WHAT CAN THE WOMEN DO?
We are gratified with the evidence which is coming to us from various quarters, of an increasing interest in our Southern work on the part of our Christian women. A letter from Rhode Island inquires the cost of supporting a female missionary to work among the colored women of the South in their homes, after the plan mentioned in the January Missionary. Another letter from Vermont asks, more generally, What can the women do? How can they best help the work by money and by goods? A word comes even from a missionary in Constantinople, endorsing Caucasian women’s work for Negro women in America.
In reply to such questions, we are happy to give all the light we can. A lady missionary, to devote herself to the work named above, can be sustained for from $350 to $450 a year, according to location; or, a lady teacher in one of our established schools, for $250. A student’s scholarship is from $70 to $80. We are, of course, glad to accept money for such special purposes, and to use it as we are instructed by the donors. One of the most pressing needs just now, in which we are sure of sympathy from the house-keeperly instincts of our good sisters, is that of bedding and table-linen for our Educational institutions. We hear from the matron of Tougaloo University, that the press of students is so great that she has used her last quilt, and may have to take up carpets to cover the students by night. Others are nearly as badly off. Perhaps the women of the North can do no better thing than to supply this want for the remainder of this winter, and more fully for another year.
We have no fear that we shall for a long time lack specialties of wants and pressing needs, which will appeal to all who have an ear to hear, and a heart to sympathize. Meanwhile, the great work goes on in all its length and breadth, in which the Christian women of the land may well join forces with the Christian men, as they have always done, and do their part to save and elevate a needy race.