Part 3

The noble gift of Mrs. Stone, while supplying some of the great and most pressing wants in certain directions, creates new ones in others. It gives additional buildings, but these mean more students, more teachers, more student aid, more libraries, and more apparatus.

Buildings are needed where the gift of Mrs. Stone, great as it is, does not reach—needed as imperiously as where it does. At Talladega, the original building erected before the war at a cost of $30,000, bought by us after the war, used and oft repaired, is thus described by President DeForest: “The walls are staunch, but the roof leaks, and within and without, from foundation to bell-tower, it needs repair. It is estimated that $3,000 are required for this purpose.” A house is also needed as a home for the President, to save room for teachers and pupils in the main buildings. In addition to the $15,000 from the Stone donation, Talladega needs for these buildings and repairs, $10,000. The wants of Tougaloo are even more pressing. The crowd of students defies all means of accommodation. Temporary barracks have been erected, out-buildings and garrets have been used as lodging places, and yet students have been turned away for want of room. The buildings now on the ground need extensive repairs to save them from decay, and additions should be made to the farm buildings to give adequate shelter to the stock and products of the 500 acres of land connected with the school. But what shall we more say? for the time would fail us to tell of the needs of Wilmington, N. C., of Greenwood and Orangeburg, S. C., Mobile, Montgomery and Athens, Ala.

Besides all this we ought to establish, at some eligible point in North Carolina, a chartered institution of higher grade, with a boarding department. We have for a long while felt the need of this, and have only been deterred by the lack of means. We ought also to found an institution in Arkansas, similar to that in Austin, Texas. We are just beginning efforts among the Refugees in Kansas, and these should be greatly increased, and include churches, schools and lady missionaries.

_Endowments_ are an absolute necessity for our institutions at the South. Here are eight institutions, carefully managed, efficient in work, and furnished with buildings equal in number and size with some at the West of much greater age. These Western schools have in most instances the nucleus of an endowment, if not a complete one. Those in the South need endowments much more, and have almost nothing of the sort.

2. But enlargement should far transcend the limits of the work already in hand among the Freedmen. We take it for granted that every portion of the population of this country must have equal facilities open to it for education and advancement. No part of that population is so inadequately supplied as the four and a half millions of colored people in the South. There were in 1875, in this country, 1,932 schools of grades above the primary. Of this whole number, the four and a half millions of colored people have access to but 91! It must be borne in mind that in this number of schools (1,932) Harvard, Yale and Oberlin are but units, with their ample endowments, teachers of finest culture, libraries and apparatus of the best and largest; and to balance them the colored people can only point to a few new and inadequately furnished schools, of which those of this Association are among the best.

There were in 1875 in this country, 3,647 libraries, numbering 300 volumes and upwards in each. Of that number, the colored people of the South have access to 25! The same disparity is found here in regard to the size and quality of the libraries open to them as in regard to the schools and colleges.

It will not do to say that these people need only primary schools. No race can rise unless it has leaders who can teach and encourage the masses; nor will it suffice to say that the few seeking special advantages can go to colleges at the North. The people of the West cannot send their sons to Eastern colleges in adequate numbers. The West has, and must have, its own colleges. How can the poor ex-slaves of the South send their children to the North for education, when most of them have a life struggle with the wolf at the door?

Here, then, are glimpses at the great duty that this nation owes to the Freedmen for its own sake as well as theirs. But that duty involves enlargement, fifty-fold, of what is now done for them.

3. The work of the A.M.A. _beyond the South_ needs enlarging.

The Chinese schools in California need the permanency of having buildings under their own control, and Bro. Pond earnestly desires the means to reach the “Chinese in the mines.”

The work of educating Indians at the East should be extended. It is not a substitute for schooling among the tribes; it helps it. Capt. Pratt, who inaugurated this movement in Hampton, and who now conducts the large Government school for Indian youth at Carlisle, is very earnest that more—much more—should be done in this direction. The power of the movement, in his opinion, will be measured by its extent. He is anxious that every school of the American Missionary Association in the South should be prepared to receive Indians. This broad plan deserves the careful thought of the Association, but if adopted, it will necessitate not a little enlargement of accommodations and of the teaching force.

But Africa! what does the future ask at our hands in her behalf? When we recall the struggles of the past for her enslaved children in this country, when we think of the graves of our missionaries in the Mendi country, and when we hear her children in our schools asking to be sent thither, we feel called to a new and strong effort to equip completely the mission on the West coast. The East coast calls to us also. The Arthington Mission, though we have moved cautiously, is neither forgotten nor abandoned. The generous offer of Mr. Arthington still remains; considerable sums have been collected in this country and in Great Britain, and as soon as the adequate amount ($50,000) can be secured, we shall feel called to go forward.

From all these considerations, we ask for a new and wide enlargement of our work. The duty to America and to Africa demands it. Especially do we urge that America owes it to its own safety and honor that it shall adequately care for the Freedmen. But who will take the lead in the movement to enlarge? The Pilgrims and Puritans of New England were the first to plant liberty, education and religion on these shores; they were on the crest of the wave that carried these blessings across the continent to the Pacific slope; they were foremost in the great anti-slavery struggle; they were in the van of the armies that fought for the unity of the nation and the freedom of the slave; they were the first, through this Association, to take the school and the Gospel to the Freedmen at Fortress Monroe; and who but they should see the great need of the hour, and step forth to meet it?

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SUMMARY OF THE TREASURER’S REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDING SEPT. 30TH, 1880.

RECEIPTS.

From Churches, Sabbath Schools and Individuals for General Fund $99,860.26 Churches, S. Schs. and Ind’v’ls, for Institutions and Missions 27,790.30 Estates for General Fund 24,599.44 Estates for Institutions 862.50——25,461.94 Income of Sundry Funds 9,070.26 Tuition and Public School Fund 15,119.59 Rent 664.08 Sales 378.18 ——————————$178,344.61 Donations for Tillotson C. and N. Institute Building 7,594.65 Donations for Athens School Building, Ala. 1,096.01 Donations for Colored Refugees, Kansas 444.75 —————————— 187,480.02 Balance on hand. Sept. 30th, 1879 1,475.90 ——————————$188,955.92 ———————————

EXPENSES.

THE FREEDMEN.—For Church and Educational Work $130,929.82 THE CHINESE.—Supt., Teachers and School Expenses 8,020.35 THE INDIANS.—Missionaries and Teachers and Student Aid 1,953.32 FOREIGN MISSIONS.—Mendi Mission 11,802.78 Jamaica Mission 450.00 ————————— 12,252.78 PUBLICATIONS.—American Missionary, Annual Report, &c. 9,063.30 COST OF COLLECTING FUNDS.—Boston Office 5,586.66 Chicago Office 3,612.47 Other Agencies 4,193.56 —————————— 13,392.69 COST OF ADMINISTRATION.— Department of Correspondence 6,401.54 Department of Treasury 4,127.73 —————————— 10,529.27 MISCELLANEOUS.—Estates and Legacies 99.11 Annual Meeting 1,023.96 Amounts paid Annuitants—balance 852.67 Donations returned 54.92 —————————— 2,030.66 —————————— 188,172.19 Balance on hand, Sept. 30, 1880 783.73 —————————— 188,955.92 ========== STONE FUND.—Amount received from Mrs. Valeria G. Stone at the hands of Trustees $150,000.00 ARTHINGTON MISSION.—Donations received from Oct. 1st to Sept. 30th, 6,576.48 AVERY FUND.—Amount received from Executor 408.92

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The receipts of Berea College, Hampton N. and A. Institute, and Atlanta University, are added below, as presenting at one view the contributions of the same constituency for the general work in which the Association is engaged.

Receipts of the A. M. A. $187,480.02 Hampton N. & A. Inst. 57,014.73 Atlanta University, State Appropriation 8,000.00 Berea College 37,607.06 —————————————$290,101.81

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REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND ENLARGEMENT.

Your Committee on Finance and Enlargement, to whom was referred the financial exhibit of the Association for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 1880, as presented by the Treasurer, beg leave to report that they have examined the accounts and found them duly audited. These accounts include a minute and detailed statement of receipts and expenditures, a list of the endowments, and also a full account of the property owned by the Association, and were accompanied by the account books of the Treasurer.

We are unanimous in vouching for the faithfulness and economy which characterize all branches of the financial administration. Nor can we refrain from a word of most emphatic commendation of the thorough explicitness of the Association’s financial statement.

But passing from this to the substance of the Report, we notice three points suggested by it which seem to call for special mention.

In the first place, it is ground for gratitude and thanksgiving that the year closes without leaving us burdened with a debt. On the contrary, there is a balance in the treasury of nearly eight hundred dollars. Not a very large surplus, surely, but the fact that the year’s work has been done and left us anything besides a disheartening deficiency, is itself occasion for thankfulness and cheer.

In the second place, there is ground for anxiety, lest the financial condition of the Association should be misunderstood. It is well known that a gift of $150,000 has recently come into its treasury. This fact, it is to be feared, has given, or may give, the impression that the Association is, for the present at least, in no further need of funds. We have already heard of one generous friend who has withheld an intended gift through such an entire misapprehension. And lest others should be similarly misled, it seems to us important not only to state, but to emphasize the fact, that this large gift _brings no relief whatever to the usual wants of the Association_. It is not designed to do the work which the Association is doing. This money is wholly appropriated to the erection of new buildings for the increasing numbers of colored students. It is to do nothing whatever towards meeting the ordinary expenses of the Association’s work; nothing whatever towards diminishing the necessity of aid which the Association is compelled to seek from the Christian and the philanthropist. It cannot be too clearly seen or too widely known, that so far as any augmented power for doing its proper work is concerned, the Association is not one whit better off for this gift of $150,000 than it would be if not a dollar of it had been given. But,

In the third place, this gift is itself a trumpet call for the enlargement of the Association’s resources and work. It is simply to erect new buildings for Fisk and Atlanta, at Talladega, New Orleans and Tougaloo. These buildings will soon be filled with students. That means the necessity for more teachers and more pecuniary aid to those who need it. It means increased work for the Association, and the necessity of increased funds with which to do the work. In one word, it means _expansion_, _enlargement_. God, Himself, is opening before us new furrows in hitherto untilled fields. That is His own call upon us for more seed-corn, and more labor for the enlarging harvest. He is building for us new homes for the development of mental culture and Christian character among the colored people of the South. Each one of these is a Divine summons for such co-operation on our part as is necessary for the best accomplishment of His designs.

In conclusion, therefore, your Committee respectfully suggest the adoption of the following resolution:

“_Resolved_, While most gratefully acknowledging the prosperity that has crowned our work through another year, we recognize and accept that prosperity as itself a call from God for still larger and more earnest work.”

W. H. WILLCOX, _Chairman_.

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WHY WE SHOULD ENLARGE.

REV. L. T. CHAMBERLAIN, D.D., NORWICH, CONN.

I have been invited to the privilege of additionally sustaining the report of your Committee in their recommendation of an enlargement of the work of this Association; and, as a member of that Committee, I may say that we could not possibly have reported otherwise than we did. I could not have read the record of this last year, and have seen its events as our honored Secretary has presented them, without feeling that the movement must be toward an increase in every department.

Sir, you were entirely right in drawing your inspiration in part from the wonderful past. I, too, have recalled the years gone by, and they seem to say, as with one voice, that the time has come for the yet greater effort. My brethren, what a history sweeps back from this thirty-fourth anniversary, to the day when, in this same Commonwealth, the Amistad captives were bravely released, and an additional impulse was given to the anti-slavery sentiment of the participants! At that hour, the men who afterwards founded this Association, looked out on a tumultuous sea of discouragements. Themselves only a handful; the press absolutely unfriendly; the market-place contemptuous; the State frowning; the Church in general incredulous and silent; scarcely anything anywhere that did not wear a hostile front. And then, at last, one missionary commissioned and one teacher sent out; one paper persuaded into partial support; a few dollars given into the treasury; and a few steadfast souls pledging themselves to maintain the cause. But, to-day, what a different record! A great, honored organization, with an annual income approaching the fifth of a million; three hundred and thirty ministers, missionaries and teachers; seventy-six mission, and yet, for the most part, self-sustaining churches; more than five thousand intelligent church members, and nearly ten thousand pupils in the Sunday-schools; seventy-one common schools, normal schools, colleges and theological seminaries, with more than ten thousand eager and advancing students. An organization that takes effective hold on four millions of Freedmen, and then enlarges its bounds to take in the resident and emigrant Chinese, and the tribes of original Indians. An organization able to inspire the churches with missionary zeal, and making even our national Government respect its requests and its advice.

What a review is that, and almost within the space of a single generation. The success that has already been accomplished is reason why, at the very outset, we may call you to a hopeful and an enlarged interest in this work; for history is telling us to-day, if she tells us anything, that it is not a hopeless thing to attempt to provide efficiently for all the despised of our land. And, let me say, I should not hesitate to make that hopeful appeal, if there were no such glowing record to present. I would not change the tone of it, though the years rolled back, and you and I stood to-day where those men stood thirty and four years ago; for Christ has said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” and has said distinctly that our neighbors are pre-eminently those who have fallen among thieves and are lying wounded by the way. That simple command is enough to assure us that our labor shall not be in vain. You and I know whom we have believed, and we know that whatever He commands is commanded in infinite wisdom and infinite love. We know that what He says we are to do, it is possible to do, and that in some way it shall be done. The stars in their courses, and earth, and hell, may fight against Christ, but sooner or later He is to reign.

Therefore, when the Master calls us, his requirement is enough to warrant us in our advance. On that simple requirement, backed by, and reflected in, the impulse of every regenerate soul, you may ground your missionary motive. That is the corner-stone on which, with abiding cheer and infinite courage, the missionary, and every friend of missions, may build forever. Therefore, while we have this firm foundation, and all the more that we have it, it is for us to note the actual progress that has been made. While we recur to these absolute considerations, let us not, through any attempt at unnecessary heroism, forget the fulfillment that has already been vouchsafed to the promise and to the command of Christ.

And now that I am speaking of motives, let me say that I cannot conceal my feeling that, with special and peculiarly appealing considerations, God is binding upon us the work for the so-called alien races of this country. Let me illustrate. Here, for example, are four millions of _Freedmen_—strange designation for the inhabitants of a Republic that has already celebrated its centennial! Suppose that a stranger to our history should ask us the meaning of it, what must be our confession? Why this, and nothing else: that the ancestors of those Freedmen, by fraud, and violence were wrested from their distant and native land; that for two centuries they were held in sheer and open bondage; that they were denied the commonest rights of humanity; bought and sold like beasts of the field; debarred from the privileges of education and true Christian instruction; that, while their toil went to build the colleges and schools and churches of the dominant race, they were left without any reward but the desolation of their bondage; that, when they piteously plead, their appeal was met with derision; that, when they respectfully protested, the protest was crushed back with blows and curses; that when they ventured to resist, the resistance was answered unto death, with lashes and bullets and the fangs of pursuing hounds; that manhood was deliberately degraded among them; womanhood was well-nigh obliterated; truthfulness was made dangerous for them, and chastity absolutely impossible; and then at last, that to keep them in such a bondage, the whole power of the National Government was pledged and put forth; that, by Constitution interpreted and special laws enacted, by military might and civic decree, by private volition and public compulsion, it came to pass that there was not one spot of safety for them in all the land over which floated the flag of their country; that, in their effort to escape from their bondage, not a single door might lawfully be opened to them, nor any hearth-stone give them shelter; but, taking the pole-star for their guide, they must flee from the Republic to the land of a king or queen.

Pardon me that I have opened the record. I confess it makes me sick at heart. With you I wish it had never been enacted; with you I wish it might be buried to-day in the deepest depths of oblivion. But I tell you, when we stand, as we do practically to-day, in the face of those men, and in the face of God who made us and them of one image and of one blood, we have no right to forget that guilty past. It is one of the mighty motives that are still to be invoked in their behalf. Like the blood of Abel, it cries to us for atonement. It says to us to-day, “In your nation, aided and abetted by you or your fathers, under your flag, that wrong was inflicted; and until that wrong is thoroughly righted, neither the remembrance nor the cry can be allowed to pass.” It says that you owe them every reparation in your power; that they have a valid lien on every dollar of your property, and on every possible degree of your culture. It is not enough that you have made them free—to have denied that would have been to perpetuate the wrong itself. It is not enough that you have given them the franchise—that in itself were a barren gift. Give them the rather that manhood that was their birth-right withheld. Lift them up, if you can, into truthfulness and purity, intelligence and industry; make them free with the freedom of the Gospel of Christ, and then that past may be forgotten.

And brethren, I make an appeal of that same sort to-day for the Indian and the Chinese;—the Indian, abused, deceived, made a fool of; a nominally Christian civilization degrading him beyond even his original degradation. And the Chinese, in that part of the land where they have chosen to dwell, despised, defrauded, spit upon. My claim is that whatever appeal you propose to disregard, it is not becoming for you to turn a deaf ear to those whom you have so foully wronged.