Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/258

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THE AFRO-AMERICAN PRESS.

learned on rainy days and winter evenings, and in what was called a subscription school.

After the training as such facilities afforded he entered school at Grenville, where he spent three terms. He then went to a white school. This aroused such bitter opposition, he soon had to withdraw from the school, and receive private instruction. After this he entered Berea College, Madison County, Ky., in the spring of 1871, where he continued but one year, when he went to the Baptist Theological Institute, Nashville, Tenn.; but ill-health compelled him to leave school for a few years. In the meantime, however, he continued to study under private instruction.

After his health was restored he returned to Nashville, Tenn. The Baptist Theological Institute had undergone a change in the interval of his absence and was now called the Roger Williams University. Things were all new when he re-entered the university, but he was soon installed again in his classes, with the expectation of completing the regular course. Other hindrances, however, unfortunately arose to prevent this, though he was in the higher classes, and making rapid progress. Again was he compelled to avail himself of private instruction, receiving lessons in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, which were given by some of the best teachers of Boston, such as Profs. Perkins, Mitchell and Harper.

Mr. Stumm assumed charge of his first school in the spring of 1869, at the age of 20, in Christian County, Ky. He continued to teach, at intervals, for fifteen years, in private and public schools in Tennessee and Kentucky. The people of Hartsville and Lebanon, Tenn., knew him well as a teacher. The superintendent of schools of Trousdale County, Tenn., had such confidence in Mr. Stumm, he looked to him to furnish teachers for the colored schools of the county, and received much valuable aid from him by so doing.