hose trying
days when the building at Quitman, Ga., where the school was first
gathered, was burned to the ground, as the result of hostile feeling on
the part of the citizens of the place. Certainly there has been progress
toward a just appreciation of the work of the American Missionary
Association in the communities where its work has been done, as seen in
the kindly feeling toward the school manifested in various ways by the
people of Thomasville.

Of the six graduates, five are young women; three of these begin their
work of teaching in country schools immediately. One, the valedictorian
of the class, has already written something in regard to her
surroundings. At the place, which is the best in the neighborhood, where
she was to board--if the word may be used in connection with such a
state of things--she writes that there is almost nothing in the way of
necessities for decent living. There is not a lamp in the house; not
even a tallow candle, the room in which the family eat and sleep being
lighted only by building a fire upon the hearth. Of such an article as a
towel they apparently do not know the use; and the one basin in which
she washed her hands serves for various other domestic purposes. Almost
the only household appliances are two ovens, as they are called--two
flat-bottomed, shallow iron kettles, with iron covers, and legs a few
inches long. Under these kettles, out of doors, the fire is made, and
coals put upon the flat covers. In this way the hoe-cake is baked in
one, while the bacon is fried in the other. These two viands, with an
occasional mess of greens or potatoes, constitute the bill of fare month
in and month out. No wonder the poor girl lost her appetite. She was
supplied from the Home with what she needed to make herself comfortable
in the one very small room which she is fortunate enough to have to
herself.

It is from country places like these that we wish to bring scholars into
the school. The truth is that the young people in these communities are
too ignorant to have any desire for anything different from what they
now have. Here is an almost limitless home missionary field, to be
worked by the graduates of our schools. These teachers are good
object-lessons, showing what an education, including a knowledge of
homemaking, as well as what is learned from books, can do for boys and
girls like themselves.

We rejoice in the fact that when the school closed, all of the girls in
the Hall w