Part 2

—Mr. Farler, missionary at Magila, has sent to the London Geographical Society an original map made by him from data furnished by the natives, and indicating the routes as far as known from the Pangani to the southeast side of Victoria Nyanza, across the country of the Masai.

—Dr. James Petrie, a graduate of the University of Aberdeen, has been sent to Magila, as medical missionary for Eastern Equatorial Africa.

—The missionaries sent out to reinforce the stations at Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika have arrived safely at Zanzibar. Mr. Stecker had everything prepared for them to continue their journey without delay. The Sultan, Said Bargasch, has given safe conduct and letters of recommendation to Mtesa to those who go to Roubaga. They will go as far as Mamboya, the first station of the Church of England missions, with the missionaries of the London Society destined to Tanganyika under the conduct of Mr. Hore, accompanied by his wife and young child, who will probably remain in this healthy station while Mr. Hore will return with Mr. Swann to Zanzibar, to receive the steel steamer sent from England.

THE CHINESE.

—The steamship Coptic sailed for Hong Kong in November with nearly five hundred Chinese passengers, three hundred and seventy-five of whom had secured return certificates.

—The Japanese government has determined to establish 53,760 primary schools. The empire is divided into eight departments, with one college to each. Children are to be compelled to attend the primary school.

—Although Mongolian is the term usually applied to all people living in the Chinese Empire, yet the Mongolians proper live in a territory bounded on the north by Siberia and number only about 2,000,000. But few, if any of these, it is said, have emigrated to America.

THE INDIANS.

—Thirty-one Indians, five of them girls, were returned to their homes in Dakota from the Hampton Institute last year. They are employed at different agencies at salaries of fifteen or twenty dollars per month. Of these, seven are farmers and herders, nine carpenters, three teachers, two office boys.

—The number of acres cultivated (not including the civilized tribes) by Indians in 1879 was 157,056; in 1881 it was 205,367. In 1879 they cut 48,333 tons of hay; in 1881, 76,763 tons. There has been from year to year a steady gain of products of all kinds among this class. Indians who are so inclined can earn money by freighting and as drovers.

—Private charity has already given $55,529.14 to buildings for, and expenses of, Indian education at Hampton. Meanwhile, the Government has furnished $33,128.04.

—The Indian Office cannot give a decided opinion as to whether Indians are increasing or decreasing, but think that they are about holding their own.

—The number of Indians at boarding schools, not including those in the Indian Territory, who attended one month or more in 1881, was 3,888. The number who attended day school one month or more, was 4,221.

—Rev. John P. Williamson, of Yankton, Dak., writes: “Give Indians protection of law. There is no earthly court having any authority to punish our Yankton Indians for murder, rape, arson or any other crime committed against the person or property of another Yankton Indian. And with a few exceptions this is the case with all these nations. This is a matter of immense importance, demanding immediate action, even more than education.”

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TRAINING COLORED GIRLS.

MISS ANNA M. CAHILL, FISK UNIVERSITY.

If an astronomer wishes to show to any one through his glass the celestial visitor whose presence brightens our morning sky, he must arrange the instrument from his point of vision. Then, stepping aside, his friend will see the object nearly as he sees it. If now I am to bring nearer to you the work for the women of the South, whose interests are uppermost in our hearts to-day, I must adjust the glass from my own standpoint, at the risk of touching upon points that have been presented at other meetings, and without showing you some of the features which you are, perhaps, anxious to see.

Were I a physician among the people for whom I speak, I should urge upon you the physical wants, many and terrible, of that people, for which the ignorance of the women is so largely responsible, and from which they especially suffer.

Were it my mission to carry help and counsel to the lowly homes of our city, I might tell you such tales of the wretchedness and discomfort of many of these homes as would fill your hearts with pity—a wretchedness growing out of an utter lack of comprehension of the meaning of home, and showing the need of instruction in the simplest facts of household economy.

To carry so much of light and knowledge into these homes as would make them abodes of health and thrift is a work worthy the noblest effort of any Christian woman.

But I come from no such special work among the women of our people. Only a few hours ago I stepped from the platform of my school-room, where were gathered before me a room full of upturned faces, some of them familiar from years of acquaintance, some just stamping themselves upon my memory by the interest they are awakening as I meet them in these first days of their stay among us. To an unusual extent this year the numbers on the boys’ side and on the girls’ side are the same, the one side gaining, then the other, as new pupils are added to the school. September’s report showed exactly the same total for each. I like this; it looks as if our girls are to stand side by side with their brothers in life’s battle; as if both were stretching out their hands for the same weapons to help them in the strife.

My interest and work are thus divided; justice to the school demands that I consider the good of the whole; that I assign lessons not for one side nor for the other; that I chide or commend without special reference to sex—in short, that I consider all as members of a common society, and plan for them as having common rights and responsibilities.

When, therefore, I bring this subject to you, it is that you may look at it from the teacher’s standpoint, that you may consider the colored woman of the future—the colored girl of to-day—in her relations as a part of the social organization of the new South.

That the South is new no one who even passes through her great centres can doubt. New railroads are opening up her resources and carrying her trade; the flames of her furnace light up the darkness of many a mountain valley; even her fields are blooming with new abundance under the improved husbandry and greater diligence of her sons. As the morning sunlight strikes the brick walls of factories in view from my window, and nearly all of which have grown up within a few months, I can almost imagine myself in a New England town.

Woman’s place in Southern society (I use the term _society_ in its wider sense) has always been quite different from that which she holds in the North. Accustomed to be protected, and taught to consider a limited social life as her only sphere of activity, she was often beautifully womanly, but lacking in self-reliance; having no confidence in her own mental powers, and not considered as being able to plan or execute any important measures. This feeling is, I think, gradually giving way before a more just appreciation of her own power, and as that power is developed, to a change in public sentiment as to her capacity and her duty.

It was my privilege to count among my friends a young Southern girl, who not content with the average boarding-school of the South, has already partly finished a thorough course of study in a Northern school with the expressed intention of becoming a teacher at her own home.

In an Eastern city during the past summer I found several young ladies who were spending the three hot months at the North, and while there were hard at work on music and other branches of study. They were taking care of themselves, and with eyes aglow with enthusiasm were apparently enjoying their new experience.

Such cases, multiplied as they will be, show that a new leaven is working out an ambition on the part of the Southern lady to win her way by an intelligent and self-reliant womanhood, not simply to charm by her helplessness and amiability.

But all this has reference to white society; you are ready to ask what is its bearing on the colored girls? The humbler life in the old days reflected the ideas of the superior, as the second rainbow reflects the coloring of the first. It will tend to do so now. When, by a sudden revolution the cords of the colored woman’s bondage were broken, and a new society of her own people sprang up around her, especially in the cities, the impress of old ideas was plainly seen. How quickly she copied the more artificial part of her white mistress’ life, exaggerating her elegance into display and her intellectual languor into utter indifference.

In the colored society of to-day, so largely an image of the old order of things, the colored woman does not realize what she has a right to expect or what she ought to require from the other sex among her own people. She has no knowledge of her womanly power or worth; why should she object to the outside gallantry which addresses her with flattering nonsense while it covers an underlying lack of genuine respect, and a sense of superiority that practically leaves her to do all the hard work and regards her as of lower intellectual grade?

Thus, from the impulse to imitate, the colored girl has a source of hope in the advanced position held by her white sister. But her new power of independent self-direction, unshielded by the safeguards that the white girl has, unguided by the intellectual culture that the other can obtain, may work incalculable harm.

What the colored woman’s place was under the old dispensation you know too well. Body and soul the slave of her owners; while her delicate mistress was shielded by all possible safeguards from evil, she was left exposed to all the storms of passion and sin, daring not to have any sense of her own value, her will for resistance growing weaker with each generation. What an element of moral weakness to both races this state of things was, neither race had any conception.

With the changing character and views of the South the colored woman’s position must change also, and she is an important agent in the change. She is no longer a captive, bound to the wheel, obliged to advance or retrograde with the chariot of her master. The place which she will take in the new civilization; the light in which she will be regarded by the white man, and her position among her own people, will be the result of her own choice—a choice which she, in the person of her best and most intelligent representatives, shall make within the next fifty years.

What choice she will make is a question of breathless interest. How to help her make the choice wisely and in time is the problem upon which we are at work. That she labors under great disadvantages in this decision of her destiny is plain. The vain and foolish life of a shallow society has all the ignorance of her nature to work on, to lead her to a life of the most empty frivolity. The door to greater evil is wide open at her feet. The tempter can no longer command, but he may allure—allure with deadly certainty, because inherited tendencies and customs of the past aid him to gain an easy victory. Over many a poor girl who comes to my thought now I could raise the prophet’s lament: “Oh, that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughters of my people!”

Sometimes it seems that the colored woman is willingly—or under the irresistible pressure of circumstances—making her choice so rapidly and so fatally that the slow processes which are her only safety cannot reach the surface in time to save her. But the final decision in this matter does not rest with the present generation; the young girls who are now in our schools, and the children whose ideas they will mold, shall make the choice of her moral standing in the South in relation to both races, and of her intellectual and social standing among her own people.

Our question is how to help her most toward the end we wish.

Realizing that the foundation of a strong moral nature must be laid first of all, as the basis of true womanhood, shall we concentrate our work upon giving her religious instruction, and seek to bind her by bonds of Christian duty? Let me not seem for a moment to question the power of God’s grace to illuminate the heart and change the will; but until she better understands the force of Bible truth and has a nature more sensitive to receive it than is the case with many who come to us, religion, as she comprehends it, will do her no good. So divorced is it from morality, so satisfied as to the future, and so reckless as to the present are many who suppose they possess it, that I dare not present this last great motive of Christian principle until I see the moral sense working under direct and pointed Bible teaching, so that the Christian life may be grasped in its true meaning. Even then it will not do simply to see her converted and then to send her out to battle with evil, any more than Christian could have met Apollyon without the armor that was added to him after he had entered the wicket gate. The conscience, now in shattered ruins, must be built up that it may again perform its office in distinguishing right from wrong. A sense of her own worth—a genuine self-respect which recognizes degradation and flees from it; that will not even listen to evil, must arise as she comes gradually to know the duty and dignity to which God created her. But if we bring our girls to the point where they are inclined to choose honor and uprightness, we must make this choice possible by putting into their hands the means of supporting themselves; we must train them to habits of industry and to right ideas of labor.

The practical question is, “How shall we produce the results we seek?” Whatever of experience and knowledge I have of any one of our girls bids me answer, “Do with her just what you would do for some young girl in the North whom you wanted to save from the most corrupting influences. Take her early away from the home that oftentimes is no protection to her, and as there are no proper homes open to her, transplant her to as good a Christian home as our schools will afford; furnish her work to do when she has not money to meet the expense, and supplement this work by aid in money when necessary. Make her life in these homes as simple and true and elevating as genuine Christian culture will make it; throw around her the refinements of taste, that her own tastes may be improved; give her reading-rooms with wisely-chosen reading matter, music to refine and inspire; treat her with the courtesy and deference which she must learn to consider her due; give her training under suitable instructors in the industrial arts; and keep her through it all to a strict adherence to duty and a close and accurate course of study. Patiently and perseveringly hold her to this life until there begins to dawn upon her a vision of the noble and beautiful womanhood to which she may attain, and then help her to strive after it, through years of discouragement on the part of teacher and pupil, until a strong and true Christian character is built up to withstand the temptations and resist the tendencies that beset her.”

If you are tempted to say this is asking too much for our girls, that we ought to be content with less, at less expenditure of time and money, remember that the girls for whom I speak are the best among their people—the few who will ever have a chance to attain to higher things. Look just behind them and see the throngs, who, in ignorance and woe and sin, are turning their eyes toward you. Listen to them mutely pleading, “Do not set your standard too low, lest we who can only get a small part of our sister’s share of help, should be left to perish in our degradation.”

The objection is sometimes made that such training unfits our girls for their homes and surroundings. This is too often true. I used to think any education which placed them out of sympathy with their own lowly homes was false and wrong, but more extended knowledge of some of these homes leads me to the belief that in the struggle which must go on to save these people, the Scripture shall again be fulfilled—the mother shall be divided against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

Much misunderstanding and suffering must result, perhaps to both sides, from this clash of the old and the new. In heathen countries, we find it unwise to change the customs which are foreign, unless some principle is involved; in our work, the differences that arise are wholly matters of knowledge or principle. The English civilization exists throughout our country, and what our girl finds as she goes to her home, that is contrary to her improved ideas of home, is the result of ignorance, or indolence, or sin. These, in a quiet, modest way, she must change. God grant her grace to be patient, true and firm through it all.

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INDUSTRIAL WORK AT MEMPHIS.

BY MISS ELLA HAMILTON.

Two years ago, through the kindness of friends in the North, two rooms were fitted up in our building, at Memphis, for use in the industrial work among the girls. Will you visit these rooms with me this morning and see what is being done there? As we enter, we find ourselves in the midst of a dozen girls between the ages of 12 and 16, whose eyes and fingers are busy with their work, while their tongues are making sweet music as they sing some simple Sabbath-school hymn. Let us walk about among them, and see what it is that so engrosses their attention. Here, at our side, is a bright-eyed, pretty girl, who is patiently working on the long over-and-over seam, which, it may be, was quite as great a bug-bear to some of us in our childhood days as it is to this little one. Near her is another, busy with a child’s apron, destined, perhaps, for her own little sister. Another still is darning a stocking, while here, at the long table, stands a girl who is taking her first lessons in cutting. There is very little rest for the pleasant-faced teacher during this hour. She must straighten the gathered seams, show the awkward fingers how to take the tiny stitches, give the word of advice or encouragement where it is needed, and see that each one of these active girls is busy upon the task assigned her, and doing that task just as it ought to be done. This work has its place in the course and upon the programme of the school, just as any other school work. The class receives instruction forty minutes each day, for at least one school term. They are taught how to do plain cutting and sewing, and usually become quite expert with the needle. The materials for work have been obtained for the most part from the boxes sent our lady missionary. I had word, however, just before I left home, that these supplies were exhausted, and that they were very much in need of calicoes, needles and threads. Perhaps there are those who can help them in this need.

Adjoining the sewing-room is a kitchen, furnished with a range, a sink, a table and such other articles as are needed by the young ladies who are being initiated into the mysteries of cooking. This class meets four days of the week, two of which are used by the teachers in familiar talks on various subjects, such as the nature of the different foods, their adaptation to the wants of the body, the choice of meats, vegetables, etc. The other two days are used by the girls in actual experiments in the preparation of foods, of course under the supervision of the teachers. They learn how to prepare soups, to cook meats and vegetables, and to make bread, cakes and pies. Better still, they learn how to do this work neatly and economically. Whenever any cooking has to be done, the two girls who have had that in charge are expected to wash the dishes, sweep, dust and air the rooms, and have everything in order for the next day. Sometimes the class gives lunches at noon to their schoolmates or supper in the evening, inviting in their friends. In this way they have raised money enough to pay for all materials used. At one of these entertainments they gave us sandwiches, coffee, chicken salad, cake and strawberries. The bread made by one of the girls was as light and sweet as any I ever ate. To make such bread is an accomplishment of which any one might be proud. Besides the cooking and sewing, we teach our girls how to care for the sick. They have books, and prepare their lessons in this subject as in any other. They learn how to care for the room, and person of their patient, how to prepare such light foods as may be used without harm, the simple home remedies to be administered for ordinary diseases, and the preventatives for such diseases. About all this industrial work the girls themselves are very enthusiastic, seeming to enjoy it quite as well as any other school work. The mothers, too, are very glad that their daughters are having an opportunity to learn how to do these necessary things which they have not the time, or ability, to teach them. In the homes of their parents the girls try to put into practice that which they learn in the school, and as they come to have homes of their own we are sure that they will be better in many ways than they could have been, but for the work they are doing now.

No people can be made very much better except as we reach that center of power and influence, the home. The schools can do something in this direction, and we believe that out from the homes, touched by our A. M. A. schools, will go an influence which will elevate and purify to some extent this whole mass of society.

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THE SOUTH.

REV. JOSEPH E. ROY, FIELD SUPERINTENDENT.

PROF. ALBERT SALISBURY, SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION.

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AVERY NORMAL INSTITUTE, CHARLESTON, S.C.

BY A. W. FARNHAM, PRINCIPAL.

With us the second of October dawned warm and bright. Before the last tardy risers were awakened, our school flag was hoisted over the building to beckon children and youth Averyward. And how they responded! Soon after the first stroke of the bell which announced that the gates were to be opened, more than three hundred children either walked, ran, or crowded, into the school yards. How they talked! Four months of vacation had dissipated all regard for established rules and usages. And who could scold the first day? It is true that many had been in summer schools during the greater part of vacation, but in many instances they were sent “just to keep them off the street, you know, sir.” Then the private houses in which these schools are “kept” have not school dignity nor school atmosphere, because they are not school buildings; hence they lack molding influence.

Another reason why the children _talked_ was that a new principal (new and yet old) and five new teachers were to be met, measured, and, if possible, mastered. Every boy wants to know just how strong his teachers are; and as their strength is, so his respect will be.

Again the bell sounded, this time to announce the hour for devotions. As the pupils filed into the chapel their eyes fell upon a new crayon likeness of Prof. M. A. Warren, a former principal. This work of art, costing about $50, was presented to the school by the Alumni at their last annual meeting, July 4th. It is a generous expression of their love for a faithful teacher and a true man.