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10 WILLIAM T. VERNON. Some idea of Professor Vernon's views of negro education may be gained from the following: "We would place the negro boys in a position to do for themselves as does the average white boy. Given a chance they will hold their own; they will demonstrate their own true worth. The true negro boy, if idle, can not hope to equal the white boy when that white boy is busy from the very day that he leaves school until the day of his death. These youths must be intellectually educated to the higher professions, industrially educated to agriculture and the trades, morally educated to know and to do the right. "We do not say that we must all be tradesmen, but we do say that we should be placed above idleness and put into acquisition of wealth, the acquiring of realty holdings, the building up of the sanctified homes. whence comes the bulwark of our people." As a result of Professor Vernon's untiring efforts and the liberal support of the State, Western University has an enrollment to-day of two hundred students from the States west of the Mississippi river, as well as some Eastern and Southern States in attendance. The faculty consists of fourteen members who are graduates of the various institutions over the country. A seven-year college course has been established and the work is offered in the following departments: Theological, classical, normal, sub-normal, musical (vocal and instrumental, also college band), industrial, with courses in mechanical drawing and carpentry, printing, dressmaking, tailoring, business course, short- [[end page]] [[start page]] 11 WILLIAM T. VERNON hand and typewriting, agricultural, cooking and laundering. Professor Vernon is striving to raise the literary standard of the University while developing a great industrial school. The University now owns 130 acres of land valued at $38,000. The valuation of the buildings is $70,000. Dr. Vernon is an orator of rare ability, which power he has put to account. It is well known that his speeches have had the most to do with the building up of his school financially. He has done valuable services for the Republican party in his State and for the National Executive Committee wherever they have sent him. After the last general election, with a land-slide for the Republicans, the Kansas Day Club gave a banquet to which Professor Vernon was invited to speak on the subject: "A Plea for the Suspension of Judgment." Of him the Topeka Capital said: "Topeka has rarely, if ever, heard an orator of such power. Vernon's phraseology runs the gamut of good English. Behind a dream of a lover and which swings full-voiced and melodious from major to minor key with the ease and precision of a swiftly-moving current, he has sincerity of thought and that indefinable something which for want of a better name we call personal magnetism. No Kansas Day speaker in years has received such tremendous ovation at the end of his speech, and no one has held the attention of his audience so closely. Vernon, with the stigma of a colored skin hanging over him, won his spurs fairly last night