The receipts of Berea College, Hampton N. and A. Institute, and Atlanta University, are added below, as presenting at one view the contributions of the same constituency for the general work in which the Association is engaged.
| Receipts of the A. M. A. | $187,480.02 | |
| Hampton N. & A. Inst. | 57,014.73 | |
| Atlanta University, State Appropriation | 8,000.00 | |
| Berea College | 37,607.06 | |
| ———————— | $290,101.81 |
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND ENLARGEMENT.
Your Committee on Finance and Enlargement, to whom was referred the financial exhibit of the Association for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 1880, as presented by the Treasurer, beg leave to report that they have examined the accounts and found them duly audited. These accounts include a minute and detailed statement of receipts and expenditures, a list of the endowments, and also a full account of the property owned by the Association, and were accompanied by the account books of the Treasurer.
We are unanimous in vouching for the faithfulness and economy which characterize all branches of the financial administration. Nor can we refrain from a word of most emphatic commendation of the thorough explicitness of the Association’s financial statement.
But passing from this to the substance of the Report, we notice three points suggested by it which seem to call for special mention.
In the first place, it is ground for gratitude and thanksgiving that the year closes without leaving us burdened with a debt. On the contrary, there is a balance in the treasury of nearly eight hundred dollars. Not a very large surplus, surely, but the fact that the year’s work has been done and left us anything besides a disheartening deficiency, is itself occasion for thankfulness and cheer.
In the second place, there is ground for anxiety, lest the financial condition of the Association should be misunderstood. It is well known that a gift of $150,000 has recently come into its treasury. This fact, it is to be feared, has given, or may give, the impression that the Association is, for the present at least, in no further need of funds. We have already heard of one generous friend who has withheld an intended gift through such an entire misapprehension. And lest others should be similarly misled, it seems to us important not only to state, but to emphasize the fact, that this large gift brings no relief whatever to the usual wants of the Association. It is not designed to do the work which the Association is doing. This money is wholly appropriated to the erection of new buildings for the increasing numbers of colored students. It is to do nothing whatever towards meeting the ordinary expenses of the Association’s work; nothing whatever towards diminishing the necessity of aid which the Association is compelled to seek from the Christian and the philanthropist. It cannot be too clearly seen or too widely known, that so far as any augmented power for doing its proper work is concerned, the Association is not one whit better off for this gift of $150,000 than it would be if not a dollar of it had been given. But,