never hern from it
yeat unly By Rev. ------ and i woude Be glad to her from you A Bout
it

so Rite soon yours truly in Crist"

* * * * *

The American Missionary Association, which is the authorized and
recognized servant of the Congregational Churches, reporting to them
from the fields to which it is sent in their name, not unfrequently
meets the fact that schools and churches in the South are appealing for
support to those who hold us responsible for mission work in the South.
Thus many in the North from time to time, are contributing to schools or
perhaps to churches there, under the impression that they are thus
taking the shortest path to the work which appeals to them.

There are many schools, of one kind and another, which have been started
at the South by private parties on a purely independent basis. Many of
these are carried on for a little time and then are permitted to die out
for one reason and another; and many of them are working not only with a
great lack of efficiency in comparison with the A.M.A. schools, but
without supervision and without scrutiny. Some are located where it has
pleased those who located them to reside, without much reference to
relative necessities; and some are located so unwisely that the
Association has been compelled to decline to take them, when through
fatigue or failure they have been given up. Some of them owe their
existence to the fact that certain workers were found to be not adapted
to the work, or were uncomfortable under supervision and
superintendence. Some of them are conducted by those who have signally
failed in our schools. Their projectors are often skillful in
letter-writing and in solicitation of funds for their specific
enterprises, which being purely personal, have no large and ultimate
achievement. Those who give cannot know whether the donations are most
wisely used, nor is there any satisfactory method by which contributions
can be traced.

The Association, with its Superintendent continually in the field,
reporting every fact to the Secretaries at the office, who in turn
report to the churches, is certainly much better prepared to direct the
gifts of the benevolent in ways that shall not be unwise or
irresponsible. As these circulars and letters of appeal are often
referred by those who receive them to the Secretaries, it is but their
duty to say that all funds diverted from our treasury to schools or
c