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ACADEMIES AND SCHOOLS 
and aftewards suffered by drought. Still I think there will be more 
corn than there was last year. 
Yours, very truly, 
C. H. WILSON, 
Squperintendent. 
Col. D. H. CooPER, 
Agent for Choctaws and Chickasaws. 
No. 66. 
CHICKASAW, M. L. ACADEMY, August 20, 1856. 
DEAR SiR: It is with pleasure I comply with my duty in reporting 
to you, at the close of another school year, the general condition of 
the Chickasaw Manual Labor Academy. 
I feel truly favored by Divine Goodness in being able to record 
another year of prosperity. We have enjoyed unusual, good health, 
nor has the darkness of death been permitted during that time to 
enter our abode. Peace and quietness, without interruption, have 
reigned in our midst. 
Our number of scholars by specification is one hundred; the gen- 
eral average .attendance about ninety. As in years past, they have 
gone steadily onward in improvement, evincing a strong desire for 
progress in all the different departments of knowledge and duty. 
Their improvement in feeling and general deportment was no lesa 
marked than in their studies. Many of them are decidedly religious, 
Some twenty-two have united with the church, and have given such 
evidence of their stability of religious character that they have beeji 
received into full membeiship. 
In addition to prayer and other social meetings, in which many of 
them take an active part, they hold similar ones by themselves, and 
conduct them with propriety; much of their spare time is spent in 
singing the songs of Zion, in which they take great delight. The 
studies yet pursued are those of an English education. The more 
advanced classes havea good knowledge of English grammar, arith- 
metic, and geography, being also thoroughly trained in preparatory 
studies ; and one class has advanced in algebra as far as through 
simple equations of the first degree with one unknown quantity; in 
all of which they were fully examined in the presence of the trustees, 
our presiding elder, (Rev. W. S. McAlister,) and a large concourse of 
their people, and others, all of whom expressed their surprise and 
approbation. These results are greatly to be attributed to the unre- 
mitting toil and attention of our ever-faithful teachers, MT. S. W. 
Dunn, Rev. Win. Jones, and Miss Ellen Steele, and also other assist- 
ants, Mr. E. E. Jones, Miss S. Hughes, and Miss S. Sorrels. 
We have had another year of drought, which, added to the destruction 
by the grasshoppers, with which we were beset in countless swarma 
last fall, winter, and spring, has given us a very short crop. Garden 
vegetables, oats, and potatoes of both kinds, have proved an entire 
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