ould not be
Americanised."

The school at Calhoun had 300 students, and its land extended over 100
acres. As there were such great opportunities, if the right means were
taken to secure them, the teachers were moved by a desire to provide
openings for their students in the county instead of their being obliged
to seek uncertain employment in the distance. Why not buy land and
divide it into small holdings, which even negroes could purchase for
their own? That would be to show practical sympathy with the native
sentiment--"I always did want to own something that wouldn't die; your
mule, he'll die, but the land is gwine to live."

That idea gained favour; it was strictly in accordance with the negro's
economic programme; and thus, when a plantation of nearly 1100 acres was
purchased and was divided into over twenty farms, the enterprise was
well in hand. In time other estates were purchased; the movement, which
is favoured by the whites and ex-planters, is so extremely popular with
the blacks that "one man recently sent five cents ten miles by a friend
to go towards his farm!" As might be expected, all this has not been
carried out without there being some failure and discouragement, but, on
the whole, the movement has realised the hopes of its promoters. Mr
Dillingham adds:--

"On the economic side, Calhoun's scheme means buying a plantation at
wholesale price, and breaking up the plantation into small farms, by a
group of men who make advance payments and then finish buying by paying
rent for a term of years. The fifty-acre farm means a basis for a new
agriculture or intensive farming, also sharp, individual responsibility
of buyer, plus family life and labour and friendly co-operation of a
neighbourhood. The plantation, with its 'quarters' and renters and
croppers, who 'stay' to make and pick crops, but have no home--the
plantation, the old, before-the-war, economic unit, is transformed into
an American neighbourhood of farms and homes, within sound of church and
bell. This is the light set on the hill."

This is how the work, commenced at Hampton and Tuskegee, can develop or
expand; and, while benefiting the State, is also found to bring the
white people and the coloured race into friendly contact, the former
doing what lies in their power to advance the cause. Thriving
neighbourhoods of coloured people promise to come into existence, for
"the South is not shutting the industrial door, or the educational door,
or