$500,000.
This is the sum recommended for the use of this Association by the National Council, and by our own Annual Meeting. These figures have not only these indorsements, but also the far greater one of the needs of the field. Some of our schools are packed to overflowing and scholars are turned away because there is no room, places are opening for enlarged church work which we ought to have the means of entering, and industrial facilities should be increased. The need for such enlargement is illustrated in part by the items which follow.
* * * * *
Calls For Enlargement.
Our schools, with scarcely an exception, are asking for more teachers for their over-crowded rooms, and two or three pulpits stand vacant because we have not suitable pastors for them. We are able to report great enthusiasm along every line of our work and a spirit of uncommon consecration among all our teachers this year. We are having a noble year of thorough work.
From Greenwood, S.C., comes this word: "For the last month we have had over two hundred and thirty students, and have refused between seventy-five and one hundred applications for admission because there was not one inch of room for them."
Our school at Meridian has outgrown the building erected for it, and has overflowed into the church. It is another illustration of the fact that the children of the emancipated freedmen are as earnest for education as were their fathers and mothers when they swarmed into the temporary schools provided for them.
A letter from Wilmington, N.C., says: "Without another teacher, I do not know what to do, unless it be to send away about twenty-five pupils. This I would be very sorry to do, as I would hardly know which ones to send and there would be no school for them to re-enter, as the public schools are full to overflowing; besides, many would consider it a calamity to be thus dropped out."
We have just opened anew the Storrs school, which was not re-opened in October with the other schools. The Principal writes us: "The joy of the people at witnessing the preparations is extravagant. One old man said to-night, 'There will be seven hundred scholars there when you open.' These are not 'the words of soberness,' probably, but the enthusiasm with respect to the re-opening of school is beyond all expectation." Five teachers have been sent and more are called for.
Our teachers in Troy, N.C., write us: "Can you not send us a pastor? There is such an earnest need of one. We really do not think the work here can prosper unless we have a pastor. We do the best we can. The prayer meetings are all well attended, but it makes one's heart fail, to think of these 'sheep without a shepherd.' The work is very absorbing. Is there no one you could send here, if only for a time?"