Part 2

The diplomatic qualifications of the position are by no means inconsiderable. A copious official correspondence is required with the Indian office at Washington, and must be conducted with due formality and dignity. All matters of importance are submitted to the Indian Office for action, and it often requires skilful presentation of a subject to make a clerk at Washington take a view that seems self-evident to the agent on the frontier. Great tact and patience are requisite in dealing with the various outside influences that embarrass the agent, and often bring him to grief. Frontier settlers are continually having difficulties with the Indians that require attention. Liquor-sellers, claim-agents and swindlers lie in wait for the Indian, who must be protected. Scheming half-breeds and “squaw-men” create dissension among the natives. Then there are the contractor and sub-contractor; the man who failed to get the contract he wanted, and the man who is planning to get the next contract. There is the ex-agent, who corresponds with the employés and Indians, and criticises his successor, and the man who wants to be agent, and watches for a lever to oust the incumbent. (There are always twenty of them!) There is the dissatisfied employé, who corresponds with outsiders about agency affairs, and the meddlesome clerk at Washington, who gives him private assistance. The agents are few who meet all these difficulties without serious trouble.

Especially, high moral character is a prime requisite, not only on account of the agent’s influence upon a people just rising from barbarism, but to enable a man to maintain his integrity under the extraordinary temptations that surround the place. Said an ex-agent of unimpeachable integrity: “I know of no service that tries a man’s principles so severely as the Indian service.” In spite of all precautions, opportunities for peculation, direct and indirect, are frequent, and present themselves in the most seducing forms possible.

Having shown the requirements of the position, we may consider some of the obstacles in the way of securing agents who are thoroughly competent for the work. First comes hard work. No branch of our civil service draws more heavily on a man’s time and strength. The agent is involved in a constant round of wearisome details, varied only by frequent hard journeys by wagon or stage, or worse, by frontier railroads.

The responsibilities of the place are onerous. The agent is held accountable, under a heavy bond, for all funds and property that come into his hands, as well as for all the acts and failures of his subordinates. He may be ordered away for months at a time, on public business, and in the meantime he must depend entirely upon the fidelity of the agency clerk, who is not a bonded officer, to discharge his duties and care for agency property. Release from bonded accountability can only be had after complying with all the forms of law and going through a long and tedious process of examination of accounts. Two years after closing his term of service, an agent was required to account for one iron wagon-bolt (purchased by a subordinate, three years before), in order to secure release from his bond, and five hundred dollars arrears of salary. The agent’s family must endure practical exile, separated from society, schools and churches.

Every agent, honest or dishonest, suffers in reputation. If a man is thoroughly honest, dishonest contractors and jobbers invariably slander him, to get rid of him. This consideration keeps many competent men out of the service. The salary paid is entirely inadequate. It is that of a country postmaster, an army lieutenant, a school-teacher or a traveling salesman. Here is the root of the whole difficulty. Even in the present state of the labor market, it is impossible to get a $2,500 man for $1,500. The expenses of the position are high. The agent keeps open house for all strangers, newspaper correspondents, army officers, Indian inspectors, and others. His family supplies are brought from a distant market, at a heavy expense. This matter has been presented to Congress by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, each year for several years, but without effect.

In spite of these disadvantages, the service is much better manned than might be supposed. Indian-Inspector E. C. Watkins said to the writer: “I have visited a large number of agencies, and, in view of the meagre salary paid, and the difficult service required, I have been surprised at the capacity and fidelity displayed. As a class, the agents nominated by the religious societies perform their duties with ability and success.” When a thoroughly competent agent is found in the service, one of three things will almost invariably be true: Either he enters the service with the idea of supplementing his salary (honestly or dishonestly); or he is in search of novel experience or a change of climate for himself or family; or (as is often true) he has the spirit of a missionary, and seeks the advancement of the Indian race. If we wish to escape the burden of providing for idle Indians, we shall have to employ competent agents, at fair wages, to train them to habits of industry.

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“HAMPTON TRACTS.”

Among the excellent devices which have proceeded from the fertile brains and earnest hearts of our fellow-workers for the freedmen, none has for a long time commended itself to our hearty approbation more than the one indicated in the above heading. It appears that an English Sanitary Association has for twenty years been engaged in publishing and distributing simple sanitary tracts and leaflets, intended for use in schools and families. Following this excellent example, an editing committee, consisting of General Armstrong, his sister-in-law, Mrs. M. F. Armstrong, Miss Ludlow and Dr. Stephen Smith, of New York, propose, and have already begun, the same good work. They say—

“These publications will provide as simply and in as attractive a manner as possible, carefully prepared information upon all points directly connected with physical life, as, cleanliness of the person and house, ventilation, drainage, care of children and invalids preparation of food, etc., and, as in the case of their English forerunners, they are to be sold for a sum just sufficient to defray the cost of publication and to permit a certain amount of gratuitous distribution. They will be issued in a series, printed at the office of the Normal School Press, Hampton, Va., and will be known as ‘Hampton Tracts.’”

The need and use of such information among the homes and families of the Southern negroes is most apparent, though by no means confined to them. It is in their midst, doubtless, that they will first be distributed.

The American Social Science Association, convened in Cleveland this year, having examined the first three numbers of the proposed series of tracts in manuscript, by a unanimous vote passed the following Resolution—

“_Resolved_, That the American Social Science Association learns with pleasure of the work undertaken at Hampton, in Virginia, to spread among the people of Virginia, and of the South in general, a knowledge of Sanitary Science popularly set forth; and that from an examination of the three Sanitary Tracts of the proposed series, viz.: _The Health Laws of Moses_, _The Duty of Teachers_, and _Preventable Diseases_, the Executive Committee of this Association is persuaded that the important task, thus undertaken, will be well performed. We would, therefore, commend these Tracts to all readers, at the North as well as at the South, and would recommend their wide distribution in the way best suited to promote the circulation of them.”

Again, we desire to express our cordial commendation of the plan, and doubt not it will be carried out in all its details with wisdom and energy.

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CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE SOUTH.

That God holds the denomination which stands as the constituency of the American Missionary Association to a large measure of duty in this line, is evident from the fact that by His providence He had been preparing this instrumentality against the day of freedom, and that He has given it now so wide and effectual a door of entrance. At first it entered with physical relief; then with the very first school that was opened among the “contrabands”; then with its system of Normal schools and colleges and professional departments and church organizations. All this was the drift and drive of Providence. To have halted anywhere up to this point would have been to disobey marching orders. And now can anything but the spirit of desertion fail to hear the command ringing on: Go; go, preach; go, disciple the people; go, organize them into the life and fellowship of the churches of Christ? Having started them in the way of Christian education, shall we deny them that school of Christian nurture, the self-governing church? Having given them the elements of the Puritan system, shall we fail to give them its full fruitage? The founding of such churches is but the natural out-growth of this scheme for the elevation of the emancipated race. As in the Interior and in all the West, these ideas and institutions have been a leavening force, so will they be at the South, interpenetrating and uplifting. They will be an example, a stimulus. They will help other communions. Already, our institutions have put not a few educated preachers into the pulpits of the Methodist and Baptist colored churches; and we are glad thus to help in their work. “Expository preaching, with warm application,” says Col. Preston, “should be the preacher’s mode.” Our church members there are gaining the title of “Bible-Christians.” Let churches of such material have a chance.—_Dr. Roy, in the Congregationalist._

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SUNDRIES.

Iowa Lands, Louisiana Churches, Theological Books.

Of the 6,040 acres given to the American Missionary Association by the Rev. Charles Avery, 1,500 yet remain to be sold. Any person who would like to make a good investment in land, can do so by applying to Secretary Strieby at New York. I found that the railway company were pushing their track along from Algona to Shelby on the Sioux City & St. Paul Railroad. So the branch from Huntington on the same road has been built to Sioux Falls in Dakota.

Since the meeting of the Louisiana Conference in April, Rev. Daniel Clay, and his people at Terrebonne, have enjoyed a revival of religion which has added thirty-four to the membership. This sable brother has been the instrumentality in bringing several of the other pastors of that region into the ministry. Rev. W. S. Alexander, pastor of the Central Church in New Orleans, and President of the Straight University, somehow finds time once a year to visit these brethren and these churches which he broods, in the Louisiana Conference. He says they are Congregationalists, _ex-animo_. This Christian worker, who was turned back from his mission to the nominally Christian lands in South Europe, finds an admirable substitute in the extreme South of our country.

Those young men who in our Southern institutions are coming on to be Congregational divines, ought to have access to the theological literature of the fathers. The common text-book used by their instructors is Pond’s Theology, issued by our Congregational Publishing Society. They ought to have in their libraries, as reference books, the works of Robinson, and Edwards, and Hopkins, and Bellamy, and Park on the Atonement. Now, these books are on the shelves of the C. P. Society, and can be had cheap. The Society has not in hand the means to make the appropriation, but are there not some of the stanch friends of the old Congregational Board and its stanch theology, who will be glad to put those works within the reach of these young theologians of the South? That would be a handsome thing to do, and grand results may follow in solidifying the views of those coming preachers. There are five of these institutions which are teaching theology, and as many libraries that await such an accession of the wisdom of the fathers.—_Pilgrim, in Congregationalist._

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GENERAL NOTES.

The Peabody Educational Fund.

The Board of Trustees of the Peabody Educational Fund—George Peabody’s gift of $2,100,000 in aid of education in the South—held its annual meeting October 2d, in New York City. The Treasurer reported receipts of $80,000, and disbursements of $77,000. The principal statements of Dr. Sears’s annual report were the following:

The year just brought to a close has been one of unusual pecuniary embarrassment to all the schools of the South. While every branch of the department of education has been affected by it, that relating to the employment of teachers has suffered most. Notwithstanding these discouraging circumstances, the schools in most of the States, instead of deteriorating, have advanced in almost every respect. The attendance was never so great; the interest of the people never so general. An approximation, near or remote, in the great mass of teachers, to the standard of those professionally educated, has been effected, sometimes by county organizations, under State supervision; sometimes by bringing together teachers from all the counties of a Congressional district; and, in one instance, by assembling the teachers of a whole State to receive instruction for a period of six weeks. This is a new feature in the school operations of the Southern States, and is now more rapidly revolutionizing modes of instruction than any other measure that has been tried. No part of the funds at our disposal has produced greater or better results than that contributed to this object. The scholarships established last year have had an excellent effect. Those given to the New Orleans Normal School, in amounts of $150 each, were used for the benefit of pupils from the country parishes. They were ten in number. Those of the Nashville Normal College, of $200 each, were for pupils from beyond the limits of Tennessee.

The number of white children in Virginia, December 1, 1877, between five and twenty-one years of age, was 280,149; that of colored children, 202,640, making in all, 482,789. Of these, 139,931 white children and 65,043 colored were enrolled in the public schools, amounting to 204,974, or somewhat less than one-half. The average daily attendance was only 117,843. The current expenses for the public schools and school officers were $949,721; and for permanent improvements in real estate, houses and furniture, $100,625. Although the current expenses were reduced $36,000, the school work was increased, and the number of pupils was 5,000 greater than the year before. It is well known that the State is largely in debt; and the courts have decided that the school fund may be used for the benefit of the creditors.

In North Carolina the provisions for education are altogether inadequate. There is a great lack of funds, and also of proper organs to execute the law. So long as a meagre State tax is the sole reliance for the support of schools, they will inevitably languish. Double the amount of money now raised would be a scanty supply. The organization of boards of education, and of the other branches of school administration, is radically defective.

The report of the new Superintendent of South Carolina for 1877 shows that 2,483 schools, with an attendance of 102,396 children, out of 228,128, were in operation for a period averaging three months. The State had appropriated $100,000 for their support.

In Georgia, English branches only are taught in the public schools. The total enrolment in 1877 was 191,000. Of this number, 64,000 were colored children. The school funds amounted to $434,000, including $143,000 which was raised by towns and cities. There is a prospect that, under the new Constitution, there will be a large increase of funds.

A letter from Florida reports that in 1877 there were 30,406 pupils in the public schools—about 4,000 over the number reported the previous year. There is an improvement also in the quality of teachers, in the average length of school terms, and in the interest taken by the people.

Few well-graded and well-taught schools are to be found in Alabama. The number of children of school age, in 1877, was 369,447; the number enrolled in the public schools, 141,230, about three-fifths of whom were white. The school expenditures for teachers and superintendents were $384,993.

In Mississippi, the Superintendent regards the situation as hopeful and encouraging. The statistics are very imperfect, as only sixty-five of the seventy-five counties made any report. These give 160,528 as the number of children in school, and $481,251 as the amount of money expended. The enumeration of persons of school age, giving the number of 324,989, is said to “fall far short of the actual number.”

In Louisiana there has been a period of careful re-organization of the public school system, rather than of marked success in achieving decided results in the educational work of the State. The loss of the interest on the trust fund for the year, by an unconstitutional act of the Legislature, and the failure to collect much over half of the $500,000 appropriated by the State, proved very prejudicial to the country districts, where the number of colored children required a much larger number of schools. In the parishes reported, the aggregate attendance of white children was 16,042, and of colored children, 17,511. There are about 20,000 more colored than white children in the State.

The Secretary of the Board of Education of Texas, writing July 30, after saying that the reports giving the statistics of the schools the present year have not yet been received, adds: “Under our present law, our schools have prospered as they never have before.”

Arkansas has provided for 237 Normal beneficiaries, who are entitled to four years’ free tuition. There were last year twenty Normal students in the collegiate course, and thirty-one in the preparatory school. At Pine Bluff there is a branch Normal college for colored teachers, arranged on nearly the same plan, and entitled to the same number of beneficiaries.

The school population of Tennessee, in 1877, was 442,458; 111,523 being colored. The enrolment was 227,643—43,043 being colored; an increase of 33,463 over the enrolment of the previous year. The schools have improved as much in the quality of the instruction given as in the attendance. The amount of school money during the year was $718,423, which is $120,311 less than that of the year preceding. Notwithstanding this diminution of funds, the number of schools was increased by 807, and that of teachers by 791.

West Virginia is one of the least fluctuating of the Southern States in regard to education, and its history is that of a slow but steady growth. The number of persons of school age, or from six to twenty-one years, for the year 1877, was 192,606, being an increase over the previous year of 7,810. Of these, 125,332 actually attended school, being a numerical increase of attendance of 1,828 over the preceding year, and an increase in the average daily attendance of 11,191. There was an increase, also, of 161 in the number of teachers employed. The total value of school property in the State is $1,714,600, being an increase on the preceding year of $54,132. The total expenditure for the year was $921,307, being a decrease of $65,270, caused mainly by a reduction in the rate of teachers’ salaries, and in the number of school-houses built during the year.

During the past year, the income of the fund was distributed as follows: Virginia, $15,350; North Carolina, $4,500; South Carolina, $3,600; Georgia, $6,000; Florida, $3,900; Alabama, $1,100; Texas, $8,550; Mississippi, $600; Louisiana, $8,000; Arkansas, $6,000; Tennessee, $14,600; West Virginia, $5,050.

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—A general press dispatch from Washington reports that Mr. Keating, editor of the Memphis _Appeal_, having had his attention called to a statement by Dr. Ramsey, of Washington, that white women in Memphis have had to take colored men for nurses, or go without, and that the latter have abused their opportunities, pronounces the story utterly untrue. He says that white women have not been put to the necessity of taking colored men for nurses; the other part of the statement is a libel upon the negroes of Memphis. He says: “All honor to them. They have done their duty. They have acted by us nobly as policemen and as soldiers, as well as nurses; they have responded to every call made upon them, in proportion to their number, quite as promptly as the whites. A few of them threatened trouble at one time about food, but they were at the moment suppressed by a company of soldiers of their own color. The colored people of Memphis as a body deserve well of their white fellow-citizens. We appreciate and are proud of them.”—_Tribune._

—There is an Episcopal “Theological Seminary and High School” in Virginia. Several colored young men applied for education for the ministry, and were turned away, rather than allow them to receive education with white people.—_Independent._

—A General Missionary Conference will be held in London, Oct. 21st–27th. Among the topics to be discussed are the following, which bear especially upon the work of the A. M. A.: “Results of Emancipation, Social and Religious: Probable Influence on Africa,” by E. B. Underhill, LL.D.; “Discovery in Africa as bearing on the new Mission Schemes in Central Africa,” by Sir Fowell Buxton. Rev. Dr. O. H. White, Secretary of the Freedmen’s Aid Society of Great Britain, will represent the Association in the Conference.

—A company for developing commerce with Africa has been organized, under the title of the American and African Commercial Company. Articles of Incorporation have been filed by Congressman Cain, and Messrs. Watts and Porter, well-known colored men. The Capital Stock is 500,000.

—The French Roman Catholic Mission here [Zanzibar] has lately established a station fifteen or twenty miles from Kidudwe, in the Nguru Country, and now a party of ten Jesuit missionaries are leaving Bagamoyo to establish a mission at Ujiji.

—The Methodist Mission at Boporo, Africa, east of Liberia, has met with unexpected repulses. The people wanted trade, and in their disappointment became hostile to the missionaries. They can obtain no site for a mission building. The people were forbidden to give or sell them anything, even to eat, and this interdict had to be bought off. But the missionaries do not despair.

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THE FREEDMEN.

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FLORENCE, ALABAMA.

A Good Work Well Finished.

REV. L. C. ANDERSON.

I closed up my work at Florence on the first Sabbath of September. Rev. William H. Ash was present, to take charge, in good time. The Lord blessed the end more than the beginning of my labor at F. We were permitted to work in a revival, beginning about the middle of August and lasting up to September 1st. This brought out great numbers of the people, and gave opportunity to reach many. The Spirit was manifested from the beginning, in converting power. About twenty were converted, fifteen of whom joined our branch of God’s Church. So you see that we had great cause to be thankful, when, on the 1st inst., we came together at the Lord’s Table, to re-dedicate ourselves to Him who first loved us and gave Himself for us, to make to Himself a people zealous of good works.