I know, dear friends, that what I have already said is not new to you; you have heard it many times and are anxious to know if any progress is noticeable. I wish, oh, how I wish, I could tell you of the progress they are making. How they are working under cast-iron laws to pay for their land and get little frame houses. People tell me, in a general way, that they are lazy and there is no hope for them; but I know them to get up at “day clear” and work until sundown to pay for their land under conditions that would discourage nine white men out of every ten. I could name a dozen families around us who have their land paid for, and nice little homes. The children come to school, their tuition is paid regularly and their books are provided as soon as needed. Are they progressing? For an answer I would like to show you the nice little two-story frame building in which two of our pupils who were married last winter live. On the lower floor is the parlor, dining-room and kitchen; above are the chambers. The pretty chamber set, white spread and pillow-shams, were purchased with the money Sarah earned off her cotton patch. People say they are dull and stupid. Yet children ten years old will criticise letters received by their parents, and in two and a half years we can fit a boy for the second preparatory year in college. He works his own way, pays for his books, and at the end of a year has enough to pay his traveling expenses home, and when his teacher asks him if there is anything he needs, he replies, “Oh, no; can’t I do something for you?” People say, “You can’t trust them.” Yet I know of one of my little girls on sewing afternoon, when almost home, returning with a needle that somehow got stuck in her dress; and I have never missed a pencil or book out of my desk, on which there is no lock, during the years I have spent in McIntosh. How often you are told they are ungrateful, and do not appreciate what you are doing for them. Once and forever this idea would be banished from your minds could you be present at our meetings, and hear the fervent, heartfelt prayers of both young and old that God will pour out his richest blessings on this Association and the friends who uphold it. It has also been said they do not care to be educated, they would just as soon remain as they are. We have many pupils in our room who walk sixteen miles every day, and who do a task before leaving home in the morning, and another when they return at night. One of my boys, Josiah Roberts, walked this distance every day last year with the exception of two, making a total of 2,250 miles during the school year, and was not tardy one morning. Can any other school show such a record?