mal and Industrial School for the training
of Colored teachers. A telegram unexpectedly announced that
Tucker had been elected by the State Board of Education to
take the management of it. He demurred, he objected; but
leading Colored men and the Chief Executive importuned and
requested his acceptance of the place. By patient
perseverance and tact he succeeded in enlisting the hearty
good will of all classes to the maintenance of the
institution. The history of his work is a part of the
educational records. Many men and women of worth and saving
influence in their respective communities in Florida owe
their training to the devoted consecration to duty of this
native of the "Dark Continent." The school itself will ever
remain a lasting monument to his tireless, efficient
devotion to the welfare of his race.

He retired from the field of his labors at the close of the
fourteenth year, carrying with him universal regret for his
departure, and the esteem and respect of the whole State and
the acclamations of good will, especially of the people of
the capital in which the Normal School is located.

It requires no stretch of thought to understand our constant and
earnest interest in everything which concerns our environments. Every
question and issue of national significance have for us a vital
consideration for weal or woe. We scan with greedy eagerness the
expressed policy of the statesman, we hang with bated breath on the
eloquence of the sentiment moulder, we probe with tremulous care the
feelings of the community to find out if we have been pushed to the
rear or given a fair chance in the race to a higher life--our final
place in American life.

While we are not, and should never be, unmindful of all interests
which appertain to others in this vast country of which we form such a
necessary part, it is natural and right that our first thought should
be of our own welfare.

The position we are to definitely assume and maintain in the
distinctive American civilization now in process of formation, is yet
concealed in the womb of futurity; we can neither anticipate nor force
it against the period of its advent. While we are passing through this
slow process of development, it is well at times to take a reckoning
of our race powers by way of encouragement to such as may become faint
and weary in the combat. All are not strong,