2. The question of two Congregational Societies on the Southern field receives its greatest importance from its relation to caste-prejudice. There are other difficulties. One of the saddest features of the modern church extension at the West is the starting of two or more feeble churches of different denominations in small villages or among sparse populations, creating frictions and rivalries where harmony and Christian fellowship are so essential, and a waste of men and money where there is so much need of economy. This would be aggravated in the poorer and sparser settlements of the South, and still more aggravated if the same denomination should, by two of its own societies there, thus come into rivalry with itself. In the one case two houses are arrayed against each other; in the other, a house is divided against itself. It is the same railroad company running parallel lines in competition with each other.
But all these considerations, grave as they are, are of small importance when compared with the danger that the division of the labors of two societies, running mainly along the color line, would be construed as lending the sanction of the denomination to caste separation. This is the gravamen of the difficulty. I am happy to say that the two societies are equally committed against caste, and will equally and honorably repudiate all intentional sanction of it. But the bare fact that one is avowedly working mainly for the whites and the other mainly for the blacks, will, in spite of all protests to the contrary, array them before the public as separated only by the color line. It is not proper for me to speak for another society, but for my own I must speak. The American Missionary Association was born an opponent of slavery. Amid poverty, sneers and reproach from the best of men, as well as the worst of men, it pressed forward in its opposition till the glorious end came. It must oppose caste as it did slavery. It began its work among the freedmen as the avowed enemy of caste, and amid much misapprehension and reproach at the South, it has pressed onward until it has gained the respect of both races. That position it cannot, and it ought not to be asked to, surrender or jeopardize by being placed on one side of a line of separation in missionary labors that has no reason for its existence except the colors of the people to be benefited.
3. If, in view of all the facts, it should be ultimately decided that the Congregational churches should be represented at the South by one missionary society, the decision should be reached in the broadest spirit of Christian wisdom and kindness.
The American Missionary Association is not eager to be pushed forward into the mission work among the whites, but it knows something of their needs, especially their need of deliverance from caste-prejudice that mars the symmetry of their piety and chills their hearts as slavery did, and that perpetuates a race antagonism that must be crushed before the South can be safe or prosperous. If the Association should be called to that work, it has some experiences and facilities that would be helpful. Its past record would be a guaranty that it would not foster caste. It would have no temptation to found schools and churches mainly white that should be rivals of its schools and churches mainly colored, and it could have no reason to hesitate in establishing both, if both were needed. It is not “handicapped” for this work except by its firm and well-known attitude against caste, and any other society equally faithful on that subject would soon be equally handicapped. Its large planting of schools and churches, with a value of property of nearly a million of dollars, gives it a position and an influence that it would take any other society a long time and a large outlay of funds to acquire—to say nothing of the facilities it thus possesses to extend its work among both races. It has a wide acquaintance with the Southern people, both white and colored, and has won for itself a large place in their confidence, by its quiet, unselfish and useful work for both. It has, moreover, already done something in bringing the two races together in school and church, and for this reason it is fitted to be a bond of union and Christian fellowship between them.
This Association, standing on the ruins of slavery, and amid the schools and churches it has erected thereon for the benefit of the colored race, and to some extent also for the white, would find it both cognate and congenial to enlarge its work among the whites, both the ignorant and the educated, carrying to them a gospel that is not only uplifting and purifying, but that makes no caste distinction in the school room or in the house of God.
REPORT ON EDUCATIONAL WORK.
The Committee on the Educational Work of the A. M. A. would respectfully report that they find the history of the past year highly satisfactory and encouraging. It is a record of enlarged accommodations at several of the institutions. Stone Hall, at Atlanta, the fourth of the buildings erected by the munificence of Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, has been completed. New buildings, or very considerable additions to former buildings, have been constructed at Midway, Macon, Talladega, Williamsburg, Hillsboro, Memphis and New Orleans; yet from several quarters the call still comes for more room.
It is a record of increased practical efficiency. Industrial training, which forms so important an adjunct of the work, has been making progress by workshops established at Macon and Memphis, and arrangements for carpentry schools at Tougaloo and Atlanta; while farming education and training in housekeeping go on at various points as heretofore, supplemented at Memphis by instruction in nursing and hygiene; and Hampton continues to teach more vigorously than ever a variety of handicrafts, such as printing, bookbinding, iron and tin work, carpentry and wood turning, the manufacture of sash and doors, shoe and harness making, tailoring and farming. All this is, for the present, a very essential element of the educational work.
It is a record of some degree of expansion, although the main aspect is rather one of consolidation and elevation. The number of teachers has increased by twenty-eight and the number of common schools by four; the number of pupils being but slightly greater than last year. The grade of these institutions is steadily advancing. Among these pupils are found, we are happy to say, ninety theological students—twelve more than were reported last year. The three Teachers’ Institutes, held in as many States, may prove to be the entering wedge of another great instrument of power and quickening influence. The crowded halls and interested audiences of the anniversaries of so many of our Institutions are a striking manifestation of genuine progress. When we remember that the oldest of these institutions has seen but a quarter of a century, and practically but twenty years of life time, and that now we rejoice in eight chartered institutions, comparatively strong and effective, twelve high and normal schools and forty-two common schools, with 279 teachers doing their soul-expanding work, we may well say “What hath God wrought.” Far as it falls short of our desire and our duty, so far and more also does it exceed the boldest reasonable expectations of the dark and cloudy time of the beginning.