Chapter I: T. Simpson, C. J. Davis, W. H. Wilhite, Annie Stone, T. W. Calvary

and Eliza Fuller (Mrs. Knight).

1895.

Lula E. Ware, Annie L. Jones, Comer E. Carter, Benjamin F. Sanders, Lila L. Jones, Julia L. Sanders, Mary F. McCord, Emma P. Jones, Earnest W. Brown and Donnie E. Hillson.

We see very little that these names mean except we associate them with the masses of the people in the various walks of social and business life. But, associating them thus, we see them as so many stars lighting up the dark places around them. However, to do this is by no means to place ourselves where we can see the _whole_ truth. What has been wrought upon the thousands of students who failed to finish the prescribed course? They are elevated and they have borne their elevation to their neighbors. From their teachers and from the refining atmosphere of the school, they have drunken purer thoughts, loftier aims and a stronger manhood. This they have carried to others less favored than themselves, and now it works as the leaven in the dough. Again, the school has strengthened us by its weight upon our hearts and hands. Labor, well directed, develops strength in the laborer. We are greater because we have been compelled to care for that institution, and it has caused us to have faith in ourselves. We now know that it is possible for us to maintain an educational work. It is needless to say that by means of it, we have looked larger in the eyes of others. Somehow, he who can _do something good_ and _great_ commands our respect.

(_f_) The Home Mission Society.--This society has served us to greater results than any other agency. To this society the university owes above half the money which has given it support all these years. They have given us missionary aid which has served to produce higher life and better order in our churches and associations. And from their schools beyond our state we have received many of our most capable persons, among whom we may mention Drs. Dinkins, Purce, Stokes, Owens, our eloquent Fisher, and Jones, our scholarly Peterson, the urbane Jackson of Eufaula, the industrious Bradford, and others whose names I cannot at this moment recall. Mrs. C. S. Dinkins, as well as Mrs. C. O. Boothe, came to us from the Roger Williams University, a Home Mission Society School. But what has been said will suffice to show us how we have come to be a wiser and a better people than we were thirty years ago. And if we see what has blessed us in the years gone by, no doubt we shall be able to see that the same things may, if we will permit them to do so, bless us in the years to come. May our steps not be forgotten by our children.