wer to serve the practical,
daily needs of the community in which it exists.

As a result of our twenty-five years' work at Snow Hill, we have about
one thousand graduates and ex-students who have either finished the full
or partial course at the institution and are now out in the world doing
creditable work as teachers, farmers, mechanics, and domestic workers.
Over fifty per cent of our students have bought homes since leaving
school. Many have houses with five and six rooms. Wherever a Snow Hill
student teaches the school term is lengthened and the people are
encouraged to buy land, build better homes, better school-houses and
better churches.

The people have not only been helped by our students and graduates, but
they have been helped directly through our Negro conference and Black
Belt Improvement Society.

Twenty-five years ago the people in the neighborhood of the school did
not own more than ten acres of land, while today they own more than
twenty thousand acres. Twenty-five years ago the one-room log cabin was
the rule, today it is the exception. Twenty-five years ago the majority
of the farmers were in heavy debt and mortgaged their crops, today many
of the farmers now have bank accounts, while a few years ago they did
not know what a bank account was. Throughout the community they are
building better homes, better churches, better school-houses, and the
relation between the races is cordial.

Just a word about our Black Belt Improvement Society. This organization
has ten degrees of membership and any one of good moral standing
desiring to better his condition, can become a member of the first
degree. A member of the second degree, however, must own a little
property, at least three chickens, and a pig. A member of the third
degree must own a cow, of the fourth degree he must own an acre of land,
a member of the fifth degree must have erected on that acre a house
having at least three rooms, a member of the sixth degree must own
twenty acres of land, of the seventh degree must own forty acres of
land, and of the eighth degree must own sixty acres, etc., until they
reach the tenth degree.

Then we have an annual fair at which prizes are given to those who have
excelled in any of the agricultural products, or those who have had the
best gardens, or who have kept the best house during the year. A special
prize is given to the party who has bought the most land during the
year.

This society has several c