Various

“ It is hardly to be counted in the history of a race. A century is but a unit in the problem of a people's history. We have no right to form our judgments yet, as to the place the Negro people may take. ”

“ It is really pitiful to see the embarrassment of a young man of nearly thirty [pg 155] years, when he cannot read a single sentence in the Second Reader. Two years ago, a young man entered my department who had not attended school in fourteen years. He actually knew nothing; one week he did nothing but listen. He was ashamed; he thought he could not stand it. He was a Christian young man, and asked God to help him. His progress has been a wonder. To-day, he stands at the head of his grade and conducts one of our out-station Sunday-schools every Sabbath. ”

“ The Negro condition at present is one of immaturity. The Uncle Rastus side of Negro character and life may be seen every day in the Southern Negro. The immaturity of the race and its revelation and expression in feature and in character, repel more than color does. The antipathy against color in the South is reduced to its very lowest terms, as facts prove.
The way to destroy the prejudice which exists both by association with the ideas of bondage and by features which are not refined, is a common one. Education is the only way. ”

“ In the relationship of the races we are accustomed to speak of the "color prejudice." We know very well that there is a most assertive prejudice against colored people. Rev. Dr. Wright, in his admirable address at Chicago, said, "The cause is this: All free-born people in every age and clime have a contempt for slaves. The sole reason of the persistence of the caste feeling is that the black man belongs to a race which has been enslaved." ”

“ A distinguished educator lately said that he had been disappointed in the intellectual ability and resources of the Negro. The race had not shown itself to be hopeful. I reply, if in twenty-five years we have the few remarkable instances of advancement and attainment which appear, together with a very large general uplift in education and character, may not these facts be the prophecies and pledges of a future that shall not be inferior. ”

“ Christian Negro Leaders We conscientiously believe that educated Christian Negroes are to be the safe and trusted leaders of their people in the crisis which is coming in the South. Their wisdom and Christian character will counterbalance the rash and reckless impulses of others of their race, and instead, therefore, of its being unwise to educate the Negro, as some Southern white people believe, the Christian education of these colored people will be the sheet anchor of safety to both whites and blacks in the South. ”

“ Here is a man, who by his life is denying what nine out of every ten men in the United States are saying: "It is no use to work among the adult Indians." He was twenty-five and over before he commenced study of any kind. He is now a citizen, Republican, Prohibitionist, church officer, teacher, preacher, all of which require a fair amount of intelligence and information.
[pg 158] His work, too, is invaluable if the aim is to change the Indian to an American citizen. In this village this one room only is the opening to civilization. ”

“ I am delighted with the way in which our pastors and churches where these missions are located are taking them under their own watch-care. It is not simply to entrust the work to the California Chinese Mission and to the American Missionary Association to which it is an auxiliary, but it is to take the Chinese Sunday-schools into their own Sunday-school rooms, to furnish teachers for the same, along with the lady missionaries and native helpers, to receive the converted ones into church membership, and to recognize the local work as their own. ”

“ I heard in a colored church in St. Augustine the following prayer: "O Lord! overcome those who oppress us, not by sword and bayonet and blood, but by the power of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ." When the spirit that that prayer breathes becomes the spirit of the whole people of the South, black and white, the present desperate condition of things will come to an end.
The Girl's Industrial School at Thomasville, Ga., is crowded with pupils. The dormitory accommodations provide room for only forty pupils, and forty-two are already there. ”

“ Even now the difference between the uneducated and the educated black man is very striking. The crudeness and the unrefinement in feature are not necessary accompaniments of color. Thick lips do not inherently belong with a dark skin. Coarseness of feature belongs to white people, long degraded, as well, and is to be eliminated in them also by the evolution which takes place in schools and churches. ”

“ From lower Arkansas, central and upper Louisiana, Tougaloo is drawing increasing numbers of pupils each year. With such a location the only limit to the growth of Tougaloo in numbers and influence will be that set by the means which Christian beneficence provides for its support. Tougaloo aims to give a thoroughly practical [pg 156] education to colored youth of both sexes. A colored minister well expressed it when he said: "It is the aim of the teachers of Tougaloo to enable the Negro to have the grace of God in his heart, knowledge in his head, and money in his pocket." ”

“ None of us have ever had any prejudice against colored people, and we try to help them with purse and pen, and have always met with gratitude and respect in return. Of course these people are all freed now, but my sister and I still own a great deal of real estate, and upon it will be found many families of colored people who were our slaves. ”

“ I unhitched the horses, tramped the snow down so they could stand, drove them out and around perhaps forty rods, and then took in the situation. There was the sled half way up the hill. To pull it up was impossible; to turn it round the same, to back it down by hand the same. The only thing left was to haul it down. Here is where a picket line is the best kind of a missionary. It will often help a man out of a hard place, or unto a hard place, as in this case. Making a turn of a rope around the sled and hitching the team on forty feet down the hill we were soon on solid ground. ”

“ Some of the young men are tired of Indian ways. They think the dance is something that ought to be thrown away. These young men now have a place to spend their evenings, beyond the dance house. These houses and native helpers break down more superstition and Indian life than any other influence on the reservation. In the matter of dress it is the same. Here is an Indian woman who is not ashamed to wear a dress like a white woman. The teachers in the day schools complain that they cannot get the girls to wear the civilized dress when they leave school. ”

“ Spotted Bear has an evening school of twenty or more young men. He teaches Dakota, and as much English as he can. A few can read. These he puts into a Bible class. The New Testament is the text book. On Sunday he holds two or three services, and the house is always full. A larger room is needed at once. To build this will be my first spring work. The value of just such work as this cannot be overestimated. Spotted Bear himself got his education in just such a school. ”

“ And Indian dresses mean Indian dirt and carelessness. One Indian woman advocating "dress reform" by example, will do more than any teacher on the reservation.
From Black Pipe I go to Park Street Church Station. Here I have a road of twenty-five miles and not a mile of snow. Instead of a four hour drive I have ten hours of dragging along. But the end comes at last.
At Park Street Station considerable progress is made. The school attendance is more regular. The children are cleaner; they wash their faces and comb their hair more frequently. They take more interest in study. ”

“ Here is a race from original heathenism which has come through two hundred years of the darkness of slavery, set free in exceedingly unhelpful conditions, and shut in for the most part to association with illiteracy, bad manners, bad morals and bad habits. ”

“ As a specimen of the counsel given by the influential Christian Negro, we clip the following from the Christian Recorder of Philadelphia, the organ of the African Methodist Episcopal Church:
While we believe in all men being courageous, we encourage none to be rash. We are at the mercy of a powerful class. ”

“ A man told one of our Indian pupils, that he was not like other men, that he helped others and went to church, etc., and as she told the story she said, "Yet he is a Republican and sinner, I think."
The South
Notes In The Saddle By District Secretary C.J. Ryder.
A little girl in the Sunday-school at Quincy, Mass., when asked what a missionary was, replied: "A missionary is a man who comes around to get our money." ”

“ The presence of so many colored men and women who had graduated from the institutions of learning they now seek to foster, including Presidents of colleges and normal schools and principals and teachers of public schools, professors of Greek, Latin, mathematics and theology, physicians, lawyers and ministers, was an object-lesson of the educational progress of the race. ”

“ In ordinary weather the trip would take five or six hours and not worry a team. But the longest road generally leads to a warm house and the coldest drive is forgotten when your team is in a warm stable and the prospects are good for a hot supper.
Spotted Bear, who is the native teacher and preacher at Northfield Station, has gone to work with earnestness and enthusiasm. Here is a large community, perhaps fifty houses, heathen to the core. ”

“ The school-room is open every evening in the week. A substitute is offered for the dance and heathen amusements. If the work is slow it is sure. When a young man gives up the dance, paint, long hair, right at his home, it costs something, and because it costs something he puts some value upon it.
After spending ten days at Park Street, I started back in the deep snow and coldest weather of winter. In one place I spent almost seven hours going thirteen miles. ”

“ We present to our readers four pictures giving different views of the Ballard Normal School at Macon, Ga., and add here a description copied from the Ballard Record:
Ballard Normal School has this year entered upon the fruition of many earnest hopes and desires, in the opening of the boarding department, in connection with the day school. We have now a large family of boarding pupils living in the beautiful new dormitory, erected last summer through the interest of Mr. Ballard, who gave us our commodious school building one year ago. ”

“ Some of the churches are evidently becoming established, while pastors, laboring amid all the trials incident to the common poverty, the want of general culture, and of experience in self government, have occasion to walk by faith oftener than by sight. "To patience, experience," is a phrase we are studying in the original.
"Christian Benevolences and their Administration," was the title of a paper presented by B.A. Imes of Memphis. The general discussion was animated. It was agreed we should understand that contributions to the cause of religion are not gifts. ”

“ Tougaloo is thus in the very midst of America's Africa. Just at hand, also, is the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, into which Negroes are pouring from other States. Here they are gaining homes and establishing communities. Their numbers are expected continually to increase. It will probably be as prosperous and influential a Negro section as any in the land. Tougaloo is the nearest school of high grade to this Delta region. ”

“ Our brethren must be very careful in respect to the position taken on all subjects. Take no position from which you are likely to be forced to your disadvantage. In all writing and speaking forget not that discretion is the bitter part of valor. ”

“ To our living friends we must say: Our work, like all living things, either grows or decays. Those who have been called hence, within these [pg 142] six months, have left us, by their legacies, their bidding to go forward with a growing work. ”

“ The industrial building has afforded work for a number. Our boys enjoy their work much and are so thankful they "can git to go to school." Many of the older scholars who enter our school have never had any advantages, or, as they express it "pow'ful bad chance of gittin book-larnin." ”