The audience numbered probably 1,800 or 2,000 persons of both sexes, both colors, and of every stage in social position. I judged that two-thirds were of the white race, representing the well-to-do classes as also the poorer farmers from the mountains. The dresses were not uniform in style, nor always after the most recent fashion plates. I noticed many old-fashioned sun-bonnets on the heads of the colored women. There was a full supply of babies in the audience, with the usual evidence of good lungs and voices—the essentials for future public speakers. I particularly noticed that the white babies carried off on this day the palm in this incipient oratory, yet I drew no inference as to the future. The assemblage gathered in the Tabernacle, a roughly built structure somewhat in the style of the tabernacles at Martha’s Vineyard and other watering places, though, of course, less expensive. The public exercises of the forenoon were very creditable to the pupils as well as their teachers in the essays and speeches. The range of topics was wider than is usual in our institutions in the South, and with less reference to the peculiar position and struggles of the colored race. This was easily explained by the fact that about half the pupils are white. The afternoon was occupied with addresses by Rev. J. A. R. Rogers, Secretary Strieby, Pres. Fairchild, of Oberlin, and two colored ministers of the vicinity. The previous evening was taken up with a stirring address in the chapel by a Kentucky gentleman of prominent position, the son of a former slave-holder. It was in hearty sympathy with the work in Berea College, and concluded with some very timely and practical advice to the colored people, which they heartily applauded. Berea College is doing, as may be seen, a peculiar work. No institution in the nation approaches it in uniting the two races in the same school. As a pioneer in the breaking down of caste prejudice, it has no rival; nor is this purchased by lowering the one race at the expense of the other, nor by any approach to the blending of the races in marriage. It is simply a quiet, unpretentious and practical working out of the brotherhood of man in educational and religious co-operation. The pioneers and principal workers in founding and carrying forward this noble Christian enterprise were present—John G. Fee, J. A. R. Rogers, E. H. Fairchild, and others. It is seldom that men live to see with their own eyes so great a revolution as that which Berea witnessed in the contrast of this Commencement day with the dark days of persecution, banishment and danger. Tales were told me at quiet tea-tables, of times of trial and deliverance, that moved the heart over scenes that occurred not in old historic times, but on spots within eye-glance, and participated in by the narrators.