85 was excellent.214 Although most of the instruction was on the secon- dary and normal levels, not the collegiate level,215 the quality of that instruction, judged by one former student, was perhaps better than at public high schools, because the college—level professors taught the high school courses.216

At this point in its life, the school underwent a major re- organization, becoming a college for Negro girls and assuming the name Bennett College for Women. The background for this change lay in an extensive study by the Board of Education and the Woman‘s Home Mission- ary Society of the effectiveness and scope of Negro education in the South. One conclusion drawn from the study was that a college for Ne- gro women, preparing them for service in homes, churches, and commu- nities while maintaining strict standards of scholarship, was greatly needed. With this in mind, the Board of Education and the Woman's Home Missionary Society decided to re—organize Bennett College into a school of this type. Thus, in the summer of l926, Bennett College for Women under the leadership of its new president, Dro David D. Jones, began an entirely new era.217 Dr. Jones, his successor, Dro Willa B. Player, and

the current president, Dr. Isaac H. Miller, Jr,, have led the school to

its present high standing among colleges of the state and of the nation.

2141bid., and Miss Brown,

ZISSee statistics associated with footnotes l86~l92, above.

2'6Mr. Siler.

2”Bennett College for Women, Circular of Information, l926, p. 3; and Bennett College for Women, A Beacon for Womanhood: The Bennett Bulletin, XI [l935j, unnumbered page.