The sessions at night were made popular gatherings in the interest of education and sought to reach the masses. Men of influence, both white and colored, in the various localities, were invited to make addresses. Good music was provided when it was possible. One speaker called it _an educational revival_. This is what we sought to make it. This is what I think it was. As you may suppose, there were many obstacles in the way of this good work—ignorance as to what an institute is, prejudice of white and colored, the sickly season of the year and the previous exhaustion of those who gave instruction. These were men who, in ordinary circumstances, should have been resting after the toils of the last school year in preparation for those of the year to come. All sorts of misconception must be met. Frequently the lecturers arrived at the place, and found almost no one there. Yet by singing and speaking and work generally, success would come at last, but with an immense outlay of effort. In other cases the house would be packed with people, but scarcely a teacher there. They came on horseback and muleback and in wagons and on foot, bringing their children and dinners with them, to stay all day. The infants were passed from one to another as nurses grew tired, or were quietly palleted on the floor or toddled about among the feet of the people. What should be done with an institute like that? Turn the people away? By no means. The teachers present were taught how to teach by seeing these people taught the alphabet, and how to count and the like. One thing never failed—rote singing. Oh, what a wealth of music in voice and ear lies in this people! And it was a study for an artist to see those earnest dark faces, with their great, dreamy eyes, as they peered in at the portals of the temple of knowledge so long closed against them, and just got a glimpse of the glory beyond, and knew, if they themselves could not enter, their children might. Many a parent vowed then that his child should go to Fisk University or Central Tennessee College, or the Baptist Institute, as the crowded halls of these institutions, filled almost to bursting, now testify. I think that some of these strange, nondescript institutes were, perhaps, our best.