sons of her own race in the home, church and school, she received a new and stronger inspiration for the acquisition of knowledge. Rapid progress was .made during this school year. Mrs. Coppin, who has ever since been deeply interested in her welfare, still often refers to her as a brilliant example of what a girl may do.
The year following the Rev. Dr. Reeve was called to Washington to accept the chair of theology in Howard University, and Miss Si lone returned to her home, but did not give up studying. A year later Mrs. Francis L. Girard, of Newport, Rhode Island, her maternal aunt, a lady well known for moral and intellectual strength of character, and revered by many students because of her hospitality and benevolence, made her a proposition which was accepted; and in her fourteenth year she went to Newport and became a resident of that beautiful "City by the Sea." Here she entered the highest grade of the grammar school, and maintaining her usual scholarship, the only colored pupil in the school at the time, she attracted the attention of Colonel T. W. Higginson, then a citizen of Newport and a prominent member of the School Board; of the Hon. George T. Downing, through whose untiring efforts the doors of the public schools of Rhode Island were thrown open to all without regard to race or color; of Thomas Coggeshall, Chairman of the School Board; of Rev. Dr. Thayer and wife, and many other persons of distinction.
The year following she entered the Rogers High School, of Newport, an institution which takes foremost rank among the schools of the land. Taking the four
