FINANCIAL.
Our receipts show a falling off. Five months of the fiscal year are ended, and the receipts from donations are $20,774.39 less than for the corresponding months of last year; from legacies only $17,471.44 more. The decrease is in the contributions of living donors, and upon these rather than upon legacies, which are fluctuating and uncertain, must the Association rely for its regular support. Its work was never more successful or needed. The kind of schools and churches it establishes, and the preachers and teachers it sends forth, are becoming more fully appreciated. We are urgently invited to enter new and unusually promising openings for an enlarged church work. The valuable service rendered by our increased corps of lady missionaries makes a strong demand for large additions to their number. The Indian work received by the Association from the American Board will add about $20,000 to the expenditures of the year, without the enlargement which it so greatly needs. The Chinese work makes a strong appeal for additional accommodations for the increasing number of pupils in the schools.
Without an increase of receipts, or the creation of a debt, the Association cannot enlarge its work, or even sustain it in its present condition. Our Executive Committee feel themselves pledged against a debt by their promises to the public and by their own deep convictions of duty. But they confidently believe that the conscientious donors who have stood by the Association so faithfully in the past will promptly render such efficient assistance as will not only save it from debt or curtailment, but will authorize enlargement.
MUST HAVES.
The following “must haves” sent us in a private letter from President Ware, of Atlanta, illustrate the urgency of the appeals that constantly come to us from our different workers South. Mr. Ware says: “We must have buildings; we must have endowments for running expenses; we must or go to the wall; we must have building for grade B; for model school building, $8,000; we must have cottage in girls’ lot for housekeeping instruction, $5,000; we must have new hall for girls, $25,000, that will give room for 100 girls; we must have shop for industries, carpenter, etc., and endowment for support of man in that department, about $50,000 for both;” a batch, it will be seen, of $88,000, with no estimate of the amount needed for general endowment. We believe that it has been found so far by those who have put their money into Atlanta University that it has yielded “some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred fold.” The stock is not all taken. We invite investors to examine the “points” in this venture, and trust that the merits of the security will warrant a speedy absorption of the entire amount called for.
We are cheered by many kind words relating to the American Missionary, and believe that those interested in the nation’s welfare, and especially in the redemption of the South, find in it much to encourage them to hope and to give in behalf of the people for whom we labor. Nothing, however, gives more evidence of appreciation than the steady response to our appeals for paid subscriptions. So far this year these have been very gratifying. The price is fifty cents, and we hope there will be no abatement of interest on the part of our friends in helping us place the magazine on a paying basis.
In the list of the teachers at Hampton, as reported in the February Missionary, the name of Miss Waldron should have been put as Miss M. M. Waldron, M.D., School Physician.