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CAPPAHOSIC’S SIXTH COMMENCEMENT.

BY DEACON SAMUEL HOLMES.

May 31st was a proud day for Gloucester County, Va., for not only was Hon. Frederick Douglass to give the annual address, but the new dormitory called “Douglass Hall” was to be used for the first time.  With only the roof on and but partially covered, still the lower story had been temporarily floored and seated so that a thousand persons could be accommodated.  Although the previous twenty-four hours had been dark and rainy the crowd had been gathering all the time—­many of whom accompanied the Holly Grove Brass Band in early morning to escort Mr. Douglass and other visitors from the river to the school building.

After breakfast the school went on with its regular forenoon work, interesting the visitors, who also inspected the barn, the workshops and farm.  By noon the campus and vicinity was a wonderful sight, while the outskirts reminded one of an old-fashioned general training in Connecticut, with its booths and tables.  An official count of teams on the campus as reported to me was, 357 horse, 7 mule teams, and 1 ox team.  Many of these had driven fifty or sixty miles, and generally carrying the fodder behind or tied under the wagons.  There were from 1,500 to 2,000 people on the grounds and vicinity.

At 1:30 p.m., after a well prepared lunch for the trustees and invited guests, they were escorted by the school, headed by the band, to the new hall, which was soon filled to its utmost capacity.  With excellent music by the school and band, followed by prayer, came not the least important part of the programme, the collection and pledges towards completing the building.  Including the admission fee of twenty-five cents from outsiders, the money raised was over three hundred dollars, besides over eight hundred dollars in good pledges, of which two hundred and fifty dollars were from Mr. Douglass and his relatives present.  Then followed an address on “Self Help,” by a young man graduate, and another by a young woman on “A New Picture,” contrasting the present surroundings with the time when she first entered the school in its beginnings under Mr. Weaver, in a small log-house with one door and two windows.  These addresses would have done credit to many older institutions.

Mr. Douglass then followed with his incomparable lecture on “Self-Made Men.”  One could but feel in seeing his magnificent physique and his manly bearing as he proceeded, that he was a most notable example of his subject, while to report his lecture, with its impromptu sallies of wit and wisdom, would be almost impossible.  He instanced many men as illustrations and especially interested his audience with stories of personal interviews with Lincoln, Seward, Greeley, Stanton, Grant and others during and after the war.