The closing examinations of this first year were attended by a large
audience of both white and colored. There were present ladies and
gentlemen, missionaries and teachers, civil and military
dignitaries, and the leading representatives of both races. It was a
novel and moving sight, one that the wildest imagination could not
have foreseen or deemed possible five years before.

[Illustration: PROF. M. A. HOLMES, PRINCIPAL.]

In its second year the school, then known as the Saxton School, held
its sessions in the Military Hall on Wentworth Street, where with a
slightly reduced enrollment, it remained until removed to its
present quarters, May 1, 1865. The large and handsome building which
it now occupies was erected by the American Missionary Association
through the Freedmen's Bureau. Rev. Charles Avery, of Pittsburg,
Pa., had given a large sum for the education of the colored people,
and ten thousand dollars of his bequest were appropriated to the
institution, and in honor of this noble philanthropist the name was
changed to Avery Normal Institute. Here the enrollment was
necessarily reduced and the normal character of its work made more
prominent, a feature that had been contemplated from the beginning.

In any survey of the work of Avery, three principals should receive
special recognition for their thorough, enduring and Christian labor
in this needy field. They are the Rev. F. S. Cardozo, by whom the
school was first organized in the Memminger building, Prof. M. A.
Warren, who succeeded him and graduated the first class in 1872, and
Prof. Amos W. Farnham, now of the Oswego Normal School. Each of
these men was distinguished for unusual teaching skill, for great
administrative ability, and for complete consecration to the work to
which he was specially called. These worthy educators are still
remembered here with affection and gratitude, but the full fruition
of their labors will be known only in the great day when the books
shall be opened.

For over thirty years about four hundred colored students have
annually gathered here for the training which was to fit them for
life's work. For many years all grades, from the primary to the high
school and normal course, were maintained, but in later years the
primary and intermediate pupils have been excluded, their
instruction being amply provided for in the public and numerous
private schools of the city, thus leaving the Institute free to
devote itself to higher grad