While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Two-Fold Organization Of The
Workers.-New Features-Character Building.-Visit Of Mrs. V. P. Boggs.
"Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can." Wesley
After two weeks of voluntary service in
the vicinity of the Academy, visiting
Churches, schools, institutes and towns,
making the trips through the timber with a
team of faithful but superannuated mules,
and delivering addresses in as many as eight
different places, during the month
preceding, the academy was re-opened for a
three months term in February, 1905, under
the management of Rev. and Mrs. R. E.
Flickinger of Fonda, Iowa. They had for
their assistants, Miss Adelia M. Eaton,
Fonda, Iowa, matron, Miss Bertha L. Ahrens,
principal, Miss Malinda A. Hall and Henry C.
Shoals, assistants in the cooking and
farming departments, and Solomon Buchanan, a
volunteer student accompanist and general
helper.
Two Fold Organization Of The
Workers
The moral and religious instruction was
organized after the following manner. The
Bible was supplied and read by all as a
daily text book in the school. The lady
principal served as superintendent of the
Sunday school, and as organist and chorister
at all the other meetings. The assistant
superintendent took charge of the primary
department of the Sunday school, the matron,
the Bible class; the assistant matron, the
intermediate class, and the general
management of the work among the Christian
Endeavourers, selecting and aiding the
leaders in their preparation for and conduct
of their meetings on Sabbath evenings, in
which all the students were required to
participate. Mr. Buchanan served as organist
for the Sunday school and accompanist on the
piano at the other meetings.
The superintendent, in addition to
attending and participating in the Sabbath
school and Endeavor meetings, which were
held on Sabbath mornings and evenings,
conducted the preaching service on Sabbath
morning, the Bible memory meetings at 2:30
on Sabbath afternoons and the mid-week
service, which was held on Friday evenings.
Voice Culture
The training and development of their
youthful voices, for efficient participation
by song or story in religious meetings on
their return home, was made a distinct aim
and object at the Friday evening meetings.
This special vocal training was based on the
fact, that in all the recorded instances of
the manifestation of divine or spiritual
power, it has been communicated through the
use or instrumentality of the human voice.
The annual results, of this training of
their voices for a sacred use, were a very
gratifying surprise to all the patrons of
the school.
The superintendent also conducted the family
worship at which all of the students and
teachers were present. It consisted in the
daily reading of the Scriptures and prayer
immediately at the close of the morning and
evening meals. Twice a week the young people
united in repeating a Psalm or other
appropriate selection and the Lord's Prayer.
He also invariably attended and
participated by a word of encouragement in
the Sunday school and Endeavor meetings.
Character Building
It was the constant endeavor of the
superintendent to make the hours spent
together on Sabbath afternoons and Friday
evenings, not only the most instructive and
profitable of all the week to the students,
in the matter of their character building,
but also the most joyous and happy to all of
them. All cares and troubles were forgotten,
while repeating responsively and cheerily
together many of the most thrilling and
comforting passages of the Bible, or singing
merrily the beautiful hymns, plantation
melodies, sacred anthems and patriotic
glees, that enlisted mutual attention and
interest. The joyous blending of their many
happy, youthful voices, sometimes soft and
low, then rising and swelling with all
possible animation into full chorus, while
singing together the "Beautiful Story" that
"Never Grows Old" and "Must be Told," "Break
Forth into Joy," "Before Jehovah's Throne,"
"Hail to the Flag," "Freedom's Banner" and
similar familiar selections, are sweet and
blessed treasures of the memory, that are
invariably recalled with pleasure and
delight.
New Features
In addition to the branches that had been
previously taught, arrangements were now
made for special instruction in voice
culture and vocal music, one hour a week for
all the pupils; and the young men in
agriculture, horticulture, house-painting,
carpentry and masonry.
The aim of these new departments was to
awaken an intelligent interest and make
every one familiar with the principles that
would enable them to make
The Farm,
The Garden,
The Orchard,
The Dairy,
The Cattle,
The pigs and Poultry,
all a source of greatest profit to them as
owners.
An earnest effort was also made to check the
stream of migration to distant schools, by
bringing the work at Oak Hill to such a
degree of efficiency as to meet the real
needs of every young person in its vicinity.
This was successfully accomplished by a
voluntary and gratuitous establishment, on
the part of the superintendent and
principal, of Normal and Theological
departments, that were maintained as long as
there was any real need for them; the former
until the fall of 1907, the last year under
territorial rule preceding the establishment
of county normal institutes; and the latter
in 1910, when the last licentiate was
ordained to the full work of the gospel
ministry.
Visit Of Mrs. V. P.
Boggs, Secretary
The late Mrs. V. P. Boggs, secretary of the
Women's Department of the Freedmen's Board
was a welcome visitor in the fall of 1907.
Her observations were afterwards summarized
in a printed report as follows:
"Since the reopening of Oak Hill Academy in
February 1905 it has had an era of
prosperity that promises permanency. Many
improvements have been made, new buildings
for farm purposes have been erected, much of
the land has been re-fenced and is gradually
being brought under a higher state of
cultivation, and there is a general
improvement in the appearance of the entire
premises that reflects credit on the
management, as well as upon the boys who do
the work. The literary work progresses under
well trained teachers, and a normal
department has been added that teachers may
be better fitted to supply the schools,
which it is hoped will be maintained in the
south part of the Territory. The home
department is managed, to the comfort and
happiness of all by the wife of the
superintendent, who 'looketh well to the
ways of her household.' The matron's duties,
which include the general management of all
matters relating to the work in the Girls'
Hall, including the sewing, laundry and
kitchen departments, are performed with
conscientiousness and enthusiasm. A former
graduate student is rendering very efficient
service in the cooking department."
"The property of the Board, farm and
buildings, is the most attractive and
prosperous in appearance in that region. The
location is beautiful, the buildings good
for that section are well painted, the
ground well fenced and in good order. Some
good farm buildings have been erected by the
students and they have painted other large
buildings in a very workmanlike manner.
Considerable land has been redeemed from a
state of wildness. Thrift and order are
apparent everywhere indoors and out."-V. P.
Boggs. Secretary Woman's Department."
Succession Of
Helpers
The succession of helpers during the eight
years, 1905 to 1912, inclusive, when Rev. R.
E. Flickinger was Superintendent, was as
follows:
Assistant Superintendent: Mrs. Mary
A. Flickinger, Feb. 1, 1905, to Aug. 1,
1909.
Principals: Miss Bertha L. Ahrens,
Feb. 1, 1905,-Feb. 1, 1911, having been
previously custodian of the premises from
Aug. 1, 1904; Mrs. W. H. Carroll, Feb. 1, to
May 27, 1911; Rev. W. H. Carroll, Oct. 1,
1911, to June 13, 1912.
Matrons: Adelia M. Eaton, Feb. 1,
1905, to June 5, 1908; Mrs. John Claypool,
1908-09; Mary I. Weimer, 1909-1911; Jo Lu
Wolcott, Feb. 27 to June 13, 1912.
Assistant Teachers: Carrie E. Crowe,
Oct. 1, 1905 to Jan. 31, 1906; Mrs. Sarah L.
Wallace, Feb. 1 to Mar. 31, 1906; Mary A.
Donaldson, April 1 to May 31, 1906; Rev. W.
H. Carroll, Oct. 28, 1907, to May 28, 1908,
and Oct. 25, 1909, to Apr. 28, 1910; Samuel
A. Folsom, Oct. 26, 1908, to May 28, 1909;
Solomon H. Buchanan, Nov. 15, 1910, to 1911;
Mrs. W. H. Carroll, Oct. 16, 1911, to June
13, 1912.
Assistants in the Cooking Department and
Sewing Room: Malinda A. Hall, Feb. 1,
1905, to June 30, 1909, and Nov. 15, 1910,
to June 15, 1911; Mrs. Virginia Wofford,
1909; Ruby Moore and Ruby Peete, 1909 to
1910; Lucretia C. Brown, 1911 to 1912; Ora
Perry, 1912.
Pianist and Librarian: Solomon H.
Buchanan, 1905-1912, except 1909.
Foremen, Carpenters: Samuel A. Folsom
and Edward Hollingsworth in 1910.
Whilst the great need of the colored people
in the South is the opportunity for
intellectual, manual, moral and religious
training, to all of which they are readily
responsive and make encouraging improvement,
it remains a fact, that the material
development of the southern states depends
in a great measure upon the general
education and intelligence of the colored
people; and that a manifestation of
prejudice against their general education
through public or mission schools is sinful,
impolitic and unpatriotic.
It is only a few years since the report was
made that in Florida 64.5 per cent, in South
Carolina, 69.5, and in Louisiana, 76.4 per
cent of the children of school age were
un-provided for with school privileges.
Mrs. Mary A. Flickinger
Mrs. John Claypool
Bertha L. Ahrens
Adelia M. Eaton
Robert Elliott Flickinger
Under favorable conditions it is a
delightful work to supply a need for which
there is so great and urgent a demand, and
such manifest appreciation, and, that means
so much in promoting the intelligence and
thereby increasing the happiness and
prosperity of so many of the common people,
whose general education tends to make our
nation greater.
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includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
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Choctaw Freedmen and Oak Hill Industrial
Academy, 1914, Robert Elliott Flickinger
