Chapter I: Feel a Profounder Reverence for a Boy Than a Man. I Never Meet a

RAGGED BOY ON THE STREET WITHOUT FEELING THAT I OWE HIM A SALUTE, FOR I KNOW NOT WHAT POSSIBILITIES MAY BE BUTTONED UP UNDER HIS SHABBY COAT.

—JAMES A. GARFIELD.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE.

The publishers of this book have spared neither pains nor expense in trying to make it as nearly perfect as a book of this kind can be. The typographical appearance and the illustrations will speak for themselves.

We consider ourselves fortunate in having been able to secure the services of the Rev. Dr. Silas X. Floyd as the author of this volume. Mr. Floyd’s life work, aside from his literary training, has made him the ideal man to speak to the colored boys and girls of the South. Soon after graduating from Atlanta University in 1891, Mr. Floyd became Principal of a Public School at Augusta, Ga., and remained in that city for five years consecutively as a teacher. In June, 1896, he was called from the school room into the Sunday-school work, having been appointed by the International Sunday School Convention as one of its Field Workers throughout the South. He continued in this work for three years, retiring from it to become Pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church, Augusta, Ga., one of the largest churches in the South. After a year and a half in the pastorate, he returned to the Sunday-school work, becoming Sunday-school Missionary for Georgia and Alabama under appointment of the American Baptist Publication Society. Two years ago, he re-entered the school room, and is now once more Principal of a Public School at Augusta. His school is one of the largest in the State of Georgia.

Mr. Floyd’s work, as the record shows, has been conspicuously for and in behalf of the children, and he is known far and wide as a competent writer and speaker on topics concerning young people. He has contributed to the Sunday School Times, the International Evangel, the New York Independent, The World’s Work, Lippincott’s Magazine, and many other journals and periodicals. He is the author of a volume of sermons published by the American Baptist Publication Society and listed in their catalogue as among their standard works, and is also the author of the Life of the leading colored Baptist preacher in America, published by the National Baptist Publishing Board. From the beginning of the Voice of the Negro, Mr. Floyd has had charge of the Wayside Department as Editor, and his work as a humorist and writer of negro dialect is known to many through that medium.

In 1894, Atlanta University, his alma mater, conferred upon Mr. Floyd the degree of Master of Arts, and in 1902, Morris Brown College conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity.

THE PICTURES AND WHO MADE THEM

A distinctive feature of this volume is the inclusion of more than half a hundred of original drawings by a young artist. Every boy and every girl delights in pictures. There is something in pictures, even though the subjects be foreign to us, which readily takes hold of our innermost feelings and becomes companionable to the extent that we find ourselves loving that _something_ whatever it is:—a man, or an humble dog, or an old homestead, or what not. We seldom think that some great mind has been hard at work to produce that picture and that it takes years and years of application and deep study to prepare even a genius in art.

While you are enjoying the pleasures to be derived from the “rough sketches” in this book it is hoped that at the same time you will catch the inspiration of the artist who made them. The negro race has produced very few artists of note, for very few of them have made a success in the profession. Of that few, John Henry Adams is second only to Tanner.

Coming up with little in his favor other than a determination to “win” and the prayerfulness of loving parents, John Adams kept himself in school until he was thoroughly prepared to enter upon life’s sea as a thinker for and a master of himself. Acquiring his art education at The Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, Adams returned to Atlanta and found a place to utilize his training at the Morris Brown College, where he has been eminently successful as a teacher, and where he is loved and honored by all.

The lapse of twenty-six years is a very short time to begin to measure a man’s success, but Mr. Adams has already succeeded. The demand for his work is large and plenteous. If there is such a thing as having more work than one can do, it applies pointedly to him. Besides the many fine and costly paintings which Mr. Adams makes and sells, his “rough sketches” are quite popular and “go like hot cakes.” And, with all of this he is a regular contributor to one daily paper, two weekly papers and a monthly magazine. This is but a glimpse of the man. His work as trustee of city charities, his visitations to mission houses and his liberal pocket-book show the more tender side of the artist. When a football game is in progress there’s another side of the man—the enthusiast. But all the way through Mr. Adams is ever the amiable gentleman, the vigorous thinker and worker, the friend of children and a constant source of gladness to the poor of Atlanta.

PUBLISHERS.