The bulletin of Atlanta University, 1902 no. 130

              NUMBER   130.                                     ATLANTA, GEORGIA.                               OCTOBER, 1902. For statement of the work of Atlanta University see last page. Do not think that Atlanta University seeks to force the higher education indiscriminately on the entire Negro race. Do not imagine that Atlanta University is dealing directly with any but the more or less exceptional class of Negroes. Do not suppose that Atlanta University educates exceptional Negroes solely for their own personal advantage. Do not forget that Atlanta University, through its exceptionally trained graduates, is reaching indirectly many thousands of average and under-average Negroes. Remember that exceptional Negroes able to take the higher education, while few relatively to the mass of the race, are numerous enough in the aggregate to fully justify such work as Atlanta University is doing. Would it not be strange if a race of nine millions of people, after a full generation of freedom in a land of Christian civilization, had not by this time developed a few hundred young people capable of taking the higher education? Is it not unreasonable to suppose that all the children and youth of nine millions of people can best be educated in only one way and fitted for only one kind of career ? When nine millions of people form so much of a "world by themselves" as do the Negroes of America, is it not important that some of the more promising of them be trained especially for educational, moral, spiritual, social, and civic leadership ? Is it not worth while to regard the facts, as established by carefully gathered statistics, with reference to the actual results of the higher education of American Negroes since Emancipation? Did you know that nearly 3,000 Negroes had been graduated in this country from at least a fairly respectable college course, and that 83 per cent of them had found remunerative and beneficent employment in teaching and other professional work ? RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. The record of last year's work was most encouraging. The increase in the enrollment of college students was nearly 25 per cent. over that of the previous year which, in turn, had been 30 per cent. greater than that of the year before. More students than ever were received with advanced standing from secondary schools throughout the South. A marked improvement in the preparation of incoming students was noticeable. These results are easily traced to the fact that we are now receiving in greater numbers the children and pupils of our early graduates. The enrollment of students for the new year, while not promising so large a percentage of increase in the college as the last two years, is still encouraging in the number and quality of the new students. An item of special interest is the relative increase in the number of young men boarders, who for a number of years have been in the minority as compared with the young women. The financial outcome of the past year was decidedly gratifying. Not only were all current expenses met without a deficit (this for the third successive year) but our standing debt was reduced by $3,000 and $3,000 were also added to our permanent funds. For this happy result we are under great obligation to our many friends who have so liberally aided us in these recent years. Ret no one, however, infer that we do not need the continuance of a generous support on the part of our friends for the coming year. It should be borne in mind that the financial success of the last two years has been largely due to a Relief Fund of $20,000 which a score or so of our friends contributed, outside of the regular donation income, to be used for current expenses during these two years. This fund is now exhausted and yet the work that has been strengthened by it must still go on, and so we must look to our friends this year for a substantial increase in the amount of our regular donations. Aside from this, it is of great importance that the reduction of our debt, now happily begun, shall continue steadily until the whole of it is liquidated, and that our meagre endowment fund shall be rapidly increased. In a word it may be said that our work was never more encouraging and never more in need of generous support than now. And let it not be forgotten that gifts received early in the year are especially valued, not only for their intrinsic worth, but also for the encouragement which they furnish to our workers and our friends. News of Our Graduates. '76—Pres. and Mrs. R. R. Wright, of the Georgia State Industrial College, fittingly observed their silver wedding at their residence, College, Ga., June 11. '80—Hon. Robert L. Smith of Oakland, Texas, for several years our Southern Secretary, has accepted a federal appointment as chief office deputy in the office of the U. S. Marshal, Paris, Texas, at a salary of $2500 a year. His new duties began Aug. 1. '90—Principal William B. Matthews, of the Gate City public school in this city, has been elected a member of our board of trustees, to succeed Rev. L. B. Maxwell ('86), deceased. '94—Benjamin F. Allen has been elected by the board of regents to the presidency of Lincoln Institute, Jefferson City, Mo. He has already entered upon his duties, and the opening of the school year was signalized, the first day, as being the largest in the history of the school. President Allen had been a teacher, and several years also vice-president, in that institution, from 1894 to 1901. In the year 1901-02 he was professor of English and pedagogy in the Georgia State Industrial College in Savannah. '98—Miss Bessie B. Taylor is teaching in the high school in Wilmington, Del. '98—Alonzo H. Brown, since his graduation teacher of science and industry in the J. K. Brick School in Enfield, N. C., has received his degree of A. B. from the University of Chicago, after four summer quarters spent there. '99—William J. Decatur, the head of the industrial department in Talladega College, spent eight weeks of the summer in the study of architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.