The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-05-24
THE ALUMNAE OF HUDSON
 HOLD THEIR ANNUAL MEETING

ginning or that twenty years of great ness of the South--the two decades which preceded the great war and in which the proudest history of the South was written. Judson was, in truth. a bit in advance of this Southern era of greatness, for her doors were opened to the daughters of the South in the year 1889, which now seems so re- mote.
 But it profited well and grew strong in those twenty years of Southern glory. In those years were written the proudest years of Southern history No section then grew like the South. Her leaders led the Union. Her statesmen had the guiding hand and in their brain the course of the ship of State was planned.
 It was the era of the old ante -bellum home, the era of the strong and the picturesque. It was the day In Middle and South Alabama of the lordly manor, the wide and sweeping plantation, the negro quarters with their black and happy humanity. Here, there and everywhere. these feudal establish ments increased and in the proud homes was found the rare union of wealth and eontentment.
 The Early Students.
 Out of such homes went the first who sat at Judson's feet. They who came first for her guidance and her instruction came from the patriarchal homes of which they were the pride and boast. Tn miniStering to the intellec- tual needs of these favored ones--in preparing them for the stations to which they were born-for there was then an aristocratic class-Judson found her first strength
 No phase of life on the Western con- tinent so closely approached the life of the English gentry as the ante-belium order of the wealthy Southerner And like his English ancestor and his Eng fish counterpart, the Southerner rad his home and his dependents about him in the country, for his was a rural and an agricultural life Especially rich in such homes and in such establish ments, were counties which lay close to the site of nearly Judson-the coun- ties of Lowndes. of Dallas, of Perry, of Marengo, of Hale, of Greene and of others. The daughters of such homes must be cultured and refined, and Jud- son prospered.
 And then came the war and the face of the world changed. For the South war was a Jushua which bade the sun of progress stand still and who with red hands turned back the clock of time. The wealthy became the poor, and the proud became the hopeless. And order was destroyed as certainly as Samson destroyed the temple The South so rich had become so poor. On thousand fields and in thousand hospitals the bloom and flower of her manhood had died. Her industry was paralysed and her future was dark and cheerless.
 And most of all. her educational in- stitutions suffered from the terrible price that the South paid for her con victions-and no country, no section ever paid so great a price. Her col leges and her schools, all but died. Many of them did. Only the strongest est.
 The Return of Day.
 Now that the South Is again coming into her own--now that prosperity walks in paths and fields that poverty and desolation claimed so long, the educational institutions of the South have responded to the new imputus If example, they have outstripped their older achievement and the sky is bright with the promise of greater things.
 The Alumnae of Judson today gave new proof of their loyalty and affec- tion. They pledged the su moi $1,0O0 to the Carnegie Library Fund. When Mrs. w J. Reynolds, the President, had called the Alumnae Association to or der, President Patrick explained the offer that Mir Carnegie had made to build the new library and of the ef- forts the college authorities were making towards that fund One or two of the Alumnae made enthusiastic talks and it was unanimously voted to pledge the sum of $1,0OO to the fund.
 In accordance with the custom at Judson, President Patrick presented each one of the thirty-six girls who will graduate tomorrow, and they were enrolled as members of the Alum nae Association.
 The association this year has main