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146 THE COLORED AMERICAN MAGAZINE

better. But when a character is a distorted tumbled-down thing, it lives until death, in mercy, removes it from the earth, and even then it leaves its influence. A bad character though forgotten in death leaves a scar upon society, just as a cut, though healed, leaves a scar on the body.

FATHER do you know what your boys are doing? What their ambitions are, whether high and noble, or ignoble? Do you try to mould their activities along good lines of development? Will they carry on your good plans or ruin them and disgrace your name when you are dead- or possibly before? Have they received lessons from your examples, in honest dealings and truthful speaking? 

MOTHERS, how about your daughters? Are they going to be noble women, capable of being mothers of such men as Luther, Knox, Wesley, Lincoln, or McKinley and thousands of other who have made history?

We realize that it is sometimes impossible owing to heredity and our ignorance of child training to start a character aright. It may happen that other influences spoil our plans. It some times happens that a boy or girl will spoil a good character in after life but this is rare when a child is started right. Some children are of such poor stuff that nothing noble can be made out of their character. But the responsibility rests upon every parent and guardian to do the best possible and thus free themselves from all blame in the future.

Be neither an optimist, nor a pessimist, for it has been truly said that the optimist says, "Do nothing because there is nothing to do"; the pessimist says "Do nothing because nothing can be done," while the ameliorist says "Do something because there is much to do"; and it can be done.

We should thank GOD for the mother and the father whose good influence remain with their children and children's children, as a sacred benediction. 

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PREPARATION

THE little bird sits in the nest and sings
A shy, soft song to the morning light;
And it flutters a little and prunes its wings.
The song is halting and poor and brief,
And the fluttering wings scarce stir a leaf;
But the note is a prelude to sweeter things,
And the busy bill and the flutter slight
Are proving the wings for a bolder flight!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar

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THE GEORGIA STATE INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE
BY S. A. Grant, CLASS OF 1900

AMONG the many agencies and institutions of the South designed and established for the intellectual and industrial development of the Negro, the Georgia State Industrial College stands pre-eminent.

Happily situated as it were in the heart of the Sunny South and easy of access to hundreds of Negro boys and girls of school age, the school enjoys an advantage of location which is peculiarly its own.

As the name implies, the Georgia State Industrial College is a State institution and the result of an enactment made by the Georgia Legislature in the year 1890. This enactment provided for the establishment in connection with the State University and forming one of the departments thereof, a school for the education and training of colored students. 

As a part of the State University, it was agreed that the control and management of the school for colored youth would be under the general supervision of the Board of Trustees of the University of Georgia and that its direct control and supervision would be vested in a local board appointed by the Governor and styled the Commission of the School for Colored Students.

In the summer of 1891 from June 1 to August 1, by direction of the Commission, the Chancellor of the State University inaugurated in Baxter Street school building at Athens, Ga., a preliminary session of the school. This session was conducted by Dr. R. R. Wright as principal with three other instructors. 

Later the school was given its present name by the Commission and located about five miles southeast of the city of Savannah near the hamlet of Thunderbolt, Ga. 

That the Commission acted wisely in the selection of the present site for the permanent location of the school is attested by the fact that since the establishment of the school little if any sickness has been experienced.

The permanent location of the school having been secured, it began its first regular session on October 7, 1891, with a faculty consisting of a President, Instructor in English, Instructor in Mathematics, Instructor in Natural Science, Superintendent of Mechanical Department, and Foreman of Farm, and with an enrollment of eight students.

It was designed from the beginning that the school should seek on the one hand to give practical education to its boys and girls; to fit them to begin creditably and active business of life; to train boys as carpenters, blacksmiths, bricklayers, painters, etc.; girls as seam-