Part 2

And now, what is wanting to bring this divinely planned enterprise to a speedy and glorious consummation, but that we do all come quick and glad into line with God?—that the Freedmen, the American Missionary Association, all its noble constituency of churches, the whole rank and file of God’s American army, tread firm and true to the music of His providence? So shall be generously furnished the men and the means He now asks, by which to hasten, in His time, the redemption of Africa unto Himself.

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ADDRESS AT NASHVILLE,

AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF LIVINGSTONE MISSIONARY HALL.

BY SECRETARY STRIEBY.

As we are about to lay the corner-stone of a new school building, it is proper that I should answer the question, Why do we come down from the North to erect these buildings in the South?

Before answering the question, I may say that if we come at all, it is not strange that we should select so beautiful a spot as this for a location; nor that we should come to Nashville, for there seems to be some sort of educational lodestone that attracts schools to this city. Joshua conquered a Moabite city called Kirjath-sepher, which scholars tell us means “Book City.” What could have given it that title in that remote era, whether the possession of one book or several books, when letters had probably not long been invented, must remain forever a mystery. So when Macaulay’s New Zealander, after having meditated on the ruins of London Bridge, shall come to this spot and meditate upon the ruins here, or when some Layard or Cesnola or Schliemann shall dig down deep into their foundations, this place may be denominated the “School City;” for at the earliest date of the settlement of Nashville, good schools were formed, and now the hill-tops are crowned and the streets are adorned with schools of the highest character. Nor are these for the white race alone. The Methodist Central Tennessee College, the Baptist Normal and Theological Institute, and neither last nor least, Fisk University, crowning these heights, attest the interest taken in the Christian education of the colored race.

But why do we come here from the North to build these buildings? First, we come as fellow-citizens, who have shared in the agony of the late civil conflict, at the bottom of which lay negro slavery, and for which North and South were responsible, though it may be in different degrees. In the piping hot days of the anti-slavery contest, the Evangelical Alliance met in London. An English gentleman took the platform and delivered a scathing rebuke to America for slavery. Dr. Cox, our most celebrated off-hand orator of that day, took the floor, saying that of course America had her view as to who was responsible for negro slavery in America, whether Britons or Americans; “but,” said he, “I propose to take one corner of the mantle, and let the brother who has just spoken take the other corner, and we will walk backwards and throw it over the originator of negro slavery in America.” We come as fellow-citizens in a like spirit, ready to throw the mantle of charity over the past. But emancipation has introduced a new element. The ex-slaves need Christian education and elevation, and we come as Christian brethren and say to our friends at the South: We will take one corner of the mantle of Christian education, if you will take the other, and we will go _forward_, with our faces lifted to Heaven, and will throw that mantle over the emancipated slaves.

This is the work we propose to do in the South, and wise and candid men both North and South are beginning to realize that the education of the negro race is the paramount duty of the nation to it. Presidents Hayes and Garfield have voiced the feelings of the North on this subject, while Col. Preston and Dr. Ruffner of Virginia, Sen. Brown and Pres. Haygood of Georgia, have nobly re-echoed the sentiment from the South. This Association goes farther than mere intellectual education. It believes that the Christian element lies at the foundation of all true character, and that character is the basis of all true manhood and citizenship. It has been the aim of this Association not merely to lift up the individual, but to apply the levers to the elevation of the mass, and hence it has founded in every large Southern State, schools fitted for the training of teachers, preachers and missionaries of the colored race. At Hampton, where the first slave-ship entered the continent, in the same year in which the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, the Association opened the first Freedman’s school in these United States. Under the energetic administration of Gen. Armstrong, Hampton Institute, with its broad lands, its large and commodious buildings, its steam-engine and multiplied mechanical employments, gives educational and industrial training to its large company of students, graduating about fifty pupils each year, ninety per cent. of whom go into the State as teachers, carrying with them, into the school, the Sunday-school, the prayer-meeting and the church a healthful Christian influence; while the noble old state of Virginia responds to the effort by a gift of $10,000 a year for the support of the school. Atlanta University, with its two commodious buildings, and another soon to be added, imparts a higher range of teaching, including classic instruction to its pupils, and the state of Georgia responds with its gift of $8,000 a year. If you would see what is done at Fisk University, look around you and examine the classes under instruction in Jubilee Hall. But time would fail me to speak of Talladega, Ala.; Tougaloo, Miss.; Straight University, New Orleans; Tillotson Institute, Austin, Texas; and of the other schools, normal, grammar and primary, which the Association sustains. From all these institutions we believe there are pupils now engaged in teaching, who have under their care 200,000 children, and that there are pastors in churches that we have founded, and in others not under our care, whom we have prepared to be intelligent and faithful preachers of the Gospel in this land and in Africa. We believe that the providence of God is bringing to pass a wonderful combination of discovery in Africa and of Christian education among the Freedmen, that is to have an immeasurable influence on the long neglected races of the Dark Continent.

In these efforts for the colored people, we do not wish to make them vain nor to pauperize them. We believe our efforts have led thus far to neither of these results. The scholars going from our schools are not troubled with what is so aptly called the “big head,” and my observation shows that around our schools and others like them the colored people are inclined more than anywhere else to buy land, build houses and make comfortable Christian homes. Our purpose in erecting these buildings, in addition to the good that is done to the scholars under immediate instruction, is to inspire hope in the whole race. And we are doing it. A good colored deacon in one of our churches said that he expected no greater change to come over him when he entered Heaven than came over his race when the doors of the school-house were opened to it.

In the prosecution of this, our great work, we have spent over $3,000,000, and to secure that sum we have had providential helpers. First on the roll and steadiest in the ranks are the Christian friends at the North and in Great Britain, whose firm support has been the stability of our efforts. We mention also the Freedmen’s Bureau, with its large and wise distribution of Government funds for educational purposes. This Bureau has not been popular at the South; but we believe the time will yet come when our Southern friends will learn to appreciate the work of Gen. Howard, the head of this Bureau, and of Gen. Fisk, who administered so wisely and impartially for both races the Bureau work in this and adjoining States. The Jubilee Singers need no eulogy in this presence; their monument stands before us in Jubilee Hall; yet no list of the providential helpers of this Association, and especially of Fisk University, could be complete without their names. And last, but not least, mention must be made of the noble generosity of Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, attested not only in the gift of $60,000, which is to build Livingstone Hall, whose corner-stone we lay to-day, but in like gifts throughout the land. God rejoices in the coming spring, when the frozen ground and the ice-covered streams give place to the springing grass and the budding leaves, coming forth to adorn and beautify the earth and to presage the approaching harvests. And so, without presumption, may His child, the giver of the bounty which rears this building, be permitted to rejoice as it sends forth its annual company of students, trained and adorned for a useful life that shall gladden and bless the world.

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The Vicksburg _Herald_, rebuking a narrow-minded correspondent, says: “We are heartily in favor of the South from the Potomac to the Rio Grande being thoroughly and permanently Yankeeized. Yankee energy, Yankee schools, Yankee cultivation, Yankee railroads and Yankee capital are badly needed in the South, and will be welcomed by every Southern progressive patriot.”

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BENEFACTIONS.

—John P. Howard, of Burlington, has given $50,000 to the University of Vermont—the largest individual gift ever made to the institution.

—The Hon. Robert H. Pruyn, of Albany, N.Y., has offered to give $100,000 toward the general endowment of Rutgers College, New Brunswick, N.J., provided the remaining trustees contribute $400,000.

—Dr. Hoffman, Dean of the Faculty of the General Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary of New York, with his family, has given $75,000 toward the endowment of that institution.

—Mr. John R. Buchtel, of Acton, Ohio, has added $75,000 to his gifts to the Buchtel College, making the entire amount about $200,000.

—Mr. Wharton has given $100,000 to the Wharton School of Finance and Economy in connection with the University of Pennsylvania.

—A benevolent lady has given $3,000 to Lincoln University for the erection of a tabernacle for the accommodation of visitors on anniversary occasions.

—A lady, who does not wish her name published, has just given $100,000 to Princeton Theological Seminary.

—Winthrop Hillyer, of Northampton, has given $35,000 to Smith College for an art building.

—_Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., has Jubilee Hall completed and over-flowing with students, and is now erecting Livingstone Missionary Hall, by the gift of Mrs. Stone; but endowments are the great necessity. Twenty-five thousand dollars will provide for a professorship, and there are seven such needing endowment._

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CHINESE NOTES.

—Chicago has fourteen naturalized Chinamen.

—Dr. Chalmers reports that the native church in Hong Kong has increased in numbers from 83 to 216 during the decade, although, during the same period, no fewer than 77 members have removed to other parts of China, or have gone abroad.

—The girl’s school in Shanghai, under the auspices of the London Missionary Society, numbers 100 scholars. A female missionary is employed at this point, who devotes her time to work among the women. Two ladies are also employed with marked success in the same branch of work at Hong Kong.

—A Consul of the English Government in China, writing from Chefoo, says: “A great change has come over all classes in regard to Christianity; it has made vast strides in the land, in spite of the fewness of the missionaries; and whether we are inclined to rejoice in or deplore the fact, the spread of Christianity is inevitable.”

—It is an interesting evidence of the growing power of Christianity in Japan that the people feel it necessary to bolster themselves up by mutual pledges so that they may be kept from becoming Christians. A Japanese paper reports that a number of citizens of Kioto, grieved at the rapid spread of the new religion, have established a society in which each member binds himself by solemn oaths never to embrace the Christian faith. Any member who disregards his vows will be ostracized. Men would not so set themselves did they not feel the power of the current.—_Missionary Herald._

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INDIAN NOTES.

—At Hampton there are seventy-nine Indian students, representing _sixteen_ different tribes.

—Chief-elect Wildcat, a Shawnee boy, in the middle class at Hampton, is improving his spare time by compiling a small English-Indian dictionary. He says that his tribe has no such book, and one is greatly needed.

—In the British possessions it is estimated that the total Indian population is less than one-tenth of the number found by the first European settlers.

—Rev. John Sunday, an Indian preacher at Hamilton, Ont., is reported to have closed a recent address with the following language: “There is a gentleman who, I suppose, is now in this house. He is a very fine gentleman, but a very modest one. He does not like to show himself at these meetings. I do not know how long it is since I have seen him, he comes out so little. I am very much afraid that he sleeps a good deal of his time, when he ought to be out doing good. His name is Gold. Mr. Gold, are you here to-night, or are you sleeping in your iron chest? Come out, Mr. Gold, come out and help us do this great work, to preach the Gospel to every creature. Ah, Mr. Gold, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to sleep so much in your iron chest. Look at your white brother, Mr. Silver; he does a great deal of good while you are sleeping. Come out, Mr. Gold. Look, too, at your little brown brother, Mr. Copper; he is everywhere. Your poor little brown brother is running about, doing all that he can to help us. Why don’t you come out, Mr. Gold? Well, if you won’t show yourself, send us your shirt, that is, a bank note. That is all I have to say.”

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THE FREEDMEN.

REV. JOSEPH E. ROY, D.D., FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA.

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ANNIVERSARY REPORTS—CONTINUED.

Atlanta University.

PROF. HORACE BUMSTEAD, D.D.

Anniversary exercises are apt to afford but meagre indication of the real work accomplished by any school. To those of us who know the work of Atlanta University, such exercises seem especially inadequate to the faithful telling of what is being done here. When our good Christian friend, Philander Veryrich, hints that he is ready to come down here with a hundred thousand dollars in each pocket, to be emptied out wherever they will do the most good, I shall not especially urge his attendance upon our Commencement exercises. I shall ask him to spend with us either the first or the last Sunday evening of the school year. I shall beg him to preserve a strict _incognito_, and allow me to conceal him outside one of the windows, or behind one of the doors of our assembly room, with a peep-hole conveniently arranged. If it is the last Sunday evening before the vacation, he will hear many of the scholars speak with grateful appreciation of what the year’s work has done for them, and with enthusiastic hope of what they mean to do for others during their summer’s work of teaching. The members of the graduating class will recall their experience of six or seven or eight years in the Institution, and tell what a home it has been to them, and how much of what they have acquired in the training of mind and character is due to the Christian home influence of the school. If it is the first Sunday evening of the new school year, our benevolent friend will hear many of these same scholars tell of their summer’s work—how they have succeeded in some things and failed in others; what they have done in Sunday-school and temperance work; what obstacles they have met and conquered; what increasing favor they have found in the communities where they have labored. At either of these Sunday evening family gatherings (for such they are), I think our visiting friend will be struck with the simple straightforward way in which our scholars express themselves, with the extremely limited amount of what is sometimes called “gush,” and with the clear revelation which will be made to him that before, behind, around, and underneath everything else, the development of a thoroughly Christian character, and of a true manhood and womanhood, is the all-absorbing purpose of our work. But I am stultifying myself in trying to convey an impression of these gatherings to others. Even to our own corps of workers here, they come, twice a year, almost as a surprise and as a most inspiring revelation to ourselves of what God is permitting us to do.

And still, however inadequate, our anniversary exercises have been full of interest, and have revealed much to those who have visited us for the first time. The Baccalaureate sermon was preached June 12th, by our college pastor, Rev. Cyrus W. Francis, from 1st Tim. i. 19, “Holding faith and a good conscience;” and it was an earnest plea for the supremacy of the higher motives in the Christian warfare upon which the graduates were about to enter. Three days of public examinations followed, each day’s session being concluded by an exercise in music and light gymnastics. On the last day there was a display of what our girls have learned in the way of head-making. The walls of the front hall and one of the stairways were covered with specimens of the students’ drawing and map-making, indicating great progress in this department during the year. The normal work also has been making a decided advance. It is evident that those of us who teach the Greek, Latin and other higher branches will have to look well to our laurels. Fewer visitors to the school ask to hear the classics translated; more wish to see how the three R’s are taught. No exercise of the examination days riveted the attention of our friends more firmly than the exercise in teaching one of the grammar-school grades, by one of the members of the senior normal class, with following criticisms from the other members of the class. However, we classical instructors rejoice in all this, for we know that hereafter we shall have better equipped pupils for grappling with Xenophon and Cicero. It ought to be mentioned here that one of the most valuable exercises of our winter term this year was a three days’ Teachers’ Institute, in which all the teachers and scholars participated, and in which much light was thrown upon the improved methods of teaching, now attracting such wide attention. A further impetus was given to thought and effort in this direction by the visit of our friend, the Rev. A. D. Mayo, co-editor of the _Journal of Education_, whose four lectures and one sermon before our students, and whose private talk and counsel with our teachers on certain phases of our work, will not soon be forgotten.

A very large audience, as usual, packed the Friendship Baptist church on Thursday, to listen to the essays of eleven of the graduating class, and to the address of the invited orator of the day. Five young men and twelve young women received the diplomas of the school. The Commencement address was delivered by Rev. Atticus G. Haygood, D.D., President of Emory College at Oxford, in this State. Those who are now reading his recently published book, “Our Brother in Black,” will not need to be told that his address was listened to with the greatest pleasure and approval by all who were present. It was a plain, forcible and thoroughly wholesome presentation of some of the ways in which the true greatness of the State must be secured, and the relation thereto of education and of such institutions as ours. Dr. Haygood represents, most nobly, that rapidly multiplying element among the Southern people which believes in the motto, “Look up and not down, out and not in, forward and not backward, and lend a hand.” May his tribe increase.

One of the most excellent features of the address was, as one auditor suggested, the fact that it would have been just as appropriate for delivery before the Athens (State) University as before the Atlanta University.

The Alumni meeting, Thursday afternoon, brought together a goodly number of the graduates of former years. The spirit of the remarks made at this gathering gives, every year, an increasing assurance of the stability and self-propagating character of the work in which we are engaged.

The report of the Visiting Committee, appointed by the Governor of the State, has just been published. It furnishes renewed evidence of the growing favor which our work is meeting with among the people of Georgia. The remarks made to the school on the last day of the examinations, by Rev. Mr. Wilkes, the chairman of the sub-committee, who prepared this report, were full of good sense and kindly feeling. The speaker told of his life-long service as a teacher, and how it had begun with the instruction of a little colored boy, his father’s slave, in the safe seclusion of the corn-crib, in the days when such teaching was a criminal offense. None who heard him could doubt the entire sincerity of his words of sympathy and encouragement. It is astonishing how rapidly and widely the work of Atlanta University is coming to be appreciated. Among the applications for teachers which have lately been received, have been several from county school commissioners, who say, in substance, “The teachers we have met with from your Institution are of such a quality that we desire now to supply all our schools from the same source.” Let our friends at the North take courage. Their investments, so far, are bearing compound interest at a high rate. When these lines reach the eyes of the readers of the MISSIONARY, some ten thousand children, all over this great State, will be gathered under the instruction of our pupils. Next October we shall get the reports of this work. As soon as our friend, Philander Veryrich, will send me his address, I will give him the date of the Sunday evening gathering, from which he can learn more about our work than from whole volumes of the AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

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TALLADEGA COLLEGE.

MRS. THOS. N. CHASE.

After following with tender anxiety so many classes through their graduating exercises at Atlanta, it has been very pleasant for me, this year, to witness the closing exercises of two similar Institutions. This one at Talladega I have been urged to report for the MISSIONARY.

The sermon before the graduating class was preached by Pres. H. S. De Forest upon the worth of the soul. His eloquent review of the grand geologic ages told of the greater grandeur of Him for whom they were prepared. His allusions to the soul’s capacity to think, feel and choose, to its immortality and cost of redemption, must have brought to the class an overwhelming sense of their responsibility. In closing, they were asked to remember that what a man may be is infinitely more than what he can sell himself to get.

The Missionary Society had the promise of an address on Sunday evening by Dr. G. B. Willcox, of Chicago Theological Seminary. A telegram announcing his sickness was throwing its shadow over us, when, as unexpectedly, Rev. H. M. Ladd dropped in upon us, only a few days home from Africa. He hastened South to catch the last days of Talladega and Atlanta sessions, hoping to find recruits for African missions.