FAREWELL AND GREETING.
We regret to announce that Professor Salisbury, who for the past three years has been Superintendent of our school work, this month severs his connection officially with the A. M. A. He goes to take charge of the State Normal School at Whitewater, Wis. This is the school in which we found him as a professor, when we called him to our ranks, and now we are called to give him up that he may go back to stand at its head. We can ill afford to spare him. He is not only a master in his knowledge of everything connected with schools, in respect to organization, discipline and best methods of teaching, but he is also a man of remarkable executive ability.
When he entered our work he certainly came into the kingdom for a day that had been providentially prepared. The work had taken on massive proportions. All over the South our schools had been planted. These schools were branches of the same tree; they had a common trunk and drew their life and spirit from the same soil. But, separated so far from one another, as many of them were, there came to be a felt necessity that some one competent to care for their common interests, while recognizing at the same time their separate prerogatives and rights, must be found. Multiplied variety necessarily had characterized their development, and as a consequence, the unity of their origin and aim had been endangered. That is a law of nature. We had been brought to see and feel this. We looked around to find the man equal to the task involved. It was not easy to find him. We realized the difficulty. Our workers realized it. It would not have been strange if we had made a mistake. A rare combination of qualifications was demanded. We believed that Professor Salisbury possessed these qualifications. We invited him to take up the work. He accepted. He entered, and continued in it down to the last moment he held the office, with all his heart and soul, and now that he has felt constrained to leave us we are glad, not only on his account, but also on our own, unreservedly to bear testimony that, we believe, no mistake was made when he was appointed.
He has rendered the American Missionary Association signal service, and when we remember how intimately the work of this Association is connected with the welfare of the nation, it is not too much to say that he has in these three years of hard and faithful work rendered signal service to the whole land. Our school work has steadily grown in efficiency and power ever since he took it up, and the general cause of education all over the South has been benefited by the impulse his teaching, character and devotion have inspired. Not alone the colored schools, but the white schools as well, have been the gainers. By his lectures and instruction given in Normal Institutes, and by his personal contact with the leading educators of the South, he has brought in no small degree a knowledge of the most approved methods of teaching to the attention of Southern educators, and has done much to develop a sentiment in favor of popular education among the people.
It is a high compliment to his ability the State of Wisconsin pays in calling him back and investing him with the principalship of the same school from which we took him; and, as we reluctantly return him, we can wish for him no greater blessing than that the same success may attend his labors in the field to which he goes that, with God's favor, has so abundantly crowned him in the one he leaves.
"The king is dead; long live the king." We have just been speeding the parting guest. We now turn to welcome the coming. That we have done the "speeding" reluctantly does not abate the heartiness with which we now do the "welcoming." To such an extent had our church work been systematized under Superintendent Roy, and our school work under Superintendent Salisbury, that when we had to transfer the one to the Western District Secretaryship, and had to lose the other, we felt that the two positions might possibly be merged. The very success of these workers had made this practicable. Not that the work of the two could be done by any one man. They are not that kind of men, as our constituents well know. They are both of them drivers. It is almost enough to discourage any ordinary man to see either of them work. A hard position to fill surely. We are glad to say that after a good deal of searching we believe we have found the man.
We have appointed Rev. C. J. Ryder, of Medina, Ohio, as our Field Superintendent. He accepts the appointment and will take up the work the first of September. He will be located at Cincinnati, from which point, by reason of its central location and excellent railroad facilities, he will be able to reach out in all directions. A successful pastor—an able preacher, having had experience and success as a teacher, and in addition possessing already considerable knowledge of our work, he will enter the field with the opinions of all those who know him best united that he will make it a success. We welcome him to the ranks of our fellowship in the glorious cause of bringing the light of the gospel and Christian education to the poor; we welcome him to the rich joy the expressions of their heart-felt gratitude will cause him to experience. We welcome him to the love and confidence and co-operation of our missionaries whose hearts will be made glad by his visits and whose toil will be made lighter by his counsel; above all we welcome him to the rewards God bestows upon those who are ready, if need be, to surrender everything that they may follow Christ.