CHAPTER LXXV.
MRS. ROSA D. BOWSER.
On their arrival in the South the teachers from the North found an almost impenetrable wilderness of ignorance-. Only here and there could be found a colored family with a single member able to read. Wherever this was true it was a mark of superior natural intelligence, for with the stringent laws prohibiting the negro from reading he must be no ordinary man who would run the awful risk of being found with a book in his hand. Of such parents was the subject of our sketch born. Henry Dixon, a cabinet maker by trade, and a native of Amelia county, was no ordinary man, and his daughter, Rosa, whom he brought with him to Richmond when only a wee tot, inherited from him in larger measure, perhaps, than from her noble mother the traits of character that have distinguished her career. Obedient, thoughtful and quick to understand, it was not long before her teachers were. convinced that she would be no mean leader of her people. With systematic training it was not many years before she was thought competent to take charge of a school in her adopted city. Having passed creditable examinations and received her sheepskin from the Richmond Normal and High School, then in charge of Prof. R. M. Manly, she was elected by the Richmond School Board to teach in the Navy Hill group, of which Miss M. E. Knowles, of Massachusetts, was principal. This was at this time, and until 1883, the
