The departments are Academic--with Kindergarten and eight years' Common School Course. Industrial--with Agriculture for boys and Domestic Training for girls.
Our graded school makes a natural centre for community-life. Calhoun is in the midst of 28,000 plantation negroes. It lives in touch with all the life of its township and county, and limits its aim to this social group.
They have Farmers' Conferences, Mothers' Meetings, Sunday and Mission Services. Cabin, School, Church and Plantation Visiting. Agricultural Fairs, Teachers' Institutes, Celebration of National Holidays, and Christian Festivals. Thrift and Land Buying Meetings, Sociological Study of the County, etc.
To change the crop-mortgage peon into an American small farmer, with land and home of his own, is our problem and opportunity. "The family is the foundation of the nation."
From three to four thousand acres are being bought at $6 and $7 an acre. 75 families (500 individuals) are being planted near the school. A Southern white planter and neighbor is assisting.
Calhoun believes in the educational and religious value of work and property. It stands for a vital and practical Christianity.
In my opinion the Calhoun School and Social Settlement is based on the right principle to solve the so-called race problem. When the colored people in the South own their own homes, as they can under the system that has been established at Calhoun, they will not only be more independent, but more prosperous, and, as a result of the very practical training given there, they will not only send out farmers, but teachers, mechanics, and merchants as well. As colored men are able to start stores in the South they will be able to furnish employment to graduates from such schools as clerks and bookkeepers. I am sure that if the people in the North could only understand what a real blessing such an institution is to the South, it would, at least, not want for means to carry on its wonderful work.
STATE NORMAL SCHOOL FOR COLORED PERSONS AT FRANKFORT, KY.
The State Normal School is situated about one and one-half miles from Frankfort on a beautiful hill overlooking the city. The site comprises about thirty acres of tillable land and meadow, upon which are located the main school building, with recitation-room and chapel, a new mechanical shop, forty feet by sixty feet, with modern equipments and furnishings, the "Ladies' Hall," recently built, and cottages for the resident professors. Our students are free from the many temptations and social demands incident to those who attend school in a city.