Visitors to St. Augustine, Fla., during the last three years have been directed to Capt. Pratt’s Indians as among the objects of interest in Fort Marion. There they were carried, as prisoners of war, in the spring of 1875, after the terrible massacres which had taken place in the Indian Territory by the Five Tribes. They went South, each with his legs fastened to a log with chains. They were filled with hatred over their real or fancied wrongs. One jumped from the cars, and was shot by the guard; one killed himself on the way. They wore only their Indian blankets, and had great brass hoops in their ears. They knew no word of English. It was their good fortune to fall into the hands of a Christian army officer, who, by his skill in management, and patience in seeking to do them good, at length won their confidence, and succeeded, with the help of a few benevolent ladies, in teaching them some of the simplest elements of civilization and learning. A few of them can read very well.
At the end of their second year, Mrs. Dr. Caruthers, of Tarrytown, N. Y., who had been teaching among them, determined to secure, if possible, the education of two young men of her class. She obtained permission from the Indian Commission, and raised money for the purpose. Other means and offers of help came in. At length it was found that twenty-two of them desired to go to school. They are now discharged from their imprisonment. The old chiefs go back to their people, greatly changed for the better. Fifteen of the young men were left at Hampton, April 13th, to be educated in the Normal Institute. They have begun their regular studies, and have been detailed to various departments of work, in shop and on farm. They seem perfectly happy and contented, and their new comrades treat them with kindness and consideration.
Here is another of those curious comminglings, and crossings of lines, of which life is so full, and yet which never cease to surprise us. The African and the Indian meet at Hampton, to be trained together, to be intelligent citizens and Christians, and the teachers of their people. Thus the two races are brought face to face—“the two races whose past involves America’s greatest responsibilities; whose future, some of her hardest problems.”
It costs $115 to keep one of these Indian boys at Hampton for a year—that, with what he is able to earn by his labor. This amount has been pledged by individuals alone, or together, for the education of most of the number. Mrs. Caruthers, having done so much, has asked the A. M. A., through its President and its Secretary, to assume the tuition of one of her wards, and the Executive Committee desire to do so; and Zone-ke-nh, twenty-one years of age, of the Kiowa tribe, will go to Hampton, in addition to those already there, as the pupil of the Association, if some of our friends, who may be especially interested in the elevation of the Indians, will make up this small amount, and help on this work, in which the elements are combined of romance, beneficence, and personality.
A SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONCERT.
Nothing is more welcome in these days than new ideas for use in Sunday-schools. What to do with the Concert, has been a question which has perplexed teachers and superintendents year after year, as the months come, one after another, in rapid succession. The verses containing “faith” and “hope” and “heaven” must be nearly all learned now in some quarters, and the new suggestion is, try a Missionary Concert, or, if you please, an American Missionary Concert.
But, how shall it be done? The answer is at hand. The pattern, even, can be sent, like Demorest’s or Butterick’s, in paper and by mail. We have one in our hands, about six inches by eight, four pages. It consists of a series of questions and answers (prepared originally by Rev. A. E. Winship, of Somerville, Mass.) upon the nature and the work of the A. M. A., and we are almost surprised to find so much valuable and exact information compacted in this form, and in so taking and interesting a shape. Coupled with this is a small sheet collection of eight or ten Jubilee Songs, to be sung at intervals during the Catechetical Exercise. We hear that this exercise has been used with great interest and success in several Sunday-schools at and near Boston; and we commend, most cordially, the thought and plan to the consideration and use of Superintendents and Presidents of Missionary Societies. The twenty-sixth article in the programme is a collection, and a legend instructing generous youth how to address their gifts to us. A new edition is in preparation, or in press. The questions and songs may be obtained in quantity, on application to District Secretary Woodworth, at the Congregational House, Boston.
District Secretary Powell has issued recently, from Chicago, an appeal to the Sunday-schools in behalf of the “Colored Student’s Aid Fund.” He says: “It is estimated that we are reaching (by student and graduate teachers) not less than a hundred thousand children in the South. But there are two millions of them to be reached.” He urges every Sunday-school to help in this good work. To know, is the first step toward supplying the want.