Various

“ Not only is it our reproach that we have been, almost exclusively, confined to a small part of the English-speaking people, but we shall deserve our littleness if we consent to be limited to this nation, or even to this continent. The world needs the principles we have in trust, and will not reach its best until it attains them. And, now, before us is an open field, rich in resources of life and wealth, all untilled. One-sixth of the human family waits to be moulded by Christian influence. A continent bares its bosom and asks Christianity for her strongest and best. ”

“ Is it all chance that puts us in this position and gives us this advantage in laying the foundations of education and religion for another race and another continent? God’s plan may include black as well as white pilgrims, and it may be ours to impart the pilgrim spirit and prepare the men who shall make a new Africa, as our fathers made a new America. This is possible to us as a church, and we ought to work towards it with unflagging zeal. We can only lose our advantage by our own neglect and lack of enterprise. We are in the front of workers for Africa. ”

“ What can be expected of the children of the next generation if their parents are not more than half civilized? We need educated parents, so that the children may be properly trained. In order to do this we must go into these by-ways of our State and sow our seed, though it be on untilled soil. I think that the time is fast approaching when the public school system, carried out by earnest teachers, shall reclaim these valleys, and make them an honor to the State instead of haunts of ignorance and vice. ”

“ This was the first year of real systematic work in the Academy, the building having been finished too late to open at the beginning of last school year.
There is a growing interest in the work. Upon the close of the war, the schools established by the American Missionary Association were everywhere crowded with our people thirsting for knowledge: in the whole South the feeling for education ran high, so that the zeal of the Freedman for education became proverbial. ”

“ The attendance of the citizens from the town through all the public exercises was a very pleasant feature. Talladega has made a deep and lasting impression on the white people. They acknowledge the good work that it has done and is doing, and believe in the possibilities that are before it.
Last fall, arrangements were made for an Industrial Fair, which called together some of the best specimens of work done by colored men and women in this State and a part of Georgia. This, probably, gave more impetus to the industrial enterprise of the people than anything that has been done since freedom. ”

“ The fact that the school was closing a year of prosperous work, during which a larger attendance than ever had been secured and maintained, and that evidences were multiplied of increasing confidence and respect on the part of all classes of people in the State, so that opportunities for usefulness were never greater, while generous gifts had recently come to provide needed facilities for the work, together with the real merit of the exercises and the large attendance of graduates, gave all a feeling of satisfaction which did much toward making the week one of great pleasure. ”

“ Whatever concerns our Chinese helpers bears with great weight on our work. Their teacher writes: “I think my pupils are very much in earnest, and study the Bible with no mere desire of finding out what there is in it, or of advancing themselves in the knowledge of our language—as some intimate the Chinese do—but with an earnest purpose to learn God’s ways and follow His commands, and to fit themselves to teach others the blessed truths which they themselves have come to believe. ”

“ The industrial department is about all one man can attend to if he will do his duty. Brothers Jackson and White have the church and school. I help in the Sabbath-school. [246] Having seen the condition of the people, I would say, if you had the money, send one hundred thousand missionaries to different parts of Africa at once, and have them establish missions and tributaries. This country is baptized in ignorance, vice, poverty and old customs. Humanity is entirely below description. There are hundreds, yes, thousands of persons here that have not a string of clothing to their names. ”

“ It takes a good deal of the remainder of the day to get rested and ready for work. It sounds pretty to talk about a man’s catching up his book between works, and so using up the odds and ends of time, a la Elihu Burritt; but unfortunately there are not a great many Elihu Burritts left, and I am afraid they are not indigenous to this climate, nor found among boys and girls in these schools. It is a question whether we can afford to run a farm and school together. The drain on both the treasury of the college and the physical powers of the student must be taken into our calculations. ”

“ They had a very good school-house for dry weather, but when it rained we had to shelter ourselves the best we knew how. The house would seat about sixty scholars comfortably, and was beautifully situated on a small hill called “Cedar Bluff,” which was surrounded by large oaks.
The people do not have very much preaching, but when they do have it it must be by daylight, on account of the white people stoning them at night. The colored people are still living as slaves, and are afraid to live otherwise. The laborers do not work by the day, as they do here, but as they are told. ”

“ We stayed in Florida three years, and then some of the Indians went back home, but the young men wanted to stay east and get a good education. We came to Hampton. We have been here one year, and we study hard and are learning to work and be men. We like it. I see that every white boy and girl, and every black boy and girl can go to school, and that is the way they get ahead of the Indians. Indians have no chance. You give all Indian boys and girls schools and teachers like you have, and Indians will do better. ”

“ That in city and country schools, young children be encouraged to observe the habits of animals and plants; that no school-house be considered complete without a small microscope, and at some time in the course of study, the usual reading books be laid aside for a series of child’s books of nature, treating of the first principles of botany, philosophy and zoology; that all methods of teaching bend toward educating the senses to observe quickly and accurately, the mind to think independently, and the hands to work dexterously. ”

“ Talladega is by far the prettiest site for a college that I have seen in the South. Nature has done her part in fitting up the place for purposes of instruction. There is every incentive to mental improvement that nature can afford. If man will do his part, we may expect to find here one of the most important of those springs which are sending forth streams of moral and mental influence through all the wastes of this south country. ”

“ We have a large force of young men and women in our schools, and our churches are constituted almost wholly of young Christian scholars. How easy it would be to turn the whole tide of their study and thought and influence towards Africa! There is in the African mind of the South now a strong drawing toward the land of their fathers. The schemes of colonization afloat all through the South show it. The hundreds of young men and young women banded together in our schools and churches to go to Africa as teachers or as preachers, if the way shall open, show it. ”

“ I chanced to light upon a school geography, the other day, published in 1847, in which this was the description given: ‘The interior of Africa is little known. The climate is so bad that the few Europeans who travel there generally die before they return.’ And it concluded by saying: ‘Most of the inhabitants are negroes.’ I think that the young people of to-day may congratulate themselves that they have not to study the text-books of thirty years ago—at any rate, on this question. ”

“ In New England it is a sure sign of shiftless husbandry when the land runs out year by year. In the South there are but few farms or plantations that are not becoming poorer every year. The effort is begun on this farm to restore fertility, and in a few years we may expect to see a fine specimen of Northern enterprise in the products of its hitherto barren acres. The students work the farm in part payment for their education. How far this industrial department is going to succeed financially is a question that must wait for an answer. ”

“ An abolitionist from my first consideration of the enslaved in our country, induced by the movement and utterances of the great agitator—now happy, I trust, in his reward—I still feel that, though their chains are broken, they are objects of sympathy and aid in their anxiety and effort to become intelligent and useful citizens. There is no department of benevolent effort to which I more cheerfully contribute. ”

“ To establish a mission like that of Lake Tanganyika, the lake itself being of the length of the distance, say from London to Carlisle, and twenty miles broad, with all its shores lined with populous villages—to establish a mission in such a centre of such a district demands an energy and a zeal and a patience equal to those of the greatest missionaries that have ever lived; and to do this, with the certain loss of the comforts and conveniences of civilized life, and with the equally certain risk of losing life itself, demands a heroism equal to that of the ancient martyr. ”

“ True it is that the North of Africa has been connected with European history ever since Europe had a history, and Egypt, especially, is rich in associations of the most remote antiquity. South Africa has been colonized by modern European nations, and the East and the West Coasts have furnished the material for that iniquitous slave trade in which Christian nations have not been ashamed to join hands with Mohammedans in order to rob their fellow-men of their liberties. ”

“ The colored people generally gravitated to one side of the building, thus keeping up their country customs and gaining the approbation of their white neighbors. This is one of the relics of slavery. Generations must die before either white or colored people will feel like treating each other as equals. ”

“ I worship the gods of my own country. If Jesus is the God of the barbarians, let him be worshiped by them, and not by Chinese.’ So his heart was hardened like that of Pharaoh, until, at last, he fell sick. ”

“ This institution has been conducted with singular wisdom and propriety, and has already proved an inestimable blessing to the colored people of Georgia. Gradually, but surely, all the prejudices of the whites have been overcome, and the predictions of many that it would eventuate in a mere nursery of Radicalism and hate to the superior race, have not been justified by the facts. On the contrary, we have the testimony of our own School Superintendent, Mr. B. M. Zettler, that some of the most efficient and conservative teachers in the Bibb County schools were educated at the Atlanta University. ”

“ But the fact that so many young people, with no experience and little money and few friends, accomplish every year such a great work, seems to prove that the hand of the Lord guides and protects them, and that His purpose is to make them a leavening power at the base of society in this State, to regenerate and bless and save the whole mass. ”

“ After the close of the school the pupils often remain and read together the Scriptures written in Chinese. Each Friday evening I tell them a short story from the Bible, and try to take from it some truth which they may remember. I should be deeply grateful could I write of more being brought into the kingdom of God. The work is encouraging; and while sometimes we reap the fruits of others’ labors, so others shall reap the fruits of ours. ”

“ At a low estimate, the number of Indian children of school-going age, exclusive of those belonging to the five civilized tribes of the Indian Territory, may be placed at 33,000. Of these, not less than 8,000 could, within a short time, be gathered into boarding-schools, except for the fact that the teachers are yet to be employed, the school buildings are yet to be erected, and the funds for both, and for feeding and clothing the scholars, are yet to be appropriated. ”

“ Berea, a beautiful spot by nature, is growing more and more beautiful every year. It is a charming place for a college, and nothing but poverty prevents a thousand youth from flocking here for education. Expenses are very low: Tuition, $9 a year; board, $1.50 a week; free tuition for ninety pupils; yet many students must leave, unless they can contrive a cheaper way to live, and find work to meet their small expenses.
SOUTH CAROLINA. School Closing—Religious Life. ”

“ The religious work of the year has been prospering, twelve having united with the school church, and more than as many more, who were hopefully converted here, being expected to unite with churches at their homes. All the members of the graduating classes are professing Christians, as has been the case with all who have been graduated thus far. The opportunities and possibilities for good were never greater nor the outlook more hopeful ”

“ The signs of the times indicate that the Lord’s work is to be done upon a larger scale in the near future; the progress, made and making, in our schools, and the call for enlargement in our church work, will make increasing demands upon us, until the time shall come when they shall be more largely self-supporting than it is possible for them to be now. We have done much—we are doing more—we must expect to do a still greater work. ”