Various - The American Missionary, Volume 49, No. 4, April, 1895
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Various >> The American Missionary, Volume 49, No. 4, April, 1895
The American Missionary
APRIL, 1895
VOL. XLIX
No. 4
CONTENTS
EDITORIAL.
OUR FINANCIAL OUTLOOK--DEATH OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, 121
ITEMS, 122
THE PROSPERITY OF THE SOUTH, 123
NOTES-BY-THE-WAY, SEC. A. F. BEARD, 124
THE SOUTH.
TOUGALOO UNIVERSITY, MISSISSIPPI (Illustrated), 125
LINCOLN MEMORIAL, SPECIAL METHOD, 133
LINCOLN MEMORIAL DAY IN THE SOUTH, 134
THE LOUISIANA ASSOCIATION, 135
FIELD ITEMS, 136
MISS AMY WILLIAMS, 137
THE INDIANS.
COLLECTION FOR THE DEBT AT SANTEE AGENCY, 138
LETTER FROM AN INDIAN, 139
THE CHINESE.
GLEANINGS FROM ANNUAL REPORT OF CALIFORNIA CHINESE MISSION, 139
BUREAU OF WOMAN'S WORK.
THANK-OFFERING DAY, 141
RECEIPTS, 142
* * * * *
NEW YORK
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION,
Bible House, Ninth St. and Fourth Ave., New York.
* * * * *
Price, 50 Cents a Year in advance.
Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as second-class matter.
* * * * *
American Missionary Association.
PRESIDENT, MERRILL E. GATES, LL.D., MASS.
_Vice-Presidents._
Rev. F. A. NOBLE, D.D., Ill.
Rev. HENRY HOPKINS, D.D., Mo.
Rev. ALEX McKENZIE, D.D., Mass.
Rev. HENRY A. STIMSON, D.D., N. Y.
Rev. WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D., Ohio.
_Corresponding Secretaries._
Rev. M. E. STRIEBY, D.D., _Bible House, N. Y._
Rev. A. F. BEARD, D.D., _Bible House, N. Y._
Rev. F. P. WOODBURY, D.D., _Bible House, N. Y._
_Assistant Corresponding Secretary._
Rev. C. J. RYDER, D.D., _Bible House, N. Y._
_Recording Secretary._
Rev. M. E. STRIEBY, D.D., _Bible House, N. Y._
_Treasurer._
HENRY W. HUBBARD, Esq., _Bible House, N. Y._
_Auditors._
PETER MCCARTEE.
JAMES MITCHELL.
_Executive Committee._
CHARLES L. MEAD, Chairman.
CHARLES A. HULL, Secretary.
_For Three Years._
WILLIAM HAYES WARD,
JAMES W. COOPER,
LUCIEN C. WARNER,
JOSEPH H. TWICHELL,
CHARLES P. PEIRCE.
_For Two Years._
CHARLES A. HULL,
ADDISON P. FOSTER,
ALBERT J. LYMAN,
NEHEMIAH BOYNTON,
A. J. F. BEHRENDS.
_For One Year._
SAMUEL HOLMES,
SAMUEL S. MARPLES,
CHARLES L. MEAD,
WILLIAM H. STRONG,
ELIJAH HORR.
_District Secretaries._
Rev. GEO. H. GUTTERSON, _21 Cong'l House, Boston, Mass_.
Rev. JOS. E. ROY, D.D., _151 Washington Street, Chicago, Ill_.
Rev. W. E. C. WRIGHT, D.D., _Cong'l Rooms, Y. M. C. A. Building,
Cleveland, Ohio_.
_Secretary of Woman's Bureau._
Miss D. E. EMERSON, _Bible House, N. Y._
COMMUNICATIONS
Relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the
Corresponding Secretaries; letters for "THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY,"
to the Editor, at the New York Office; letters relating to the
finances, to the Treasurer; letters relating to woman's work,
to the Secretary of the Woman's Bureau.
DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS
In drafts, checks, registered letters, or post-office orders, may be
sent to H. W. Hubbard, Treasurer, Bible House, New York, or, when more
convenient, to either of the Branch Offices, 21 Congregational House,
Boston, Mass., 151 Washington Street, Chicago, Ill., or Congregational
Rooms, Y. M. C. A. Building, Cleveland, Ohio. A payment of thirty dollars
constitutes a Life Member.
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.--The date on the "address label" indicates the
time to which the subscription is paid. Changes are made in date on
label to the 10th of each month. If payment of subscription be made
afterward the change on the label will appear a month later. Please
send early notice of change in post-office address, giving the former
address and the new address, in order that our periodicals and
occasional papers may be correctly mailed.
FORM OF A BEQUEST.
"I GIVE AND BEQUEATH the sum of ---- dollars to the 'American
Missionary Association,' incorporated by act of the Legislature of the
State of New York." The will should be attested by three witnesses.
* * * * *
THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY
VOL. XLIX. APRIL, 1895. No. 4.
* * * * *
OUR FINANCIAL OUTLOOK.
Our debt is large, but we rejoice to say that during the last three
months it has been slowly diminishing. It reached its highest point
November 30--$82,425.58. December 31 it was $82,032.07; January 31,
$79,502.77; February 28, $76,431.49. The cause of this decrease varies
in the different months. Sometimes the legacies are in advance, and
sometimes the donations. The expenses have been largely reduced in all
departments.
While these figures are somewhat encouraging, yet the size of the debt
is ominous. The winter months, usually most fruitful in collections,
have passed away, and the time for the annual appropriations is near
at hand. Unless the debt can be greatly reduced, the cutting down of
the appropriations for the next year must be disastrous to this great
work. We do not lose our trust in God, nor our hope that the friends
of these ignorant and yet struggling people will not suffer the work
to be seriously hindered. We respectfully invoke pastors to secure for
us as liberal contributions as possible, and we ask individual donors
to remember the work with special gifts.
DEATH OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
The unexpected and sudden death of Mr. Douglass has awakened a sense
of profound sympathy never before expressed toward a person identified
with the negro race, and seldom toward one of the white race. We are
not surprised at the manifestations of profound respect and sorrow of
the colored people, and we rejoice, too, that the white race has shown
almost equal regard for his memory, by their attendance when he lay in
state in Washington, and when his body was interred in Rochester. The
press has voiced the sentiment of the nation in the full and
eulogistic notices of his life. Frederick Douglass deserved it all.
No man, perhaps, in this country has broken through so heavy a crust
of ignorance, poverty and race prejudice as was done by this boy born
on a slave plantation, stealing his education, fleeing from his slave
home and then achieving for himself a rank among the foremost men of
the nation in intelligence, eloquence and of personal influence in the
great anti-slavery struggle of this country. He has achieved honors in
the public service of the nation, and has faithfully and honorably
fulfilled every trust laid upon him.
Mr. Douglass is among the last survivors of that band of Abolitionists
that were so potent in their influence in arousing the nation to the
evils of slavery. The recent death of Theodore D. Weld, in his
ninety-first year, recalls a name now almost forgotten, but that two
generations ago indicated the foremost orator in the anti-slavery
ranks. The poet of anti-slavery, Whittier, has gone recently, and now
the most conspicuous name left of that noble band is that of Mrs.
Harriet Beecher Stowe.
The American Missionary Association has reason to congratulate itself
that its last annual meeting was made memorable by the presence of Mr.
Douglass, and its vast audience stirred most deeply by his eloquent
address. In that address he expressed his gratitude for himself and
his people for the work done by the Association in their behalf. And
in a letter subsequently addressed to the senior secretary of the
Association, he says, in speaking of that address: "I am very glad to
have been able thus publicly to record my sense of the value of the
great work of the Association in saving my people. I am a friend of
free thought and free inquiry, but I find them to be no substitute for
the work of educating the ignorant and lifting up the lowly. Time and
toil have nearly taken me from the lecture field, but I still have a
good word to say in the cause to which the American Missionary
Association is devoted."
ITEMS.
Of the twelve millions of families now in the United States, it is
said that one million cannot secure the needed work to procure the
luxuries and comforts of life. On this basis the one and a half
millions of colored families are at a special disadvantage. They have
to contend not only against the hard times, but against the immense
disadvantages of race prejudice.
* * * * *
The appointment of Bishop Whipple, of Minnesota, to be a member of the
Board of Indian Commissioners was an appointment eminently fit to be
made. Few men in this country stand higher in their knowledge of the
Indians and their wants, or have shown a more intelligent and
self-sacrificing interest in their behalf.
* * * * *
The Indian Territory, occupied by what has been regarded as the
Civilized Tribes, is in a precarious position. The recent
investigation by the Committee under ex-Senator Dawes has brought out
the facts in startling distinctness. The recommendations of the
Senator are very clear and radical, but it is feared that delay in the
settlement of the question will only protract and aggravate the
difficulty.
* * * * *
The "Missing Link" has been discovered. It was found, we are told, in
some fragments of skeletons dug up somewhere in Java. What an
attraction this will be to lead scientific doctors to neglect living
beings and wrangle over these old bones. In this country the real
"Missing Link" is that charity on the part of the white people that
recognizes the colored man as a fellow-citizen and a fellow Christian.
Let that link be found and burnished up and a good many serious
problems will be solved.
THE PROSPERITY OF THE SOUTH.
From time to time there loom up prospects of great advancement in the
Southern States. Iron and coal are found in close proximity and in
unlimited quantity. At once the boom starts and great cities spring
into existence with busy foundries and added railway facilities. But
somehow or other the boom loses its fervor and the bright hopes are
delayed. Yet the South _has_ vast resources, though they can only be
developed gradually, and as capital shall become assured that the
labor problem in the South is satisfactorily adjusted.
We are told again that cotton mills are to be transferred from the
North to the South. Hitherto cheap cottons have been the product of
these Southern cotton mills. But now the promise is that the finest
grades of cotton will be produced. Labor is cheap in the South, but
skilled labor is very scarce, and no cheaper than at the North, and to
transfer such labor from the North will be at the additional cost of
transportation.
Great efforts are made from time to time to induce immigrants to
settle in the South, and high hopes have been built on such endeavors.
But immigrants continue to go to the North and West, and do not go
South. This is not because the South is not rich in minerals, in a
productive soil and a beautiful climate. Why is it? Capital in the
hands of the whites in the South continues to crush labor in the
person of the black man under the heel of prejudice. Perhaps the
laborer from Europe may dread the same thing.
In spite of all drawbacks, the South _is_ improving, and will
continue to improve, and the process will be hastened as the white
man lays aside his race prejudice and the black man lifts himself
above it by acquiring property, intelligence and character. Whatever
helps this consummation does more for the future good of the South
than can be done in any other way.
NOTES-BY-THE-WAY.
SECRETARY A. F. BEARD.
Among places of greatest interest which I visited in my late Southern
tour one was Tougaloo University. Its location is unique, and its work
is also. In the very heart of the black belt of Mississippi, it is
sending out its light among thousands who are in darkness. It would
quite repay one who would study the problem of saving these children
of the rural districts of the black belt to go far out of his way to
visit Tougaloo. He should take time for it, to ride over its broad
acres of cultivated land, its cotton fields, its fields of sugar cane
and corn, its hay fields, all under the care of those who are being
educated. They should see its shops for iron working, for wood
working, and its varied other industries. They should see those who
work by day, diligent students at the books all the long evenings
until late. They should see the self help of all. They should go
through the grades and notice the quality of the work done and its
character, its classes in mathematics and in languages, and its work
in the physical sciences. It is a great school--Tougaloo--and if
people could see it, they would quote it more for its economy and
efficiency. Not always are efficiency and economy found pulling
equally in the same harness.
A little incident in Tougaloo interested me. A discussion of the
topic, "How can we improve our homes," called from one student these
words: "I find the negro lacks race pride. He despises his own makeup.
Who of you ever heard any negro say that he thought the general
characteristics of his race were as becoming as those of other races?
Nor are they. The Anglo-Saxon is proud of his race characteristics.
The Indian is, also, but the negro despises himself and would be
anything else than what God has made him. But how can we escape hell
if we hate ourselves because we are negroes, when this is the divine
wisdom of a just God? We may talk about improving our homes by getting
an education as much as we please, but we will never be anything until
we have a race pride and try to carry out the great plan of God who
made us and knew what is best for us. Let us be genuine negroes, pure
and good, and not desire a drop of other blood in our veins."
This seems to be the spirit of Tougaloo. Its graduates whom I have met
are manly and womanly, self-respecting and self-helping.
TOUGALOO UNIVERSITY, MISSISSIPPI.
BY PRES. F. G. WOODWORTH, D.D.
[Illustration: MANSION.]
[Illustration: GIRLS' DORMITORY.]
The chartered schools of the American Missionary Association, though
doing an essentially similar work, are yet strongly individualized.
Tougaloo University is emphatically the black belt plantation school
of the Association, located in the country, in the midst of America's
darkest Africa, touching that by far most numerous and important class
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.]
[Illustration: BOYS' DORMITORY, STRIEBY HALL.]
[Illustration: THE PLANTATION BARN.]
[Illustration: BIBLE HALL.]
Washington Hall, built just north of the mansion about the time of the
girls' dormitory, was burned some years ago, and now on its site
stands the Ballard Building, containing the study and recitation rooms
of the grammar and intermediate departments, which lead up to the
normal and the chapel, where all general exercises and Sabbath
services are held. One of the greatest needs of the school is a church
building, that can be specially devoted to religious purposes. There
is a grand chance for a memorial building. A little northeast of
Ballard is the boys' dormitory, Strieby Hall, erected in 1882, a
brick structure 112 x 40 feet, and three stories high, with a basement
which has a laundry and bathrooms. In this building the normal and
higher work is carried on, with a fairly good physical and chemical
laboratory and reference library, but needing great enlargement and
additional facilities. The normal work is of chief importance, for the
future of the race lies largely with the trained teachers of the
common schools. Those who have gone from Tougaloo have won golden
opinions from both races and do a work which in its scope and
missionary character multiplies greatly the influence of the
supporters of the school. Strieby has, by crowding, dormitory room for
seventy to eighty boys. A separate building for normal work is greatly
needed, one having a library, reading room, recitation room, museums
and laboratories. Just northwest of Strieby is the large barn, which,
with the picture of the cattle, will suggest the large agricultural
department of the school with its stock, garden, fruit raising, etc.
Here, too, a building is greatly needed for the farm boys and a
foreman, where a special course of instruction can be given in fitting
out good farmers. Not a few graduates and former students have been
successful in the conduct of farms and market gardens, some of them in
connection with teaching. Back of the mansion is a little and not at
all beautiful building that has been a slave pen, day nursery for
slave children; then, under the American Missionary Association, a
dormitory known as Boston Hall, then a carpentry class room, then
girls' "Industrial Cottage" and is now dignified as Bible Hall, and
houses the theological department, which was established two years
ago. This department has the beginning of a library, but needs books
and maps very greatly, and has two courses based on the English Bible,
one of two and one of four years. Though having this year but few
pupils in the regular course, it is doing very thorough work. The
evening class for outside preachers has been for some years a power
for good. A glance at the picture will convince anyone that theology
should have better quarters. Who will give them? Berkshire Cottage, of
which a picture is given, accommodates the industrial training work
of the girls. Here are classrooms for needlework and cookery, with
courses extending over four years, and which all girls in the grammar
grades are as much obliged to take as they are the English branches.
To the normal girls special instruction in dressmaking is given.
Berkshire, besides accommodating several teachers, has a kitchen,
dining and sitting room, and several bedrooms, devoted to practical
housekeeping, where, at present, four girls at a time keep house
practically for six weeks at a time, so becoming competent for
homemakers. Not far from this cottage is the Ballard shop building,
where the manual training of the boys is carried on. Here to the small
boys of the Hand school instruction in knifework is given, and to the
boys of all higher grades careful instruction, in accordance with the
best manual training methods, in wood-working, with excellent
accommodations for more than twenty boys at a time. Forging, at which
eight at a time can work, and mechanical and architectural drawing,
with tables and tools for two dozen. The outcome of this work and of
the girls' industries, teachers of which are supported by the Slater
Fund, which has done, and is doing, so grand a work, has been most
satisfactory and encouraging in the skill manifested, the increased
earning capacity imparted, the greater ability to gain and maintain
homes, and the development of character.
[Illustration: BERKSHIRE COTTAGE.]
[Illustration: BALLARD MANUAL TRAINING SHOP.]
[Illustration: CARPENTRY.]
[Illustration: FORGING.]
One other picture, the Hand Primary building, suggests the practical
work of the Normal department, for here the Normal students have
practice during the two closing years of their course, gathering
pupils from surrounding cabins.
Underneath all the work of the school is the dominating thought of the
development of Christian character. The preaching, the Sabbath school,
with its class prayer meetings directed by the Sabbath school
teachers, the religious societies, the Covenant for Christian service,
the personal influence of teachers and older pupils, all tend in that
direction with most blessed results. Upon the surrounding region
growing influence is exerted through the four Sabbath schools from two
to four miles away, in which teachers and students from the University
assist. A picture of one of the schools, McCharity, is given here.
Mention should also be made of the "Tougaloo University Addition to
Tougaloo." One hundred and twenty acres of land have been divided into
five-acre house lots, which are being sold at $100 each to former
students and those who wish to educate children at the University. In
a few years it is expected that a fine community will be there.
[Illustration: DANIEL HAND KINDERGARTEN AND PRIMARY SCHOOL.]
Around three great fundamental ideas the work of Tougaloo, with its
nearly 400 students and 23 instructors, with its theological, college
preparatory, normal, agricultural, industrial, musical, and nurse
training departments, its religious work, is grouped and carried on
with notable success. These are the development of the family and
home, leadership, and pure religious life. Who will endow a chair? Who
will endow the University, and perpetuate one's influence in a most
fruitful way? Successful as Tougaloo has been, its largest, widest
work is yet to come.
LINCOLN MEMORIAL--SPECIAL METHOD.
MRS. G. W. ANDREWS, TALLADEGA, ALA.
[Illustration: McCHARITY SUNDAY-SCHOOL MISSION.]
There has been much enthusiasm here since Sabbath morning in starting
an "Abraham Lincoln Cent Association" in order to give the _poorest_
among our people an opportunity to do something toward helping to lift
the debt of the American Missionary Association. There will be four
departments of giving, one cent per day, one per week, one per month,
and five dollars will constitute one a memorial member of the
Association. The collection from those who pay a cent a day will be
taken at the time of devotional exercise in the schools in the
morning; the cent per week every Tuesday morning, the cent per month
on the twelfth day of each month. Every quarter the treasurer will
gather the different sums and send to the American Missionary
Association treasury. The twelfth day of February each _year_ will be
a rallying day, when we trust much more will be realized. It is hoped
by those who have this plan in hand, and we are all working in unison
here in it, to extend it throughout all of our schools and churches in
the South, that the present debt of the American Missionary
Association may be brought close to their hearts, and kept there, as
the proposition is that this association shall continue until the debt
is lifted.
LINCOLN MEMORIAL DAY IN THE SOUTH.
BY REV. W. J. LARKIN.
On Lincoln's birthday most of the churches connected with the American
Missionary Association in the South took occasion to make a
contribution to it, and many gifts not large in themselves, but
representing a great deal of sacrifice, have been received by our
treasurer in New York. The pastor of our church in Marion, Alabama,
sends a contribution of over $16 from his church, which amount
represents more sacrifices than thousands of dollars would represent
from many of our more favored churches. He writes: "We had a Lincoln's
exercise on Lord's day, 10th, by the school at the church. It was a
very cold, dark night, but our offering was $16.09. You will consider
the hard times here--and they are hard, indeed, this year--we have had
intense cold now nearly two months with the mercury nearly to zero.
When ice is six inches thick in this part of Alabama it means intense
suffering for the half-clad and half-fed negroes. We add to this
$16.09, $11.26, which we have collected at our missionary prayer
meetings, making in all $27.35."