Up close to the roof, in a low attic, we found the industrial departments, a printing press and a cabinet shop.  Creditable work of both kinds was shown.  A paper is edited and printed by the students, and the housekeeper of the party shut her eyes and said the tenth commandment over a certain little table in one corner.  Industrial training is not a specialty at Straight.  What is done in that line is more a recreation than a branch of study.  We were told, with evident pride in the fact, that all the outfit we saw was purchased by the students themselves.  Not a dollar of the funds of the Association had gone toward it.  Every class-room seemed crowded.  The statement that applicants had to be turned away every week needed no confirmation.

Coming so recently from Tougaloo it was interesting to note the difference between the two institutions.  A comparison cannot be invidious, because they belong to different states in every sense of the word.  Since the aim of the American Missionary Association is the elevation of the colored people, there is room for a diversity of institutions and methods.  Tougaloo is admirably situated for industrial departments.  Straight has neither room nor time for them, but meets the demand for a higher grade of scholarship, and draws its students from a wider range and from a class who have more home training, more money, and, therefore, more leisure for a full course of study.  They come from the whole circumference of the Gulf, from Cuba and from Central America.  Many more could be drawn from abroad if there were room to receive them.  The most inveterate hatred of puns can hardly keep one from spelling Straight without the gh.  Many of the students are largely of Creole blood and have the traits of Gallic ancestry well defined.

“In two respects,” said our host, “I have been greatly disappointed.  I was told before I came here that I would have trouble in teaching the pupils habits of neatness, and that they were naturally lazy.  I find them just the opposite.  They are exceptionally neat and tidy about their persons and their rooms.  As for being lazy, we could not ask for more diligent students as a rule, and they are up in the morning earlier than we want them to be.”

No notes were taken of the many interesting statements made, for there was no thought of this article then.  But the recollection of the talk as we passed through rooms and halls toward our exit, always brings regret that the audience had not been two thousand Congregationalists instead of the two who went their way with a firm conviction that Straight University is a place where the investment of a few thousand dollars of the Lord’s money would bring speedy and large returns.  It is fortunate that in this case, as in the famous one of the deacon’s wife, all have not the same taste and judgment.  The advocates of industrial training need not hoard their money because Straight has so little manual labor.  Tougaloo will gladly and wisely use all they have to give.  And those who hold that the moral and intellectual training of teachers and pastors is the only proper work of such schools, need not look askant at the workshops of Tougaloo, lest some of their benefactions should be spent for saws or anvils or solder, while Straight is crying out for room to hold those who want exactly that kind of training.