In the realm of business the Negro woman has stood side by side with her husband in the rise to higher things. In almost every instance in which a man has prospered, investigation will show that his advance was very largely due to the faith, the patience, and the untiring effort of his wife. Dr. B. T. Washington, in his book The Negro in Business, gave several examples. One of the outstanding instances was in the story of Junius G. Groves, famous potato grower of Edwardsville, Kansas. This man moved from his original home in Kentucky to Kansas at the time of the well-known “Exodus” of 1879, a migration movement which was even more voluntary on the part of the Negro than the recent removal to the North on the part of so many, this latter movement being in so many ways a result of war conditions. Mr. Groves in course of time became a man of large responsibilities and means. It is most interesting, however, to go back to his early days of struggle. We read as follows: “Soon after getting the crop planted Mr. Groves decided to marry. When he reached this decision he had but seventy-five cents in cash, and had to borrow enough to satisfy the demands of the law. But he knew well the worth and common sense of the woman he was to marry. She was as poor in worldly goods as himself; but their poverty did not discourage them in their plans. During the whole season they worked with never-tiring energy, early and late; with the result that when the crop had been harvested and all debts paid they had cleared $125. Notwithstanding their lack of many necessaries of life, to say nothing of comforts, they decided to invest $50 of their earnings in a lot in Kansas City, Kansas. They paid $25 for a milk cow, and kept the remaining $50 to be used in the making of another crop.” In the course of a few years Mr. Groves, with the help of his wife, now the mother of a large family, gathered in one year hundreds of thousands of bushels of white potatoes, surpassing all other growers in the world. Similarly was the success of E. C. Berry, a hotel-keeper of Athens, Ohio, due to his wife. “At night, after his guests had fallen asleep, it was his custom to go around and gather up their clothes and take them to his wife, who would add buttons which were lacking, repair rents, and press the garments, after which Mr. Berry would replace them in the guests' rooms. Guests who had received such treatment returned again and brought their friends with them.” In course of time Mr. and Mrs. Berry came to own the leading hotel in Athens, one of fifty rooms and of special favor with commercial travelers.

Such examples could be multiplied indefinitely. It is not only in such spheres that the worth of the Negro woman has been shown, however. Daily, in thousands of homes, in little stores and on humble farms, effort just as heroic has been exerted, though the result is not always so evident. On their own initiative also women are now engaging in large enterprises. The most conspicuous example of material success is undoubtedly Mme. C. J. Walker, of the Mme. C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company, of Indianapolis and New York, a business that is now conducted on a large scale and in accordance with the best business methods of America. Important also in this connection is the very great contribution that Negro women—very often those without education and opportunity—are making in the ordinary industrial life of the country. According to the census of 1910, 1,047,146, or 52 per cent. of those at work, were either farmers or farm laborers, and 28 per cent. more were either cooks or washerwomen. In other words, a total of exactly 80 per cent. were doing some of the hardest and at the same time some of the most necessary work in our home and industrial life. These are workers whose worth has never been fully appreciated by the larger public, and who needed the heavy demands of the great war to call attention to the actual value of the service they were rendering.

The changes in fact brought about within the last few years, largely as a result of war conditions, are remarkable. As Mary E. Jackson, writing in the Crisis, has said: “Indiana reports [Negro women] in glass works; in Ohio they are found on the night shifts of glass works; they have gone into the pottery works in Virginia; wood-working plants and lumber yards have called for their help in Tennessee.” She also quotes Rachel S. Gallagher, of Cleveland, Ohio, as saying of the Negro women in that city: “We find them on power sewing-machines, making caps, waists, bags, and mops; we find them doing pressing and various hand operations in these same shops. They are employed in knitting factories as winders, in a number of laundries on mangles of every type, and in sorting and marking. They are in paper box factories doing both hand and machine work, in button factories on the button machines, in packing houses packing meat, in railroad yards wiping and cleaning engines, and doing sorting in railroad shops. One of our workers recently found two colored girls on a knotting machine in a bed spring factory, putting the knots in the wire springs.”

In the professions, such as medicine and law, and in scholarship as well, the Negro woman has blazed a path. One year after Oberlin College in Ohio was founded in 1833, thirty years before the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the trustees took the advanced ground of admitting Negro men and women on equal terms with other students. Of the Northern colleges and universities Oberlin still leads in the number of its Negro women graduates, but in recent years other such institutions as Radcliffe, Wellesley, Columbia, and Chicago have been represented in an increasing number by those who have finished their work creditably and even with distinction in many instances. More and more each year are young women at these institutions going forward to the attainment of the higher scholastic degrees. In connection with medicine we recall the work in the war of the Negro woman in the related profession of nursing. It was only after considerable discussion that she was given a genuine opportunity in Red Cross work, but she at once vindicated herself. In the legal profession she has not only been admitted to practice in various places, but has also been appointed to public office. It must be understood that such positions as those just remarked are not secured without a struggle, but all told they indicate that the race through its womanhood is more and more taking part in the general life of the country.

In keeping with the romantic quality of the race it was but natural that from the first there should have been special effort at self-expression in literature, music, and other forms of art. The first Negro woman to strike the public imagination was Phillis Wheatley, who even as a young girl wrote acceptable verse. Her Poems on Various Subjects published in 1773 at once attracted attention, and it was fitting that the first Negro woman to become distinguished in America should be one of outstanding piety and nobility of soul. Just a few years before the Civil War Frances Ellen Watkins, better known as Mrs. F. E. W. Harper, entered upon her career as a writer of popular poetry. At the present time attention centers especially upon Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson, who early in 1918 produced in The Heart of a Woman a little volume of delicate and poignantly beautiful verse, and from whom greater and greater things are expected, as she not only has the temperament of an artist but has also undergone a period of severe training in her chosen field. In the wider field of prose—including especially stories, essays, and sketches—Mrs. Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson is prominent. In 1899 she produced The Goodness of St. Rocque, and other stories, and since then has continued her good work in various ways. The whole field of literature is a wide one, one naturally appealing to many of the younger women, and one that with all its difficulties and lack of financial return does offer some genuine reward to the candidate who is willing to work hard and who does not seek a short cut to fame.

In music the race has produced more women of distinction than in any other field. This was natural, for the Negro voice is world famous. The pity is that all too frequently some of the most capable young women have not had the means to cultivate their talents and hence have fallen by the wayside. Some day it is to be hoped that a great philanthropist will endow a real conservatory at which such persons may find some genuine opportunity and encouragement in their development in their days of struggle. In spite of all the difficulties, however, there have been singers who have risen to very high things in their art. Even before the Civil War the race produced one of the first rank in Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, who came into prominence in 1851. This artist, born in Mississippi, was taken to Philadelphia and there cared for by a Quaker lady. The young woman did not soon reveal her gift to her friend, thinking that it might be frowned upon as something too worldly. Her guardian learned of it by accident, however, and one day surprised her by asking, “Elizabeth, is it true that thee can sing?” “Yes,” replied the young woman in confusion. “Let me hear thee.” And Elizabeth sang; and her friend, realizing that she had a voice of the first quality, proceeded to give her the best instruction that it was possible to get. Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield had a marvelous voice embracing twenty-seven notes, reaching from the sonorous bass of a baritone to the highest soprano. A voice with a range of more than three octaves naturally attracted much attention in both England and America, and comparisons with Jenny Lind, then at the height of her great fame, were frequent. In the next generation arose Madame Selika, a cultured singer of the first rank, and one who by her arias and operatic work generally, as well as by her mastery of language, won great success on the continent of Europe as well as in England and America. The careers of some later singers are so recent as to be still fresh in the public memory; some in fact may still be heard. It was in 1887 that Flora Batson entered on the period of her greatest success. She was a ballad singer and her work at its best was of the sort that sends an audience into the wildest enthusiasm. In a series of temperance meetings in New York she sang for ninety consecutive nights, with never-failing effect, one song, “Six Feet of Earth Make Us All One Size.” Her voice exhibited a compass of three octaves, but even more important than its range was its remarkable sympathetic quality. Early in the last decade of the century appeared also Mrs. Sissieretta Jones, whose voice at once commanded attention as one of unusual richness and volume, and as one exhibiting especially the plaintive quality ever present in the typical Negro voice.

At the present time there are several promising singers; and there are also those who in various ways are working for the general advancement of the race in music. Mrs. E. Azalia Hackley, for some years prominent as a concert soprano, has recently given her time most largely to the work of teaching and showing the capabilities of the Negro voice. Possessed of a splendid musical temperament, she has enjoyed the benefit of three years of foreign study and generally inspired many younger singers or performers. Prominent among many excellent pianists is Mrs. Hazel Harrison Anderson, who also has studied much abroad and who has appeared in many noteworthy recitals. Mrs. Maud Cuney Hare, of Boston, a concert pianist, has within the last few years given several excellent lecture-recitals dealing with Afro-American music.

As between painting and sculpture the women of the race have shown a decided preference for sculpture. While there are some students of promise, no woman has as yet achieved distinction on work of really professional quality in the realm of painting. On the other hand there have been three or four sculptors of genuine merit. As early as 1865 Edmonia Lewis began to attract attention by her busts of prominent people. Within the last few years the work of Mrs. May Howard Jackson, of Washington, has attracted the attention of the discerning; and that of Mrs. Meta Warrick Fuller is reserved for special comment.

Any such review as this naturally has its limitations. We can indicate only a few of the outstanding individuals here and there. At least enough has been said, however, to show that the Negro woman is making her way at last into every phase of noble endeavor. In the pages that follow we shall attempt to set forth at somewhat greater length the life and work of a few of those whose achievement has been most signal and whose interest in their sisters has been unfailing.

When Harriet was not more than six years old she was taken away from her mother and sent ten miles away to learn the trade of weaving. Among other things she was set to the task of watching muskrat traps, which work compelled her to wade much in water. Once she was forced to work when she was already ill with the measles. She became very sick, and her mother now persuaded her master to let the girl come home for a while.

Soon after Harriet entered her teens she suffered a misfortune that embarrassed her all the rest of her life. She had been hired out as a field hand. It was the fall of the year and the slaves were busy at such tasks as husking corn and cleaning up wheat. One of them ran away. He was found. The overseer swore that he should be whipped and called on Harriet and some others that happened to be near to help tie him. She refused, and as the slave made his escape she placed herself in a door to help to stop pursuit of him. The overseer caught up a two-pound weight and threw it at the fugitive; but it missed its mark and struck Harriet a blow on the head that was almost fatal. Her skull was broken and from this resulted a pressure on her brain which all her life left her subject to fits of somnolency. Sometimes these would come upon her in the midst of a conversation or any task at which she might be engaged; then after a while the spell would pass and she could go on as before.

After Harriet recovered sufficiently from her blow she lived for five or six years in the home of one John Stewart, working at first in the house but afterwards hiring her time. She performed the most arduous labor in order to get the fifty or sixty dollars ordinarily exacted of a woman in her situation. She drove oxen, plowed, cut wood, and did many other such things. With her firm belief in Providence, in her later years she referred to this work as a blessing in disguise as it gave her the firm constitution necessary for the trials and hardships that were before her. Sometimes she worked for her father, who was a timber inspector and superintended the cutting and hauling of large quantities of timber for the Baltimore ship-yards. Her regular task in this employment was the cutting of half a cord of wood a day.

About 1844 Harriet was married to a free man named John Tubman. She had no children. Two years after her escape in 1849 she traveled back to Maryland for her husband, only to find him married to another woman and no longer caring to live with her. She felt the blow keenly, but did not despair and more and more gave her thought to what was to be the great work of her life.

It was not long after her marriage that Harriet began seriously to consider the matter of escape from bondage. Already in her mind her people were the Israelites in the land of Egypt, and far off in the North somewhere was the land of Canaan. In 1849 the master of her plantation died, and word passed around that at any moment she and two of her brothers were to be sold to the far South. Harriet, now twenty-four years old, resolved to put her long cherished dreams into effect. She held a consultation with her brothers and they decided to start with her at once, that very night, for the North. She could not go away, however, without giving some intimation of her purpose to the friends she was leaving behind. As it was not advisable for slaves to be seen too much talking together, she went among her old associates singing as follows:

It is in this state of Massachusetts, so rich in its tradition, that there resides the subject of the present sketch. About half-way between Boston and Worcester, in the quiet, homelike town of Framingham, on a winding road just off the main street, lives Meta Warrick Fuller, the foremost sculptor of the Negro race.

There are three little boys in the family. They keep their mother very busy; but they also make her very happy. Buttons have to be sewed on and dinners have to be prepared for the children of an artist just as well as for those of other people; and help is not always easy to get. But the father, Dr. S. C. Fuller, a distinguished physician, is also interested in the boys, so that he too helps, and the home is a happy one.

At the top of the house is a long roomy attic. This is an improvised studio—or, as the sculptor would doubtless say, the workshop. Hither, from the busy work of the morning, comes the artist for an hour or half an hour of modeling—for rest, and for the first effort to transfer to the plastic clay some fleeting transient dream.

Meta Warrick Fuller was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 9, 1877. For four years she attended the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art, and it was at this institution that she first began to force serious recognition of her talent. Before very long she began to be known as a sculptor of the horrible, one of her first original pieces being a head of Medusa, with a hanging jaw, beads of gore, and eyes starting from their sockets. At her graduation in 1898 she won a prize for metal work by a crucifix upon which hung the figure of Christ in agony, and she also won honorable mention for her work in modeling. In a post-graduate year she won a much coveted prize in modeling. In 1899 Meta Warrick (then best known by her full name, Meta Vaux Warrick) went to Paris, where she worked and studied three years. Her work brought her in contact with many other artists, among them Augustus St. Gaudens, the sculptor of the Robert Gould Shaw Monument at the head of Boston Common. Then there came a day when by appointment the young woman went to see Auguste Rodin, who after years of struggle and dispraise had finally won recognition as the foremost sculptor in France if not in the world. The great man glanced one after another at the pieces that were presented to him, without very evident interest. At length, thrilled by the figure in “Silent Sorrow,” sometimes referred to as “Man Eating His Heart Out,” Rodin beamed upon the young woman and said, “Mademoiselle, you are a sculptor; you have the sense of form.” With encouragement from such a source the young artist worked with renewed vigor, looking forward to the time when something that she had produced should win a place in the Salon, the great national gallery in Paris. “The Wretched,” one of the artist's masterpieces, was exhibited here in 1903, and along with it went “The Impenitent Thief.” This latter production was demolished in 1904, after meeting with various unhappy accidents. In the form as presented, however, the thief, heroic in size, hung on the cross torn by anguish. Hardened, unsympathetic, and even defiant, he still possessed some admirable qualities of strength, and he has remained one of the sculptor's most powerful conceptions. In “The Wretched” seven figures greet the eye. Each represents a different form of human anguish. An old man, worn by hunger and disease, waits for death. A mother yearns for the loved ones she has lost. A man bowed by shame fears to look upon his fellow-creatures. A sick child suffers from some hereditary taint. A youth is in despair, and a woman is crazed by sorrow. Over all is the Philosopher who suffers perhaps more keenly than the others as he views the misery around them, and who, powerless to relieve it, also sinks into despair.

Other early productions were similarly characterized by a strongly romantic quality. “Silent Sorrow” has already been remarked in passing. In this a man, worn and gaunt and in despair, is represented as leaning over and actually eating out his own heart. “Man Carrying Dead Body” is in similar vein. The sculptor is moved by the thought of one who will be spurred on by the impulse of duty to the performance of some task not only unpleasant but even loathsome. She shows a man bearing across his shoulder the body of a comrade that has evidently lain on the battlefield for days. The thing is horrible, and the man totters under the great weight; but he forces his way onward until he can give it decent burial. Another early production was based on the ancient Greek story of Oedipus. This story was somewhat as follows: Oedipus was the son of Laius and Jocasta, king and queen of Thebes. At his birth an oracle foretold that the father Laius would be killed by his son. The child was sent away to be killed by exposure, but in course of time was saved and afterwards adopted by the King of Corinth. When be was grown, being warned by an oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother, he left home. On his journey he met Laius and slew him in the course of an altercation. Later, by solving the riddle of the sphinx, he freed Thebes from distress, was made king of the city, and married Jocasta. Eventually the terrible truth of the relationship became known to all. Jocasta hanged herself and Oedipus tore out his eyes. The sculptor portrays the hero of the old legend at the very moment that he is thus trying to punish himself for his crime. There is nothing delicate or pretty about all such work as this. It is grewsome in fact, and horrible; but it is also strong and intense and vital. Its merit was at once recognized by the French, and it gave Meta Warrick a recognized place among the sculptors of America.

On her return to America the artist resumed her studies at the School of Industrial Art, winning in 1904 the Battles first prize for pottery. In 1907 she produced a series of tableaux representing the advance of the Negro for the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition, and in 1913 a group for the New York State Emancipation Proclamation Commission. In 1909 she became the wife of Dr. Solomon C. Fuller, of Framingham, Massachusetts. A fire in 1910 unfortunately destroyed some of her most valuable pieces while they were in storage in Philadelphia. Only a few examples of her early work, that happened to be elsewhere, were saved. The artist was undaunted, however, and by May, 1914, she had sufficiently recovered from the blow to be able to hold at her home a public exhibition of her work.

After this fire a new note crept into the work of Meta Warrick Fuller. This was doubtless due not so much to the fire itself as to the larger conception of life that now came to the sculptor with the new duties of marriage and motherhood. From this time forth it was not so much the romantic as the social note that was emphasized. Representative of the new influence was the second model of the group for the Emancipation Proclamation Commission. A recently emancipated Negro youth and maiden stand beneath a gnarled, decapitated tree that has what looks almost like a human hand stretched over them. Humanity is pushing them forth into the world while at the same time the hand of Destiny is restraining them in the full exercise of their freedom. “Immigrant in America” is in somewhat similar vein. An American woman, the mother of one strong healthy child, is shown welcoming to the land of plenty the foreigner, the mother of several poorly nourished children. Closely related in subject is the smaller piece, “The Silent Appeal,” in which a mother capable of producing and caring for three sturdy children is shown as making a quiet demand for the suffrage and for any other privileges to which a human being is entitled. All of these productions are clear cut, straightforward, and dignified.

In May, 1917, Meta Warrick Fuller took second prize in a competition under the auspices of the Massachusetts Branch of the Woman's Peace Party, her subject being “Peace Halting the Ruthlessness of War.” War is personified as on a mighty steed and trampling to death numberless human beings. In one hand he holds a spear on which he has transfixed the head of one of his victims. As he goes on his masterful career Peace meets him and commands him to cease his ravages. The work as exhibited was in gray-green wax and was a production of most unusual spirit.

Among other prominent titles are “Watching for Dawn,” a conception of remarkable beauty and yearning, and “Mother and Child.” An early production somewhat detached from other pieces is a head of John the Baptist. This is one of the most haunting creations of Mrs. Fuller. In it she was especially successful in the infinite yearning and pathos that she somehow managed to give to the eyes of the seer. It bears the unmistakable stamp of power.

In this whole review of this sculptor's work we have indicated only the chief titles. She is an indefatigable worker and has produced numerous smaller pieces, many of these being naturally for commercial purposes. As has been remarked, while her work was at first romantic and often even horrible, in recent years she has been interested rather in social themes. There are those, however, who hope that she will not utterly forsake the field in which she first became distinguished. Through the sternness of her early work speaks the very tragedy of the Negro race. In any case it is pleasant to record that the foremost sculptor of the race is not only an artist of rank but also a woman who knows and appreciates in the highest possible manner the virtues and the beauties of the home.

Of such quality is the work that has been built up; and all has been accomplished through the remarkable personality of the woman who is the head and the soul of every effort. Indomitable courage, boundless energy, fine tact and a sense of the fitness of things, kindly spirit, and firm faith in God have deservedly given her success. Beyond the bounds of her immediate institution her influence extends. About the year 1912 the trustees felt the need of so extending the work as to make the school something of a community center; and thus arose the McLeod Hospital and Training School for Nurses. In 1912, moved by the utter neglect of the children of the turpentine camp at Tomoka, Mrs. Bethune started work for them in a little house that she secured. The aim was to teach the children to be clean and truthful and helpful, to sew and to sweep and to sing. A short school term was started among them, and the mission serves as an excellent practice school for the girls of the senior class in the Training School. A summer school and a playground have also been started for the children in Daytona. Nor have the boys and young men been neglected. Here was a problem of unusual difficulty. Any one who has looked into the inner life of the small towns of Florida could not fail to be impressed by the situation of the boys and young men. Hotel life, a shifting tourist population, and a climate of unusual seductiveness, have all left their impress. On every side to the young man beckons temptation, and in town after town one finds not one decent recreation center or uplifting social influence. Pool-rooms abound, and the young man is blamed for entering forbidden paths; but all too often the Christian men and women of the community have put forth no definite organized effort for his uplift. All too often there results a blasted life—a heartache for a mother, or a ruined home for some young woman. In Daytona, in 1913, on a lot near the school campus, one of the trustees, Mr. George S. Doane, erected a neat, commodious building to be used in connection with the extension work of the institution as a general reading-room and home for the Young Men's Christian Association; and this is the only specific work so being done for Negro boys in this section of the state. A debating club, an athletic club, lecture club, and prayer-meetings all serve as means toward the physical, intellectual, and spiritual development of the young men. A “Better Boys Movement” is also making progress and the younger boys are becoming interested in canning and farming as well as being cared for in their sports and games.

No sketch of this woman's work should close without mention of her activities for the nation at large. Red Cross work or a Liberty Loan drive has alike called forth her interest and her energy. She has appeared on some great occasions and before distinguished audiences, such as that for instance in the Belasco Theatre in Washington in December, 1917, when on a noteworthy patriotic occasion she was the only representative of her race to speak.

Her girls have gone into many spheres of life and have regularly made themselves useful and desirable. Nearly two hundred are now annually enrolled at the school. The demand for them as teachers, seam-stresses, or cooks far exceeds the supply. In great homes and humble, in country or in town, in Daytona or elsewhere—North, South, East, West—they remember the motto of their teacher and of the Master of all, “Not to be ministered unto but to minister;” and year after year they accomplish better and better things for the school that they love so well and through it for the Kingdom of God.

Mary Church was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the daughter of Robert R. and Louisa Ayres Church. When she was yet very young her parents sent her to Ohio to be educated, and here she remained until she was graduated from the classical course in 1884. Then for two years she taught at Wilberforce University in Ohio, and for one year more in a high school in Washington. Desirous of broadening her attainments, however, she now went to Europe for a period of study and travel. She remained two years, spending the time in France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, generally improving herself in language. On her return she resumed her work in Washington, and she was offered the registrarship at Oberlin College, a distinct compliment coming as it did from an institution of such high standing. She declined the attractive position, however, because of her approaching marriage to Robert H. Terrell, a graduate of Harvard College and formerly principal of a high school in Washington, who was appointed to a judgeship in the District of Columbia by President Roosevelt.

Since her marriage Mrs. Terrell has written much on topics of general interest and from time to time has formally appeared as a public lecturer. One of her strongest articles was that on Lynching in the North American Review for June, 1904. The centenary of the birth of Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1912 found her unusually well posted on the life and work of the novelist, so that after she lectured many times on the subject she brought together the results of her study in an excellent pamphlet. She was the first president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, was twice re-elected, and, declining to serve further, was made honorary president for life. She was chosen as one of the speakers at the International Congress of Women held in Berlin in June, 1904. Said the Washington Post of her performance on this occasion: “The hit of the Congress on the part of the American delegates was made by Mrs. Mary Church Terrell of Washington, who delivered one speech in German and another in equally good French. Mrs. Terrell is a colored woman who appears to have been beyond every other of our delegates prominent for her ability to make addresses in other than her own language.” In a letter to some of the largest newspapers in the country Mrs. Ida Husted Harper said further: “This achievement on the part of a colored woman, added to a fine appearance and the eloquence of her words, carried the audience by storm and she had to respond three times to the encores before they were satisfied. It was more than a personal triumph; it was a triumph for her race.”

Mrs. Terrell has ever exhibited an intense interest in public affairs. On the occasion of the discharge of the Negro soldiers in Brownsville, Texas, in 1906, she at once comprehended the tremendous issues involved and by her interviews with men high in the nation's life did much for the improvement of a bad situation. When, some years ago, Congress by resolution granted power to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia to appoint two women upon the Board of Education for the public schools, Mrs. Terrell was one of the women appointed. She served on the Board for five years with signal ability and unusual success, and on the occasion of her resignation in 1912 was given a magnificent testimonial by her fellow-citizens.

It would be difficult to record all the different things that Mary Church Terrell has done or the numerous ways in which she has turned sentiment on the race problem. In recent years she has been drawn more and more to her own home. She is in constant demand as a speaker, however, and one or two experiences or incidents must not pass unremarked. In 1906 she was invited by Prof. Jeremiah W. Jenks to come to Cornell University to deliver her address on the Bright Side of the Race Problem. She was introduced by Prof. F. A. Fetter of the Department of Economics. When she had finished her lecture she was greeted by deafening applause, and then she was surrounded by an eager crowd desirous of receiving an introduction. One enthusiastic woman exclaimed, as she warmly shook the speaker's hand, “I was so glad to hear you say something about the bright side, and—do you know?—every Southern faculty woman was here.” A little later she was the guest of honor at a reception in the home of Ex-Ambassador Andrew D. White, the first president of Cornell University.

Just what Mary Church Terrell means as an inspiration to the young women of the Negro race one might have seen some years ago if he could have been present at Spelman Seminary on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of this the largest school for Negro girls in the world. She was preceded on the program by one or two prominent speakers who tried to take a broad view of the race problem but who were plainly baffled when they came face to face with Southern prejudice. When Mrs. Terrell rose to speak the air was tense with eagerness and anxiety. How she acquitted herself on this occasion, how eloquently she plead, and how nimbly and delicately she met her opponents' arguments, will never be forgotten by any one who was privileged to hear her.

The compliments that have been paid to the eloquence, the grace, the culture, the tact, and the poise of this woman are endless. She exhibits exceptional attainments either on or off the platform. Her words bristle with earnestness and energy, quickly captivating an audience or holding the closest attention in conversation. Her gestures are frequent, but always in sympathetic harmony. Her face is inclined to be sad in repose, but lights quickly and effectively to the soul of whatever subject she touches. Her voice is singularly clear and free from harsh notes. She exhibits no apparent effort in speaking, and at once impresses an audience by her ease, her courage, and her self-abnegation. Through all her work moreover constantly thrills her great hope for the young men and women of her race, so many of whom she has personally inspired.

Such a woman is an asset to her country and an honor to the race to which she belongs.