Talladega, Ala., has had 427 students in all departments. Its year's work has shown most satisfactory results. Talladega is closely connected with the church work of the State. All the pastors in the Congregational State Association but four are from its theological department and several other States have found pastors there. The last [pg 307] State Association, with its fine body of young men, educated, dignified and earnest, was a most emphatic demonstration of the good work done in this institution. The students of Talladega have carried forward during the past year, under direction of a member of the Faculty, a systematic mission work in the surrounding neighborhoods, which has yielded large results, both in the good done in the neighborhoods and in the training received by the workers for future usefulness.

Tougaloo University has been filled to overflowing with 343 students, and after the last inch of room had been filled, scores had to be turned away. This school is situated almost in the center of the State, and reaches a far larger region not limited by State lines. It is near the border of the Yazoo country, which has begun to be so wondrously developed, and is so rapidly filling with colored people. The evangelization and enlightenment of this new Africa must largely come through Tougaloo. Here must be trained preachers, teachers and other leaders of character for this new region, as well as for the older portions of the State. Good, solid work has been done here all through the year, and preparation has been made for even better results in the future.

Straight University, in New Orleans, La., is peculiarly situated for an important and far-reaching work. It draws its students not only from the States, but also from Mexico and the West Indies—484 last year. With the enlarged accommodations for the primary and intermediate work which have been planned, this institution will be better prepared to meet the demands of higher education.

Tillotson Institute, at Austin, Texas, the youngest of our chartered institutions, has had a prosperous year with 230 students, in the Primary, Intermediate, Grammar, Normal, College Preparatory and College departments. Situated at the capital of the great empire of Texas, it is destined to be an educational, religious and evangelistic centre, a power for the building up of the kingdom of Christ. It greatly needs enlarged accommodations. Where is the Lord's steward who is ready to give it at once the imperatively needed Girls' Hall?

NORMAL AND GRADED SCHOOLS.

Next to our chartered institutions come our normal schools. These have the same course of study up to the college department as the chartered institutions have. These normal schools are eighteen in number, and are situated at Lexington and Williamsburg, Ky.; Memphis, Jonesboro, Grand View and Pleasant Hill, Tenn.; Wilmington and Beaufort, N.C.; Charleston and Greenwood, S.C.; Atlanta, Macon, Savannah, Thomasville and McIntosh, Ga.; Athens, Mobile and Marion, Ala. Adding to these the normal departments of our five chartered institutions, gives us twenty-three normal schools in the South.

Besides these, we have in the South thirty-seven which we class as [pg 308] common schools. Eight of these are graded, with two or three teachers each. Nearly all are parochial schools. The teachers are in both the day schools and the Sunday-schools, and are not only school teachers, but church missionaries. They train the young of our congregations for greater usefulness, encourage many of the most promising to go to higher institutions, teach the parents better ideas of home life, and lead all ages to a more intelligent and spiritual worship.

INDUSTRIAL WORK.

Nearly all our schools—chartered, normal and even common—give some industrial training.

At Fisk, the young men are taught wood-working and printing; the young women, nursing, cooking, dress-making and house-keeping.

At Talladega, the young men learn farming, carpentry, painting, glazing, tinning, blacksmithing and printing; the young women, cooking, house-keeping, plain sewing and other needle-work.

At Tougaloo, the young men learn farming, carpentry, blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, painting, turning and tinning; the young women, sewing, dressmaking, cooking and housekeeping.

At Straight, the young men receive instruction in printing, carpentry, and floriculture; the young women, needlework, cooking and housekeeping.

At Tillotson, carpentry is taught the young men; needlework, cooking and housekeeping, the young women.

Our normal schools at Memphis, Tenn., Macon, Ga., and Williamsburg, Ky., have carpentry, printing, and other industrial training for the young men, and training in the various arts of home life for the young women.

At Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, Macon, Thomasville, Athens, Ala., Marion, Mobile, Pleasant Hill, Sherwood, and other normal, graded and common schools, the young women are trained in the things which they will most need in making comfortable and pleasant homes. Indeed, we make it our special care that the girls shall everywhere in our work be taught these things, so essential to the uplifting of a people. In many places where we have no schools, the pastor's wife, or our special lady missionary, is doing this same kind of work.

THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS.

At Fisk, Talladega, Tougaloo and Straight, there have been during the year theological classes. The Theological Department of Howard University, at Washington, has been supported by this Association. Even in some of our normal schools Biblical instruction has been given to some who are now preachers and some who intend to preach. But the number trained has not been sufficient to supply our pastorless churches. The need of a general theological seminary for our churches in the South is becoming imperative. The extensive enlargement of our church work, [pg 309] which ought to begin at once, can scarcely be made successful without this. Who is the one to seize this opportunity to establish an institution of untold possibilities in advancing the Kingdom of Christ on earth—a place where ministers shall be prepared for the work in the South and for foreign missions in Africa?

STATISTICS OF EDUCATIONAL WORK IN THE SOUTH.

CHURCH WORK IN THE SOUTH.

Our church work has necessarily been of slow growth. Churches might have been multiplied, had we thought it best to lower the standard near the level of the old churches, and acknowledge wild ravings as belonging in the worship of God. We have believed that our churches should mean new ideas and intelligent worship. We have knowingly lent our aid to nothing else.

These churches are gathered into Associations, and the fine bodies of pastors and delegates which come together in these, present a most emphatic testimony to the value of the work done in the past, and are an earnest of what the future will show.

Revivals—some of them