Various

“ During the first decade, and in regularly decreasing ratio since, the most difficult problem has been how to provide competent teachers for the instruction of a race crowding and hungry for knowledge. Fortunately, perhaps, in the long view, the teaching of colored youth has never, from the first, in the South, been considered a popular calling, and so the work has in the main devolved upon the colored people themselves, a work to which, for years, from almost entire lack of opportunity for training, they could bring but the scantiest preparation and even less experience. ”

“ If now, Cuba should be made free and become a part of these United States, these colored people would claim the sympathies and services of the American Missionary Association in giving to them those educational and religious advantages so promptly and freely given to the emancipated blacks of our own land. Such a service would bind these two peoples together and aid in uplifting both to the intelligence and privileges of free Christian citizens. ”

“ Under the lead of two young college graduates, both of whom I had met while they were students at Fisk University, the colored people with great sacrifice had contributed building material and labor in the construction of a very substantial two-story building with attic and basement, which, however, is yet incomplete and unfurnished. The people with few exceptions, are extremely poor and very ignorant, and have an imperfect idea of what a school means with its proper appointments and teachers. ”

“ They have been taught in our schools that our thought of education is that the knowledge which is of most worth "is that which stands in closet relation to the highest forms of the activity of the spirit created in the image of Him who holds nature and man and life alike in the hollow of His hand." ”

“ If war is simply to kill people and destroy property, it is an unmixed calamity. But often there are great and valuable results. Our War of Independence gave birth to this nation and to its amazing possibilities. ”

“ To me one of the greatest evidences of progress is that so many of them uncomplainingly—some eagerly—part with their young children during these many months. The large majority of the parents have never attended school a day in their lives, yet they make this large sacrifice for the child's good. ”

“ We have written Christianity large over and in all of our work in the school rooms, in the manual training shops, in the farm instruction, because we are sure there is no recuperative energy in the colored race, nor in any other, sufficient to save itself. There is nothing so practical to uplift men or races as Christianity. Said Archdeacon Tiffany the other day at Yale, "A prevailing idea is, to create an environment is to develop Christian life. ”

“ The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man are truths which once accepted must change the whole life, and he who teaches them to an Indian becomes a friend and not an enemy, and becomes loved for what he brings and not hated for what he has taken away. The Indian and the white man have gone into partnership in building churches. The Indian has been giving liberally to missions outside of his own little land.
The progress in educational work has been marked in the last decade. Today every healthy boy and girl over six years of age is supposed to be in school. ”

“ It is to be hoped that prosperity will return and make it easier to raise the needed funds. But continued depression will not hinder, for, as in the past, so here, self-denial and self-sacrifice will bear the burden which God has imposed, and the result will be success. Our appeal, therefore, for aid in this great conflict is not based on a mere hope of a better financial outlook in the nation, but on the consecration and benevolence of those who are ready to win a success that costs. ”

“ It is the old story—old yet new and fresh in its human element and its deep significance—of a packed house, and of an attention so fixed and earnest that naught is heard during the delivery of the pieces, though hundreds are standing, save the beating of fifteen hundred fans against the warm air, and the clear enunciation of the speakers, and the hearty, yet discriminating applause. ”

“ Four of the class expect to return for college work, one to go on to college elsewhere, one to study medicine, one is taking nurse training in a Chicago hospital, and the others expect to teach. The spirit in which they go out is exemplified in the answer made by one of them to the question, "What will you do if you fail to get a school to teach this summer?" "Do what I can find. Dig, if need be." A very similar answer was given by one of the most advanced young women, except she said "Hoe corn or cotton" instead of "dig." The higher education will hurt none who have that spirit. ”

“ The environment which conditions their work and gives the color of it must needs be included. Situated among the hills of Eastern Alabama is a thickly settled community of people about two-thirds of whom are colored. It is in the County of Elmore, and bears the Indian name of Kowaliga. Being near the corner of two adjoining counties, it is a rural centre from which large numbers of children can be reached who ought to be educated, and who are anxious to "get an education" as their one chance in life, a chance which so far has been beyond them. ”

“ We understand that about a half a million of the people of Cuba are Negro or mulatto, making nearly one-third of the population, and we learn that there is no such race antagonism between these Negroes and the Creoles as there is with us. The Maceos, who are among the finest specimens of patriotic manhood on the island, are mulattoes. ”

“ These ten years of splendid school training have given us a new type of young men and women, who have more of home love and who are beginning to think for themselves. The majority are no longer roused to action by the harangue of a petty chief. The day of the chief is rapidly passing away. The thinker and not the talker is becoming the leader. ”

“ He has, therefore, given his son a liberal education at college and has daughters now in the same path.
When the young man returned from his studies with Christian love in his heart to assist his father in business he took in the situation that there must be a school here commensurate with the needs, where the colored boys and girls might receive the blessings of an education large and thorough enough and of such a positive Christian quality as should change the life of the community. In some aspects it sadly needs radical change. ”

“ On Vermillion Bay, not far from the Gulf Coast, and at the terminus of a branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad, about twenty miles from Bayou Teche, the stream that keeps green and beautiful the year round that section of Louisiana which was first settled by the exiled Acadians and made famous in Longfellow's "Evangeline," is a thriving village. In the patois of the country the people are called "Cajians," a corruption of Acadians. As a rule, they are non-progressive and ignorant. But the spirit of modern progress, brought in on the railroad, is putting new life into old customs. ”

“ Four millions of slaves were freed, and now four millions of their descendants are as helpless and hopeless as they—as great a curse to themselves and as dangerous an element to the nation. Now this great and crowning struggle is upon us. ”

“ It is a statement well within the facts that nine out of ten of the colored schools of all grades in the South are taught by those who had their training in these mission schools, or else by [Pg 77] teachers who owe their education to those of their own race who were so trained. No more powerful or far-reaching influence was ever set in operation than that which had its origin in the cabin where taught the first humble missionary among the people freed by the war. ”

“ Two brief extracts from papers edited and published by colored men give evidence of their patriotism and forbearance under these trials.
From the Fisk Herald, Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn.:
"The duty of the colored citizens of America in the impending conflict between our country and Spain is clear, and we are exceedingly glad to note that they are eager to go to the front to uphold the United States in its just demands upon Spain for the freedom of Cuba. No people ought to sympathize more with the oppressed than the negroes of America." ”

“ Newspapers and magazines are teeming, nowadays, with articles claiming that our people's supreme need is industrially trained men to indicate the road to prosperity. We gladly concede that there is need enough and room enough for such men, but we part company with these advocates when they intimate that we have too many liberally educated men. The value of such well educated men may be seen in the example of Mr. H., who is only one of many young men who have gone forth from Straight University and other A. M. A. institutions. ”

“ But, notwithstanding these discouragements, our old scholars remained loyal and patiently awaited the opening, and the attendance has been good—that in the higher grades coming up to the average figure. How much solicitude, earnest planning and brave self-sacrifice all this involved no one who has not lived in the midst of the people can realize; no one but the All-Knowing can understand. ”

“ His vacations were spent in teaching in the common schools of Louisiana. Success always crowned his efforts; his schools were usually full to overflowing. He taught in the Sunday-schools and made himself useful in every form of Christian service. On one occasion the school house was destroyed [Pg 79] by fire, but nothing daunted, the enthusiastic teacher rallied the neighbors, and with them and the scholars he went into the woods, chopped down the trees, hewed the logs, and in a few days replaced the old building with a better, and the school went on more successfully than ever. ”

“ Among the colored people in this rural community this man is one. For the most part life has gone on for the others without much advancement. They have not been left without a certain kind of school for their children taught for three months out of twelve chiefly by students who are themselves getting an education in institutions sustained by Northern benevolence; but the teaching has been without continuity and insufficient to make much impress on character. ”

“ Since my connection with this school, my knowledge has been increased, false ideas have been corrected, truths have been established, life broadened, desires multiplied, faith in Christ increased, and I have been enabled to advance a few steps toward my ideal. My greatest desire is to do as much for Christ as I may among my fellow men." Who could show better results of education? ”

“ Thrifty himself, his contagious enthusiasm has not only affected his own flock, but the community generally, filling them with ambition to save their humble earnings, and become owners of their own homes, and send their children to school. ”

“ We would like to have the great American Missionary Association constituency see these samples as we have seen them and do see them, not alone in pulpits, in schools and on farms and in trades, but also in commercial life and in places of extended influence. We should like to show our Samples in their Christian homes, homes which are not made of brick and mortar and boards and shingles, but which are only sheltered by these; homes where there is educated intelligence, where there are books and [Pg 68] thoughtful minds that can appreciate them ”

“ I doubt if any human beings anywhere on earth have more hindrances to overcome, more lions to face, more superstitions to be laid aside in coming to Christ, than have the Chinese women. The tyranny of heathen husbands, the scorn of neighbors, the vague dread of untold calamities which the ghosts of the dead will inflict upon them if not duly worshipped, the stories told them of children kidnapped, eyes put out, hurtful spells thrown upon people by foreign devils ”

“ It has tested the attachment of the scholars to the school on one hand, and their desire for an education and the willingness of themselves and of their parents to make sacrifices to this end on the other; for the fever and the rigid quarantine delayed the opening in the fall, paralyzed business, and made it difficult for parents and students to earn the means not only to meet school expenses, but even to obtain the ordinary comforts of life. ”

“ The missionaries' correspondence begins to bring inquiries concerning an Indian uprising. With the war news are mingled expressions of fear that the Indians will be only too ready to seize upon the opportunity to avenge fancied wrongs. Most of the soldiers have been withdrawn from the frontier posts. In regard to the Sioux, those who know them best have no fear. They recognize the progress made by them in the last ten years. Too many of them have become followers of the Prince of Peace. ”

“ The income from legacies is an uncertain quantity, and an increase of contributions is the only hope that can be given. Better times are coming, the responsibility to the poor of our land is urgent, and the generous response of philanthropic and Christian givers alone can meet the emergency. ”