on which the future of the negroes mainly rests--the plantation
negroes. Forming the bulk of the colored population, least tinged with
white blood, they are at once the most ignorant and the most hopeful
class. Within seven miles of Jackson, the State capital, on the
Illinois Central road, easily accessible, not only from Mississippi,
but from large regions of Louisiana and Arkansas, it draws pupils from
a wide area and sends its trained teachers and graduates to a region
still wider. Its location is healthful and one of beauty, and, removed
from town distractions and temptations, it is admirably situated for
efficient work. The school was established in the autumn of 1869, and
the early reports show a surrounding region which in its drunkenness,
fighting and iniquity, is quite in contrast with the present
condition of affairs. Five hundred acres of land were purchased and
with them a fine mansion (page 125), then not many years old, intended
for the finest plantation house of the State and built for a bride who
came not. As the illustration shows, it is a handsome structure--the
only one with any decided architectural pretensions in the place. It
served at first for school rooms and dormitory purposes, and has been
thus used during most of the life of the school. Now it contains the
offices of president and treasurer, the main library--which greatly
needs more books--music rooms, the doctor's office, teachers' rooms,
and the president's home. There are now nine large buildings for
school use, with several smaller ones. The next oldest of the large
buildings is the girls' dormitory, just south of the mansion, where is
the common dining room, with the necessary kitchen, laundry and bake
house appliances, and dormitory room for several teachers and eighty
to ninety girls.

[Illustration: BALLARD HALL.]