The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1885-12-16
For THE CLARION.
Industrial Institute and College
THE NORMAL DEPARTMENT.

THE NORMAL DEPARTMENT.
While much Ia. been said and writ |
ten in regard to the Industrial part OF /
the work of the Institute and College, |
comparatively little attention has been /
called to the Normal Department and to |
the higher educational advantages offered |
to woman in the College.
The world is apt to run in grooves
some of them strange ones, rs it appears |
afterwards in the light of a higher
revelation. 1t is so much easier to run
in the old, even if devious pathways,
than to hew out new ones. Besides, the
new ones require, unfortunately, unity
Of thought, cooperation of mind, OF
will, and of action. Tie universal mind
mast not only be made to leel the neces
sity but to unite in the effort to attain
the object. And when we consider the
narrowness of views as to intellectual
necessities entertained by the major
portion Of humanity, it seems amazing
that Mississippi should, by some mystic
rious and beneticent providence, have
| leaped to the front on the educational
question.
1t is scarcely known or appreciated
now that Mississippi is the first and only
government, local or general, in the his
| tory of the world to accord to women,
| by tatg, the right to equal education with
meh
This right, now that it has been
achieved, seems so evidently just. and
only what should always have been
granted, that we can scarcely realize
that at the opening of our College in
Columbus, last October, as,inaugu
one OF the grandest epochs in the history
of woman.
When we consider the fact that to
woman is necessarily committed the
most important trust in the world-the
moulding from infancy to youth-when
ia the most plastic state THAT creature
who stands frontward to the stars,
fashioned in the image of God himself,
we wonder ard are amazed that every
| thing is not done to mt her for this
| momentous trust.
Nor is woman's responsibility limited
to motherhood. Three fourths of the
work of educating this nation is done
by women. In Mississippi four fifths of
the educators are women. How are our
teachers fitted and prepared for this
grand mission?
Probably no one in our State has had
better opportunity to know what
answer to give to this question than
the teachers in the Institute and College
who have examined and taught the three
hundred girls there, representing as they
do nearly every county in the State with
their respective teachers.
/ Doubtless. there are very many eftici
cient, Conscientious, earnest women and
men in Mississippi doing thorough work
as teachers on stinted pay, for few
months of each year. But there are
doubtless, also, many who regardless of
opportunities or fitness. have gone into
this work merely to keep the wolf from
the door"
-There is row offered to teachers, by
the State, Normal Training School
| know that many of them feel their
own necessities for instruction. Let us
put it within the reach of our financially
poorest teachers to get to this school,
by maugurating County Industrial Loan
Associations all over the State, which
shall, by loaning them the money for
this purpose, confer Senefaction upon
the whole State.
One of the most encouraging features
/ of the College is the eagerness of the
girls to work, industrally and intellec
1 Y. II IL tNiiSut tidt Nil6 HOSpel Ga
| work 'shas been proclaimed to them
effeetualy. The prospect of learning
some bread-winning art is evidently
powerful incentive.
Some of the stories of the girls here
in reference to their getting means to
come are truly pathetic. One poor girl,
who came with just forty dollars with
which to learn something by which to
! IN ma to dN Wis and
so overcome at the thought of having to
90 back to her former life after a so
much broader outlook that her story
was stopped by tears. She went to her
room and wrote what she had not the
| heart to say. Her letter is so pathetic
in its simple truthtulness that | shall
give you part Of it as sample of what
many are doing and feeling:
Miss MARTIN: I think | can tell YOU
everything b tier by writing to you.
You have been so kind to me | feel
can ask your advice. Mama is very poor
and could never afford to send me to
school, but has taught me everything
she could herself. | made money enough
| to come to this school 5nyself, and now
| | see it is not possible for me to stay
here and learn a trade, so that | can
mani 1Aff wv ouppOft NttAout WI h'ifS
| in the field, for you know that | arr not
strong enough for that kind of labor.
| cannot stay more than four months. |
Mama did want me to take dress making, !
| but | will not have money enough to
get the material to learn with. | want |
to learn telegraphy for a trade. Advise
me what to take and let me stay and |
learn it, or | will have to work in the
field always for my support. Papa has
the consumption and cannot live long /
and mama cannot support me-
Respectfully,
Tt is certainly heart-moying to have |
such appeals poured into ones ears, and +
that. too, from refined girls whose parents I
have perhaps been reared in luxury.
What God-send our College is to just /
such cases, provided they can get the +
benefit of it as they may through these
Loan Associations if the big hearted /
men and women of our-State will only /
make the little necessary effort to organ
ize them. speak of what | know In
our own Association in Warren county,
which il now aiding four girls to come
to this College, the organizing Of which
was ! pleasure and satisfaction from
the first It's noble President, Mrs. A.
Warner, takes evidently only delight in
her beautiful work of benevolence.
Those who can, need not, however,
stand back for cooperation in doing a
noble work, that Of sending girl them
selves It would only cost about $125
to maintain one here for the whole 4