Nothing has been said about examinations; they are like the bread of our daily meals, always expected and very important. A more thorough examination than usual was given the classes in drawing and in vocal music. One exercise in the latter examination was the singing at sight of a tune, in four parts, composed by a member of the class.
Our halls are already deserted; nothing holds our students after Commencement: they scatter at once for work, and within a few weeks, in at least half a dozen States, miniature Fisk Universities will be in operation.
ANNIVERSARY AT HAMPTON INSTITUTE, VIRGINIA.
In beauty, interest and enthusiasm Hampton anniversary days abate nothing as years go on. The seventeenth anniversary exercises were held on May 21, with a graduating class of forty-two, of whom five were Indians. Visitors were present from North and South, East and West, and such expressions as "The half was not told me!" and "Why didn't I bring my wife?" were frequent, as usual.
Of the morning examinations, one of the most interesting was a general exercise conducted by the chaplain, in review of the current news of the world, which is daily read and discussed with the students. Victor Hugo, French and English politics, the Afghan trouble, Russia and Nihilism, Irish Nationalists, France and China, England and Egypt, were touched in the questions, and the answers and general interest showed the value of this daily exercise. In the ancient history class, printed questions were shuffled and distributed among the students, and question and answer were spoken out promptly by each scholar, giving an attractive quickness and vivacity to the recitation. The class of little Indian geographers stood before a table on which was a miniature United States made of sand, with its Eastern elevations, its great central plains, and its high Western ranges. A thread of blue worsted, put in place by the young world-builders, simulated the Mississippi, while cities (in the guise of white buttons) sprang up with a rapidity unknown even in the great West. The practice-teaching class is always of especial interest and significance, as over ninety per cent of Hampton's students devote themselves to teaching as their life mission. A dozen little bright-eyed, brown-faced primaries from the "Butler" training school received a geography lesson from one of the senior girls, criticised by her class-mates. Its grand _finale_ was a miniature volcanic eruption, creating a sensation among the Butler mites.
