Mrs. Delia I. Hayden taught twelve years in the public schools of Southampton to the entire satisfaction of patrons and school officers—the most of the time under my supervision. She was principal of a large graded school in this place. Her executive capacity is of a high order, and she manages a school of a hundred or more pupils with as much dexterity and ease as most teachers with twenty or twenty-five pupils. Her ambition in her chosen profession is unbounded, and she never tires. Beginning with a third grade certificate she was enabled to attend the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, teaching one year and returning to the school the other, until she graduated with distinction at that institute. She finally obtained a professional certificate, the highest grade, under the public school system, as a reward for her perseverance, energy and ability.
The foregoing statements will give our readers a faint view only of the wonderful and useful life that Mrs. D. I. Hayden has lived for years among her people.
Willis B. Holland,
Principal of Public School, Franklin, Va.
CHAPTER LX.
MRS. N. A. R. LESLIE.
Modest, zealous, aspiring and faithful to duty; economical and yet philanthropic; conservative and kind, are traits characteristic of this very devoted laborer in the cause of Afro-American education.
She was born in Amelia county, Va., and is the fourth daughter of Nannie and Charles P. Coles. She has taught school most of her life, beginning with theEng-
