Berea College, founded by the intrepid John G. Fee, a missionary of the American Missionary Association, owned by its own Board of Trustees from the first, was for many years assisted by the generous contributions of the Association.
These three institutions, though independent of the Association and not under its care or support, if added to the list already given of our higher schools, will show a line of educational lighthouses stretching from the Atlantic to the Gulf and thence into the heart of Texas. Such was the original plan of the Association, and such has been the remarkably successful result.
But the work of the Association is not confined to the Negro race. In the mountains of the South it touches with the wand of Christian education the noble Highlanders of America with their proud achievements and yet with their long-neglected education, needing the inspiring uplift of the school and cultured church. To these influences they yield a most hearty response, and no brighter reports will be found than from these mountain regions.
The Indians have from the outset been the subjects of our watchful care, and with some variation in their activity, the services among them have brought forth some of the brightest results. Revivals during the past year of greater power than any reported from any other part of the field were experienced in these Indian churches.
The Chinese work on the Pacific Coast, under the admirable leadership of Dr. Pond, has made steady progress in the conversion of souls here and in carrying the gospel to China.
The mission in Alaska, brought to so sudden and terrible a close by the murder of Mr. Thornton, is expected to be opened again this summer by the return of Mr. and Mrs. Lopp to Cape Prince of Wales. With their knowledge of the language and of the people, and with the advantages of their past experience, we hope the mission will enter upon a new and much more successful life than heretofore.
We invite the friends of the Association to study this work in its variety and extent. We make no comparisons, but surely this work touches the sympathies of the patriot and the Christian, and calls for a steady and abundant support.
VACATION.
We congratulate our teachers who are now returning from the South on the vacation that awaits them in the hills and on the seashores of the North. They have had the unbroken toil of eight or ten months in the South, far from their homes and friends, finding little companionship except with the pupils and their parents, sometimes ostracized and scorned by the whites—and yet not always—for we rejoice to say that there are many localities in the South where the work of our teachers is appreciated and where they are themselves treated with Christian courtesy by the whites.