who knew not Joseph. In these changes here, a new generation comes on, to whom occurrences of the past are but dim and sometimes distorted traditions." In To my mind, the last generation has been characterized by greater conflicts and has been freighted with more thrilling events than any generation through which the history of this country has brought[Pg 18] us. Through ignorance, and sometimes indifference, we are in serious danger of depreciating the wonderful agencies that have been such potent factors in the growth and development of a people. It is, therefore, important that some close observer of events constantly keep before the people, in whose interest these factors have been set in operation, full accounts of all the developments, that the young may be inspired to noble aims and lofty endeavors. [Pg 18] While such a task is not an easy one, I feel it my duty to attempt its performance. All the data and every observation set forth in these chapters have been the result of personal investigation among the colored people. I shall give in this chapter a brief history of the schools conducted by white people of the Baptist denomination for the education of colored people. In this work the American Baptist Home Mission Society has expended since 1862 $3,000,000. The value of school property acquired by the society amounts to $900,000. When before this society "came the vision of emancipated millions, desperately needy, in dire distress and full of forebodings, stretching forth their unshackled, but empty, unskilled and helpless hands for friendly aid and guidance," this society at once took them in and offered them shelter and comfort. The society has accomplished wonders for the colored people, and I am sure that the colored people appreciate all that it has done for them. I shall begin my history of Baptist schools with Spelman Seminary. [Pg 19] [Pg 19] SPELMAN SEMINARY. The history of Spelman Seminary reads like a romance. Beginning in 1881, in the gloomy basement of the Friendship Baptist Church, Atlanta, Ga., a church owned by the colored people, without any of the accessories needed for successful school work, with but two teachers, Miss S. B. Packard and Miss Harriet E. Giles, and with less than a dozen pupils, it has grown to be the largest and best equipped school
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