Chapter 2

Teachers and pupils have now said good-bye and college halls are vacant, but the work of the year will bear fruit as scores of students go out to the labors of vacation in the dark and needy districts of the South.

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STRAIGHT UNIVERSITY, NEW ORLEANS, LA.

BY PRESIDENT R.C. HITCHCOCK.

The interest shown by the public in the annual exercises of this school increases each year, and for those of more general nature it is quite impossible to obtain a room large enough to accommodate the audience that assembles.

The baccalaureate sermon was preached on Sunday night by President Hitchcock at Central Church. On Monday night, the Sumner and Philomathean Literary Societies and the Band of Mercy held their anniversary meeting, and listened to a very interesting lecture on "Life at a German University," by Rev. G.W. Henderson. Wednesday night, came the annual concert and exhibition. This has for two or three years gradually taken more and more the character of an exhibit of the gymnastic exercises, singing, etc., from each grade, and with so large a school, gives a long programme; but since people here have learned that at Straight University, when the appointed time comes the exercises begin, every spot where a chair could be put in an aisle, or a foot stand, besides all the pews both below and in the spacious galleries of Central, one of the largest churches in the city, was occupied at the moment assigned for opening, and the attention was grand until the very last.

On Thursday night, the Alumni Association met at the University Chapel for election of officers, adjourning later to the parlors for a social meeting. These Alumni meetings grow each year in numbers, interest and importance. Papers were read by several members, the usual history, prophecy and poem were given, remarks were made by others and some good music was rendered. Many who could not come sent interesting letters. Friday night was the _great_ occasion. The crowd was no less than on Wednesday night, and that such an audience should sit, giving close attention, from 7:30 to 11:30, to the orations and essays of the graduates, with no sign of weariness, was to me a wonderful thing and showed a deep and heart-felt interest, in the community, for Christian education, which is grandly encouraging.

Two of the graduates were from Mexico, one from Mississippi, one from Plaquemines Parish, one from Baton Rouge and five from this city, the proportion from the city being larger than usual.

Members of the Trustee Board and others who have heard these exercises for many years, without hesitation pronounce them as a whole far better than those of any previous year. It is certain that each year there is shown a marked advancement in general intelligence and culture, and in the depth and arrangement of thought. The venerable Judge Whittaker, who seldom leaves his home at night, was on the platform, and at the close of the valedictory, which was given by Leonidas Burbridge, of Greenville, Miss., he jumped from his chair, seized the young man by the hand and expressed his wonder and gratification at all he had heard and seen, saying that in all his fifty years of life in New Orleans he had seen nothing that so filled his heart with emotions of astonishment and joy.

I neglected to speak of the meeting on Sunday morning, May 26th, of the College Y.M.C.A., which has had a very prosperous year. The Association was addressed by Mr. Fred S. Hitchcock on Y.M.C.A. work in the great cities, and by Mr. Perry on College Y.M.C.A. work. The year has been a good one, notwithstanding many adverse circumstances. The establishment of a regular graded course of study, from the lowest primary grades to the college, and close adherence to such course are being felt more and more each year. More than half the graduates of this year began their education in the school, and all interested are proud of them. There is all along a marked difference between those who have come through our own primary schools and others equally capable who have had no systematic early training. For the first time since the course of study was adopted, every class this year has thoroughly completed the work assigned, and in most cases reviewed it.

The State has been in a condition of great excitement during most of the year, nearly one-half the parishes being under a complete reign of terror, and it has been a frequent thing to see one of our students from the country, especially from the southern parishes, in tears in consequence of the intelligence of some friend, father or brother perhaps, having been the victim of some dastardly outrage from the "regulators." Tales of sorrow and suffering could easily be gathered to fill volumes. Iberia, Terrebonne and Lafayette parishes have been especially noted as under this reign of terror, and from these we have many pupils. Three sisters of Sammy Wakefield, who was shot at New Iberia, are in our school, and many others closely connected with suffering families. It has been very difficult for the colored people to get a living, and the sacrifices they make to keep the children in school are wonderful.

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LE MOYNE NORMAL INSTITUTE, MEMPHIS, TENN.

BY PROF. A.J. STEELE.

Another year has passed in the history of our work at Le Moyne Institute, and its eighteenth anniversary has been celebrated with the graduation of a class of eleven, and the tenth reunion of an alumni association numbering some seventy five members. Recalling sixteen years of experience in connection with this work, I can fix upon scarcely a single event or circumstance that has not been made to conduce to the advancement of our work and influence in the community, and looking over results in all directions, they have surpassed the dreams and expectations of the most hopeful.

The year past has been a remarkable one in our history. Our attendance has varied little from four hundred pupils in all grades of the twelve years' course, while our enrollment for the year has reached five hundred and twenty different pupils.

Every interest of the school has been prospered and greatly blessed and strengthened. The utmost harmony and earnestness has marked the work of the year, both among teachers and pupils. During the past session, as many as sixty of our pupils have started out in the Christian life, giving evidence of change of heart and an earnest purpose to live for Christ and His work in the world. We rejoice over this more than over all other results of our year's work.

The whole spirit and tone of our work has been such that even our trials and losses, from fire and from breaks in our working force, have seemed to be turned to means of blessing and sources of strength. Our trials and difficulties have been to us opportunities. We look forward hopefully to the future, as we look thankfully back to the past.

Our partially destroyed building, from the fire of March 3d, is rebuilt and greatly improved. We hope our corps of instructors, so uniformly faithful in the discharge of duty, may remain unbroken, the same for the coming year.

At the close of the term, the promotions were made in all grades by the principal, and the pupils given the "forms" they are to occupy the coming year. In truth, the formal "Commencement" for the year was made at the close of this session. Every pupil knows exactly his grade and place, and few will be absent at the opening, October first.

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AVERY INSTITUTE, CHARLESTON, S.C.

Anniversary week of this Institute is always an occasion of the deepest interest to the colored people of Charleston and vicinity; and those who succeed in obtaining tickets of admission to Avery Hall consider themselves most fortunate. This year proved no exception, and the demand for tickets, and the enthusiasm of those in attendance, have never been surpassed in the history of the school.

The exercises throughout the week were of a high order. The Sub-Normal Exhibition and the Prize-Speaking Contest by the normal classes were unanimously declared to be the best ever given in Avery. At the commencement on Wednesday, every foot of space within sight or hearing of the platform was filled by intelligent and appreciative listeners. Eleven graduates--ten ladies and one gentleman--received the diploma of the Institute and joined the hundreds who have preceded them in the grand work of elevating their race.

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THE NEW CHURCH AND SCHOOL AT ALCO, ALA.

BY REV. R.C. BEDFORD.

Brewton is the county seat of Escambia County, Alabama. It is on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, one hundred and six miles north of Montgomery, and seventy-four north of Mobile. It has a population of about two thousand five hundred, and is quite thrifty. Alco is a mile and a half further south, on the same road, and is a nice little village of five or six hundred people, that has grown up within the last three years, and almost wholly out of the Peters Lumber Company. The property of the Company consists of one of the largest and finest mills in the South, with nearly 200,000 acres of yellow pine surrounding it. Some three hundred colored men, most of them with families, are employed in the various operations of the mills. Mr. Peters is engaged most of the time in his large lumber and salt interests at Manistee, Mich., but comes South two or three times a year to look after the business at Alco. From the first, it was the purpose of the Company to do something to improve the church and school facilities of the colored people, and last spring, while Mrs. Peters was spending a few weeks at Alco, she had a building 35x60 erected, and nicely arranged for church and school purposes. This she turned over to the American Missionary Association, and they at once sent down Rev. W.P. Hamilton, of Talladega, to open a school and begin preaching. The second Sunday in June, he was joined by Prof. G.W. Andrews, of Talladega, Rev. R.C. Bedford, of Montgomery, and Rev. F.G. Ragland and Deacon Godbold of Mobile, to assist him in dedicating the building.

Though but little was known of Congregationalism in that part of the country, the services were entered into most heartily by all classes of the people. Most of the ministers at Brewton, in charge of colored churches, closed their places of worship and joined with us, partaking in the services, and speaking with great delight of the coming of an educated preacher and teacher among them.

Mr. Hamilton starts off with over fifty pupils in Sunday and day school, and hopes soon to have members enough so that he can take steps to call a council and organize a church. The brethren of Alabama are greatly encouraged by this movement. Heretofore we have had no church or school between Montgomery and Mobile, one hundred and eighty miles. Now the distance is divided, Alco standing about half way between the two places.

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CHILDREN'S DAY.

BY REV. J.E. SMITH.

The 9th of June last was a grand day for the young people in the First Congregational Church at Chattanooga. The church was tastefully decorated with appropriate Scripture mottoes, choice evergreens, beautiful flowers and sweet singing canaries. There was present a large number of adults and a larger number of clean, sweet, hopeful children, and many laughing, cooing babes in the arms of their Christian parents, who like faithful Hannah and good Mary of old, had brought their babes to the house of God to present them to the Lord. After the rendering of a beautiful voluntary by the organist, the whole congregation joined in singing that grand hymn, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!" The pastor then read a few passages of Scripture selected for the occasion, giving a short comment on the same, and prayed for God's blessing on the young. While the congregation joined heartily in singing, "Heavenly Father, send Thy blessing, On Thy children gathered here," Christian parents who desired to present their offspring to the Lord, having been invited, came forward and stood before the altar with their little ones in their arms. Six bright-eyed, innocent babes were, on the faith of their believing parents, consecrated to God in the Christian ordinance of infant baptism. It was a most beautiful, pleasing and impressive service.

After singing, "Take my life and let it be, Consecrated, Lord, to Thee," the pastor invited all children, calling them by name, who were ten years of age and had been baptized in the church when infants, to come forward. The church, then, through its pastor, at a cost of twenty-three dollars, presented to each child, (nineteen in number) a beautiful, well-bound copy of the Bible, with the following written on the fly leaf: "This Bible was presented to ---- by the First Congregational Church at Chattanooga, in commemoration of his infant consecration to God at her sacred altar, by his Christian parents. John 5:39."

After taking a collection of ten dollars and twenty-four cents for the Congregational Sunday-school and Publishing Society, we sang "God be with you till we meet again," and the benediction was pronounced. Thus, a very interesting and we trust profitable service of an hour and twenty minutes was ended.

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THE INDIANS.

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LETTER FROM MISS COLLINS.

No facts in this field can be of more interest to the readers of the MISSIONARY than those contained in the following thrilling account of the conversion of three young Indians in Miss Collins' mission field. We give the facts as written by this self-sacrificing missionary.

Last Sabbath, Mr. Riggs came up from Oahe and we had communion, and there were five children baptized and seven grown people, and seven more were examined and advised to wait till the next communion. It was a most interesting season.

Three of the young men were the leaders in the Indian dance. They have always been the head ones in all Indian customs. A year ago, one of them said in the dance that he should follow the Indian customs a year longer--give himself up to them wholly and try to be satisfied, and if he had in his heart the same unsatisfied feeling, the same longing, that he then had, he should throw it all away.

On last New Year's day, the same young man, "Huntington Wolcott," came to me and said--"Last night I arose in the dance and told them that I had given the old customs and the old Indians a fair trial, and that they did not satisfy, now I should leave them forever and give myself to God, and if any others were ready to follow to arise and so make it known. The other two leaders arose, stood silently a moment, and walked out." From that time they have given themselves up to singing, praying and studying the Bible. They had, for two years, been halting between two opinions, attending the school, church, etc., and the Indian feasts and dances, too. These three having come out so boldly on God's side, has made a great change in our work here.

Poor old Running-Antelope feels very sad. It is his desire to keep the young men from learning Christianity and civilization as long as he can. He wants them to have everything in common, and to feel that for an individual to accumulate anything is a disgrace. As long as they feel so, of course squalor and suffering will be the natural consequences.

The young men are working hard to build up homes and to accumulate something for their families during the winter. One young man has cut logs and is building a house. I try to teach them that long prayers and loud singing is not all of Christianity--that however regularly a man attends to his church duties, if he fails to provide for his family, his religion is vain; and if he gives all his goods to his friends and lets his wife and children cry for bread, that their cries will reach the ears of God, and his prayers and hymns will be lost in this round of wailing of the hungry. All this is very different from their old Indian doctrine and hard to understand.

Elias, our native teacher, has formed a class of young men who meet every Tuesday night and talk and pray and sing together, and he directs their thought. I think it will prove very helpful. Then on Thursday night I have my Bible class, which now numbers about twenty. It is formed of the young men and women who wish to follow Christ's example, and band themselves together to learn of him. It has been the _training school_ of the young Christians.

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What could be more encouraging than such facts as these? An Indian unattended by any white person, dissatisfied with the religion of his fathers, walks out of heathenism; out of sympathy and connection with his tribe; out of the religion and customs of his fathers and into the customs of civilized life, into the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ! In the words of that quaint old Negro hymn, let those who so earnestly desire the conversion of the Pagans in America exhort one another to "Pray on: Pray on."

C.J.R.

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THE RAMONA INDIAN SCHOOL.

BY DISTRICT SECRETARY JOS. E. ROY.

This is a department of the University of New Mexico at Santa Fé, occupying separate buildings and a separate locality, and managed by the American Missionary Association. A recent visit to the school it may be worth while to report. It is for the Apache Indians and the youth who are gathered into it are of the Jiccarrilla band. Their reservation is about two hundred miles west, and is reached by railroad or by pony transportation. The teachers deem it better to have the school some distance from the people so as to make its impression the more positive, and yet near enough for the parents to visit their children occasionally while at school. This keeps up the interest and prevents the children from being educated away from their elders. Two good sized buildings are used. In one there are the school rooms, the accommodations for the teachers, and the lodgings for the boys. In the other, under a matron, there are lodgings for the girls, work rooms for the same, and the boarding department for all. The Indian girls do the cooking for the establishment. I saw them getting dinner and I saw many loaves of beautiful white bread made by them. In their work shop they make their own clothes. The boys, under the lead of the principal, Prof. Elmore Chase, work at cobbling, making ditches and cultivating the soil, and also do something with carpenter's tools. The Government pays over a hundred dollars a year for each student toward the expense of board, clothes, etc. The American Missionary Association appoints the teachers and directs the school. The scholars, thirty in all, have made very creditable progress in their studies, considering the short time the school has been in operation, from three to four years. Prof. Whipple, now of Wheaton College, who for a time was principal of the Ramona, testifies: "I never saw on an average such aptness, docility and faithfulness in school and industrial work." The religious influence of the school has not been interfered with by the Government. I heard the scholars recite with promptness and evident understanding the Twenty third Psalm, the Beatitudes, the Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and portions of a catechism introductory to the Westminster Shorter. Daily worship is maintained among them, the Sunday-school lesson is thoroughly taught, while the Bible is freely used in the school. The Professor thought that several of the youth gave such evidence of an experience of grace as would satisfy us concerning white children. I was permitted to see half a dozen letters written by the scholars to be sent to their parents and brothers and sisters, without the supervision of their teachers, in which were many expressions of love for the Saviour and the Bible, and of a desire that their friends at home should be made acquainted with the same, and the purpose, when they should go home, to communicate those good things.

The following are four of those letters:

RAMONA INDIAN SCHOOL, SANTA FÉ, NEW MEXICO. June 16, 1889.

_My Dear Father:_

I am very well and happy all the time. I am very sorry that my step Mother was dead. I want you to come after me in July. And come early. I had such a lovely time on our picnic. I want you to learn about Jesus and His love. So when you die you will go to Him. Where you shall be happy evermore.

From your loving daughter, MARY ARMSTRONG.

RAMONA SCHOOL, SANTA FÉ, NEW MEXICO. June 10, 1889.

_My Dear Father:_

I was very glad to get your letter, and I am going to answer it right away. I am so anxious to go home this Summer. I love you all very much, and I love my Father in Heaven too. I love my Saviour very much. He is your Saviour too. Jesus is a Saviour of all the people in this world. I am glad that you are all working. I am working too but I am in school now. I am reading in the Third Reader. Give my love to all of my folks and Miss Moore and Miss Clegg[1].

From your loving daughter, MARY GRIMES.

SANTA FÉ, NEW MEXICO. June 15, 1889.

_My Dear Brother A.G.:_

I would like to see you very much. We have a nice time here. The children are all well and happy. How is my little cousin? Is he well and happy? We are all writing a letter this morning. We are all going home in July, so you know I am very happy every day. How are all my brothers. I would like to see them too. How is my father. Is he well and happy? I have not seen my father for a long time. Why don't he come to see me? I wish you knew about our dear Saviour. I wish some one will come and tell all the people about Jesus. God is our Father in Heaven who loves us very much. He loves all the people in the world. He wants them to love Him. I will tell you about him when I go home. I wish you would read the Bible so you would know about Him. Our corn is beginning to grow. Some children are going to speak in the church to-morrow. Please give my love to all my people. I am going to say good-bye.

From your loving sister, IRENE BANCROFT.

RAMONA SCHOOL, SANTA FÉ, NEW MEXICO. April 12, 1889.

_Dear Father Monarcha:_

I am very glad that you are working; that is just what I want you to do. You must build a house for your children, and you will have a place to stay when the weather gets cold. And every body must build houses for themselves; that is just what the Government wants all of you to do, because that is right and everybody thinks that it is right, and they were very much pleased when you do so. I am very glad that all my folks are well and happy if all of you are happy then I am happy too. Your letter pleases me very much. And you must do just what Mr. Bishop asks you to do. You must not do like other men do that don't build houses; they just run off from the Reservation and go hunting and sell all the things that the Government gives them. You must not do that because that is wrong, not right. Miss Moore will tell you what I say to you. Write another letter if you have time, if you don't have time, why just go on and finish all your spring work then you come after me when school is out; if you don't want to come then you send somebody after me.

Your loving son, JESSE GREENLEAF.

The writer of this letter has attended school two and a half years, spending one-half day in school each day and working half a day. He is now fourteen years old.

[Footnote 1: These were former teachers at the Ramona, who are now doing mission work among the Indians. They read these letters to the parents and in turn write back for them.]

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THE CHINESE.

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