The officers' quarters became the home of an earnest band of teachers; the sick-wards were fitted up as schoolrooms, and filled with hundreds of eager children; the dead-house was turned into a storeroom of supplies for the naked and hungry. And there was an almost pathetic romance in the work when a pile of rusty handcuffs and fetters from the abandoned slave-pen of the city came into the possession of the school, and were sold as old iron, and the money invested in the purchase of Testaments and spelling-books!
The number of pupils in daily attendance the first year averaged over one thousand. Some who began the first term never ceased attendance until they had graduated, ten years afterwards, from a full collegiate course. At first the instruction was, of necessity, of an elementary sort. But the idea upon which the school was avowedly founded, of providing the highest collegiate advantages, was kept prominently in view. In 1867 the action of the city of Nashville, in making some provision for public schools at which coloured children could be educated, relieved the school of many of its primary pupils and opened the way for more perfectly carrying out the original purpose. A university charter was obtained. Some of the buildings which had been used as schoolrooms were refitted as dormitories, into which students from abroad, eager for a higher education, at once began to gather. It was not long before the number applying for admission was greater than could be accommodated.
There never was a hive of busier workers. As
