The banner school on "St. Helen's Isle" and Port Royal was the one in charge of Laura M. Towne, of Philadelphia, and supported by the Philadelphia Society. After three years' work this school had reached a fair degree of organization. The school was conducted in the building sent in sections as referred to above and was known as the "Penn School" in honor of the society which supported it. Classes were grouped as primary, intermediate, and higher, each in charge of one teacher in a separate room. The branches of study, however, were the same in all--reading, spelling, writing, geography, and arithmetic.[26] The situation here described represents in the embryo the present day Penn Normal and Agricultural Institute. Similarly well housed was the school taught by Elizabeth Hyde Botume, of Boston, under the auspices of the New England Society. It commands interest for the reason that it was the beginning in industrial training on these islands. As plantation laborers the pupils knew little or nothing of sewing. To supply this need Miss Botume solicited the necessary apparatus from her northern friends and began work on some old contraband goods stored in an arsenal. She reported that sewing was a fascination to all and that "they learned readily and soon developed much skill and ingenuity."[27] This school has come down today as the Old Fort Plantation School. The work of these two women thus took on a permanent character and to this extent largely formed an exception to the general informality of the schooling at Port Royal. Obviously, the heroic efforts of the several societies to assist the blacks amounted to far more than school-room procedure. Indeed, this was a very small part of the work of the teachers and it was so regarded by them. They visited the little cabins, counselled and advised their wards, attended church, and taught them in the Sabbath Schools. Three years of this intermingling between the culture of New England and the most degraded slaves in America resulted in some promising signs for the latter. There was some improvement in manners and dress and an increase in wants. At the stores set up on the islands they were buying small articles for the improvement of their surroundings.[28] For the first time they were now being paid wages. At the tax sales in March, 1863, when 16,479 acres were up for auction they purchased about 3,500 acres at the price of 93-1/2 cents an acre. Shortly afterwards they had doubled this amount.[29] As free laborers, however, they were somewhat disappointing to their new employers since old habits still persisted. All in all, with some three thousand or one-third of the whole number having received "more or less" instruction in books the societies were well satisfied with the experiment and at the close of the war increased their efforts at Port Royal and throughout the State. ORGANIZATION AND RELATIONSHIP