A year ago we greatly felt the need of dormitories, and accommodations for students to “batch.” For this the Association could make no appropriation. One of the neighbors has put up a building for this purpose, another is building, and a third has converted an old store-room into dormitories, and four families have taken boarders. Last year our school was confined to one room; now we have added a recitation room.
On the whole, the outlook is hopeful. By the close of the present school year twelve to fifteen of our pupils will be able to obtain teacher’s license from the County School-Examiner.
SOUTH CAROLINA.
Church and School Work—The Cause of the Exodus.
REV. TEMPLE CUTLER, CHARLESTON.
The work goes quietly on here in Charleston—in all its departments. The school is flourishing. It never had so many pupils as now, and was never more popular than under the direction of Mr. Gaylord. We are not ashamed to have visitors from North, South, East, or West, visit Avery. If any of your readers doubt the capacity of these colored boys and girls, let them come and see for themselves.
Miss Wells, our missionary, is doing good work—visiting the homes and teaching the mothers and daughters how to make the home what it should be.
The church work goes on slowly. The feeling of unity and harmony is increasing, and, so far as I can see, may be said to be universal in the church. We have had stormy weather in Plymouth for some time; it has been a sort of Cape Hatteras, around which the winds have revelled, but now the sky is clear and the sea smooth. We have a large growth of tares in the church that does neither us nor anybody else any good. If we should undertake to root it out, I do not know how much wheat might come up with it, nor how much wheat we would trample down in getting to it. Oh, how wise we need to be in dealing with these people; what a broad mantle of charity we have to throw over them. Those of us who glean after the reapers in this field, where the “patriarchal institution” once flourished, find that either the type of piety that prevailed in the “Abrahamic household” was very defective, or the “Abrahamic duty” was woefully neglected. Certainly, the idea of religion that prevails among the former dependents of these modern patriarchs, is not that of either the Old or New Testament. But why throw stones at the old defunct institution? What did I say? Defunct? I wish to God it was defunct, and that these freemen had a fair chance and a free fight for their rights and liberties. But that day is a long way off; and I fear the shimmer of the morn is not yet seen. I want to be just as hopeful as possible. I never was a croaker. I generally see the bright side of a thing. But sometimes, when I come in from some tale of oppression and misery, the clouds just shut right down—it is midnight. When I am made to know that there are 20,000 poor wretches here in this city that are the carcass on which rich cormorants are fattening, my soul is sick within me. Congress may investigate the cause of the emigration of the colored people to all eternity, and come to what conclusion they may, it won’t stop. I pray God it may not stop until enough laborers get away from the South to give room for those who remain to grow. God knows the truth, and He will open some way for His people to go out. I assure you His new Israel has not yet come to the land flowing with milk and honey. What think you of a man supporting a family of four on 25 cents a day, and paying five dollars a month for house rent? What think you of a family of five living on the wages of the daughter who gets six dollars a month working out, and paying five dollars a month for house rent? Hungry mouths will stifle conscience. Or, how long could the good people of the North live on hasty-pudding without molasses or milk, morning, noon and night, and nothing else, day after day and week after week?
Do you say, why not go back into the country and work the land? So I said to one who had brought his family of five or six down here to starve with the rest: “Why didn’t you stay up in the country?” “Couldn’t lib up dar no how. Starve up dar shuah. Rent so high couldn’t lib. Had free acres of land and a po, misable shantie, and had to work fo days ob de week fur de rent, and but two days to tend my own crop. Hab to buy ebreting ob de commisary. Hab to pay twenty cents a pound fur meat (bacon), and forty cents a peck fur grits (corn meal). Starve to deff up dar shuah.” Four days’ work every week for the rent of three acres of land! The best land in that section is worth four dollars per acre. Call the man’s work worth twenty-five cents a day. His rent was one dollar a week—fifty-two dollars a year. No wonder the landlords are not anxious to sell land to the colored people, when they can get four times the value of the land every year in work at twenty-five cents a day. Defunct institution! Yes, on the statute book. “But, my man, why didn’t you buy the land at four dollars an acre?” “Well, sah, some ob ’em did buy de land. I dunno how much dey pays; but I knows when dey’s paid two or tree stalments dey can’t pay no mo, and gibs em up.” Do you wonder the people listen to glowing pictures of better opportunities somewhere else? If these people had a decent chance at home, they would not listen to invitations away. The fact is, they are perfectly helpless, and there is nothing for the mass of them but to sit down and wait, wait, wait, through the long, long years till the morning comes. I do not wonder they emigrate. I pray God they may continue to go, until those who remain shall have their hands full to supply the demands for labor. It may not be better for those that go, but it will be better for those that remain. The more you thin out your woodland, the taller and stouter will be your timber. The only hope for this people is a scarcity of laborers. There are so many who must have work, or die, that every vacancy has a dozen ready applicants. Twenty-five cents a day, I am told, is all that some of these planters will give to man or woman; and they can get enough at that price. In such circumstances, you cannot expect people to haggle long about the price of labor. The cry is simply, “Give me my hire.” And then, if you remember that two hundred years of slavery in a man’s blood is not a very good preparation for independency, you may get a pretty good idea of the situation of the people.
But my letter is too long. Tell the churches to pray for the freeman of the South. I do not say freedmen, because there are thousands here who were never slaves and are no better off. Ask the churches to help us to give them the only consolation they can at present have—a sure and intelligent hope of a better world than this on the other side—and not expect them, out of their deep poverty, to pay for their own schooling or preaching just yet.