ols. This did not become a
law, but it was not the superintendent's fault.

Last May in Lake County only nine candidates obtained certificates.
There were sixty-seven schools to be supplied with teachers. This
closed the schools. During last year one hundred and sixteen schools
in the State, mostly colored, for the want of teachers were not held
at all. A county official remarked that this examination law would
probably "result in retiring nearly or quite all the colored teachers
in a few years." Such a law "is a barbarous souvenir to make the
country remember its bloody dealings with its black brother." "Though
slavery is dead, its spirit yet lives; 'the serpent's head is crushed,
but his tail still writhes, and sometimes it lashes out spitefully.'"
We who are engaged in teaching in Orange Park are glad that the
American Missionary Association is to test, and is already testing,
the validity of this law. In contesting this law aimed at the Orange
Park school, the Association takes up a question which has arisen
before, but has never been settled. Theoretically, in the United
States all men, whether white or black, enjoy equal civil liberties;
practically, in the South, they do not. If the law is found to be
unconstitutional, that will go a long way in establishing equal
liberties for all.

Meanwhile the school continues as before. The school and the
Association need your assistance. The great work before the
Association requires both the money and the prayers of the Christian
people.

* * * * *

ADDRESS OF MRS. HARRIS,

GRADUATE OF FISK UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENN.

Miss Emerson has invited me to say a few words to this meeting in
behalf of the women of my own race. As I have sat here and listened to
the helpful and sympathetic words which have been spoken, I have felt
that I bore upon my heart the burden of gratitude of all the negro
women in the South, certainly of all the women and girls who have been
under the influence of such schools and such teachers as the American
Missionary Association has supplied. I do wish that I could show you
enough of the need and tell you enough about the results to encourage
you in the magnificent work you are doing for womanhood, wifehood and
motherhood among us. My own father, years ago, studied for a time in
Fisk University before it was really Fisk University; my mother's
people, her brothers and sisters, also studied in Fisk University, so