The American Missionary — Volume 37, No. 8, August, 1883Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 37, No. 8, August, 1883
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
On Tuesday evening the Literary Societies were addressed on the
subject of “Progress,” by Col. Swope, who is the Internal Revenue
Collector for this district, and a native of Kentucky.
On Wednesday came the final exercises, which gathered a great
multitude from mountain and from plain. The season has been very
rainy, but this was the most perfect of June days—its unclouded
sun tempered by a cool breeze from the south. Soon after sunrise
vehicles of every description, and saddle-horses carrying one, two
or three passengers, began to pour in toward the Tabernacle, most
visitors bringing luncheon for a noon-time picnic in the oak grove.
Besides the three graduates—one from the classical, and two from
the scientific course—fourteen other students from the higher
classes presented orations or essays. All were listened to by the
great audience with interest, and some with enthusiasm. In the
afternoon nearly as many gathered again to hear a most suggestive
and interesting address from Rev. R. T. Hall, of Mount Vernon,
Ohio, on “The Abuse of Liberty.” Short addresses followed from Rev.
Mr. Simmons of the (colored Baptist) Bible Institute of Louisville,
and Rev. Mr. Barnett, a Methodist minister from College Hill.
It suggests the interest of our neighbors in the work of Berea
that the Kentucky _Register_, published at the county seat and
a representative paper of the Kentucky aristocracy, gave nearly
a column the next day to a strongly commendatory notice of the
exercises. A gentleman of a well-known old Kentucky family
passing this way toward the mountains turned aside to see what
the Commencement was like, and spent the day in such unexpected
approval of what he saw and heard that he declared at night that he
might be set down hereafter as for Berea every time. This is the
more noticeable as the appearance of blacks and whites in about
equal numbers and with entirely equal respect on the same platform
must at first have given a great shock to his Southern prejudices.
A Northern visitor, remarking on the perfect pronunciation of the
speakers, said, “A blind man could not tell to which race the
several speakers belong.” The “color blindness” which still keeps
the students of Berea about equally divided between the two races
is one of the most important elements in its work for reducing the
illiteracy of Kentucky (28 per cent. of the voters and almost as
much of it white as black), and settling the problems the nation
has inherited from slavery.
* * * * *
ATLANTA UNIVERSITY.
PROF. THOS. N. CHASE.
Our annual examinations are made interesting and exciting by the
presence of visitors appointed by the Governor, who this year,
as usual, attended the three days of examination and one day of
literary exercises.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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