adequate practice school for the Normal Depart

ment.

PECK SCHOOL OF DOMESTIC SCIENCE AND ART

Connected with New Orleans College, but under the direct supervision of the Woman's Home Missionary Society, is the Peck School of Domestic Science and Art. This work was really begun independently by Mrs. Hartzell, wife of Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell. Through her influence a mission school for girls was established in 1887, and an Industrial Home was built in 1889 and named in honor of Bishop Jesse T. Peck. After eight years of most effective service the building burned, but the school was maintained in connection with the college. In 1912 the spacious and beautiful new building which now houses the Home was completed. It stands adjoining the college campus, and it makes a most important contribution to the life of the school. A considerable number of girls live at the Home and get the experience and training in home-making which only such residence can give. All of the girls, however, receive the instruction and training in cooking and sewing which is offered at the Home and carried on in its commodious and well-equipped work rooms and class rooms. Many hundreds of garments are produced here. Thus all of the girls get a practical training, according to a graded and well regulated course in cooking and sewing, and those who are minded to specialize in one or both of these branches

are given the opportunity to do so and are granted diplomas upon the successful completion of their training. About fifty girls live in the Home.

STUDENTS

More than five hundred students are enrolled in the various departments of New Orleans College. Most of the boarding students, both in the college dormitories and in Peck Home, are from outside of the city of New Orleans. This group is supplemented by a substantial number of day pupils from the city itself. Most of the girls come from fairly comfortable homes, and their way is paid by parents or by some relative. Many of the boys, however, are obliged to work their way through. They serve as butlers, house boys, yard boys, chauffeurs, and in various other capacities largely in private homes of white people in the city of New Orleans. A regular schedule is arranged for these boys and they work about an hour in the morning before coming to school and about two hours at night after school. The hotels and business places of New Orleans are five miles away down in the city, so that it is not feasible for the students to work in them. In the dormitory there is a regular evening study hour, after which the pupils retire at ten o'clock.

An athletic ground is provided on the campus, and wholesome attention is given to athletic training. The football team from the school held the

State championship for Negro teams in Louisiana in 1920.

THE PRESENT LOCATION

The school is now located on a campus of about three acres, occupying two and a quarter city blocks

out on Saint Charles Avenue, one of the very finest residence streets of the city. A few blocks away stands Tulane University, one of the leading Southern universities for white people. As a matter of fact there is no single residence quarter for Negroes in the city of New Orleans, and they may be found distributed widely in nearly all parts of the city.

The wide boulevard of Saint Charles Avenue, with its magnificent shade trees and its fine residences, provides a beautiful setting for the school. The chief buildings are the main school building, the president's home, and Peck Home. There is also a wooden building devoted to the use of the grade school. The present campus formed part of an old Southern plantation which was said to have been devoted largely to the raising of oranges. The president's house is the old plantation home, probably nearly one hundred years old.

AN INCIDENT

When ground was broken for the new college building on Saint Charles Avenue, one of the speakers was the Rev. Emperor William, a Negro who had been born a slave in 1826. He was a master mason, and in the year 1858 he secured his own freedom. He offered two thousand dollars in gold for the freedom of his wife, who was also a slave, but her owners refused to sell her. Not long after General Butler captured New Orleans and Emperor William got his wife for nothing. He then took his money and purchased a home. He was one of the twelve who shared in the reorganization of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New Orleans in 1866. On the occasion of the breaking of ground for the new college building he was deeply stirred, and when opportunity came for him to speak he lifted his hands to heaven and said among other things:

I

"I wonder if this is the world I was born in! For twenty years I was a slave on these streets. It was a penitentiary offense to educate a Negro. have seen my fellow servants whipped for trying to learn; but, to-day, here I am on this great avenue in this great city with the bishops and elders and people of the Methodist Episcopal Church speaking at the breaking of ground where a building is to be erected for the education of my people. I wonder if this is the world I was born in!"

THE ALUMNI

Few schools of similar sort have more to show for their efforts than has this school at New Orleans. Some of the most useful workers of the church have been trained in it. Bishop Alexander P. Camphor was a graduate of this school; and, after completing his own course, he served for a number of years as a teacher in his Alma Mater. Mrs. Camphor was also trained here, and it was here that she met her future husband. Professor J. W. E. Bowen of Gammon Theological Seminary is a graduate here; also M. S. Davage, president of Rust College, and J. B. Randolph, president of Samuel Huston College. M. C. B. Mason, formerly secretary of the Freedmen's Aid Society, was educated here. David Jones, the brother of Bishop Robert E. Jones, and now general secretary of the Negro Y. M. C. A. in Saint Louis, one of the leading Negro Y. M. C. A. organizations of the country, attended school here and later at Wesleyan University. And the list