er showing.

[Illustration: COLLEGE PREPARATORY AND NORMAL GRADUATING CLASS,
STRAIGHT UNIVERSITY.]

On Tuesday afternoon the graduating exercises of the grammar
department were held. On Wednesday evening, when the graduating
classes received their diplomas, the other students received
certificates of the work they had done.

The alumni of Straight held their annual business meeting on Tuesday
evening.

The commencement exercises on Wednesday evening formed a fitting
climax for a week so full of interest and inspiration. These
exercises are held at Central Church because it can accommodate a
much larger audience than the university chapel, and in the evening,
because this hour permits many to be present who, on account of their
work, could not attend commencement during the day.

Long before the hour appointed for beginning the exercises, all the
seats were filled and all the standing room in the church utilized,
and the air was alive with whispers, low tones and the flutter of
fans as the audience waited, with the best patience it could muster,
for the opening numbers of the program. When President Atwood rose
and announced the first number, all sounds ceased, and the great
audience gave close attention to that and all the twenty-one
succeeding numbers on the program.

The program was one of which the university may be justly proud. The
orations of the graduates from the college course on "The Mission of
the Scholar," "Aims and Ideals," and "Does the Constitution Follow
the Flag?" would have been considered exceptional in any of our
Northern colleges, for their thought, expression and delivery. The
three graduates from the theological department did credit to their
teacher, Rev. G. W. Henderson, D.D., in their contribution to the
program, and the sixteen students who were graduated from the normal
and college preparatory courses likewise acquitted themselves with
credit. The music of the program was furnished by the students, and
consisted of piano solos and duets and choruses. The performers
deserve much commendation. The presentation of diplomas formed an
impressive close to the evening's program.

To have seen these students is to believe in the work which the
American Missionary Association is doing in the South, and to become
a promoter of that work; it is to have faith in the ability of the
negro to become a useful citizen; it is to catch a glimpse of the
true solution of the negro problem, and to see th