the following account of the
work of the Catholics at Van de Vyver College, Richmond, Virginia,
from 1885 to the present time should also be interesting.

Among the many signs of the progress of the colored people in the city
of Richmond is the Van de Vyver College on North First street, which
is equipped with all modern improvements, and has accommodations for
five hundred pupils.

This elegant plant was erected at the sole expense of the Catholics
who, abreast of the times, met at every turn the requirements of an
aspiring class of colored boys and girls.

It was not erected with the idea of drawing the attention or of
eliciting the applause of the people of Richmond; it is an institution
which, by its growth and development, has marked time with the demands
of the younger generation of the colored people, whose endeavor is to
follow the higher ideals as they are set before them.

This grand building, with its large auditorium, now covers the site,
together with additional area, of a former two-roomed schoolhouse,
which thirty years back first gave the Catholic Sisters from Mill
Hill, England, a place and opportunity to show their zeal for, and
their interest in, the future welfare of the colored youth of the
principal city of the Old Dominion.

These Sisters are known as the Sisters of St. Francis of Baltimore.
They have the privilege of being the first of all the white
sisterhoods in this country to take up the work of teaching colored
children exclusively. Today there are many colored citizens who are
not backward in their praise of the successful and unselfish efforts
of these same good sisters, whose energetic endeavors have led many a
colored boy and girl to a happy and prosperous career.

On the college grounds is an excellently equipped kindergarten, in
which many pupils, who later on were graduated from the commercial and
academic courses, made their first start.

Special classes in music, fancy needlework, Latin and French are also
taught to those desiring to pursue such lines.

For the working boys and young men, there is a night session, wherein
is given a theoretical and practical knowledge of the automobile. Many
a young man has gone forth from this class qualified as an expert
mechanician and chauffeur.

The church adjoining the college, attendance at which is of course
optional, affords all the opportunity of gaining a knowledge of the
doctrine of the Catholic Church. Affiliated with this c