Women of distinction/Chapter 86

CHAPTER LXXXVI.

THE ATLANTA UNIVERSITY,

Located in Atlanta, Ga., was one of the pioneer schools for the freedmen and their children.

Scarcely had the last guns of the late war ceased firing when the founders of this institution began the work from which has developed what now answers to the name of the Atlanta University, said by many to be the foremost and best equipped school in the South attended by the youth of the freedmen.

ATLANTA UNIVERSITY.

About a mile out from the center of the busy city, but connected with it by electric cars, are its seventy acres of land, four large brick buildings, a large barn and three cottages, two of which are the homes of the president and one of the professors.

The following clipping from the Atlanta University's leaflet. No. 4, will give some idea of the character of the school:

The broad nature, however, which the work of the school almost from the first assumed, together with its relations to the State and public, made it desirable that it should avoid an exclusively denominational connection and develop an independent life under the guidance of its own self-perpetuating board of trustees, after the well-approved pattern of the great colleges and universities of the country.

Besides a full college course based upon the best New England models there is a college preparatory course of three years, a normal course of four years, a grammar course, a model school of primary scholars, serving as a practice school for the normal students, and a mechanical course. Moreover, instruction in wood-working, turning, iron-working and mechanical drawing is given to all boys; and instruction in cooking, sewing, dress-making, nursing and housekeeping duties to girls; and instruction in printing and newspaper and job work to optional classes of both boys and girls.

The last issue of the catalogue shows a record of 244 boys and 317 girls. Of that number 233 are boarders, 328 day pupils.

The number of States represented is eleven; the total number of pupils is 561. The number of teachers and officers is thirty.

There are 235 graduates from the college and normal courses, nearly all of whom, together with hundreds of post undergraduates, are engaged in teaching and other useful work in Georgia and surrounding States.

The real estate, together with the library of 7,000 volumes, apparatus and other equipments, are valued at not less than a quarter of a million dollars.

In former years it has received aid from the Freedman's Bureau, the Slater Fund, the American Missionary Association, together with an annual appropriation of $8,000 from the State of Georgia. But now it stands, as it were, in its own strength, with bright prospects and justifiable assurances for continued progress and sure development.

It has been and is still the purpose of the Atlanta University to send out men and women of any race or nationality who may have gained admittance within its walls, rounded and well-equipped in mind and character to uplift their fellows-men, to give special service helpful to those with whom they must come in immediate contact in life.

The past and present assure us that its labors are not in vain, and that ere long this whole Southland will feel more effectually than now its influence for developing true worth in men and women.