g for joy. 'I just
struck out and walked, and I'm nigh plumb giv out.' The change in these
girls is often very encouraging. We feel greatly our cramped room, but
we have strong faith in God, and look for more room, better buildings
and greater success in our work.

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TOUGALOO UNIVERSITY.

Tougaloo University, established in 1869, located at Tougaloo, Miss., on
the Illinois Central Railroad, is one of the chartered schools of the
American Missionary Association. Its enrollment is now over four
hundred, with seventeen teachers. Accessible from all parts of
Mississippi and adjacent States, no school of the American Missionary
Association is better located for effective work among the Negroes. In
the four nearest counties, the colored population which was, in 1880, a
little over 87,000, is now probably more than 100,000, none of it more
than thirty-five miles from Tougaloo. Within a radius of seventy-five
miles there are not far from 450,000 Negroes. By the last census,
Mississippi's colored population was 650,291. The lowest estimate of the
present number is 800,000. At least seventy per cent. of this population
is illiterate. Tougaloo is thus in the very midst of America's Africa.
Just at hand, also, is the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, into which Negroes
are pouring from other States. Here they are gaining homes and
establishing communities. Their numbers are expected continually to
increase. It will probably be as prosperous and influential a Negro
section as any in the land. Tougaloo is the nearest school of high grade
to this Delta region. From lower Arkansas, central and upper Louisiana,
Tougaloo is drawing increasing numbers of pupils each year. With such a
location the only limit to the growth of Tougaloo in numbers and
influence will be that set by the means which Christian beneficence
provides for its support. Tougaloo aims to give a thoroughly practical
education to colored youth of both sexes. A colored minister well
expressed it when he said: "It is the aim of the teachers of Tougaloo to
enable the Negro to have the grace of God in his heart, knowledge in his
head, and money in his pocket."

Is there not in this work a rare opportunity for an investment that will
return an ever increasing rate of interest? Enlightened patriotism,
philanthropy, Christianity, all urge the prompt and generous support of
such a work as this.--_Tougaloo University Reporter._

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