The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-11-27

Il took trip last winter to Ashe-
Vile and looked over the educational
situation in the south. 1 want to tell
You something, and would tell Mason
if he were here. The colored people of
the south today are better cared FOR in
the matter of education than are the
mountain whites. They have excellent
schools, and they are making great
progress. And now l will tell you enc
thing more, and that is that during the
next twenty years you will hear the
mountain whites of Kentucky ana Nir-
GINA ringing out from the pulpit and
the press. They deserve an education.
They deserve much from us Tor whom
they have done SO much; and this is a
subject that is going to be agitated Cor
the next twenty years, and 1 am going
to dc all | can for those brave noun
taineers. For they are worldly and
brave-I have been among them and I
know what l am talking about.
but let us not lose sight of that en-
dowment for Berea College. L got a
letter from President Frost the other
day, and he said L now have within
$4,000 of the $3.50, 0O0 He is going to
get that and l am going to make ily
check for 900 about the LIST of jan
uary. He is going to get there. Why?
Because those old anti-sIaVery men
are not all dead. Some of them are left
and they have got money to put in that
very institution that is equally for the
mountain whites and the blacks to-
gether.
Let us now journey TO the north
east a thousand miles. 1 am only go
ing to speak of one more of the six
teen colleges, in which 1 am personally
interested. These are samples, and the
rest are like them.
I'VE are now to stop at a beautiful
place, Mount Holyoke, Mass. Here was
founded the first female college that
was ever erected in this country, one
that has done more good and had a
wider influence in the world than any
other like institution under the sun.
HOlyoke has circled the globe with
female colleges. About a hundred years
ago, Mary Lyon was born in an OBJ
scure town in western Massachusetts
of poor parents. Most men and women
of worth and influence come from poor
parents-from wage workers-from
poverty. Poverty is a blessing in dis
suise. Standing here today / am
thankful that l was born in poverty.
and that I had to work
But we must hasten on. Mary Lyon 6
parents died, and she was left alone
She then did homework for her broth
er; she lived on a farm. She spun and
Wove and made coverlets and sold them
and got enough to go to Ashfeld Acad-
envy. That girl had visions, but she
was not visonary-not a. bit Of it. She
saw through the mist and clouds that
overhung the grandest country in the
world, and the nobest people in the
world. The mist was that a female
should not be educated. 1 once asked
an old man why ne did not help Mary
Lyon. L knew Mary Lyon saw her
at work laying the first foundation of
her magnificent institution. Why
said the old man, it is of no use in
sending girls to college-it will spoil
them for servants; they won't be worth
a cent for servants if they go to school,
THAT darkness, that mist, hung over
New England like a pail, and Mary
Lyon was the heroine who could look
through the mist and see the stars be
yond. This last century never pro-
duced another woman like Mary Lyon
Miss Willard was oood bil+ Mary 7 t,c,,