ADDRESS AT NASHVILLE,
AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF LIVINGSTONE MISSIONARY HALL.
BY SECRETARY STRIEBY.
As we are about to lay the corner-stone of a new school building, it is proper that I should answer the question, Why do we come down from the North to erect these buildings in the South?
Before answering the question, I may say that if we come at all, it is not strange that we should select so beautiful a spot as this for a location; nor that we should come to Nashville, for there seems to be some sort of educational lodestone that attracts schools to this city. Joshua conquered a Moabite city called Kirjath-sepher, which scholars tell us means “Book City.” What could have given it that title in that remote era, whether the possession of one book or several books, when letters had probably not long been invented, must remain forever a mystery. So when Macaulay’s New Zealander, after having meditated on the ruins of London Bridge, shall come to this spot and meditate upon the ruins here, or when some Layard or Cesnola or Schliemann shall dig down deep into their foundations, this place may be denominated the “School City;” for at the earliest date of the settlement of Nashville, good schools were formed, and now the hill-tops are crowned and the streets are adorned with schools of the highest character. Nor are these for the white race alone. The Methodist Central Tennessee College, the Baptist Normal and Theological Institute, and neither last nor least, Fisk University, crowning these heights, attest the interest taken in the Christian education of the colored race.
But why do we come here from the North to build these buildings? First, we come as fellow-citizens, who have shared in the agony of the late civil conflict, at the bottom of which lay negro slavery, and for which North and South were responsible, though it may be in different degrees. In the piping hot days of the anti-slavery contest, the Evangelical Alliance met in London. An English gentleman took the platform and delivered a scathing rebuke to America for slavery. Dr. Cox, our most celebrated off-hand orator of that day, took the floor, saying that of course America had her view as to who was responsible for negro slavery in America, whether Britons or Americans; “but,” said he, “I propose to take one corner of the mantle, and let the brother who has just spoken take the other corner, and we will walk backwards and throw it over the originator of negro slavery in America.” We come as fellow-citizens in a like spirit, ready to throw the mantle of charity over the past. But emancipation has introduced a new element. The ex-slaves need Christian education and elevation, and we come as Christian brethren and say to our friends at the South: We will take one corner of the mantle of Christian education, if you will take the other, and we will go forward, with our faces lifted to Heaven, and will throw that mantle over the emancipated slaves.
This is the work we propose to do in the South, and wise and candid men both North and South are beginning to realize that the education of the negro race is the paramount duty of the nation to it. Presidents Hayes and Garfield have voiced the feelings of the North on this subject, while Col. Preston and Dr. Ruffner of Virginia, Sen. Brown and Pres. Haygood of Georgia, have nobly re-echoed the sentiment from the South. This Association goes farther than mere intellectual education. It believes that the Christian element lies at the foundation of all true character, and that character is the basis of all true manhood and citizenship. It has been the aim of this Association not merely to lift up the individual, but to apply the levers to the elevation of the mass, and hence it has founded in every large Southern State, schools fitted for the training of teachers, preachers and missionaries of the colored race. At Hampton, where the first slave-ship entered the continent, in the same year in which the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, the Association opened the first Freedman’s school in these United States. Under the energetic administration of Gen. Armstrong, Hampton Institute, with its broad lands, its large and commodious buildings, its steam-engine and multiplied mechanical employments, gives educational and industrial training to its large company of students, graduating about fifty pupils each year, ninety per cent. of whom go into the State as teachers, carrying with them, into the school, the Sunday-school, the prayer-meeting and the church a healthful Christian influence; while the noble old state of Virginia responds to the effort by a gift of $10,000 a year for the support of the school. Atlanta University, with its two commodious buildings, and another soon to be added, imparts a higher range of teaching, including classic instruction to its pupils, and the state of Georgia responds with its gift of $8,000 a year. If you would see what is done at Fisk University, look around you and examine the classes under instruction in Jubilee Hall. But time would fail me to speak of Talladega, Ala.; Tougaloo, Miss.; Straight University, New Orleans; Tillotson Institute, Austin, Texas; and of the other schools, normal, grammar and primary, which the Association sustains. From all these institutions we believe there are pupils now engaged in teaching, who have under their care 200,000 children, and that there are pastors in churches that we have founded, and in others not under our care, whom we have prepared to be intelligent and faithful preachers of the Gospel in this land and in Africa. We believe that the providence of God is bringing to pass a wonderful combination of discovery in Africa and of Christian education among the Freedmen, that is to have an immeasurable influence on the long neglected races of the Dark Continent.
In these efforts for the colored people, we do not wish to make them vain nor to pauperize them. We believe our efforts have led thus far to neither of these results. The scholars going from our schools are not troubled with what is so aptly called the “big head,” and my observation shows that around our schools and others like them the colored people are inclined more than anywhere else to buy land, build houses and make comfortable Christian homes. Our purpose in erecting these buildings, in addition to the good that is done to the scholars under immediate instruction, is to inspire hope in the whole race. And we are doing it. A good colored deacon in one of our churches said that he expected no greater change to come over him when he entered Heaven than came over his race when the doors of the school-house were opened to it.
In the prosecution of this, our great work, we have spent over $3,000,000, and to secure that sum we have had providential helpers. First on the roll and steadiest in the ranks are the Christian friends at the North and in Great Britain, whose firm support has been the stability of our efforts. We mention also the Freedmen’s Bureau, with its large and wise distribution of Government funds for educational purposes. This Bureau has not been popular at the South; but we believe the time will yet come when our Southern friends will learn to appreciate the work of Gen. Howard, the head of this Bureau, and of Gen. Fisk, who administered so wisely and impartially for both races the Bureau work in this and adjoining States. The Jubilee Singers need no eulogy in this presence; their monument stands before us in Jubilee Hall; yet no list of the providential helpers of this Association, and especially of Fisk University, could be complete without their names. And last, but not least, mention must be made of the noble generosity of Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, attested not only in the gift of $60,000, which is to build Livingstone Hall, whose corner-stone we lay to-day, but in like gifts throughout the land. God rejoices in the coming spring, when the frozen ground and the ice-covered streams give place to the springing grass and the budding leaves, coming forth to adorn and beautify the earth and to presage the approaching harvests. And so, without presumption, may His child, the giver of the bounty which rears this building, be permitted to rejoice as it sends forth its annual company of students, trained and adorned for a useful life that shall gladden and bless the world.
The Vicksburg Herald, rebuking a narrow-minded correspondent, says: “We are heartily in favor of the South from the Potomac to the Rio Grande being thoroughly and permanently Yankeeized. Yankee energy, Yankee schools, Yankee cultivation, Yankee railroads and Yankee capital are badly needed in the South, and will be welcomed by every Southern progressive patriot.”