American Missionary Association.
As we go to press, we are happy to announce the safe arrival of Prof. Thomas N. Chase, from our Mendi Mission.
That 20 per cent. increase in our appropriations, voted at Chicago, and voted also by the Executive Committee, has not as yet been furnished by our friends. We are compelled to urge it upon their attention that we are in danger of falling behind the appropriation, to our grief and the detriment of the work, unless they come gallantly to the rescue.
Who Will do It?—One of our missionaries in North Carolina suggests, and we cordially second the suggestion, that some of our friends send us the means for distributing 1,000 copies of the Missionary to as many prominent men, clergymen and others, through the South. We are confident that a like sum of money could not be expended in a way to tell more favorably upon our work after the means have been supplied to carry it on. Will not some generous friend of the South send us the money?
Tougaloo’s Plea.—Through its workers, this Institution puts in a most pathetic plea to the Executive Committee for an appropriation for a new building. How they inquire, can 120 persons be seated in a dining-room large enough for only 80? Or how can fifty girls be put into 16 small dormitories? The Executive Committee gives it up, and sends it along as too much of a 15-puzzle. The plea melts the hearts of us who have no money, so we make it to those who have, hoping some one will help to a solution of this problem.
Fully as difficult is that propounded by President Ware, of Atlanta: Sixty-two girls in rooms fitted for forty, and prospects that the number cannot be kept down to that. It could be easily increased to one hundred next year. The $10,000, given from the Graves estate for a building, must be supplemented by $5,000 to make it adequate to pressing need. Who gives the answer to this?
The Christian Recorder, Philadelphia, (organ of the A. M. E. Church,) in noticing the “Fool’s Errand,” refers to the fact that the Fool found himself limited to the society of the teachers of the colored schools and a few Northern families, and asks: “Why so? Were there no colored people there? The South ostracised him because of his opinions, while he ostracised the negroes because of their color.” Of the two, the Recorder believes the South the more rational and consistent.
Laws of Heredity.—One of the—not fathers, but great-grandfathers, in Israel, writes a pleasant note from Jewett City, Conn., to say how much pleasure he takes in reading the “Receipt pages” of the Missionary, finding them the most interesting of the whole. He notes as an especially pleasant feature, the increasing number of “friends,” who send, as in the last number, from $2.00 to $1,747.50. He mentions with great satisfaction that he has learned to look regularly in the May number for a contribution from the grandson of an old French Huguenot, who fifty years ago hobbled regularly to the parsonage on the morning after missionary meetings, and asked him (the writer) to get 25 cents out of his purse for the work, which always left the purse empty. The grandson now sends $20. Of him, he says, with Leigh Hunt, “May his tribe increase.” We shall be glad if investigation on the part of some missionary Darwin shall establish the fact that such tendencies are transmitted with accumulating force from father to son.
In Southwest Texas, at a Freedman’s country home, our Superintendent found a Bible which had this inscription, printed upon a fly-leaf at the front:
“One of 10,000 Bibles presented to the Freedmen of America by the Divinity Students’ Missionary Society, connected with the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Printed at the University Press, Oxford, for the National Bible Society of Scotland.” So does religious beneficence percolate the most distant regions. Our colored fellow-citizens have been made the recipients of an immense amount of material and spiritual sympathy on the part of British Christians. These Divinity Students will be glad to know that this Bible, sent by their Society some ten years ago, is used for morning and evening family worship in an interesting household, which possesses its own farm, and which furnished hospitality to our representative.
A dozen years ago, one of our lady teachers at a Southern capital had a shower of stones driven through the window of her school-room. At another time, some “fellows of the baser sort” brought in some drunken Mexicans to annoy the school. A guard of soldiers was placed at the school-house, and she was escorted to and from the school by the same. Now she has so many friends among the Southern white people that she says she doesn’t like to hear them spoken against. She has not time to reciprocate their social attentions. The school has proven a great success. She has her fifty teachers out at work and she is as enthusiastic as ever.
Rev. Geo. E. Hill, of Marion, Ala., mentions a few facts in a private note which doubtless he deemed too commonplace for formal communication to the Missionary, yet significant and hopeful. Not every pastor, even in favored New England, is so fortunate in his young people.
On a recent Sabbath, one of his boys, who is to graduate this summer from Talladega, preached for him, and proved himself a good speaker, possessed of a clear, logical mind, with the promise of being a useful man. On the next day, he and another member of his church, also a Talladega student, spoke at the meeting of the Young Men’s Christian Association extemporaneously, but with great beauty and force. His missionary meetings are conducted in a way that might be profitably followed by such of our churches as have like helpers. The subject of the last one was “Africa,” illustrated by a large map. Miss M., a graduate of Fisk University, read a paper on the Mendi Mission, “which would have done honor to any of our Northern churches.” She is possessed of a true missionary spirit and Bro. Hill hopes she will find her way into the mission field, notwithstanding a misfortune which has partially disabled her.
He has also a Young People’s Club for intellectual culture. At its last meeting, the programme included: A sketch of Gen. Grant; a paper on Mormonism; a sketch of Eli Whitney; a history of Umbrellas; a reading, recitations, etc.
He seems to have a church of “Holy Endeavor,” with the athletics and pastimes left out.
A Confederate and a Man.—He was a colonel. He is the editor of a leading journal of the South. Some years since, an educated mulatto woman from Ohio went South to secure a position as a teacher. She was thrust into the smoking-car to endure the commingled filth and ribaldry of the place.
After securing her position, it was necessary to return home before entering upon her duties. She sought the intervention of the colonel. He went to the local superintendent, who sent orders along the line over three roads which gave her admission to the ladies’ car, both on her way home and on her return. She proved a splendid teacher and noble woman, and the colonel is proud to have championed her cause, when to do so was unpopular.
The same colonel is now wielding a great influence in the South in favor of negro education, and recently, both in his paper and at a public meeting, has expressed thanks to the A. M. A. for work it has been doing in the South.
The influences multiply and reach out in every direction, which are destined soon to bring a total and wholesome change of sentiment, North and South.
We have received the proceedings of the Colored Men’s State Immigration Convention, held in Dallas, Texas, the latter part of February. An association was formed whose object is to locate colonies of colored people on Government lands in that State. Mr. S. H. Smothers, editor of the Baptist Journal, of Dallas, said in his address, as explanatory of the Exodus movement among his people, what seems to have escaped the attention of the Senate Exodus Committee, that the negro may act from the same motives that influence white men. His address is full of good common sense, as the following may show:
“Only a few weeks ago, in a conversation with a colored immigrant from Georgia, I asked him why he left that State and came to Texas. He replied that a great many of his white neighbors were moving to Texas, and he thought that whatever was good for them would be good for him.
“Much has been said in regard to the wrongs and oppressions of which our people complain. While, doubtless, there is some ground for their complaint, their hardships, in my opinion, are more the result of their illiterate condition than all things else. If a class of white laborers were as illiterate as our people, they would be equally oppressed as are the Irish tenants to-day. Capitalists look out for their own interest, and will, if they can, oppress one man, be his color what it may, as soon as another. We should remember that knowledge is power and ignorance is weakness. The protection which we most need is the power which education and property give. For my own part, all I ask of any man is an equal chance, and then if he can outstrip me in the race of life, let him do it.”
Lovedale Missionary Institute, South Africa, is said to be the busiest industrial college in the world. During the session which closed with 1879, there were in all 393 pupils of both sexes, many of them boarders, who paid in fees £1,006, beside £510 still due. Livingstonia and Blantyre sent 6 pupils; 19 came from Natal; 11 from the country of the Barolongs. The carpenter had 30 apprentices and journeymen under him; the wagon-maker 8;the blacksmith 5; the printer 4; the bookbinder 2. On the farm were raised 1,054 bags of corn, beans, potatoes and wheat.
Twenty-one students, of whom eleven were Kaffir certificated-schoolmasters, were under theological instruction. Dr. Stewart thinks the home churches will hardly continue the present number of missionaries beyond the lifetime of those now in the field, and that the work will be done by a native ministry.
A “Livingstonia Central African Company,” for promoting legitimate traffic among the natives, has been organized by a society of gentlemen interested in the civilization of the “Dark Continent” and in the development of its resources. Direct communication is to be opened with Central Africa, and a road has already been constructed a distance of sixty miles around the cataracts of the Shiré, which, connecting with a line of steamers, will constitute a line of 800 miles from the coast. Two Christian gentlemen of Edinburgh, Messrs. John and Frederick Moir, are at the head of the company. It is to be no less a missionary than a commercial enterprise, and there is every reason for believing that in both respects it will prove a success. The natives are becoming fully awake to the advantages of the extensive and solid business facilities possessed by the company, whose future will be watched with great interest.
The West African Reporter, of Sierra Leone, in announcing changes in the officers and probably in the location of the Liberia College, (Dr. Blyden having been appointed President; and the trustees, leave being given by the legislature, having voted to co-operate with the American Board in a plan to remove the college further into the interior,) expresses itself strongly in regard to the injury done to natives who have been sent to Europe to receive their education. It sums the result thus:
“We find our children, as a result of their foreign culture—we do not say in spite of their foreign culture—but as a result of their foreign culture—aimless and purposeless for the race—crammed with European formulas of thought and expression, so as to astonish their bewildered relatives. Their friends wonder at the words of their mouth. But they wonder at other things besides their words. They are the Polyphemus of civilization—huge, but sightless—cui lumen ademptum.”
To some extent the same holds true of negroes from the South, educated in the North for work in their old homes.
Onondaga and Oneida Indians.—There are in the State of New York eight Indian reservations, aggregating 86,336 acres of land, a little less than 18 acres to each of the 5,093 Indians who occupy them. These lands are held by tribal and not individual titles. A few of these Indians have become thrifty farmers, but the most of them are idle and poor; probably one-half are still pagans. A bill has been introduced into the Legislature to abolish, with consent of the Indians, the treaty of 1788, and distribute these lands in severalty to these people. This would end the fatal communal system, which has proved in this, as it must in all cases, so deadly to all prosperity. Each Indian would thus become, under the laws of the State, a land-owner, and amenable to the laws on the same footing as other citizens.
Under the present tribal system, the father has nothing but his tomahawk and scalping knife to leave to his children, and transmits only a disposition to use them. Give him the right to acquire a title to something else, and he will doubtless acquire and bequeath it.
There is a poor blind Samson in this land,
Shorn of his strength and hound in bands of steel,
Who may in some grim revel, raise his hand,
And shake the pillars of this commonweal,
Till the vast temple of our liberties
A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies.
That same “blind Samson” is in the land to-day. It is the Negro, uneducated, immoral, with a ballot in his hand. It is the white man, uneducated, immoral, with a ballot in his hand. For it makes no difference. The harm lies back of the color. The consequences of ignorant suffrage, by whomsoever exercised, can be only detrimental to the peace and welfare of the State. Free institutions can be built up only on the basis of intelligence and integrity. Without intelligence and integrity, the best cannot long survive. If there be large numbers on whom this right has been conferred, but who are densely ignorant, especially if these large numbers are grouped in a single section, like these millions of negroes and poor whites in the South, it is an official notice served on the nation that no time is to be lost in imparting the mental and moral training requisite for the right discharge of these sacred functions of voting. Men are not left to settle this question of helping with schools and churches, merely on the ground of humanity or Christian duty. Their interest is challenged, and their very selfishness is under contribution. We do not put matches in children’s hands, and then leave them to play about hay-mows. If we give them matches we train them in the use of them. With an instrument in his hands so potent as the ballot, and with the possibility of using the leverage of it in contingencies easy to be foreseen for the overturning of the nation, it takes but half an eye to see that the man who wields it ought to have an instructed mind and an instructed conscience, and the State is not secure until he does.
—[Dr. Noble in Advance.