EDUCATIONAL WORK.
Our eight chartered institutions, in the eight leading States of the South, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, have continued to do thorough and faithful work. One has been added to the number of our normal schools, making twelve in all. Twenty-four common schools have been aided—six more than the previous year. The total number of schools of all grades has been 44.
We have had in all 190 teachers in the field; of these 10 have also fulfilled the duties of matrons, 6 have been connected with the business department, and 11 have been pastors of churches, but all have been actively engaged in teaching.
The total number of pupils has been 7,207—almost exactly the number reported a year ago. These have been distributed as follows: Primary, 2,739; Intermediate, 1,495; Grammar, 633; Normal, 2,022; Collegiate Preparatory, 169; Collegiate, 63; Law, 28; Theological, 86. This shows an increase in the professional schools, a decrease in the collegiate, and over 500 more in the normal department than last year.
The reports of the quality of the work thus accomplished have been most encouraging. Greater regularity of attendance has been attained than ever before, and the ambition to keep up with the classes entered has been marked. The same persistence in overcoming obstacles to entrance arising from poverty and distance from the schools which marked previous years, has been no less conspicuous during that just passed. The range of study and instruction has been much the same as heretofore. The work of the class-rooms has been too good to need to be materially altered.
The industrial and practical training has been that in which there has been the most marked improvement and expansion. How to work is quite as important a branch of knowledge for the colored boys and girls as how to teach. Indeed, that they maybe able to teach others how to work is a large part of their vocation. How to behave themselves on the farm, in the shop, in the work-room, sick-room and the kitchen, is as needful for them to know as how to behave themselves in the school-room and in the church of God. This training is receiving more and more wise and thorough attention, and we are sending out young men and young women better and better fitted to be the teachers and leaders of society, as well as of the school.
Our schools and teachers have been evidently growing in favor and esteem, both with the colored and white people of the South. A most noticeable instance of the attachment of the colored population to the schools, and their appreciation of their value, was given very recently at Athens, Alabama. It became necessary to give up the school at that place, or to rebuild at an expense of not less than $5,000, which latter it was deemed impossible to do. Word to that effect was sent to Athens. The grief of the people was intense. It did not, however, expend itself in tears, but became motive power. They offered themselves to erect the needful building, pledged over $2,000 at once, and by gifts of labor and material provided fully for it, and are at work upon it now. They propose to make brick sufficient for its completion, and a surplus to exchange for the lumber which will be required. They are all at it. A blind man, who can do nothing else, offered to turn the crank to draw the water. Whether they will be able, in their extreme poverty, to accomplish all they have undertaken, yet remains to be seen; but such zeal in a good thing is surely worthy of special notice. When the colored people attempt to co-operate with us to such an extent, we cannot desert them. The school will go on.
During this year it appeared to the Committee that a sufficient fund had been accumulated to warrant at least a beginning of the permanent building for the Tillotson Normal Institute, in Austin, Texas. The foundation is already laid, and the contract drawn for the enclosure of the building. This great State, with its rapidly increasing population of colored people, and its insufficient provision for their education, demands the earliest possible completion of this building, and the equipment of the institution for efficient work.
With the four buildings completed the previous year at Mobile, New Orleans, Macon and Savannah, we are now in possession of better and more permanent equipment for our school work than ever before. But it is yet quite insufficient for its pressing need, which is most felt in the necessity of enlarged provision for boarding pupils, for it is, after all, in those who are thus brought under the continuous influence of their teachers, and away from the debasing surroundings of cabin life, that the best results of mental and religious training are realized. The call for such relief has been continuous and increasing in its urgency; but we have been obliged almost to deny it a hearing in the poverty and pressure of these past years.
The near future will, however, we trust, do much to relieve this long-felt want, through the generous gift to the Association of $150,000 by Mrs. Daniel P. Stone, of Malden, Mass., from the estate of her late husband, of which, though it is not yet in our possession, we have been fully assured. In accordance with the expressed wish of the donor, this money is to be used in the erection of buildings at Nashville, Atlanta, New Orleans and Talladega. These buildings will largely increase the accommodations of these institutions for the class of pupils which has been named, and will greatly diminish the percentage of expense for their education, as but few additions to the corps of teachers already in the work will be required. In these normal and collegiate institutions it is the variety of studies rather than the number of students to which the teaching force must be adapted. We may add fifty per cent. to the number of pupils, and need to add only five per cent., perhaps, to the number of teachers. There can be no more acceptable gift than that of these new buildings for well-established schools—none which will so add to their effectiveness.
A few school buildings belonging to the Association have been, of late years, rented to local school boards, in cases where greater good could be accomplished for those for whose use they were intended than by retaining them in our hands. It has been a saving to our treasury, a widening of their usefulness, and a bond of fraternity between the friends of education North and South.
We may only, in passing, refer to the beginning in the accumulation of valuable libraries made in some of our institutions. There is yet room for much needed enlargement of this important branch of our educational service.
Two things yet remain to be done that our schools may be placed upon a permanent and satisfactory basis, and these are adequate provision for the maintenance of professorships and of scholarships. We have been compelled to confine ourselves chiefly to making appropriations for the salaries of teachers, simply because without them there could be no schools at all. This was the one thing indispensable from the very start. But, increasingly, the need of student aid makes itself manifest. Gifts have been secured from churches, Sunday-schools and individuals for this purpose, and more money must be raised from similar sources. Yet it is evident that this must not be taken from the fund by which the teachers are sustained. That would be to increase the number of applicants, and, at the same time, to close the doors at which they seek admission. We must not try to lengthen the skirts of our coats by cutting them off at the shoulders; they will fall off from us altogether if we do that. This is our problem: both to maintain our teachers and to support more students. It cannot be solved by any process of subtraction. Can it be done in any other way than by addition to our income? And it must be done, if we are to make our work tell as it ought upon the vast negro population of the South. To overcome the obstacles which stand at every step in the way of attaining the thorough education needed by those who are to be the leaders of their people, demands a power of will and an energy of perseverance such as few individuals of any race possess, unless they are assisted all along the way.
The origin and surroundings of these colored students must be continually borne in mind. They have nothing to help them in the homes from which they came; nothing to help them in the prevailing sentiment of the white people toward them; the fewest possible openings for such remunerative labor as is ready for white students in similar conditions, and checks on their ambition of every sort. Nor is it strange that they lack that stamina which generations of culture and self-restraint impart. Their help, both moral and material, must come from us, and those who, like us, believe that they can be and should be thoroughly trained before they are sent forth to lay foundations for the upbuilding of their race. Student aid must be freely and systematically given, or our higher schools will accomplish their beneficent design at great disadvantage, and only to a very limited extent.
But the glory of our schools and colleges is more than in all else in their religious character and influence—that they are Christian schools and missionary colleges. Indeed, they are so completely at one with the church work that it is difficult to draw a line between the two departments, and to tell where the one ends and the other begins. A few particulars may best illustrate the influence of faithful Christian instruction and example. Of 52 graduates of Atlanta, 50 at graduation were professing Christians, and none have fallen away. Later we hear, “All the members of the classes to be graduated now profess to be Christians.” A revival is reported during the year, and not less than 30 conversions. Fisk reports several additions to the College church at every communion, and as many more of those converted there to other churches. At Talladega we hear of “a precious work of grace; 37 were received into the church. All but two of the girls, and all but four of the 45 young men, who are boarding scholars, are professing Christians.” The pastor at Hampton writes: “Nowhere can teachers be found more earnestly evangelical, laboring often beyond their strength to bring souls to Christ. 11 of the Indian students were, in March, received into the College church.” At Berea, the graduates of this year are all professing Christians. These are examples of the good accomplished and reported. In several of the lower schools, also, we hear of many being brought to Christ.
Nor are these Christian students idle in the Master’s vineyard. They go out to their school work in vacation time, and have learned as they go to preach. The help which was given, the previous year, to lengthen the short terms of a few common schools, thus furnishing employment for our student teachers, was thought to be fruitful of good results by our best and most experienced instructors. It has been deemed wise to somewhat enlarge the work in that direction.
108 teachers from Fisk, in 1877, taught 9,332 pupils. Over 10,000 pupils, during the year 1878, are estimated to have been taught by those educated at Atlanta. On this basis, we feel justified in estimating that at least 150,000 pupils have been reached by our present and former students during the year. They also go out to do Sunday-school and missionary work on the Lord’s day. Talladega reached 1,200 Sunday-school scholars through its students during the last year, and in all the years some 20,000. A high educational official testifies that the students of Tougaloo “almost invariably start Sunday-schools as soon as they open their day-schools.” So the seed is sown not by the way-side, nor on the rock, nor among the thorns, but where it “also beareth fruit and bringeth forth, some an hundred-fold, some sixty, some thirty.”
A few words, by way of bridging over to our church work, as to our Theological Departments. They are four—at Nashville, Talladega and New Orleans, which are ours altogether, and at Washington, where we continue to share the support of the Theological Department of Howard University with the Presbytery of that city. There are 86 students in these schools, of which number nearly one-half are at Howard University. They are sending out ministers, well trained both intellectually and spiritually, into our churches and those of other denominations.
THE CHURCH WORK.
The present number of churches in connection with the Association is sixty-seven. These are supplied with pastors, some of them white ministers of experience and culture, who, for health’s sake, are glad to be in the South; others, young and earnest men, who prefer to devote themselves to work among the lowly; others still are colored men, who have been educated in our own or similar institutions, and who are doing good work among their own people. Some of these are also principals or teachers in the schools, thus doing double duty.
The number of church members is 4,600, of whom 745 have been added during the year. This work has been under the supervision of Dr. Roy. It has been a time for making acquaintance with the men and the field, but his first visits have been full of service in quickening and counselling those on the ground, and in correspondence with the administrative force at home.
Three new churches have been established during the year—at Shelby Iron Works, Ala., at Cypress Slash, Ga., and at Flatonia, Texas.
After a careful survey of the material and opportunity, we are neither prepared to rush in and organize new churches wherever it may be possible, nor to abandon the field as unfitted to our polity. We could probably buy up a hundred churches within a year at $100 apiece, and then should be worse off than when we began, loaded down with useless burdens. There is nothing in the nature of the South or in the character of the negro by which the people of that region or that race are unfitted to be good Congregationalists. It only demands intelligence and the power of self-control. Where these have been developed by Christian education there is readiness and preparation enough. Hitherto our churches have flourished under the shadow of our schools and of their graduates. But as the sun goes toward the west the shadow broadens, and the field for churches of our order is enlarged. There are some half dozen localities now waiting and ready to organize Congregational churches, to which our Field Superintendent will give early attention and assistance. Discriminating and timely help at such points will accomplish far more in the end than rapid and ill-considered assistance. Too many churches, both North and South, die early, because born too soon. We design and purpose to extend this work as fast, and only as fast, as we may do it with the hope of permanent results.
A goodly number of these churches report religious interest during the year, and, indeed, some of them are engaged in seasons of special effort and ingathering at this time; for in the South—strange as it may seem to us—the summer gives an interval from farm work which is often and successfully devoted to special Christian effort. A letter just received informs us of such a series of meetings in one of our churches in North Carolina, with a congregation of 200, who bring their lunch and stay from morning till afternoon, and often till the evening service too.
The impression made by these churches upon ministers who went among them for the first time last winter was very noticeable, and their testimony agrees as to the decorum, as well as fervor, of their colored congregations. Nor are they without the witness to their progress, which is indicated by efforts looking toward their self-support and a participation in the general work of missions. These all have Sunday-schools connected with them, in which are gathered 6,219 scholars, besides which some of our teachers are engaged in Sunday-schools connected with other Christian churches. The cause of temperance receives constant attention in both schools and churches. Juvenile and adult organizations are found in nearly all of them, and the young men and women go out pledged, not only to abstain themselves, but to make it part of their mission to persuade others to follow their example in this respect.
To the six Conferences into which our churches were organized one has been added during the past year—that of North Carolina. The Georgia Conference takes the place of that of South-eastern Georgia. The Congregationalism of the South is thus fully associated. The meetings of these bodies are full of interest. Their discussions are practical and admirably sustained. Their fellowship is cordial and Christian, and their spiritual power is in some cases remarkable. The South-western Conference, this year held at New Iberia, La., was signalized by the quickening and reviving of the churches represented, and by the conversion of fifty souls.
Councils are called for ordination of pastors from time to time, and in all customary ways the churches mutually advise and help each other.
We should be greatly remiss did we not call attention also to the work done in the homes of the colored people by devout women who have given themselves to this missionary work. The need of such work can easily be imagined, but cannot be appreciated fully without a knowledge of the facts. At Memphis, Tenn., Atlanta, Ga., Miller’s Station, Ga., Charleston, S. C., etc., faithful visitations have been made from house to house, and Bible-reading, cottage prayer-meetings, practical instruction, and occasional temporal relief, have been administered by lady missionaries, while many of our lady teachers have cheerfully engaged in similar work, so far as their engagements would allow. No general organization of Northern women has been attempted in this behalf, but of their own motion circles have been formed at Detroit, Mich., Waukegan, Ill., Oberlin, Ohio, and other points, whose object it has been to provide the expenses for these messengers of mercy. The work, though limited in its extent, has been fruitful of good results.
Before leaving this hurried review of the Southern field, we are happy to say that our corps of workers, as a whole, has never been more admirably efficient than now. There are fewer changes in the force from year to year than formerly, and those who have just gone for the first time into these schools and churches are men and women of superior intelligence and character. We look for grand work and great results, through God’s blessing on their labors in the coming year.