“Stone Hall,” the gift of Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, of Malden, Mass., is in process of erection. Other new buildings are projected for the coming year.
At a recent meeting of the trustees of the university, a resolution was passed to institute forthwith a post-graduate course of two years for graduates of the normal department. Its privileges are to be open to those who have maintained a high standard in the regular course, and who give promise of efficiency in work for which this special training is designed to fit them, and the preference is to be given to graduates of one or more years standing. This course, while not neglecting intellectual culture, by providing for courses of reading and for attendance upon recitations and lectures, and for practice in teaching, is to provide special training in nursing the sick, sewing, cutting and making of garments, care of household affairs, the inauguration and management of mission work, and in general whatever training seems likely to prepare young women of culture for the responsible duties of actual life. At the same meeting the trustees directed the executive committee to select as soon as practicable a suitable person as principal of this course of study, who shall also be matron of the family of young women who may be gathered for this purpose; and they are further directed to prepare plans for the suitable accommodation of such a family.
The trustees also voted that an industrial department for boys be at once organized, which shall provide for training in carpentry and other mechanical work; and the executive committee were authorized to make the necessary arrangements.
The prelude of our twelfth anniversary exercises came Friday night, June 9, in the form of a school exhibition by the lower departments, consisting of declamations, recitations, concert exercises, etc. This was something new and drew a large and appreciative audience. The participants came attended by a throng of relatives and admiring friends, and the programme passed off in a manner creditable to all.
In lieu of the usual baccalaureate sermon Sunday morning, Rev. Edward W. Bacon, of New London, Conn., delivered a missionary discourse. To his mind, a missionary was not a religious drummer nor a mere itinerant preacher. He was a settler, locating in a community, growing up with it, molding its moral, social and religious life. To the young colored men of America, educated and consecrated, no field offers grander opportunities for distinguishment, in these respects, than does long-neglected Africa. Mr. Bacon said his object was to induce some one to become a missionary. His able and practical sermon will not be barren of results; and when the call for workers shall come, Talladega will respond with her quota.