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I not only taught school in the day, but for a great portion of the time taught night school. In addition to this I had two Sunday schools, one at a place called Snow Hill, about two miles from Malden, in the morning, and another in Malden in the afternoon. The average attendance in my day school, was I think, between 80 and 90. As I had no assistant teacher it was a very difficult task to keep all the pupils interested and to see that they made progress in their studies. I had few unpleasant experiences, however, in connection with my teaching. Most of the parents, notwithstanding the fact that they and many of the children knew me as a boy, seemed to have the greatest confidence in me and respect for me and did everything in their power to make the work pleasant and agreeable.

One thing that gave me a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure in teaching this school was the conducting of a debating society which met weekly and was largely attended both by the young and older people. It was in this debating society and the societies of a similar character at Hampton that I began to cultivate whatever talent I may have for public speaking. While in Malden, our debating society would very often arrange for debates with other similar organizations in Charleston and elsewhere.