h pleasant duties, in
talking over the great work of our Association with the earnest and
devoted missionaries. But many things are impressed upon one's thought
by such a trip as this. We realize more than ever that the American
Missionary Association is a great National Society, limited neither
geographically nor by any race restrictions; actually gathering in its
schools and missions, Negroes, Whites and Indians, and Chinese and
Japanese, and Hondurans and Cubans, and who knows how many other needy
and destitute people! Another fact that must impress one, is the
thoroughness of the work done. The examinations were thorough and
exhaustive in the schools. This was true, not only in the lower grades,
but also in the advanced classes. Dr. Andrews conducted the examinations
in Church History, at Talladega, which would have done credit to any of
our Theological Seminaries. And Dr. DeForest's classes in Mental
Philosophy gave evidence of careful study and of assimilation of that
which they had studied. They had not only eaten, but had digested their
mental food. The same was true at Fisk. What a grand thing it would be,
if the good friends of the Association in New England, and elsewhere in
the North, to whom our work is only presented through an appeal for
funds, might visit some of these grand institutions in the South and
West, and see just what is being done for these neglected people! The
work cannot be appreciated in its vast importance and magnificent
results, except after such a personal inspection of the field.
These large institutions are the centers of still larger missionary work
outside. One professor in Talladega, a graduate of Harvard, has been
especially busy during the last year, developing the Sunday-school work
in the surrounding districts. The following are some of the results:--
eight Sunday-schools enrolling about five hundred scholars; thirty
teachers, all students in the College; two schools meet in buildings
belonging to the College, three in log churches, owned by other
denominations, not having Sunday-schools, two in log cabins. "In one
school, teachers and scholars have to huddle together under umbrellas,
if they have any, or go wet, if they haven't them, whenever it rains;
and it is a sight which makes one long for better accommodations, that
more efficient work may be done," writes this self-sacrificing professor
in a note just received. In one house, he found a family of white
children, all
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