So the leaven works.

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ALLEN NORMAL SCHOOL, THOMASVILLE, GA.

By Miss Amelia Merriam.

The fact that with the graduation of the class of ’96 our school would complete its first decade, added interest to the occasion.

One member of the class has been in the school from its organization.  In the class history she gave quite a vivid description of those trying days when the building at Quitman, Ga., where the school was first gathered, was burned to the ground, as the result of hostile feeling on the part of the citizens of the place.  Certainly there has been progress toward a just appreciation of the work of the American Missionary Association in the communities where its work has been done, as seen in the kindly feeling toward the school manifested in various ways by the people of Thomasville.

Of the six graduates, five are young women; three of these begin their work of teaching in country schools immediately.  One, the valedictorian of the class, has already written something in regard to her surroundings.  At the place, which is the best in the neighborhood, where she was to board—­if the word may be used in connection with such a state of things—­she writes that there is almost nothing in the way of necessities for decent living.  There is not a lamp in the house; not even a tallow candle, the room in which the family eat and sleep being lighted only by building a fire upon the hearth.  Of such an article as a towel they apparently do not know the use; and the one basin in which she washed her hands serves for various other domestic purposes.  Almost the only household appliances are two ovens, as they are called—­two flat-bottomed, shallow iron kettles, with iron covers, and legs a few inches long.  Under these kettles, out of doors, the fire is made, and coals put upon the flat covers.  In this way the hoe-cake is baked in one, while the bacon is fried in the other.  These two viands, with an occasional mess of greens or potatoes, constitute the bill of fare month in and month out.  No wonder the poor girl lost her appetite.  She was supplied from the Home with what she needed to make herself comfortable in the one very small room which she is fortunate enough to have to herself.

It is from country places like these that we wish to bring scholars into the school.  The truth is that the young people in these communities are too ignorant to have any desire for anything different from what they now have.  Here is an almost limitless home missionary field, to be worked by the graduates of our schools.  These teachers are good object-lessons, showing what an education, including a knowledge of homemaking, as well as what is learned from books, can do for boys and girls like themselves.

We rejoice in the fact that when the school closed, all of the girls in the Hall were professedly disciples of Christ, and will, we believe, go back to their homes to be better daughters and more helpful members of the communities so much in need of the influences which we trust they will exert.