who at the close of the late war
quickly sped to the South, and there, as teachers of the freedmen,
suffered the greatest hardships, and risked imminent death from the
hands of those who opposed the new order of things; nay, many of them
actually met violent death while carrying through that long-benighted
land the torch of learning. Not now can we more than half appreciate
the grandeur of their Heaven-inspired work. In after-times the
historian, the orator, and the poet shall find in their heroic deeds
themes for the most elevated discourse, while the then generally
cultured survivors of a race for whose elevation these true-hearted
educators did so much will gratefully hallow their memories.

Among the organizations (I cannot mention individual names: their
number is too great) that early sought to build up the waste places of
the South, and to carry there a higher religion and a much-needed
education, was the American Missionary Association. This society has
led all others in this greatly benevolent work, having reared no less
than seven colleges and normal schools in various centres of the
South. The work of education to be done there is vast, certainly; but
what a very flood of light will these institutions throw over that
land so long involved in moral and intellectual darkness!

The principal one of these schools is Fisk University, located at
Nashville, Tenn.; the mention of which brings us to the immediate
consideration of the famous "_Jubilee Singers_," and to perhaps the
most picturesque achievement in all our history since the war. Indeed,
I do not believe that anywhere in the history of the world can there
be found an achievement like that made by these singers; for the
institution just named, which has cost thus far nearly a hundred
thousand dollars, has been built by the money which these former
bond-people have earned since 1871 in an American and European
campaign of song.

But what was the germ from which grew this remarkable concert-tour,
and its splendid sequence, the noble Fisk University?

Shortly after the close of the war, a number of philanthropic persons
from the North gathered into an old government-building that had been
used for storage purposes, a number of freed children and some grown
persons living in and near Nashville, and formed a school. This
school, at first under the direction of Professor Ogden, was ere long
taken under the care of the American Missionary Association. The
nu