t and cleanly. Yet that girl left the washroom or
laundry when she came to school this morning, and will return to it
when the school day closes. Back from the street and enclosed by
larger buildings and shut out from the blessed sunlight and pure air
is the house she calls her home. She is the oldest of five or six
children. The hard worked mother, who seldom leaves the wash-tub
except to retire to her weary couch, is only able to keep this girl in
school by the most rigid economy and self-denial, and when she has
finished her course, then by her help the others may have a chance.

This is one of many cases which the kind and faithful teacher has
discovered among her scholars. The lesson of it is that the race which
has such mothers, so patient, so self-sacrificing, is sure to rise,
and is worth taking some stock in by the friends of Christian
missions; nor need we be surprised to learn that out of a colored
voting population of 120,000 in Louisiana, nearly 39,000 have acquired
within thirty-five years the ability to read and write.

The Alumni Association held their annual meeting Tuesday night and
listened to a bright oration by Miss Annie Feyer, class '97.

And now let us look at the last scene in this drama of the closing
year at Central Church. It is the old story--old yet new and fresh in
its human element and its deep significance--of a packed house, and of
an attention so fixed and earnest that naught is heard during the
delivery of the pieces, though hundreds are standing, save the beating
of fifteen hundred fans against the warm air, and the clear
enunciation of the speakers, and the hearty, yet discriminating
applause.

The various subjects treated reveal, as usual, interesting traits in
the characters of the speakers, some breathing aspirations after a
larger liberty, and a more rational conception of it, some revealing a
deep consciousness of life's noble obligations and splendid
opportunities, some insisting on independence of mind as the basis of
true manhood. The graduate from the department of theology pleaded for
character in the ministry to the manifest satisfaction of the
audience. Here and there were heard echoes of the troubled past, some
sensitiveness to present hardships was manifested, but the prevailing
tone was a willingness to take hold of life bravely and seriously, to
redress the wrong and to glorify the right.

In beholding these ten graduates--six from the normal course, three
from